September, 24 2020, 12:00am EDT
WASHINGTON
Today, Facebook announced it would reject political ads that claim victory for a political candidate in the 2020 election before the results are finalized. The pledge follows the social media giant's pattern of making incremental concessions when its existing policies cause controversies and public outcry.
Statement of Jesse Littlewood, Common Cause Vice President of Campaigns:
Today's announcement is just the latest example of Facebook making a token gesture to address a serious threat to our democracy posed by the platform through its refusal to moderate public comment responsibly. It is once again far too little and far too late.
Facebook has repeatedly focused on changing rules for advertising when responding to the challenges of voting and elections disinformation. The threat though extends far beyond just advertising - which of course is a vector for disinformation and can be micro-targeted to individuals. But Facebook's instance on focusing on advertising ignores and obscures the much larger problem of 'organic' content - the regular, non-ad posts - that spread disinformation. President Trump's personal and campaign accounts have repeatedly spread disinformation to massive audiences without any corrective action being taken by Facebook. Just yesterday President Trump's campaign account posted a video fearing Donald Trump Jr. spreading disinformation and a conspiracy theory Trump's political opposition will interfere in the election, in order to recruit an election security "army." Facebook so far declined to remove, disable or otherwise stop this disinformation from spreading. With this approach, it opens the door for rampant disinformation to be spread on Facebook despite its disingenuous claims to be reining it in.
Until Facebook takes seriously the problem of voting and elections disinformation coming from organic content - regardless of the source - it is making nothing more than token gestures and the company knows it. It is long past time for Facebook to own up to the social responsibility of making money hand over fist from making itself a sewer of political disinformation.
To view this statement online, click here.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
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Rights Advocates Demand Probe Into Reports That Israel Uses WhatsApp to Target Palestinians
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The Palestinian digital rights group Sada Social on Saturday called for an investigation into Israel's alleged use of WhatsApp user data to target Palestinians with its AI system, Lavender.
The group, which is affiliated with the Al Jazeera Media Institute and Access Now, accused Meta, which owns WhatsApp, of fueling "the 'Lavender' artificial intelligence system used by the Israeli military to kill Palestinian individuals within the Gaza enclave."
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A WhatsApp spokesperson told Anadolu last month that "WhatsApp has no backdoors and we do not provide bulk information to any government," adding that "Meta has provided consistent transparency reports and those include the limited circumstances when WhatsApp information has been requested."
Al Shafei said Meta must "fully investigate" how WhatsApp's metadata may be used "to track, harm, or kill its users throughout Palestine."
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A first-of-its-kind study published this week shows that levels of toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are now so ubiquitous in the environmental that they have begun building up in the Great Lakes Basin after entering it through rainwater and the air, contaminating 95% of the United States' fresh surface water supply.
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