Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Twitter, Facebook, Google Brace for US Election Day

Michelle Quinn

   SAN FRANCISCO - As U.S. voters wait to hear who the next president will
   be, Twitter, Facebook, Google and other internet firms will be busy
   doing something else: Monitoring their sites and deciding if and when
   to stop the spread of misinformation.

   After the 2016 U.S. election, in which internet firms were criticized
   for allowing foreign-sponsored actors to use their networks to spread
   misinformation, they vowed to take steps to better protect their sites.

   Once the coronavirus pandemic hit, companies began to more directly
   tackle misinformation related to the health crisis, observers say, and
   turned to more automated ways to moderate content, such as artificial
   intelligence.

   Those practices have carried over to efforts to address misinformation
   around the election, said Spandana Singh, a policy analyst with New
   America's Open Technology Institute.

   "A number of the policies and practices that they adopted for the U.S.
   elections were largely informed by their COVID-19 response," she said.

.