Following a particularly dark and vivid display of threats to the 2020 U.S. election during Tuesday's first presidential debate, Facebook further clarified its new rules on election announcements.
Facebook is now expanding its political advertising rules to ban any advertising that "[seek] delegitimize the outcome of an election "including" calling an inherently fraudulent or corrupt method of voting, or using isolated incidents of voter fraud to delegitimize the outcome of an election. "
Facebook's director of product management Rob Leathern, who leads the company's business integrity team, announced the changes on Twitter.
For example, this would include calling an inherently fraudulent or corrupt voting method, or using isolated incidents of election fraud to delegitimize the outcome of an election. You can find more information and specifications in our Help Center here https://t.co/BPnm1z7LW6 (2/3)
- Rob Leathern (@robleathern) September 30, 2020
Facebook also says it will not allow ads that discourage users from voting, undermine voting by mail or other legal voting methods, suggest voter fraud is widespread, threaten safe voting through false health claims, and ads suggesting that the vote is invalid because the results may not be immediately known on election night.
Both Twitter and Facebook recently released new guidelines on how they will handle election victory claims ahead of official results, although Facebook's rules seem to only apply to such claims if they are made in advertising. We asked Facebook for clarification on how such requests will be handled outside of ads, on a candidate's regular account.
While Twitter has chosen to no longer accept political advertising across the board, Facebook is instead changing its rules on what types of political ads it will allow and when. Facebook previously announced that it would no longer accept announcements on elections, social issues or politics in the United States after October 27, although political announcements published before that date may continue.
Facebook is already grappling with a deluge of attacks on the integrity of the US election in November, originating from President Trump and his supporters. During the debate on Tuesday evening, Trump again questioned voting by mail (a system already reliable and in use nationwide in the form of absentee ballots) and refused to commit to accepting the election results in case of defeat. .
Although the unique circumstances of the pandemic are leading to logistical challenges, voting by mail is nothing new. A handful of states, including Colorado and Oregon, have already conducted elections by mail, and voting by mail is just an enlarged version of the absentee voting systems already in place nationwide.
On Wednesday, President Trump planted conspiratorial ideas on flawed ballot papers that were sent to upstate New York due to a vendor mistake. The state will reprint the ballots, but Trump took over the incident as proof that the postal vote is a "scam" - a claim the evidence does not confirm.
Trump's attacks on the US elections are an unprecedented challenge for social platforms but also for the nation as a whole, which has never seen the peaceful transfer of executive power threatened by an incumbent president in modern times.