DECEMBER 22 2021
POLICY
BY JAMES FARRELL
A group of Democratic senators has sent a letter to Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to express their concern about his company’s seeming inability to stop misinformation from spreading on his platform – especially when tensions run high in America.
The letter, dated Dec. 21, was signed by 13 senators in total, and included regular critics of big tech such as senators Amy Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal and Mark R. Warner. Together they expressed dismay regarding how Meta deals with “divisive, hateful, and violent online activity” during elections.
This was their main bone of contention: “The false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen fueled a violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The misinformation and disinformation that led to insurrection as well as planning for the insurrection took place largely on online platforms, including Facebook.”
They also mentioned the whistleblower Frances Haugen, who perhaps said something that everyone else thinks, and that was that Meta, then Facebook Inc., focuses more on growth than it does on ethical matters. Haugen said a lot of condemnatory things about Meta, with one of them being that Meta helped fan discontent prior to Jan. 6 by removing misinformation safeguards that had been there before.
“While efforts to delegitimize election results and undermine our democracy continued and even intensified following Election Day, reports indicate that Facebook turned off election-related safeguards because the company was concerned that they could be limiting the growth of the platform,” said the letter.
The senators concluded that Meta is not doing enough right now to stop the spread of dangerous misinformation and that the company doesn’t listen to recommendations from its Oversight Board, which has resulted in a new kind of American turmoil.
“The spread of misinformation and disinformation about the election resulted in an unprecedented rise of violent threats against election officials, workers, and volunteers,” said the letter. “Driven by election disinformation, Facebook users sent hate speech, death threats, and bomb threats to those responsible for administering elections.”
The senators left seven questions for Meta to respond to, all regarding what happened and how things will be improved.
BY JAMES FARRELL
A group of Democratic senators has sent a letter to Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to express their concern about his company’s seeming inability to stop misinformation from spreading on his platform – especially when tensions run high in America.
The letter, dated Dec. 21, was signed by 13 senators in total, and included regular critics of big tech such as senators Amy Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal and Mark R. Warner. Together they expressed dismay regarding how Meta deals with “divisive, hateful, and violent online activity” during elections.
This was their main bone of contention: “The false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen fueled a violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The misinformation and disinformation that led to insurrection as well as planning for the insurrection took place largely on online platforms, including Facebook.”
They also mentioned the whistleblower Frances Haugen, who perhaps said something that everyone else thinks, and that was that Meta, then Facebook Inc., focuses more on growth than it does on ethical matters. Haugen said a lot of condemnatory things about Meta, with one of them being that Meta helped fan discontent prior to Jan. 6 by removing misinformation safeguards that had been there before.
“While efforts to delegitimize election results and undermine our democracy continued and even intensified following Election Day, reports indicate that Facebook turned off election-related safeguards because the company was concerned that they could be limiting the growth of the platform,” said the letter.
The senators concluded that Meta is not doing enough right now to stop the spread of dangerous misinformation and that the company doesn’t listen to recommendations from its Oversight Board, which has resulted in a new kind of American turmoil.
“The spread of misinformation and disinformation about the election resulted in an unprecedented rise of violent threats against election officials, workers, and volunteers,” said the letter. “Driven by election disinformation, Facebook users sent hate speech, death threats, and bomb threats to those responsible for administering elections.”
The senators left seven questions for Meta to respond to, all regarding what happened and how things will be improved.
Photo: Marco Verch/Flickr
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