BE COUNTED

Census Recruits Google, Facebook and Twitter to Help Stop 2020 Count From Being Hijacked

Tech giants have agreed to quash fake news campaigns.

The Census Bureau has asked Google, Facebook, and Twitter for help to prevent its 2020 count from being hijacked by online misinformation campaigns, Reuters reports. Census officials have already detected talk from domestic and foreign networks that want to undermine the survey. It’s a target because it shapes U.S. election districts and dictates how more than $800 billion a year in federal spending is allocated. Ron Jarmin, the deputy director of the Census Bureau, confirmed it was anticipating disinformation campaigns, saying: “We expect that [the Census] will be a target for those sorts of efforts in 2020.” He went on to say Census officials have been meeting with tech companies since 2017 to ask for help, and saw company representatives as recently as last week. The discussions have included initial commitments from Google, Twitter, and Facebook to help quash disinformation campaigns online. The bureau has also bought dozens of Census look-alike websites, said spokesman Stephen Buckner, in order “to mitigate confusion about where to go.”

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