Summary
Facebook has listed a variety of measures it's taking to curb the spread of false information ahead of the Indian general elections. It has partnered with several Indian media organisations to fact-check and reduce the visibility of posts containing false information by 80 per cent. These measures have been taken after the organisation faced a backlash after failing to prevent the spread of false information during the 2016 US elections.
Highlights:
- Facebook-owned messaging apps have repeatedly been under scrutiny by the Indian government and security agencies, and have been asked to clamp down on the spread of false information and rumours that have incited mob killings.
- Social media has become a critical tool for Indian political campaigns leading to the Election Commission attempting to rein in social media giants like Google, Twitter and Facebook to prevent the release of user data and false news.
- "We are working hard to prevent bad actors from interfering with elections on Facebook," said Samidh Chakrabarti, director of Facebook's product management for the civic integrity division. Facebook has tripled the number of people working on safety and security to 30,000, he said.
- In response to mob killing incidents, WhatsApp has restricted the forwarding of messages to five recipients at a time, instead of the 256 previously allowed.