Facebook is cracking down on election interference and propaganda ahead of November’s midterms.
Located in Facebook’s headquarters, the ‘war room’ will be the company’s central location for fighting against foreign and domestic campaign interference.
The platform announced on its blog on Monday that it is expanding its security tools to protect political campaigns.
“Today we’re introducing additional tools to further secure candidates and campaign staff who may be particularly vulnerable to targeting by hackers and foreign adversaries,” said Head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher in his blog post.
Gleicher said that the additional security is for federal and statewide candidates, as well as their staff and political party committee members.
Facebook announced Wednesday that it is also bolstering efforts to get its users registered to vote through a partnership with TurboVote. The company is also teaming up with the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute to monitor suspicious online activity and possible foreign election interference.
Back in April, Facebook began testing a tool that gives users more background information on their news sources to combat the spread of misinformation.
While Facebook tries to undo the damage that its platform may have caused, some say the company still has time to right its wrongs.
“I don’t think it’s too late, but I do think Facebook has to walk a fine line between censorship and stopping the spread of propaganda,” said Warren Seay, campaign manager for Texas State Representative Carl Sherman. “Facebook’s conundrum is really a constitutional dilemma that is finally rearing its ugly head.”
