Facebook Prompt To Encourage Samoans To Get Out And Vote

With just over one week until Samoans head to the polls, Facebook will launch an Election Day Prompt encouraging voters to get out and vote ahead of the General Election on 9 April.

The prompt will be available in Samoan and English and will encourage Samoans to vote and direct voters to further election information on the Office of the Electoral Commission’s website. This prompt supports a range of integrity measures Facebook will have in place ahead of the upcoming election.

Other election integrity measures include;

Providing access to Facebook’s advertising library. This is live and anyone can learn more about political ads during the election, including the range of impressions and spend, as well as aggregated demographic information, such as age, gender and location, about the people who saw the ad.

Removing fake accounts. Fake accounts are often behind harmful and misleading content and we work hard to keep them off Facebook. Globally, we took action on more than 1.3 billion fake accounts between October and December 2020. We found 99.6% of these accounts using technology before anyone reported them to us.

Supporting and working closely with the Office of the Electoral Commission, political parties and other electoral authorities throughout the campaign period.

Running a security reminder for candidates and political parties in Samoa to help to raise understanding and awareness of account security steps they can take - such as two-factor authentication as we know they can be particularly vulnerable to targeting by hackers and foreign adversaries.

Nick McDonnell, Head of Public Policy for New Zealand and Pacific Islands said, “We want to make sure Samoan’s have access to credible information about the election and encourage them to get out and vote on Election Day. We are pleased to support and partner with the Electoral Commissioner on this voter prompt which will run in local language and English.

“For this election, we will also have other products and services to protect the integrity of the election including removing fake accounts, disrupting bad actors and increasing ads transparency. This builds on learnings we take from every election we support across the world.

“Protecting the integrity of elections is one if our biggest priorities and we will continue to ensure Facebook is a place where people can access accurate and transparent information, feel safe, and make their voices heard during elections.”

For further information on Facebook’s election integrity efforts you can find further information at https://www.facebook.com/gpa/resources/election-integrity

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