Facebook has a plan to stop future election meddling — hire people with security clearance (FB)

mark zuckerberg

Facebook wants to hire people with US security clearance as a way to mitigate against future election interference on its platform.

According to a Bloomberg report, employees with clearance could potentially access classified information about future threats. That would help Facebook search for any questionable social media advertising and activity before an election takes place.

It isn't easy for the average person to gain security clearance, and former government and intelligence officials with the credentials are often in high demand for private sector jobs, according to the report.

Facebook has been left reeling after finding that ad buyers connected to the Russian government had bought around $100,000 (£75,000) in ads during the 2016 US presidential election. It said around 10 million people saw the ads, which aimed to sow misinformation and discord. The company also said foreign actors had tried to organise anti-Hillary protests around the US.

After Facebook's disclosure, reports found that Russian accounts impersonated Muslims to sow racial discord. And one account bought ads centring on the racial justice movement Black Lives Matter, apparently conveying the group as threatening.

The US House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference, plans to release all the Facebook ads as soon as possible, after personal details have been scrubbed.

Facebook, meanwhile, while welcoming the release of the ads, has also been deleting information off its platform relating to the Russian ad buys. The company deleted thousands of posts shared during the US election, just as external researchers from Columbia University was trying to examine their reach.

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