San Francisco (AFP)
Facebook on Thursday presented to its investors its plan to "protect the democratic process" of the 2020 US elections, including a series of initiatives already unveiled in October after foiling a new Russian attempt to manipulate public opinion.
The social networking giant, for whom the US presidential election of 2016 had been a real fiasco, plans to fight against misinformation and threats of foreign interference, including better protection of the accounts of candidates and elected politicians.
Transparency needs to be strengthened by clearly indicating who controls the political pages or the state media pages. Articles or videos classified as "false news" by independent journalists will also be better reported.
Facebook is stepping up efforts to regain the trust of the public and authorities since the spring of 2018, when the Cambridge Analytica scandal erupted.
The British firm has recovered the data of 87 million Facebook users to carry out political manipulation campaigns, especially in the United States during the 2016 presidential election.
Groups linked to Russia and the Russian government have been called into question, and several similar operations have since been foiled by Facebook around the world.
© 2019 AFP