Republican congressional candidate Joe Kent recently claimed “rampant voter fraud” in the 2020 election in an ad on Facebook — a misinformation problem Facebook has tried to correct.
Washington Post: The midterms are here. Critics say Facebook is already behind.
05.19.2022 / By Naomi Nix
Washington Post: The midterms are here. Critics say Facebook is already behind.
It’s one example of the type of misinformation already testing Facebook in the midterm elections, according to researchers, civil rights advocates and some former employees, who are calling on Facebook to ramp up its policies to prevent the spread of election-related misinformation. The primaries are already well underway, and at least one candidate on Wednesday was being urged by Trump to declare victory before the results were in.
Facebook, like many social media platforms, constantly needs to shift and update policies as it learns how its platform has been misused — taking steps to remedy problems for the next election. For instance, Facebook ramped up its programs to address foreign interference after the 2016 election, when Russian operatives were found to have meddled with the presidential race.
Researchers expect misinformation spreading the “big lie,” purporting that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, as well as efforts to suppress voter turnout to affect this cycle. In particular, they fear that misinformation could erode Americans’ faith in the electoral process or even lead to violence or harassment against election officials.
Facebook has not yet released a new public policy strategy for the November midterms to refresh and update its rules and tools to protect the elections, something it traditionally touts. And former employees, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said they worry that the social media company is already lagging far behind where it needs to be to prevent the spread of misinformation from hurting voters’ understanding and behavior in the primaries and general election. …
Last week, more than 120 civil rights and advocacy groups pushed the CEOs of social media platforms including Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and Snapchat to take more aggressive actions to curb election-related disinformation in the first national election day since the Jan. 6 insurrection. Twitter declined to comment while representatives for the other tech companies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. …
The coalition of civic advocacy groups is calling on Facebook and other social media platforms to go further this time around. They want the platforms to commit to increasing their staffing and content moderation practices in the period between Election Day and when the new members take office in 2023 to help “ensure a peaceful transition.”
The groups are also asking tech companies to prioritize removing posts that amplify the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen or glorify the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, “particularly from political candidates and in fundraising advertisements,” they wrote in their letter.
“They have been leaving up content around the 2020 election saying the election was stolen,” said Yosef Getachew, media and democracy program director at advocacy group Common Cause. “You have candidates saying we have had prior elections stolen, so this one will be stolen as well, so it’s an ongoing issue that we are trying to get them to take seriously.”