Elections Committee Urges Social Media to Hurry Up on Election Tools

Israeli election authorities pressed Facebook executives on Monday to accelerate the implementation of tools the company has promised to prevent online meddling in the campaign for Knesset.

Chair of Central Elections Committee, Supreme Court Judge Hanan Melcer, asked the social media giant “to& re-examine the possibility of bringing forward, as much as possible, its preparations on the subject,” in order to “preserve the integrity of elections and reduce unfair influence on voters,” according to the Times of Israel.

A spokesperson for the company declined to say whether it would speed up plans to introduce the tools, saying only that it would answer directly to the Central Elections Committee “in the near future.”

An exact was never promised, only that measures would be taken in March, few weeks before the April 9 ballot.

Facebook was caught off guard by the announcement of early elections, followed by a Shin Bet warning that a foreign state intended to interfere with the election process through cyber manipulations.