Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Facebook says it could aggressively restrict content if the US presidential election sparks violent unrest, according to the Financial Times. Global affairs head Nick Clegg told FT that Facebook was looking at “some break-glass options available to us if there really is an extremely chaotic and, worse still, violent set of circumstances.”
Clegg didn’t discuss what those options were. But he mentioned Facebook’s past use of “pretty exceptional measures to significantly restrict the circulation of content on our platform,” deployed in countries where there is “real civic instability.” An unnamed source said the company had modeled 70 election outcomes and how to respond to them, relying on staff, including “world-class military scenario…