Democratic groups are urging Zuckerberg to censor misinformation on Meta platforms due to election concerns.
A Coalition of Voter Outreach Groups Urges Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to Censor “Disinformation” on Platforms
A coalition of left-leaning voter outreach groups has recently sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to take action against “disinformation” on the company’s platforms in preparation for the 2024 elections.
The groups argue that Meta’s newest platform, Threads, should swiftly adopt policies to remove speech that contradicts official government positions on issues like election integrity.
In their letter, Vote.org and 11 other organizations express their concern over YouTube and Twitter’s decision to scale back policies that restricted free speech before, during, and after the 2020 election.
While Twitter owner Elon Musk has vowed to maintain a platform that fosters free speech, YouTube announced in May that it would no longer remove certain posts.
“In the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm,” YouTube said.
“With that in mind, and with 2024 campaigns well underway, we will stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections.”
The coalition of voter outreach groups is urging Zuckerberg to continue censoring the speech of Americans, warning that failure to do so could lead to violence.
“As you know, both YouTube and Twitter have recently taken concrete steps to allow election disinformation to thrive on their platforms,” the letter reads. “In the absence of strong protections for election integrity and for voters, we have seen real-world fallout, from the siege on the Capitol to a new swarm of voter suppression laws introduced in states around the country after the 2020 election.”
The letter does not specifically mention any state laws that could potentially disenfranchise voters. However, it does reference a Georgia election integrity law implemented in 2021 that required voters to prove their identities. Although the law faced criticism, it resulted in high voter turnout during the last fall’s elections.
The voter outreach groups emphasize the importance of ensuring that Threads does not become a platform where baseless conspiracies and unverified reports are allowed to spread.
They conclude their letter by stating, “Our democracy depends on it.”
The letter was signed by the following organizations: Vote.org, Cause Communications, End Citizens United, GAIN Power, Let America Vote Action Fund, NETWORK Lobby, No Business With Genocide, People Power United, Public Citizen, Public Wise, RepresentUs, and When We All Vote.
Threads Faces Challenges as Daily Traffic Declines
Threads, which was introduced as a competitor to Twitter, has faced criticism for censoring conservatives on the platform since its launch last month.
The platform initially gained tens of millions of cross-platform users who were automatically given accounts if they had an Instagram account. However, its daily traffic has significantly declined since then, according to Market Watch.
In a podcast interview with Joe Rogan last summer, Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook had censored users on behalf of the FBI. The company also prevented the sharing of news about the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop prior to the 2020 election.
It remains to be seen how Meta will respond to the coalition’s request for increased censorship on its platforms.
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