Facebook in the campaign: from the "war room" to the electoral justice and open data pact

Facebook

He became an actor of Argentine politics. Who would have thought in 2008, when the Argentines started to register their first accounts on the social network for the sole purpose of connecting with their friends? Three months after the primary elections, the technology giant announced a package of action and transparency for the

Bell

.

For months, the local directors of the network, which is celebrating its 15th birthday this year, meet with representatives of political parties, judicial electoral authorities and the Argentine media. After the scandal of Cambridge Analytica, international critics strong for its role in the elections in dozens of countries and the marked interference of the false news in the elections in Brazil, the society of

Mark Zuckerberg

deploys efforts "as ever" in the protection of user data and now intervenes in electoral processes.

In fact, Facebook has hired an election official for Latin America, Marcos Tourinho, a political scientist by profession, who worked in

The United Nations

in the mediation of armed conflicts and economic sanctions.

In a "round table" with reporters in their offices of the Republic Building in the center of the city (but in the style of Silicon Valley), Tourinho gave details of the actions they have undertaken in the face in this year's presidential campaign in Argentina, along with communication and development and media relations officials, Esteban Israel, Julieta Shama and Dulce Ramos.

Facebook will make available specific campaign data. signed an agreement with the electoral justice, met the parties and put in place more and more measures against "trolls", "bots" and "false information" related to politics. Facebook news in the media, more than ever in this election year, have ceased to be the exclusive domain of the technology section.

War Room

In the weeks leading up to the elections, Facebook will be alerting the team named "War Room", made up of people and computer programs dedicated to the detection and resolution of the main problems of the intersection of social networks and social networks. policy There will be an intensification of actions already taken, such as the elimination of false accounts (few millions a day) and the moderation of false news.

In this sense, measures against misinformation are less severe than with trolls. They claim that it is to balance access to real information with the right to freedom of expression. Instead of removing them, they reduce their exposure by 80% (they prevent users from finding this information on their walls) and delete pages that offer them the opportunity to monetize.

Facebook is also participating in Reverso, a consortium in which more than 60 media and technology companies, including LA NACION and Checked, are working on information verification. And he updated his transparency report with the implementation data of its "community standards".

The library

In addition, by the end of June, approximately two months before the OPS, the network will make available to all users a
Library of Announcements where Facebook's political propaganda spending in Argentina will be detailed. The tool, which is already available in other countries such as the United States and Spain
(in this link, you can see the case of Podemos, for example), will allow you to search by keywords such as the name of the politician or the national or provincial space. And it will provide some information about your ads, whether they are active or inactive: how much they spent, the scope and some basic demographic information, such as the type of population affected and their location. This information will be available for seven years, even if it will not be retroactive. In other words, it will only refer to the ads in this campaign.

With a minor detail: not only will published data from official or verified pages of referrals or parties, but whoever invests in advertisements in favor of a force or political reference. The registration of pages considered as "political" will be done by automatic systems and by groups of people.

Facebook will also intervene in case of violation of the electoral rules, such as the advanced campaigns or during the closing, but only when the local authorities will let it know. "It's not our role to monitor violations of local laws," they argue.

In recent months, they have discussed with the National Electoral Chamber and signed a "Collaborative Pact", in which they agreed to grant some civic resources to the users, thus recalling polling day and a button allowing users over 16 years old. get detailed information about the elections. In addition, they will organize workshops "on the operation of the platform as a space for citizen participation and best practices in digital communication".

The tech giant is coming to the elections in Argentina with election experience in other countries, from Brazil to the United States, where he is testing the package of transparency measures and contacts the media and local authorities. And this year, they reproduce it in 14 other countries that also have elections.

At the same time, in Argentina, they badure that up to now, they have not recorded any interference from external actors, contrary to the antecedents of strong denunciations provoked by the interference of Russia through social networks, mainly Facebook, in the country.

American elections

that in 2016, they gave the victory to

Donald Trump.