Facebook just pulled back the curtain on how it influences elections
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week preached his company's commitment to election integrity. This week, he showed it off.
Facebook on Wednesday revealed the four main ways it believed it played a role prior to, during, and after the federal election in Germany last weekend. In a blog post, the company provided an unprecedented level of transparency in what the company does during campaigns.
Facebook's efforts included:
Removing tens of thousands of fake accounts in Germany
Showing related articles that could include opposing viewpoints
Providing the option to explore different party perspectives on issues
Cooperating with authorities on online security issues
Supporting media partners in the distribution of election information
For Facebook, these product updates are unprecedented and come amid controversy on Facebook's role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Shortly after the election, Trump campaign fundraiser Gary Coby referred to a Facebook employee as an "MVP" of the election and Trump campaign digital director Brad Parscale told BuzzFeed that Facebook was the "single most important platform to help grow our fundraising base."
Since then, conversation has drifted from positive to controversial, particularly after the admission that Russians had been able to buy ads and push divisive narratives over the social network. President Trump himself called Facebook "anti-Trump" in a tweet Wednesday and suggested it colluded with media outlets.
Facebook has had to come in on the defense, hard and fast. Last week, Zuckerberg hosted a Facebook Live where he shared that the company was handing over 3,000 Russian-linked ads to lawmakers and that it would work to self-regulate itself on political ad spending.
Facebook playing a role in an election isn't anything new, but it's now starting to be more transparent on what exactly transpires on the platform. It did increase its efforts to combat fake news for the French election and the Kenyan election and was public about those decisions. But such a blog post as lengthy and clear as Wednesday's is unprecedented for the company.
Of course, just because Facebook made more efforts to combat fake news and fake accounts doesn't mean the election was authentically portrayed on Facebook.
"These actions did not eliminate misinformation entirely in this election – but they did make it harder to spread, and less likely to appear in people’s News Feeds. Studies concluded that the level of false news was low," Richard Allan, Facebook's VP of public policy EMEA, wrote in the blog post.
Facebook is trying to do a better job at speaking on the positive roles it can play during an election and attempting to do more of it.
For example, Facebook created more civic engagement tools for users ahead of the German election. Facebook users in Germany were "given the option to compare the major political parties‘ perspectives" after they clicked on an article about the election in their News Feeds. Such a comparison tool was not available during the U.S. presidential election and is reminiscent of the Wall Street Journal's Blue Feed, Red Feed tool.
Facebook also launched a product feature where political parties can list their positions on key issues on their Facebook Pages, according to Wednesday's blog post. Facebook created a similar feature in the U.S. for candidates during the presidential election.
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
