Facebook Ready to Engage ‘Kill Switch’ if Trump Denies Election Results

One of the most bizarre bits of hypocrisy that we’ve seen in American politics today comes from the world of conspiracy theories, and how neither side of the aisle is really ready to atone for their own part in promoting them.

On the right, there is the ubiquitous, all-encompassing “Qanon” theory, that covers everything from Hillary Clinton’s potential prison sentence to satanic cannibals.

On the left, however, there is a far more dangerous theory going around, perhaps on account of its subtle and invasive nature:  The Democrats seem to believe that Donald Trump is somehow angling to become a dictator, and this unfounded belief has infected just about talking point they have.  This means that, no matter what President Trump does, the liberal left assumes that it’s part of some master plan to stay in power, and it continually stokes the nonsensical narrative that they are building.

Even Facebook seems to be preparing for it.

Employees at the Silicon Valley company are laying out contingency plans and walking through postelection scenarios that include attempts by Mr. Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimize the results, people with knowledge of Facebook’s plans said.

Facebook is preparing steps to take should Mr. Trump wrongly claim on the site that he won another four-year term, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Facebook is also working through how it might act if Mr. Trump tries to invalidate the results by declaring that the Postal Service lost mail-in ballots or that other groups meddled with the vote, the people said.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and some of his lieutenants have started holding daily meetings about minimizing how the platform can be used to dispute the election, the people said. They have discussed a “kill switch” to shut off political advertising after Election Day since the ads, which Facebook does not police for truthfulness, could be used to spread misinformation, the people said.

November could get very strange, folks.