META Meta Platforms Inc

By Jeff Horwitz 

Facebook Inc. will prohibit new political advertisements in the week before the U.S. presidential election in November and seek to flag any candidates' premature claims of victory, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday.

The steps are meant to head off last-minute misinformation campaigns and limit the potential for civil unrest, Mr. Zuckerberg said.

"This election is not going to be business as usual," he said, noting both the difficulties of voting during a pandemic and likely attacks on the credibility of the results.

"I'm worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country," he said in the statement, adding that "our democracy is strong enough to withstand this challenge and deliver a free and fair election."

The U.S. intelligence community has warned of attempts at foreign interference and President Trump has leveled a sustained attack on the integrity of the vote, raising concerns about a social-media-fueled dispute over the election's outcome. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and intelligence agencies have asked Facebook and other social media companies to plan for such volatile circumstances.

Mr. Zuckerberg cited likely delays in tallying election results due to an expected pandemic-driven surge in absentee voting as a concern.

"It's important that we prepare for this possibility in advance and understand that there could be a period of intense claims and counterclaims as the final results are counted," he wrote.

The Trump campaign criticized Facebook's decision Thursday.

"In the last seven days of the most important election in our history, President Trump will be banned from defending himself on the largest platform in America," said Samantha Zager, the campaign's deputy national press secretary, in a statement. "When millions of voters will be making their decisions, the President will be silenced by the Silicon Valley Mafia."

The campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ben Block, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the changes Facebook has made don't address what he described as the platform's fundamental problems.

"Democrats will continue to urge these platforms to recognize the great responsibility they have in 2020 to protect voters from dangerous disinformation," he said. "That means real, concrete action to combat disinformation that is being organically spread by users on their platforms."

Among the moves Facebook announced are plans to append labels to any false or premature claims of victory by candidates, which would direct users to vote tallies and current results. The Reuters news service will join with Facebook to provide that information.

Facebook also plans to prohibit campaigns from running new political ads during the final week of the race, Mr. Zuckerberg said. The step is meant to prevent them from spreading misinformation at the last minute, when there wouldn't be adequate time to rebut it, the company said.

Other new Facebook election policies include limiting the volume of messages that can be sent through its Messenger platform and expanding Facebook's rules against voter suppression to cover implicit attempts at misleading users about voting procedures. Facebook will also seek to protect election officials from threats of violence during the vote-counting process, Mr. Zuckerberg said. The company said its plans to take down misinformation about voting would be implemented immediately.

The social-media giant's role in the November vote has been closely scrutinized given its dominance and the pivotal role that some -- including some Facebook executives -- believe it played in the outcome of the 2016 contest.

Progressives have accused Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook's public policy team of bending rules to avoid confrontations with Mr. Trump, whereas conservatives have broadly accused the Menlo Park, Calif., company of liberal bias.

Mr. Zuckerberg has said that Facebook doesn't favor either side and that he and his wife would donate $300 million to bolster funding for election infrastructure. A voting information center will soon appear at the top of users' pages on Facebook and Instagram, which the company owns, remaining there until the election.

Facebook has said it aims to register four million voters before Election Day on Nov. 3, though the company hasn't shared information about its progress toward that goal.

The company's changes come as Mr. Trump continues to attack the credibility of the election. He has alleged without evidence that it will likely be "rigged" -- a claim he also made in the run-up to his 2016 victory -- by widespread voter fraud or the suppression of Republican votes.

On Wednesday, he encouraged supporters in North Carolina to try to vote both by mail and in person as a way of testing the mail-in balloting system he has long criticized. The president's remarks prompted a top state election official Thursday to clarify that attempting to vote twice is illegal and that "soliciting someone to do so also is a violation of North Carolina law."

A bipartisan group of election officials has sought to reassure voters that mail-in ballots are secure and outlined ways for state and local officials to prepare for increased absentee and mail-in ballots because of the pandemic.

--Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.

Write to Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 03, 2020 12:36 ET (16:36 GMT)

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