(VitalNews.org) – Derek Bowen, the Director of Elections in Durham, North Carolina, has spoken out about the potential crisis to come during elections regarding the spread of misinformation.
A former precinct official emailed Bowens regarding a post that contained voting misinformation, which was spreading virally on Facebook. The post said that people should request new ballots if a poll worker writes anything on their form, as this would allegedly make it invalidated.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections put out a press release that said, “False posts have been circulating for years and have resurfaced recently in many N.C. Counties.”
“It was spreading and there wasn’t anything happening to stop it until our state put out a press release and we started engaging with our constituency on it,” Bowens said.
The elections board also wrote a post on Facebook warning voters to be aware of and stay away from misleading information regarding voting and elections.
Another recent piece of misinformation that was spreading was a post regarding Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio, and it became a viral post, which was then repeated by Republican nominee Donlad Trump.
Meta has tried to avoid blame for the situation by saying that they wouldn’t be focused on recommending political content in a means to align more with what customers want to see.
Many government officials have stated that they are working overtime trying to monitor Meta’s apps for misinformation. They say that they’re not receiving much help as the company scaled back their trust and safety teams recently.
A spokesperson said. “The fact-checking agreement with Meta ended back in January.”
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