Author: Sheera Frenkel / Source: New York Times
MENLO PARK, Calif. — Sandwiched between Building 20 and Building 21 in the heart of Facebook’s campus, an approximately 25-foot-by-35-foot conference room is under construction.
Thick cords of blue wiring hang from the ceiling, ready to be attached to window-size computer monitors on 16 desks.
On one wall, a half-dozen televisions will be tuned to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other major networks. A small paper sign with orange lettering taped to the glass door describes what’s being built: “War Room.”Although it is not much to look at now, as of next week the space will be Facebook’s headquarters for safeguarding elections. More than 300 people across the company are working on the initiative, but the War Room will house a team of about 20 focused on rooting out disinformation, monitoring false news and deleting fake accounts that may be trying to influence voters before elections in the United States, Brazil and other countries.
“We see this as probably the biggest companywide reorientation since our shift from desktops to mobile phones,” said Samidh Chakrabarti, who leads Facebook’s elections and civic engagement team. The company, he added, “has mobilized to make this happen.”
The misuse of Facebook by foreign influence campaigns has been rampant. In July and August, the company detailed previously undisclosed efforts by Iranians and Russians to mislead users of the social network through divisive ads and posts. Now, with the midterm elections in the United States just seven weeks away, Facebook is in an all-out sprint to convince the world that it is ready to handle any new attempts at such meddling.
The company is under tremendous pressure to prevent a repeat of the foreign manipulation that unfolded on the social network during the 2016 presidential campaign.Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has vowed to fix the problems, and he said this month that the company was “better prepared” to handle potential interference. But he has acknowledged that Facebook was in an “arms race” against those who were trying to manipulate the platform. The company has taken steps to build defenses against spammers, hackers and foreign operatives — including hiring thousands of people to help moderate content and starting an archive to catalog all political ads — but the War Room’s half-finished state shows how nascent and hurried many of the efforts are.
Already, foreign operatives have evolved their online influence campaigns to skirt the measures Facebook has put in place ahead of the midterms, said Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
“If you look at the way that foreign influence operations have changed these last two years, their focus isn’t really on propagating fake news anymore,” Ms. Moriuchi said. “It’s on augmenting stories already out there which speak to hyperpartisan audiences.”
She added, “It’s going to be harder…
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