Pakistan may suffer in upcoming elections 2018-19 because of fake accounts, warns Facebook chief
In a startling statement, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has said that fake accounts can interfere in the upcoming elections in several countries including Pakistan and can spread false information.
Other countries mentioned by Zuckerberg are US, Mexico, Brazil and India where the social media giant can affect the election process.
“With important elections in India, in Brazil, in Mexico, in Pakistan, and in Hungary. And we want to make sure we do everything we can to protect the integrity of those elections,” he said while testifying before a joint hearing of the US Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary committees on a range of issues from Facebook’s handling of alleged Russian attempts at election interference to consumer privacy and hate speech.
Zuckerberg has also assured that Facebook will identify and remove the fake accounts seeking to interfere in elections and spread misinformation. He further said that the social network is deploying artificial intelligence tools to identify these bogus accounts and revealed that Facebook will be hiring over 20,000 new employees to ensure security and personal privacy.
“I have more confidence we’ll get this right because since the 2016 election, there have been several important elections around the world where we’ve had a better track record,” Zuckerberg said, referring to elections in France, Germany, and the special senate race in the US state of Alabama last year.
During his appearance before Congress, Mark apologized over the hijacking of its user data by the British political data analytics firm. The scandal hit the headlines and Facebook on March 17, with the company facing a loss over $70 billion in the market in just ten days.
Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room in 2004, is fighting to prove to critics that he is the right person to go on leading what has grown into one of the world’s largest companies.