US election: Facebook and Instagram will announce vote winner in notifications as false claims of victory continue to spread

(AFP via Getty Images)

Facebook and Instagram will announce the winner of the US election in a notification at the top of users' feeds, the company has announced.

The decision comes as misinformation and false claims of victory continue to spread across both networks, despite the fact that no final results have yet been confirmed.

In an attempt to stop the spread of those misleading stories, the company has said that it will show a notification making clear that a winner has been chosen and who that person is, when a final consensus finally arrives.

“A Presidential Winner Has Been Projected,” the notification will read. It will then give the name of the winner and say that he “is the projected winner of the 2020 US Presidential Election”.

(Facebook)

As well as appearing at the top of users’ feeds, a message will be applied to any posts that reference to election. Currently, those posts include another message that informs people that no winner has yet been chosen, and encourages them to head to Facebook’s own election information page.

(Facebook)

To arrive at the final call, Facebook will “rely on a majority opinion from Reuters as well as independent decision desks at major media outlets, including ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, NBC News, CNN and The Associated Press to determine when a presidential winner is projected”, it said.

The notification is part of a larger plan Facebook had for the election, which includes a host of temporary steps it can take in response to any particular problems of misinformation or other dangerous content.

Facebook said that it had taken the decision to add the notification because “as vote counting continues, we are seeing more reports of inaccurate claims about the election”.

“While many of these claims have low engagement on our platform, we are taking additional temporary steps, which we’ve previously discussed, to keep this content from reaching more people,” it said in a statement.

"These include demotions for content on Facebook and Instagram that our systems predict may be misinformation, including debunked claims about voting. We are also limiting the distribution of Live videos that may relate to the election on Facebook."