JAKARTA, Indonesia - Facebook says it will not allow foreign-funded advertisements for upcoming presidential and legislative elections in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, hoping to allay concerns that its platform is being used to manipulate voting behaviour. Facebook says it will not allow foreign-funded advertisements for an upcoming presidential election in Indonesia, the world's third-largest democracy, hoping to allay concerns that its platform is being used to manipulate voting behavior. Critics say foreign interests, and Russia in particular, used Facebook to harvest private data and disseminate paid ads that may have influenced the outcomes of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the U.K. referendum on leaving the European Union. The presidential campaign pits incumbent leader Joko Widodo against ultranationalist former Gen. Prabowo Subianto, who was narrowly defeated by Widodo in 2014. The social media company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp and has about 2.3 billion users for its Facebook site alone, said it’s using a mix of automated and human intervention to identify foreign-funded election ads.

Source: thestar March 05, 2019 04:22 UTC