Social Media Giant Facebook has announced that it is going to take an initiative to protect 2019 Canadian elections from Cyber Threats. Facebook is going to fulfill its objective by taking the threats identified by Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) on a serious note and addressing them in a proactive way.
Note 1- The US 2016 Polls witnessed an interference from a foreign nation which eventually went in favor of the current US President Donald Trump. The interference includes fake news generation and propagation on social media networks such as Facebook which did change the minds of the US populace during the time of US 2016 polls. Also, the hacked emails of Mrs. Clinton and Democratic Party played a vital role in Trump’s win. Also as Facebook plays an important role in voicing a public opinion, nations like Russia succeeded in influencing the minds of Facebook users with vicious ads. This seems to have eventually led to the loss of US Presidential Probable Hillary Clinton in the polls.
As Canada will witness federal elections on October 21, 2019, Facebook is aiming to protect the election integrity with a four points initiative.
1.) By offering a 2-year digital news literacy partnership with Canada’s MediaSmarts Center for digital and media literacy.
2.) By releasing a new “Cyber Hygiene Guide” for political parties and politicians
3.) By offering a Cyber hygiene program for parties and politicians
4.) Offering a cyber threats crisis email line for politicians and parties to use in the event that their accounts are compromised.
“ At Facebook, we take our responsibility seriously and are committed to doing our part to guard the elections against potential cyber attacks”, said Kevin Chan, the head of Public Policy, Facebook Canada.
Chan promised that Facebook will work to crack down on malicious misinformation being spread through its platform and is also planning to take a new transparency for advertising on the platform.
Note 2- CSE is a federal agency responsible for information security of Canada’s political system. It also offers to advise to political parties on cybersecurity from time to time.
