Zuckerberg: Historic Facebook campaign to boost voter registration, turnout

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, has pledged the support of the social networking platform to help four million Americans register to vote in the upcoming United States presidential election.

Writing in USA Today, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook, on Wednesday, is launching “the largest voting information campaign in American history.”

“First, we're encouraging people to vote. Voting is voice. It's the single most powerful expression of democracy, the best way to hold our leaders accountable and how we address many of the issues our country is grappling with. I believe Facebook has a responsibility not just to prevent voter suppression - which disproportionately targets people of color - but also to actively support well-informed voter engagement, registration and turnout,” he said.

To achieve their goals, Facebook is creating a new “Voting Information Center” that will provide information, including how and when to vote, as well as details about voter registration, said the co-founder.

The information centre will be displayed at the centre-top of the Facebook News Feed and on Instagram to ensure that as many people see it as possible.

Facebook came under tremendous scrutiny in the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election when it came to light that it failed to avoid foreign influences from interfering in the election through its platform.

Addressing similar concerns on the upcoming election, the Facebook CEO said: “The threat of election interference is real and ongoing, but our systems are more prepared than ever. We took down more than 50 networks of malicious accounts in 2019, and we’ve removed 18 this year. This work is never finished, but we've learned a lot and have adapted our systems to protect against interference.”