The US Presidential Election And Concerns Of Facebook Boss Mark Zuckerberg

Illustration of the US Presidential Election (Raga Granada / VOI)

JAKARTA - Citizens of the United States began to exercise their voting rights in the US presidential election. Facebook, as a social media giant, will temporarily remove some of its features in order to reduce misinformation during the US Presidential Election.

In fact, the 2020 US Presidential Election is a little different because of the Corona pandemic. There are many voters who will vote by post to avoid queues at the polling stations.

As a result, the vote count will also be slower. Even if the two contending candidates like Donald Trump and Joe Biden will certainly only announce their victory in the evening after the election process, based on Quickcount results.

Voting pins the signs would wear ✨ https://t.co/UmUWNTXMw2 pic.twitter.com/IQLwLspfAE

- Instagram (@instagram) November 2, 2020

Launching Business Insider, Instagram users in the US are temporarily unable to use the 'recent' tab from the hashtag page. This was done to reduce the spread of misinformation related to the election.

"We are doing this to reduce the real-time spread of potentially dangerous content that could emerge during an election," Instagram said in a Twitter tweet reported by VOI, Tuesday, November 3.

The decision came after concerns from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would increase the risk of citizen unrest in the US the effects of the US election. Moreover, social media such as Facebook and Instagram can be a place for the spread of misinformation.

"I fear that with our nation being so divided and election results potentially taking days or weeks to complete, there is a risk of civil unrest across the country," Zuckerberg said.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook will take various steps, including helping citizens to channel their voting rights, providing accurate information about the presidential election, banning political advertisements a week before the presidential election, blocking advertisements aimed at delegitimizing the results of the 2020 US presidential election and others.

Mark explained, Facebook itself has provided a Voting Information Center channel for US people who want to know the official results of the 2020 US Presidential Election. Facebook also directs users to official sources of information related to the US Presidential Election.

"If any candidate tries to declare victory before the election result comes out, we will add a label to their post and notify users that the election result is not yet out, and direct them to the official election result," Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page.