Election interference has been a recurrent issue worldwide, with the blame mainly put on social media by which other countries can potentially influence the outcome of others' elections.
Following the scandal of the US elections results controversy, with the accusations of fraud and interference by some figures of the Republican party, Facebook Israel launched a four step-plan that will ensure full transparency and conformity for Israel's 2021 elections.
1 - Fighting interference
In order to fight any interference in Israel's 2021 elections, Facebook focused on four mains issues: security, coordination, removal of fake accounts and verification.
In order to enforce security, Facebook tripled the size of their safety and security team with up to 35,000 people around the world. Among them are more than 40 teams focused just on elections, which include a global threat investigation team, whose members have experience in intelligence and national security.
To increase coordination between the social media and the country that is holding elections, Facebook will work together with the government and law agencies, including the Central Elections Committee and the Israel's Justice Ministry.
Facebook has, since 2017, removed over 100 networks worldwide for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior, including networks that targeted Israel. This was done with the intention to aid removal of election influences.
Finally, anybody who wants to run political ads in Israel must go through a verification process to prove that they are Israelis.
2 - Combating misinformation
To fight fake news on social media, Facebook will work on identifying and removing fake accounts. At the same time, Facebook also intends to combat sharing of fake news which could lead to voter suppression. Fake news is categorized as the spread of information such as false news related to the dates, location, time, and voting methods.
3 - Improving transparency
Transparency is critical during election times, especially when it comes to political ads, which is something that Facebook claims to understand. For that purpose, political and issue ads will now include “'Paid By' disclaimers” with information about who paid for them (after their identity verified), where they ran, and information on their audience and demographic reach.
Moreover, a public and searchable Ad Library will be opened by Facebook where every political and social issue ad that runs on Facebook's platforms will be immediately available for 7 years, so that everyone can see what ads are running, who they targeted and how much was spent.
4 - Empowering voters
Not only does Facebook intend to make sure that any misinformation and interference does not reach the voters, but the platform will also encourage people to go out and vote through a notification at the top of the News Feed. In addition to this, users will be connected with reliable information, such as the official website of the Central Elections Committee so they would get the latest, most accurate and authorized information about the election.