Political ads on Facebook: Company leader defends 'warts and all' approach
Facebook head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher talks to WRAL's Jeff Hogan about Facebook's efforts to combat fake news ahead of the 2020 elections. Facebook is a partner with PolitiFact, WRAL's fact-checking partner.
Posted — UpdatedThe social media giant has been criticized for allowing bogus news stories to circulate during the 2016 election.
Nathaniel Gleicher, head of Facebook's cybersecurity policy, said the company has invested more in cybersecurity and is partnering with fact-checkers for the 2020 elections.
"We have a range of different systems in place," Gleicher said. '[We want] to make sure that public debate on our platform is authentic and users can see and trust what they're hearing and who they're talking to."
One system, for example, tries to determine if anyone is trying to mislead voters to discourage them from voting.
"Is it clearly telling voters, 'Vote on Wednesday, not Tuesday'? Or is it telling them the wrong location to go to? For something like that, we want to take action because we want users to get clear and accurate information about voting," he said.
Facebook also plans to remove content that includes hate speech or "another type of problematic content in it," he said.
"If we see someone using deceptive behavior, fake accounts or other types of techniques that mislead people about what they're saying or who they are, we will take action against that," he said.
"If a political candidate is speaking to his or her voters, the voters should hear what that candidate has to say – warts and all," Gleicher said. "Voters being able to hear and judge, this is particularly important."
He added that the company has partnered with fact-checking organizations, including PolitiFact, to flag false information on a broad scale.
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