Facebook FB is making vigorous efforts toward labelling posts related to voting information, per a Bloomberg report. Users may start seeing an addendum to their messages or labels directing readers to authoritative information about the upcoming presidential election in the United States.

These labels will link to a new voter information hub similar to one about Covid-19. The labels will read “Visit the Voting Information Center for election resources and official updates.” Facebook expects the voter hub to reach at least 160 million people.

Moreover, Facebook will block campaigns from submitting new political advertisements in the week leading up to Election Day on Nov 3, preventing candidates from posting uncontested messages ahead of the vote.

Despite such efforts, Facebook continues to face widespread criticism about how it handles election-related misinformation on its platform as the presidential election nears, one in which many voters may be submitting ballots by mail for the first time.

Facebook is creating a new Voting Information Center that will appear at the top of News Feed and Instagram’s feed, directing users to information on how and where to vote, including information on how to register to vote and how to vote by mail. Users can also turn on alerts that will remind them to vote and direct them to polling places come November.

The Voting Information Center will also contain links to posts that discuss voting, including posts from politicians in an attempt to share authoritative information and as part of an effort to get 4 million people to register to vote in the 2020 U.S. elections.

Notably, Facebook removed 50 deceptive networks last year and another 18 so far this year that sought to manipulate public debate from Russia, Iran and the United States.

The company also disabled 1.7 billion fake accounts during first-quarter 2020. This was followed by Facebook’s swift announcement of new content policies for the social platform at June-end, including tighter restrictions on advertising and labels for harmful posts from public figures and politicians.

Moreover, Facebook has also put a ban on posts that make false claims, suggesting that ICE agents are checking for immigration papers at polling places, which is a tactic used to discourage voting.

Furthermore, this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company eliminated a category called pseudoscience as an option for advertisers in April 2020. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Others Prepping Policies Related to Political Content

Apart from Facebook, tech companies like Twitter TWTR, Alphabet GOOGL owned Google and Microsoft MSFT are leaving no stone unturned to curb misinformation and fake news.

Last week, Microsoft announced new tools to tackle the menace of deepfake content and disinformation. The company unveiled Microsoft Video Authenticator, developed by Microsoft Research in collaboration with its AI, Ethics and Effects in Engineering and Research (AETHER) Committee and Responsible AI Team.

The tech giant also introduced another tool that includes two components to enable people to differentiate between authentic and fake media.

Meanwhile, in June, Google eliminated ads, which were misleading users searching for voting related information. Reportedly, users searching terms like register to vote, vote by mail and other related terms were getting directed to ads that charged them huge fees especially the ones providing registration information.

Moreover, Twitter has prohibited ads related to elections, candidates, parties and other political content on its social platform. The ads also cannot mention specific legislations.

We believe these efforts are expected to bolster the brand value and trustworthiness of these companies in the long haul.

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