Facebook’s self-defense plan for the 2018 midterm elections

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Facebook has a four-part plan to protect its platform from malicious attacks during the 2018 US midterm elections:

  1. Fighting foreign interference: Executives pointed to the FBI’s creation of a task force to monitor social media as an important step to identifying election threats in real time. 
  2. Removing fake accounts: Deep-pocketed attackers create thousands of fake Facebook accounts and use them to push divisive narratives inside the countries they target. 
  3. Letting people view every ad on the platform: During previous elections, advertisers were able to create so-called “dark posts” — ads that had no permalink and were only viewable to Facebook users in the News Feed.
  4. Reducing the spread of false news: Facebook relies heavily on third-party fact checkers to assess the accuracy of viral stories.

Facebook’s self-defense plan for the 2018 midterm elections