Statements
Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill released the following statement after new reporting found that Facebook is failing to shut down anti-government militia activity on its platform – and is even auto-generating group pages – in the lead-up to Election Day:
Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill issued the following statement on U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez’s ruling to pause enforcement of AB 2389, a California law recently signed by Governor Gavin Newsom to prevent the distribution of deepfakes made about political candidates within a certain proximity to an election:
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on the Maryland Kids Code coming into effect:
Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047) — a landmark bill that would have implemented crucial guardrails around AI development, including requiring pre-deployment safety testing and third-party auditing. The bill passed the State Legislature with broad bipartisan support but was opposed by Big Tech companies including Meta, OpenAI, and Google.
Accountable Tech led a coalition of civil society organizations in a letter to tech executives that demands plans from Big Tech companies to ensure the privacy of abortion seekers and to prevent the spread of health misinformation online, in light of heightened threats to reproductive freedom posed by a potential second Trump term and Project 2025.
Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill issued the following statement on Instagram’s policy announcements today for teens and parents:
Today, the California General Assembly passed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047) — a landmark bill that would require AI developers to adhere to common sense safety guidelines for new AI models. The legislation, which is sponsored by California State Senator Scott Wiener, would introduce crucial guardrails around AI development, including requiring pre-deployment safety testing and third-party auditing. The bill will head back to the State Senate for a confirmation vote and then to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on the Ninth Circuit Court’s narrowing of the district court’s injunction blocking California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code: The Ninth Circuit’s ruling makes clear that the lower court’s injunction was far too broad. The district court must now reconsider the safety-by-design and privacy-by-default protections central to the Age-Appropriate Design Code.
Accountable Tech released a new report today that assessed the impact of Meta’s political content limit setting that the company announced in February. Researchers found that the implementation of this policy caused a 65% decrease in reach for the average piece of content posted from the prominent Instagram accounts studied.
A new joint letter from dozens of civil society organizations, including watchdog Accountable Tech, calls for social media companies to implement safeguards against the rampant spread of political deepfakes.
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta’s ruling in the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Google, deciding that it violated antitrust laws for abusing its monopoly over online search:
A new memo from Accountable Tech highlights Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s strong record on tech accountability, showing why donor pressure from tech executives and Silicon Valley investors is unlikely to change Harris’ approach to Big Tech. The memo features new polling from Accountable Tech and Data For Progress that finds an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters support Harris in calling for Big Tech accountability.
Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill issued the following statement on the Senate’s passage of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA), a package bill that includes the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Children and Teen Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0):
Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill issued the following statement on the release of the Biden administration’s interagency task force report to protect the online safety and privacy of children and young people:
Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill issued the following statement on Meta removing its restrictions to former President Trump’s accounts ahead of the 2024 elections:
In response to the Supreme Court vacating NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement:
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on Meta briefly defaulting all Instagram accounts to limit political content, a day before the first U.S. presidential debate:
Following today’s Supreme Court decision on Murthy v. Missouri, Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement:
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on Governor Phil Scott’s veto of the Vermont Data Privacy Act (H.121), which includes the Vermont Kids Code.
Accountable Tech Co-Founder and Executive Director Nicole Gill issued the following statement on Senator Schumer’s AI roadmap.
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on the passage of the Vermont Kids Code.
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on Governor Wes Moore signing the Maryland Kids Code into law today.
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement in response to a new rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Accountable Tech and GLAAD organized an open letter signed by more than 200 creators with a collective following of more than 18 million Instagram users calling on Meta to give users the autonomy to adjust their algorithm by making the setting to limit political and social issues content opt-in rather than on-by-default.
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on the Maryland General Assembly’s unanimous passage of the Kids Code, which now heads to Governor Wes Moore’s desk.
Following today’s Supreme Court oral arguments on Murthy v. Missouri, Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement.
Accountable Tech scorecard comes as estimated two billion people worldwide head to the polls in 2024.
New polling from Accountable Tech and Data For Progress reveals that voters are concerned about Big Tech’s work to overturn regulations; new report sheds light on the hypocrisy of Big Tech leaders.
Digital ad buy and accompanying “Broken Promises Report” highlights examples of tech CEOs calling for self-regulation before defying their own rules.
Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
Accountable Tech is targeting Twitter/X and Snap Inc. employees in a new digital ad buy, urging them to call on the companies to leave NetChoice and to stop funding lobbying efforts against legislation that would protect kids online. CEOs Evan Spiegel of Snap Inc. and Linda Yaccarino of X both testified in last week’s Senate Judiciary hearing on youth online safety.
Ahead of tomorrow’s Big Tech hearing on youth online safety, the ad buy targets Snap Inc. employees urging them to call on the company to stop funding lobbying efforts against legislation to protect kids online
Ahead of CEO Evan Spiegel's appearance before Senate Judiciary Committee next week, AT asks Snap to pull out of lobby group NetChoice, clarify position on children’s online safety
Data gathered by Accountable Tech in 7 states found that Google still collects and retains Location History data for visits to abortion clinics despite promising 18 months ago to “delete these entries”
Groups representing nearly 2 million educators, physicians, legal experts, tech whistleblowers, technologists, plus 21 bipartisan state Attorneys General, and the FTC file briefs urging Ninth Circuit to block Big Tech’s effort to weaponize First Amendment, overturn the nation’s first comprehensive children’s privacy law and imperil existing consumer safety laws
In July 2022, Google promised to delete sensitive location data to protect people seeking abortion care in a post-Roe America, but in the past year and a half has fallen short. We are encouraged by their latest announcement to better protect the privacy of the millions of people who use their products everyday.
As we’ve long said, Elon Musk has turned Twitter into a hellscape of hate and conspiracy, and any company advertising on his platform must reckon with the reality that they are simultaneously funding that bile and putting their brand at severe risk.
As long as Big Tech chooses to operate under their toxic business model, we should expect more of these disturbing reports to come to light.
We applaud President Biden’s Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence for its commitment to protecting the safety and well-being of people in the face of rapid AI development and deployment.
We applaud today’s bipartisan lawsuit by state attorneys general to curb Big Tech’s unchecked power over our daily lives and protect young people from the online harms they face every day.
With more than 50 countries set to hold elections in 2024, a coalition of leading civil society organizations at the nexus of democracy and technology today announced a new election integrity framework that focuses on content-agnostic recommendations for online platforms to mitigate the threats of election manipulation.
Today’s lawsuit filed by the FTC and state attorneys general is a watershed moment. We applaud these regulators for bringing this case, which signals a historic commitment to holding Big Tech monopolists accountable.
The endless collection of personal data to micro-target ads is the very core of Big Tech’s toxic business model and a powerful driving force behind the rise of extremism and misinformation, in addition to a myriad other societal harms.
By calling for safety by design and privacy by default, the Age-Appropriate Design Code serves as a road to accountability for tech companies. Instead, today’s decision gives tech companies a free pass to put profit over kids’ safety online.
Today, Accountable Tech launched a digital ad buy and a new report highlighting Big Tech’s alarming history of making and then breaking their own public commitments on privacy and safety.
With Big Tech jockeying to secure a new era of self-regulation amid the AI arms race, leading civil society organizations Accountable Tech, AI Now Institute, and EPIC jointly released a new “Zero Trust AI Governance” framework Thursday.
At a moment when policymakers are racing the clock to harness the potential and curb the dangers of AI, we applaud the Biden Administration for its leadership in bringing the largest AI companies together around a set of basic voluntary safeguards.
Today’s decision demonstrates how much power Big Tech has over our communication systems and the distribution of news, and how little they care about anything other than profits.
Today, Democratic senators sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, demanding more information on the company’s data practices after Accountable Tech’s exclusive research found that Google continues to track and retain sensitive location history data from abortion seekers.
Elon Musk has already turned Twitter into a hellscape of hate and conspiracy. But his full-throated embrace of Ron DeSantis – only weeks after Tucker Carlson announced he would revive his Fox News show on Twitter – is a new low for what was once one of the world’s most important communication platforms.
This is a consistent issue we’ve seen with Meta over the last decade plus, where their business model is premised on collecting enormous amounts of personal data and weaponizing it to do surveillance advertising for colossal profits.
Once again, elected officials have sided with Big Tech, choosing to prioritize their interests over the safety of Minnesota children.
Today, Accountable Tech and a coalition of advocacy partners led a Day of Action calling on Google to stop collecting and retaining sensitive user data that can be used to prosecute people seeking abortion care in post-Roe America.
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) represents a critical step towards protecting our kids and teens online. Big Tech companies are shamelessly cashing in on a perverse business model that harms young people.
Today, Accountable Tech released new field research – documented in real-time by an NBC News crew – revealing that Google continues to collect and retain location data from individuals visiting abortion clinics, which could be weaponized by prosecutors, despite the tech behemoth’s repeated claims to the contrary.
New polling released today by Accountable Tech and LOG OFF finds that the design of social media and online platforms is actively harming U.S. teens — adding further evidence for why design reforms outlined in the Age Appropriate Design Code are desperately needed to protect kids online.
In January, while giving Trump the keys to his Facebook account, Meta claimed the threat he posed to public safety had ‘subsided.’ On Friday, YouTube followed suit, citing a ‘careful’ evaluation of the risk of violence.
The very same day Trump released a video calling the 2020 election ‘stolen’ and demanding January 6th insurrectionists be released from prison, YouTube decided to let him back on their platform.
Tomorrow, youth activist Emma Lembke – a former Accountable Tech intern who continues to work closely with the organization – will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Big Tech’s ongoing exploitation of our children for profit.
Accountable Tech applauds President Biden’s bold demand to hold social media companies to account for their broken profit model, calling for long overdue safeguards that force online platforms and apps to prioritize the safety, health, and privacy of their users – especially children and teens.
Today, Meta chose to put its own profits above American democracy and the real-world safety of its users.
We applaud this much-needed action from the Department of Justice, and will continue our work advocating for structural reform to hold Big Tech monopolies like Google accountable.
Mobile billboards from Accountable Tech are circling the national mall and Meta offices in Menlo Park, New York City, and Washington, DC today urging Facebook to uphold its ban of former President Donald Trump.
This ruling is a landmark victory in the fight against tech giants who extract users’ personal data without consent, manipulate us, and warp public discourse in service of their toxic business model.
Tonight, companies that have continued to advertise on Twitter face a choice: Do you want to be complicit in the real-time censorship of free press in America?
Accountable Tech released new research finding that more than 350 posts from Donald Trump’s “Truth Social” account – the equivalent of two posts per day – would directly violate Facebook’s Community Standards.
These updates show why passing laws that change the incentive structure for Big Tech is imperative. The California Age Appropriate Design Code is already pushing companies like Meta to proactively enhance their existing limited privacy and safety measures for children and teens.
In his three weeks as Twitter CEO, Elon Musk has orchestrated a mass exodus of safety experts and turned the platform into a hellscape of misinformation, hate, and extremism. Now he has decided to hastily and unilaterally replatform Donald Trump — the man who incited a deadly insurrection against the U.S. government.
Elon Musk is incinerating his new $44 billion toy like it’s a self-driving Tesla, and the rest of us are engulfed in the flames.
The #StopToxicTwitter coalition, made up of more than 60 civil rights and civil society groups, issued an urgent call to Twitter advertisers, demanding they stop buys on the platform in the wake of Elon Musk’s sweeping layoffs.
An open letter to the CEOs of the top advertising companies on Twitter from Accountable Tech and other partner organizations.
On Tuesday, more than 40 civil-society groups called on Twitter’s top-20 advertisers to inform Elon Musk that they will suspend all advertising on the platform if he follows through on plans to undermine the social network’s community standards and content moderation.
Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter will make it an even more hate-filled cesspool, leading to irreparable real-world harm. Musk’s plans will leave the platform more vulnerable to security threats, rampant disinformation, and extremism just ahead of the midterm elections.
It’s also difficult to overstate the national security threat that this deal poses. Musk is a Putin propagandist with a pattern of close ties to hostile foreign governments – many of whom have financial and strategic interests in the deal.
Big Tech watchdog Accountable Tech announced a $250,000 national TV and digital ad buy slamming Facebook for rolling back election integrity safeguards ahead of the upcoming midterms.
An Elon Musk takeover of Twitter would provide a megaphone to extremists, threaten public safety, and devastate our already fragile democracy.
Meta’s indication that Donald Trump will be allowed back on the platform – despite his increasingly dangerous behavior since – would be equivalent to handing a flamethrower to an arsonist.
In signing the California Age Appropriate Design Code Act into law, Governor Newsom is sending a clear message to Big Tech: Put our children over your profits.
Today California took a massive step forward in securing a future in which the internet is fundamentally designed around the best interests of young people.
Accountable Tech announced a multi-state TV ad-buy urging the Senate to pass the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) and the Open App Markets Act (OAMA) this fall.
Today’s announcement by the FTC represents a critical first step toward cracking down on the egregious intrusions and exploitation of the ever-expanding surveillance economy.
Today’s vote in the California Senate Appropriations Committee brings us closer than ever to securing a future in which the internet is fundamentally designed around the best interests of young people.
The devastating Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade has turned Big Tech’s surveillance tools, and the troves of sensitive data they collect, into a weapon-in-waiting that will be deployed against people seeking reproductive care.
From the start, Musk has made it clear that his vision for Twitter would pose a dire threat to user safety and democratic ideals. That’s why Accountable Tech led the ‘Stop the Deal’ campaign with more than a dozen nonprofit partners – and it’s why we have fought tooth and nail to upend this agreement.
We’re grateful to President Biden for taking these necessary steps to help protect patients and keep Big Tech from profiting off the criminalization of reproductive health care.
Student Defense and Accountable Tech today called for a full investigation into reports that the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) released personally identifiable information from an unknown number of federal aid applicants to Facebook.
Accountable Tech sent a letter to Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde on Wednesday imploring the company to resist Elon Musk’s demands for access to sensitive data on millions of users.
Today, a diverse coalition of nonprofit advocacy organizations launched “Stop The Deal” – a multifaceted campaign designed to upend Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of Twitter, and stave off the myriad harms inherent to Musk’s vision.
If Roe v. Wade is overturned and states enact draconian anti-abortion laws, Big Tech could be further weaponized to target people seeking reproductive care.
With today’s unanimously approved policy statement, Chair Khan and the FTC have sent a powerful message that they will use every tool at their disposal to safeguard our kids from exploitative tech companies.
Let’s be clear: Donald Trump was banned from Twitter in January 2021 for inciting and glorifying violence. His tweets – particularly after the January 6th insurrection – were in clear violation of Twitter’s policies.
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and threaten public safety, especially for those who are already most vulnerable.
In his keynote address at Stanford University’s “Challenges to Democracy in the Digital Information Realm” Symposium, President Barack Obama outlined Big Tech’s role in supercharging disinformation and undermining democracy across the globe.
The agreement struck Thursday finalizing the Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a transformational moment in the movement to rein in Big Tech’s monopoly abuses – not just in the EU, but globally.
Accountable Tech hosted a roundtable with five youth activists and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on social media’s impact on young people’s mental health.
We applaud President Biden for recognizing the inconvenient truth Big Tech executives continue to deny—that their products and platforms now play an important role in defining the future of this country.
The FTC received dozens of submissions from a diverse cross-section of leading advocacy organizations, businesses, lawmakers, and experts – along with more than 2,000 grassroots supporters – urging the Commission to promulgate new rules to prohibit this unfair method of competition.
The critical vote served as a forceful bipartisan message to Big Tech executives and lobbyists in the face of their frenzied and dishonest campaign to sink the bill.
Big Tech will continue stoking discrimination, division, and delusion until we upend this perverse incentive structure – which is exactly what Reps. Eshoo and Schakowsky, and Sen. Booker’s Banning Surveillance Advertising Act would do.
Accountable Tech launched “Main Street Against Big Tech,” a six-figure national campaign and storytelling effort to demonstrate the variety of ways in which Big Tech squeeze and exploit small businesses across the country.
Amid historic polarization in Washington, this bipartisan show of force sends an unmistakable message that the era of impunity is over.
This morning, Accountable Tech launched a six-figure national cable ad urging Congress to investigate Facebook over recent revelations that the company concealed internal research.
Accountable Tech filed a significant rulemaking petition Thursday urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban surveillance advertising.
There is nothing more chilling than turning one’s back on a child who’s in harm’s way. Yet, this is what Facebook and Instagram executives do every day.
Facebook is teeming with deadly vaccine misinformation. You don’t have to take my word for it – just spend a few hours on the platform.
Accountable Tech released a new national poll of 1,000 parents of school-aged children – conducted by GQR Research – measuring their sentiments about the behavior of major tech platforms and key issues facing kids and teens online.
Today, Accountable Tech launched an investigation into Facebook’s coordination with the Trump Administration by filing a series of FOIA requests with agencies across the federal government.
The House Judiciary Committee just advanced five separate bipartisan bills that would break the Silicon Valley stranglehold on American commerce, consumers, and communications.
Today, Accountable Tech is launching a new $50,000 ad campaign supporting the House Judiciary Committee’s bipartisan legislative package to rein in Big Tech ahead of Wednesday’s markup.
Republicans and Democrats are coming together to bring an end to this era of impunity. The historic legislative package to rein in Big Tech is the culmination of two years of bipartisan work.
The overwhelming bipartisan support for Professor Lina Khan to serve as Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reflects the urgent need and strong public desire to hold Big Tech accountable.
First, let’s be absolutely clear: When a company establishes its own quasi-judicial global ‘supreme court’ for self-regulation, that’s not a constraint on its power – it’s an absurd embodiment of it.
It’s a tremendous honor to join the Onward Together family, and to have the opportunity to work alongside such a dynamic coalition of leaders in the fight for a more just future.
The lawsuits filed today send a strong message to Facebook that their era of impunity is coming to an end. For years, Facebook has exploited its gatekeeper status to further entrench its monopoly power.
While Jeff Zients is rightfully renowned as a talented problem-solver, his recent service on Facebook’s Board of Directors raises serious concerns about how he’ll navigate his role as the incoming administration’s COVID-19 czar.
If Facebook and Google are truly incapable of reviewing and safely running Georgia Senate ads without opening the floodgates of paid disinformation across their platforms, it’s a damning indictment of their own business model.
It’s infuriating to see Facebook’s ineptitude and aversion to transparency once again inflict avoidable damage during the final stretch of an election.
Platforms must do more to address these harms before users are exposed, and they have the tools to do it. Facebook and Twitter already use proactive detection and enforcement, combining AI and human review to preempt other violations.
Digital ad buy and accompanying “Broken Promises Report” highlights examples of tech CEOs calling for self-regulation before defying their own rules.
Today, Accountable Tech is launching a new $250,000 ad buy calling out Facebook for facilitating the spread of misinformation and hate with real-world consequences.
Facebook Groups pose a singular threat to this election season. They’ve become hidden breeding grounds for disinformation campaigns and organizing platforms for extremists. And Facebook’s AI actively grows these dangerous networks by promoting them to vulnerable users.
Nearly three years after Mark Zuckerberg set into motion plans for a so-called ‘Supreme Court’ – and after months of sustained pressure for the Oversight Board to grapple with urgent Facebook debacles around the globe – board members have embarked on a press tour about their impending launch.
Accountable Tech launched a comprehensive Election Integrity Roadmap for social media platforms as they navigate an election season fraught with unprecedented challenges.
Digital ad buy and accompanying “Broken Promises Report” highlights examples of tech CEOs calling for self-regulation before defying their own rules.
Today, Accountable Tech released a new report examining how Facebook’s algorithms operated during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the wake of George Floyd’s killing – and found they played a toxic role at each of these inflection points.
President Trump’s posts this morning should be a blaring red siren for social media platforms, whose woefully inadequate election misinformation policies continue to undermine the integrity of our democracy.
Big Tech companies serve as information and market gatekeepers, but they have consistently abused that status to maximize profits at the expense of the public good. As today’s hearing made clear, their monopoly-like power begets more anti-competitive behavior and removes the incentives to act responsibly.
According to new exclusive polling conducted by GQR, Americans overwhelmingly agree that social media companies should do more to combat online hate and misinformation, that Big Tech companies have too much power, and that the Stop Hate For Profit campaign is demanding much-need reforms.
A broad coalition of civil rights, free press, environmental, and tech accountability groups has released an open letter to the U.S.-based members of the Facebook Oversight Board urging them to resign in protest unless they are empowered to swiftly address the platform’s facilitation of voter suppression and climate denialism.
Amid growing outrage over Facebook’s refusal to crack down on hate and disinformation, Accountable Tech launched a multi-pronged campaign Tuesday targeting their toothless Oversight Board.
On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see Mark Zuckerberg preview a seemingly robust effort to help Americans vote in November – and that progress is a testament to the relentless advocacy from Facebook employees, civil rights activists, and many others who have made their voices difficult to ignore in recent weeks.
Accountable Tech launched a five-figure ad buy Tuesday aimed specifically at reaching Facebook employees on their own platform, as more and more boldly express their outrage over the path being charted by the company’s leadership.
It’s encouraging to see Twitter continue to uphold its standards and provide transparency about the actions they are taking, and their warning labels provide important context without amounting to censorship.
Big Tech companies are some of the most powerful and profitable companies in history, presenting new threats to the safety of communities and the health of democracy. We’re taking them on through legislation, regulation and direct advocacy.