Months before the presidential election, Facebook has already made plans to crack down on President Donald Trump’s posts in case he attempts to use the platform to contest the election’s legitimacy.
An August 21 New York Times article detailed Facebook’s plans to suppress the Trump campaign after the election if the president “interferes once the vote is over.”
Facebook is reportedly “laying out contingency plans and walking through postelection scenarios that include attempts by Mr. Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimize the results,” according to anonymous sources cited by The Times.
The article did not specify what would occur if Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden was to use Facebook to “delegitimize the results” of the election.
The platform is also reportedly considering a “kill switch” to shut down political ads following the election, as Facebook does not check ads for truthfulness, according to the sources.
Trump has already “questioned the legitimacy of mail-in voting, suggested that people’s mail-in ballots would not be counted and avoided answering whether he would step down if he lost,” reported The Times.
Facebook directed a lot of attention towards the Trump campaign particularly over the last few weeks. Last week, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said that the platform is prepared to take down any of the president’s posts that violate its definition of “hate speech” or “misinformation.” Earlier this month, the platform restricted the Committee to Defend the President from running ads on Facebook.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Facebook headquarters at 1-650-308-7300 or 1-650-543-4800 and demand that the platform uphold the First Amendment rights of users. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
