Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg have been boasting about the platform’s election integrity policies and enforcement, with Zuckerberg claiming its “systems performed well” during the election cycle and the company releasing a new report promoting its efforts to remove and label misleading or harmful content. But Media Matters’ extensive reporting on the spread of election misinformation across the platform — and instances of Facebook profiting from ads with misinformation — contradicts Facebook’s claims.
In October 2019, Facebook laid out initiatives “to help protect the democratic process,” including efforts to fight foreign interference, increase transparency, and reduce misinformation. The platform subsequently implemented election-related policies for content and ads, which experts warned were insufficient and had potential problems and loopholes. The election-related policies included a ban on new political ads one week before Election Day, a ban on all political ads following Election Day, labels on posts with misinformation, and a voter information center. As predicted, these policies did little to limit the organic reach of harmful misinformation about the election, much of which came from President Donald Trump himself.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing with Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on November 17 during which both CEOs outlined their company’s election-related policies and enforcement. Notably, Zuckerberg boasted that Facebook’s “systems performed well” and he was “proud of the work” that they’ve done despite the challenges the pandemic posed.