Facebook opens 40-person EU election monitoring effort in Dublin

DelaneyIn

Facebook has assembled a team in Dublin to monitor for misinformation ahead of European Parliament elections in May, gathering 40 people at its European headquarters to fight against any attempt to manipulate the outcome of the vote through its apps.

The team, made up of data scientists, engineers, and cyber security officers, are part of a 500-person effort to monitor elections across the world and will work on the EU vote in the run-up to the May 20 ballot. The team will also have policy experts from each of the 28 countries holding elections and native speakers in all 24 official EU languages.

“We all come together because even though we are a tech company, it turns out speaking face-to-face is really helpful,” said Lexi Sturdy, who oversees the real-time election operations. The goal, she added, was to speed up response times to manipulations of the platform, allowing Facebook to “take down content proactively, and at scale.”

The effort comes after fears among European policymakers that this ballot will be a target for misinformation campaigns, either by Russia or by fringe parties in each of the member states.

Facebook recently banned a number of far-right individuals and organisations from its platforms, including Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League, who recently launched his candidacy for the north-west of England in the European elections.

https://www.ft.com/content/4c41fe48-6daa-11e9-80c7-60ee53e6681d


Whatever Facebook was set up to achieve has been severally compromised. I used to love it when it was a social platform, but not any more.

It's a haven of negativity, a study of humans, its monitoring us to see how it can influence and manipulate us. It's an expirement where we are the lab rats but many people can't see that.

Time to scuttle that ship.

odyssey06

One monitor for every voter who actually cares about the EU election...

Pero_Bueno

Left FB years ago, I think lots of people are leaving.
I think social media will be looked back on as a crazy fad.

riffmongous

It's still decent for memes and events, that's about it

Atlantic Dawn

They are thinking very highly of themselves if they think any sane person would actually form a politicial decision based on the pure sheite they have across their platform.

Kermit.de.frog

Pero_Bueno wrote: »

I think social media will be looked back on as a crazy fad.

I keep hearing that but is it reality?

I'd love to see social media use decline in a big way because I think it's having a bad effect on society.

Unfortunately I don't see that happening.

It's seems to have a lot of the elements of addiction.

klaaaz

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

They are thinking very highly of themselves if they think any sane person would actually form a politicial decision based on the pure sheite they have across their platform.

People actually do because "they saw it on facebook, it must then be true!" . There are gullible people out there who would believe anything any organisation/individual says. I for one welcome the monitoring just like adverts from both sides were banned in abortion debate.

DelaneyIn

DelaneyIn wrote: »

Time to scuttle that ship.

The only people I know who still use Facebook on any kind of regular basis are middle-aged people. If there's anyone my age regularly using it, I can't imagine who they're engaging with.

That's probably not particularly worrisome to Facebook just yet. These users are usually financially comfortable, they vote (so attractive to advertisers) and tend not to be very savvy when it comes to Internet-safety and online privacy.