San Francisco sources reported that Facebook faced flak for not doing enough to prevent spread of misinformation by Russia-linked accounts during the 2016 US presidential election. The social networking giant has rolled out several initiatives to fight fake news and bring more transparency and accountability in its advertising since then. The launch of the first War Room at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California is part of the social network's new initiatives to fight election interference on its platform.
Although Facebook opened the doors of the War Room ahead of the general elections in Brazil and mid-term elections in the US, it revealed the details only this week. The goal behind setting up the War Room was to get the right subject-matter experts from across the company in one place so they can address potential problems identified by its technology in real time and respond quickly.
Allan informed "The War Room has over two dozen experts from across the company including from our threat intelligence, data science, software engineering, research, community operations and legal teams," Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebook's Director of Product Management, Civic Engagement. Facebook has also set a goal of bringing a transparency feature for political ads now available in the US and Brazil to India by March next year.
