Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg offered new details Thursday on the social media giant’s efforts to combat foreign interference in U.S. elections this fall.
The heightened transparency comes as lawmakers push technology firms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to block disinformation campaigns organized by Russia, Iran, and other countries, while scrutinizing their methods. President Trump and GOP leaders have accused social media firms of using the initiatives to suppress conservative opinions.
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“Identifying and removing these campaigns is difficult because the amount of activity across our services is so large,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post that builds upon past comments about Facebook’s efforts. “Fake accounts continue to slip through without detection — and we also err in the other direction, mistakenly taking down people using our services legitimately. These systems will never be perfect, but by investing in artificial intelligence and more people, we will continue to improve.”
Zuckerberg — who pledged earlier this month to be more open about the new security protocols the company is developing — said most suspicious activity is flagged by the platform, law enforcement, or outside sources. As Facebook investigates the claim, it tries to pinpoint the full network in which the account or page is operating so that all components can be removed at once.
“While we want to move quickly when we identify a threat, it’s also important to wait until we uncover as much of the network as we can before we take accounts down to avoid tipping off our adversaries, who would otherwise take extra steps to cover their remaining tracks,” he wrote.
Facebook — which owns both picture-sharing service Instagram and messaging platform WhatsApp — is able to delete linked accounts on those platforms also.
Zuckerberg said the company discussed banning all political ads, but opted against doing so. “We didn’t want to take away an important tool many groups use to engage in the political process,” he wrote.
Aside from political disruptions, Zuckerberg said the company also struggles to stop what he called “economically motivated misinformation,” or instances when individuals post false information to get clicks and earn money off the advertisements.
“We block anyone who has repeatedly spread misinformation from using our ads to make money,” he wrote. “We also significantly reduce the distribution of any page that has repeatedly spread misinformation and spam. These measures make it harder for them to stay profitable spamming our community.”
