BUFFALO, N.Y. — Scroll through Facebook and you'll often see misinformation, false stories and even stuff planted by hostile actors.
There have been calls for Facebook to address that issue, especially in terms of elections.
The social media giant is now taking some action.
Daniel Sachs, the Public Policy Director at Facebook, spoke with 2 On Your Side on Thursday evening about the changes.
Facebook will debut a Voting Information Center, which will be rolled out in the coming weeks. One of the goals is to help register more than 4 million voters through Facebook, which would be more than double what the website did during the 2016 and 2018 elections.
"It's going to be very similar to the COVID center that we've been using to provide accurate, authoritative information about the COVID pandemic on Facebook," Sachs said.
Sachs said the Voting Information Center will provide information, such as county election boards and their announcements, as well as information about how to vote, how to receive a ballot, how to receive an absentee ballot, where to find polling locations, and much more.
Sachs said the information center would address COVID concerns that voters might have, as well.
2 On Your Side's Michael Wooten asked Sachs about Facebook's approach to handling misinformation on Facebook, which lawmakers in Washington addressed following the 2016 election.
"No single approach is going to solve the challenges that out country faces around elections," Sachs said. "There are tensions on a number of fronts, and for Facebook, we are addressing those challenges in many different ways."
Sachs said those plans include:
- A review of people's content to endure they comply with the company's rules and standards;
- the prevention of disruption by coordinated foreign interference campaigns;
- and third-party fact-checkers to identify misleading content and reduce the spread of that content across all platforms.
And now, with the Voting Information Center, Sachs said he's more confident that Facebook is prepared to provide authoritative voter info to its users.
Facebook users will also be able to opt out of all political ads.
