After strong backlash from the public on promoting Russian propaganda matter, Facebook has finally moved to resolve these issue. Facebook plans to offer a specific portal where users can see if they have been engaged with pages linked to Russian propaganda efforts. The update is set to release by the end of the year.
Facebook is not the first one to start crackdown against Russian propaganda sites, Google has already been planning to de-rank articles by Russian news sites from its Google News platform. Facebook will make it easier for users to view that if they have followed Facebook or Instagram accounts backed by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRU).
IRA is basically blamed for spreading false propaganda in the US elections of 2016, which caused mistrust and division in public. The Russian firm acted quite mysteriously and made fake accounts presenting their self to be a US citizen. Facebook’s new portal will track activity between January 2015 and August 2017 and can be accessed through the Facebook Help Center.
A Facebook representative says,
“The is part of our ongoing effort to protect our platforms and the people who use them from bad actors who try to undermine our democracy.”
Facebook further elaborated that the tool’s capabilities are limited to an extent. The tool will possibly won’t tell whether you saw or shared posts from the accounts, but will only indicate whether you have been engaged with them directly.
According to an estimate, around 150 million Americans may have been exposed to content from the IRA. However, expectations are high on Facebook that it will not repeat such mistakes in future. Additional steps are required from these tech giants to improve transparency with respect to Russian abuse of their platforms.
