Facebook races to wipe out election meddling before 2018 midterms as it admits to failings

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is fessing up to what many people have known for a long time: The giant social network can be bad for democracy.

The acknowledgment came as Facebook races against the clock to shut down Russian interference that rocked the 2016 presidential campaign before U.S. voters cast their ballots in hundreds of midterm elections. The November 2018 contests will be the first test of its pledge to protect the American electorate from foreign powers.

"At its best, (social media) allows us to express ourselves and take action. At its worst, it allows people to spread misinformation and corrode democracy," Samidh Chakrabarti, the company's product manager for politics and elections products, wrote in a blog post. "I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can’t."

Facebook’s global politics and government outreach director Katie Harbath also acknowledged that the role of social media had radically changed in a separate blog post. 

"From the Arab Spring to robust elections around the globe, social media seemed like a positive," she wrote. "The last U.S. presidential campaign changed that, with foreign interference that Facebook should have been quicker to identify to the rise of 'fake news' and echo chambers."

The admission comes as Facebook wrestles with how to responsibly handle the outsized influence it exerts over people's social and civic lives. That global power is even more significant abroad, says Andrew Keen, author of How to Fix the Future: Staying Human in the Digital Age.

In Britain, investigations are looking into the Russian effort to interfere in the British referendum last year on leaving the European Union. In Myanmar, the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims is being fueled by misinformation and propaganda spread on Facebook, which is the country's primary news source. In developing countries, Facebook is also being used to stifle free speech and dissent. A BuzzFeed News report published Sunday revealed how Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen has turned to Facebook to target critics of his government.

"Facebook is acknowledging the tremendous — and in some cases harmful — effect it has on democracies and civil society worldwide," Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an emailed statement.

In an interview last November, Mark Zuckerberg said he's committed to stopping foreign efforts to influence U.S. political debate, saying he wants to make sure "we make this as difficult as possible going forward." 

"We are willing to do whatever we need to do to work on it and solve it," the Facebook CEO told USA TODAY. In November, Facebook said it would hire 10,000 more people to work on safety and security issues in addition to the 10,000 it already employs.

He wasn't sure Facebook would be able to prevent the problems of the 2016 presidential campaign in the next 10 months before the midterms.

"We have a pretty good track record as a company of — once we set our mind to doing something — we eventually get it done," Zuckerberg said. But, he conceded, "I don't know how long it will take to address this."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he's committed to stopping foreign efforts to influence U.S. political debate. "We are willing to do whatever we need to do to work on it and solve it," the Facebook CEO told USA TODAY in November. (Photo: Martin E. Klimek, USA TODAY)

Monday's blog posts are part of the company's "Hard Questions" series, which touches on a range of tough issues, from policing hate speech to countering terrorism, for Facebook's more than 2 billion users. 

Tech CEOs like Zuckerberg are fond of trumpeting that their companies are changing the world. As the toxic content flowing through Facebook — violent live videos, false news articles, divisive messages from Russian operatives — gets blamed for punching holes in the social fabric, the social network is being forced to acknowledge that it's not always changing it for the better.

In recent months, Facebook has admitted that passive consumption of Facebook — aimless scrolling through the news feed — can be bad for mental health. Last week Facebook said it would alter the formula that determines what shows up in people's news feeds to favor status updates from friends and family that spark more meaningful social interactions. 

Zuckerberg's personal challenge for the year, which in the past has run the gamut from learning Mandarin to slaughtering his own meat, is to fix what ails Facebook. He says Facebook has made "too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools."

That's quite a turnaround for Zuckerberg, who after the election of Donald Trump, dismissed the suggestion that Facebook may have played an unwitting part in a foreign influence campaign to sway voters. "To think it influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea," Zuckerberg said in November 2016. He later apologized for the comment.