Zach Praiss
“I grew up online, I’m only 23, and so I feel like I’ve seen the way these platforms really transform,” Ellisya Lindsey, the communications associate at Accountable Tech, said. “I remember when I was younger, it was posting pictures of One Direction, and it has spiraled into something that is much more addictive and harmful.”
Zach Praiss Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director of the non-profit Accountable Tech, said in a statement that Newsom’s decision “is a massive giveaway to Big Tech companies and an affront to all Americans who are currently the uncontested guinea pigs” of the AI industry.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech, an advocacy nonprofit, said the veto is a “massive giveaway to Big Tech companies and an affront to all Americans who are currently the unconsenting guinea pigs of an unregulated and untested AI industry.”
Zach Praiss A study by Accountable Tech released earlier this week found that "progressive Instagram accounts saw their reach decline by 65%" since the policy change. The study looked at accounts for Hillary Clinton, GLAAD, Human Rights Campaign, and others. (The group also sought the participation of conservative accounts, but none agreed.) Accountable Tech said that its study shows that Meta has "systematically remove[d] trustworthy 'political' content from their recommendation surfaces."
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech analyzed data from five prominent Instagram accounts, each with over 10,000 followers. The accounts included former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; Feminist, a women-led non-profit media company; Human Rights Campaign; non-profit LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD; and Field Team 6, a Democratic volunteer group focused on voter registration in key battleground states
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss A mobile billboard, deployed by Accountable Tech, is seen outside the Meta headquarters on Jan. 17, 2023, in Menlo Park, Calif.
Zach Praiss Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director of digital justice advocacy group Accountable Tech, said in a statement that the court's decision marked a "major victory for the antitrust movement" by challenging Google's business practices and scrutinizing those of other big tech companies.
Zach Praiss Mobile billboard is seen near the U.S. Capitol on September 12, 2023 in Washington, DC. NGOs highlight artificial intelligence (AI)’s dangers to climate change.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech Executive Director and Co-Founder Nicole Gill issued the following statement on the passage of the Vermont Kids Code.
Zach Praiss Carl Szabo, vice-president and general counsel of the tech trade association NetChoice, spoke against the Maryland bill at a state senate finance committee meeting in mid-2023 as a “lifelong Maryland resident, parent, [spouse] of a child therapist” [as shown in a tweet from Accountable Tech].
Zach Praiss Zamaan Qureshi speaks during a rally organized by Accountable Tech and Design It For Us to hold social media companies accountable for protecting kids and teens online on January 31, 2024, in Washington, DC.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss KOSA has been endorsed by a broad cross-section of groups including: Common Sense Media, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Compass, Eating Disorders Coalition, Fairplay, Mental Health America, and Digital Progress Institute. An organizer, Accountable Tech, is paying to have the letter sent to Schumer appear as an ad in the New York Times, sources said.
Zach Praiss New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez speaks during a rally organized by Accountable Tech and Design It For Us to hold tech and social media companies accountable for protecting teens on January 31, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Zach Praiss Shortly after the Dobbs decision, Google committed to deleting the location data of consumers visiting reproductive clinics. Subsequent investigations, however, have uncovered that Google continues to retain location data for people visiting abortion clinics. A study conducted by Accountable Tech and released last month found that Google retains location data history in these cases about 50 percent of the time.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech and Design it for Us will hold a rally outside the Capitol following the hearing. Design it for Us is more focused on the harms it says are posed by Meta, Snap and TikTok. But it added in a statement, "That certainly doesn't excuse Discord and X."
Zach Praiss The letter, signed by groups including The Tech Oversight Project, American Economic Liberties Project and Accountable Tech, touts the passage of the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act in 2022 to increase funding for the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission.
Zach Praiss Google pledged to stop tracking user visits to abortion clinics shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, which killed off the United States’ largest federal abortion protection...Roughly 18 months later, Google has not followed through on its promise, according to a new study from Accountable Tech, and the company still tracks visits to abortion clinics.
Zach Praiss "It is offering new ways of spreading disinformation, like the audio and video content, especially, but it's mostly just turbocharging existing efforts and making it a lot cheaper and easier," Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director at the watchdog group Accountable Tech, says.
Zach Praiss In its newest study, which the Guardian reviewed exclusively, Accountable Tech found that the company still wasn’t deleting location history in all cases as promised, though Google’s rate of retention improved slightly. The rate of retention of location information decreased from 60% of tested cases, a measurement taken five months after Google’s pledge, to 50% of tested cases in the most recent experiment. The director of product of Google Maps, Marlo McGriff, disputed the findings of the study.
Zach Praiss Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech, a nonprofit watchdog group, told the AP that Twitter used to be one of the "most responsible" platforms. “Obviously now they’re on the exact other end of the spectrum,” he said.
Zach Praiss Twitter used to be one of the "most responsible" platforms, showing a willingness to test features that might reduce misinformation even at the expense of engagement, said Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech, a nonprofit watchdog group. "Obviously now they're on the exact other end of the spectrum."
Zach Praiss "We've found in reporting supported by a nonprofit digital rights group, Accountable Tech, that with less than a hundred dollars, you can buy tens of thousands of votes for a Twitter poll easily."
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of the left-leaning advocacy group Accountable Tech and former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, told the Post that X, formerly known as Twitter, “will continue playing a key role in shaping political discourse so long as it remains the platform of choice for reporters.”
Zach Praiss Climate and tech advocacy groups are pressing the Biden administration to address concerns about the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on climate change...The letter was signed by 17 groups, including Friends of the Earth, Accountable Tech and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Zach Praiss The groups sent a letter to the White House urging the Biden administration, including national climate advisor Ali Zaidi, to add more climate-centered policies in its AI executive order released earlier in October. Seventeen groups signed the letter, including Accountable Tech.
Zach Praiss “Given the stakes of this election, I just think that you have to be part of the conversation wherever it’s playing out, even if in the long run you would like to see platforms that facilitate healthier political discourse,” said Jesse Lehrich, a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and cofounder of Accountable Tech. “When democracy is on the line, you don’t want to lose democracy for the sake of taking a principled stand.”
Zach Praiss Academics and government officials aren’t the only ones shifting strategy. Jesse Lehrich, cofounder of the advocacy group Accountable Tech, says the last year has also required his organization to “adapt to the realities of the moment.”
Zach Praiss A whopping 86% of voters support congressional action, and 82% believe social media platforms should be required to take concrete steps to protect young people online, according to a poll by Accountable Tech.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss In addition to the trust and safety personnel layoffs, “they’ve rolled back basic features of the platform that helped deal with things that will obviously pose threats to the integrity of elections around the world,” says Jesse Lehrich, cofounder of the advocacy group Accountable Tech. This includes “removing labels on government officials and state-run media accounts, and obviously Twitter Blue has been a total disaster,” he says, noting that the platform’s new revenue-sharing model could add to the chaos. “There’s a financial incentive to post outrageous or sensational content to go viral and potentially profit from it.”
Zach Praiss Various civil society groups issued statements in support of the bipartisan lawsuit against Meta. Accountable Tech executive director Nicole Gill applauded the state attorneys general’s effort to “curb Big Tech’s unchecked power over our daily lives” as Meta operates “without any regard for their role in the youth mental health crisis, focusing solely on maximizing their profits by creating addictive design features.”
Zach Praiss The letter was signed by 20 groups, including the Athena Coalition, Public Citizen, Accountable Tech and the Open Markets Institute. As Congress drafts regulations, the groups urged lawmakers to prioritize the heath, safety and wages of data workers that develop and train AI.
Zach Praiss The lawmakers first introduced the AI Labeling Act in July and on Tuesday are unveiling a list of supporters backing the effort, including consumer groups like Common Sense Media, Public Citizen and Accountable Tech.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Aditi Ramesh, policy manager at nonprofit watchdog Accountable Tech, said she hopes there is a "domino effect" as more states consider new rules of the road for tech with the end-goal of "putting increased pressure on Congress to create a more unified approach to tech regulation."
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech, Al Now and the Electronic Privacy Information Center put forth an Al governance framework in August that accused Al companies of calling for regulation while 'privately lobbying against meaningful accountability measures. "Given the monumental stakes, blind trust in their benevolence is not an option," the groups wrote.
Zach Praiss So far, a coalition of ten civil society groups, including Accountable Tech, the Center for American Progress (CAP), and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have all signed onto the framework.
Zach Praiss “With authoritarianism on the rise, and dozens of countries set to hold high-stakes elections next year, democracy is facing an existential threat,” says Jesse Lehrich, cofounder of the nonprofit Accountable Tech. “And Elon Musk continues to tip the scales in the wrong direction."
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss This is a company that spent more than a decade integrating itself into the news production and dissemination system. Like it or not, they're a part of how news is shared across the globe.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Virtually everything we do online is tracked by companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, from what we buy to the news we read. This type of surveillance isn’t just a byproduct of these companies’ products — collecting and monetizing user data is a fundamental part of their business models. Now, it could land abortion-seekers in jail.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss I think they're being singled out for good reason. Meta is one of the worst privacy violators of all time.
Zach Praiss Once again, elected officials have sided with Big Tech, choosing to prioritize their interests over the safety of Minnesota children.
Zach Praiss Instead of welcoming Altman with a bipartisan steak dinner in his honor, Congress must subject the new Zuckerberg to the scrutiny his technology merits and the public deserves.
Zach Praiss People who use Google Maps to search for abortion care for themselves or others are at risk of seeing their data turned over to prosecutors due to Big Tech's collection and retention of this sensitive data.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss These new bills in state houses across the country represent a threat to young people's privacy. Rather than restrict young people's access, we can make these platforms safer for kids through design requirements and standards.
Zach Praiss We have an opportunity right now to protect kids online with meaningful legislation. We should take it.
Zach Praiss By traveling to an abortion clinic, we can show in real-time how Google is collecting and retaining sensitive location data despite their policies saying otherwise.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Big Tech designs their platforms to hook and addict users, which poses a serious threat to young people's mental health and well-being.
Zach Praiss The rapid escalation of the AI arms race really underscores how far the U.S. has fallen behind in regulating Big Tech.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Today, Meta chose to put its own profits above American democracy and the real-world safety of its users.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss As the leaders of two tech and media watchdog groups, we’ve closely tracked Trump’s online behavior since he incited that deadly insurrection, and we can unequivocally say: There is no justification for allowing Trump back on Facebook.
Zach Praiss 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?
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Elon Musk's changes to Twitter's verification system undermines authoritative news sources and opens the floodgates to disinformation on the platform.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Elon Musk's ties and business dealings with foreign actors should be a warning sign as he assumes control of Twitter.
Zach Praiss An open letter to the CEOs of the top advertising companies on Twitter from Accountable Tech and other partner organizations.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Elon Musk is going to have unilateral control over one of the most powerful communication platforms in the world.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Despite all the headlines about the online and real-world danger Musk’s control of Twitter could cause, one is getting overlooked: Elon Musk owning Twitter is a national security risk to the United States.
Zach Praiss An Elon Musk takeover of Twitter would provide a megaphone to extremists, threaten public safety, and devastate our already fragile democracy.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss This landmark legislation would require online platforms to prioritize the safety and well-being of kids by design and by default for them.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Rolling back Twitter's content moderation would give raise to more hateful and harmful speech on the platform now under Elon Musk's control.
Zach Praiss Given Elon Musk's plans to rollback Twitter's content moderation systems in favor of free speech, this would provide a megaphone to extremists who spread hate and disinformation online.
Zach Praiss Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and threaten public safety, especially for those who are already most vulnerable.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Big Tech has thrown everything at the wall already, but now, Europe has the chance to pass this sweeping legislation to rein in Big Tech's harms and monopoly power.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss There's been a lot of talk for years on Capitol Hill, but Congress has the chance now to rein in Big Tech's harms.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss If Donald Trump's past products are any indication, I wouldn't bet much on his new social media platform.
Zach Praiss It's pretty rich for a company to roll out new protections and proposals to protect kids online just hours before a congressional hearing, when they've known about these harms for years according to their own internal research.
Zach Praiss Facebook is the top spender on lobbying in D.C. They do exactly the opposite of what Mark Zuckerberg says he supports in public when Facebook says they support government regulation.
Zach Praiss We're seeing growing momentum in Congress for legislation to rein in Big Tech's harms.
Zach Praiss Each of these platforms use so many of the same design tactics as Instagram, which have been shown to negatively harm kids according to even their own internal research.
Zach Praiss It’s time for Facebook to release the remainder of its internal research on the effects Instagram has on young people. We stand ready to support all efforts to build a safer space for all of us.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Congress can pass a historic bipartisan package of antitrust bills to rein in Big Tech's abuses of monopoly power.
Zach Praiss This is what damage control looks like. This is exactly what Philip Morris did in the past and oil companies have done the same in the past.
Zach Praiss Amid historic polarization in Washington, this bipartisan show of force sends an unmistakable message that the era of impunity is over.
Zach Praiss There are a lot of similarities between Big Tech and Big Tobacco, but Big Tech's harms are more pervasive and far-reaching.
Zach Praiss I think this is Facebook's attempt to stave off regulation. This rollout from Facebook is a PR play. If they were really interested in helping kids, they would have done these changes years ago.
Zach Praiss For the first time since Facebook's inception, during Facebook's outage there was no dangerous disinformation being spread on the platform.
Zach Praiss We can no longer rely on Facebook to be forthcoming with the information that they have, we need to demand it.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech filed a significant rulemaking petition Thursday urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban surveillance advertising.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss "They are constantly finding new ways to slice and dice data to advance their preferred narratives about their products," Accountable Tech's Jesse Lehrich told Axios. "But quarterly reports showing YouTube and Amazon were the most-viewed domains do nothing to help us understand the fast-changing threat landscapes on vaccine disinformation, political extremism or anything else meaningful."
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss The House Judiciary Committee just advanced five separate bipartisan bills that would break the Silicon Valley stranglehold on American commerce, consumers, and communications.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss The Digital Services Act’s provisions on risk assessment and audit must stay and be improved if we are to hold tech companies accountable for harmful business models and rights violations.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss It’s infuriating to see Facebook’s ineptitude and aversion to transparency once again inflict avoidable damage during the final stretch of an election.
Zach Praiss 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.
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Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss The survey, commissioned by Accountable Tech, questioned 1,000 registered voters in early September.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss A new Election Integrity Roadmap released by the nonprofit group Accountable Tech shows that a different path is possible. Created in conjunction with leading technologists, civil rights leaders, and disinformation experts, the Roadmap outlines tangible steps that platforms can take to defend the integrity of the November elections.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech launched a comprehensive Election Integrity Roadmap for social media platforms as they navigate an election season fraught with unprecedented challenges.
Zach Praiss
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Facebook says it brings the world closer together, but its own research shows it divides us.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Jesse Lehrich, the co-founder of the nonprofit Accountable Tech, which is pushing Facebook to tighten its rules on harmful speech, warned that by doing nothing social media companies could exacerbate the problem of misinformation online.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss On July 24th, a coalition of nine progressive groups, including Demand Justice, Freedom From Facebook and Google, and Accountable Tech, released a statement calling on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to recuse himself from a case involving Facebook due to his close friendship with the company’s vice president of public policy, Joel Kaplan.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss As Facebook faces sharp scrutiny and a growing advertising boycott amid the coronavirus pandemic, racial justice movement and impending November election, a new poll of 1,000 registered voters nationwide from Accountable Tech and GQR Research conducted July 15-19 finds that American voters have turned against Facebook, believing the company does more harm than good and broadly disapproving of CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the power he wields.
Zach Praiss “A new policy-focused nonprofit that emerged from the recent wave of big tech scrutiny is calling for members of Facebook’s Oversight Board to either step up or step down,” TechCrunch reports on the group Accountable Tech.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss An American non-profit has started an online ad campaign to try to force the Oversight Board to speak up.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech, a progressive nonprofit, launched a campaign Tuesday to persuade the members of Facebook's independent oversight board to demand more authority over content decisions.
Zach Praiss Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, joins to discuss how the new group plans to fight misinformation on social media platforms.
Zach Praiss Jesse Lehrich, the co-founder of Accountable Tech, a new nonprofit group pushing Facebook to tighten controls on its platform, suggested that the two men have a tacit nonaggression pact. “Trump can rage at Big Tech and Mark can say he’s disgusted by Trump’s posts, but at the end of the day the status quo serves both of their interests,” Mr. Lehrich said.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss The targeted ads went live today on Facebook and come from newly launched Accountable Tech, which is spending "five figures" on the effort, Axios has learned. The campaign follows yesterday's employee walkout and rising internal dissent over Facebook's handling of President Trump's tweets.
Zach Praiss 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.
Zach Praiss Jesse Lehrich, a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, announced that he was teaming with Nicole Gill, another liberal activist, to form Accountable Tech, an advocacy group aimed at pressuring tech companies to fight “the proliferation of online misinformation, deception, and manipulation.”
Zach Praiss 
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.