According to the company, the center will “provide millions of people with reliable information about the voting process” and explain “how to register as a voter and leave your vote”.
American company Facebook, which owns the social network of the same name, announced the creation of an information center for voting in the U.S. presidential elections. It is said in the message of the corporation distributed on Tuesday.
“We are creating a new infocenter that will provide millions of people with reliable information about the voting process, as well as explain how to register as a voter and leave your vote”, – reads the statement. Facebook noted that it conducted a survey among potential voters and found that 62% of respondents expressed a desire to get better acquainted with the election procedure. The corporation also noted that users in the U.S. will be able to turn off political advertising.
According to the company, the goal of the project is to help about 4 million U.S. citizens using Facebook and other social network Instagram to register as voters ahead of the November 3 presidential election. The Corporation emphasized that voting information is particularly important this year in the context of the pandemic, which has led many states to change the electoral process.
“From this summer, information about the new centre will appear on Facebook and Instagram. We expect more than 160 million U.S. citizens to see it from July to November”, – the company said in a statement.
The announcement about the launch of the information center was made by Facebook ahead of the hearing in the special intelligence committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on foreign intervention and election security with the participation of representatives of major technology companies. The event is planned to be held on June 18 in a remote format. Facebook, Google and Twitter will speak at the hearing.
Facebook management has been harshly criticized by the US authorities and the American public in recent years. The company’s administration, in particular, was accused of not opposing the dissemination of malicious information. It was also claimed that with the help of the social network it was influenced the presidential race of 2016 in the United States.