Facebook and Instagram to Announce U.S. Election Results in Notifications

Image: The Verge

According to The Verge, Facebook plans on plastering the name of the U.S. presidential election’s projected winner on a notification, and sending that notification out to Facebook and Instagram users as soon as major media platforms and sources announce a winner–which we now know will be Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

The notifications in question will read “A Presidential Winner Has Been Projected — <name of candidate>”, and also include a link to the election results.

Most of the fake news and misinformation circulating on Facebook’s two platforms has to do with who’s in the lead and who’s winning the election. In order to combat exactly that, Facebook will corroborate the results of the election with multiple independent sources in real-time, and then announce the winner to its users.

In an email to The Verge, Facebook spokesperson Tom Reynolds said the company will rely on “a majority opinion from Reuters as well as independent decision desks at major media outlets, including ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, NBC News, CNN, and The Associated Press to determine when a presidential winner is projected.”

After the fake news fiasco that went largely unchecked during the last election, Facebook is determined to eliminate fake news, or the effect thereof, on its platforms this time around.

Like Twitter, Facebook also announced a number of different strategies it would be employing specifically during the election season, mainly to limit the spread of misinformation. These included an indefinite ban on ads featuring U.S. politics, freezing sales of political ads, beefing up the review system for submitted ads, and monitoring and dealing with threats of violence relating to the current political climate.

In addition, Facebook is actively limiting the reach of any content on Facebook or Instagram that its systems flag as misinformation pertaining to the U.S. election, voting, or who’s in the lead.

“We are taking additional temporary steps, which we’ve previously discussed, to keep this content from reaching more people,” said Tom Reynolds.

As of writing, Joe Biden is set to be the next President of the United States, with Kamala Harris as Vice-President, as Donald Trump has been defeated in the U.S. election.