(San Francisco) Facebook, whose tolerant policy towards political messages is widely criticized in the run-up to the presidential election, added a briefing note to a post by Donald Trump on Tuesday accusing the vote by correspondence to promote corruption.
Posted on 21 July 2020 at 13 h 08
France Media Agency
The intervention of the social network does not censor the words of the American president and does not question them, it simply consists of a link to a government site that explains how voting by mail works in different states.
“Postal voting, unless challenged by the courts, will lead to THE MOST CORRUPTED ELECTION in the history of our Nation! #ELECTIONTRUQUEE ”declared Donald Trump on Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday morning.
Twitter did not link back to fact-checking articles on this topic, as it did in late May for a similar post from the president.
The platform's decision, a first, had aroused the anger of the host of the White House, who had signed a decree to restrict the room for maneuver of social networks.
Facebook had chosen not to intervene. But under pressure from civil society, some employees and a campaign to boycott many advertisers, the network giant has pulled out of its binary policy of opting out or laissez faire.
The platform announced at the end of June that it could now add warnings to problematic publications, but left online in the name of their “interest in being known to the public”.
Networks have always shown protecting and encouraging voter turnout as a top priority.
But the approach of the US presidential election in November crystallizes the tensions.
The pressure for better regulation of content on platforms has been increasing since 2018, during the revelation of the scandals of 2016, when major polls were targeted by powerful campaigns to manipulate public opinion via social networks.
