The American Democracy Minute for October 17, 2022

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Advocacy Groups Call Out Social Media Platforms for Not Enforcing Their Own Election Disinformation Rules

Today’s Links
Articles:
Democracy Advocacy Groups – Letter to Social Media Companies
Reuters – Big Tech accused of failing to tackle U.S. midterm ‘lies’
Texas Tribune – U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, Latino groups warn about rampant misinformation targeting Spanish speakers ahead of the elections
Groups Taking Action:
The Leadership Conference, Common Cause, Unidos US,Asian Americans Advancing Justice

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Democracy advocacy groups raised the alarm last week with social media companies, citing a lack of enforcement against misinformation and disinformation on their platforms.   Such posts continue to  undermine confidence in our elections.   

Common Cause, The Leadership Conference , Unidos US, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and several other groups issued a letter to Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter and others, noting that over 100 primary winners support false claims of election fraud, and 60% of Americans have 2020 election deniers on their ballot.

Disinformation about the 2020 election is being used to undermine confidence in the 2022 midterms, but recent reporting shows that Meta & Twitter have done little to enforce their policies.  News outlets reported earlier this summer that Meta intended to close its CrowdTangle unit, which runs software third party partners use to monitor disinformation. 

Not only are the groups pushing for more stringent enforcement of the platforms’ current rules, they are also asking the platforms to adopt changes to HOW they screen for disinformation. 

Meta did announce in September that political advertising would be not be allowed after November 1, a week before the election.

Articles and groups taking action are linked at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org  Granny D said, “Democracy is not something we HAVE, it’s something we DO.”
For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl

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For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.