Facebook to roll out features on state elections

Facebook is rolling out a suite of features aimed at providing users with reliable information ahead of a slate of state-level elections next month.

Users based in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington will soon be shown details about how to vote in their upcoming elections.

The day before the statewide elections, Facebook will display a reminder with how to find polling locations and other important voting info.

Facebook is also proactively deploying teams to identify election misinformation and efforts to suppress votes.

“In addition to showing people reliable election information in their News Feed and working closely with state election authorities to identify and stop potential voter suppression, our independent fact-checking partners review and rate false content on our apps,” the company said in a statement to The Hill.

During the California gubernatorial recall, for example, the platform issued multiple fact-checks about falsehoods spreading during the election through its third-party partners.

Content deemed to be false receives a label and is deprioritized in the news feed.

Facebook’s role in spreading information about elections has come under scrutiny in the years since the 2016 election and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Last presidential election cycle, the platform took a more forward approach but was criticized by Democrats and civil liberties groups for not taking severe enough steps to limit misinformation coming from former President Trump and his supporters.

Trump was ultimately banned temporarily from Facebook for posts surrounding the deadly insurrection at the Capitol in January.