Facebook’s self-defense plan for the 2018 midterm elections

Facebook has a four-part plan to protect its platform from malicious attacks during the 2018 US midterm elections:

1. Fighting foreign interference: Executives pointed to the FBI’s creation of a task force to monitor social media as an important step to identifying election threats in real time. 
2. Removing fake accounts: Deep-pocketed attackers create thousands of fake Facebook accounts and use them to push divisive narratives inside the countries they target. 
3. Letting people view every ad on the platform: During previous elections, advertisers were able to create so-called “dark posts” — ads that had no permalink and were only viewable to Facebook users in the News Feed.
4. Reducing the spread of false news: Facebook relies heavily on third-party fact checkers to assess the accuracy of viral stories.