Facebook and Twitter Must Act on Election Disinformation

For Immediate Release
July 30, 2020
Contact: press@accountabletech.org

Accountable Tech co-founder Jesse Lehrich released the following statement Thursday in response to President Trump’s tweet and Facebook post falsely insinuating he can delay the election and claiming results will be fraudulent:

“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.

Facebook’s own civil rights audit lamented the ‘terrible precedent’ they’d set by leaving up past Trump posts that ‘effectively allow the platform to be weaponized to suppress voting.’ And Twitter’s election misinformation policies are similarly deficient.

Needless to say, social media companies alone cannot remedy the current crisis of truth and sustained effort to sow doubt in our institutions. But they can and must stop exacerbating it. Platforms should immediately remove – or clearly label and limit the reach of – this morning’s post and implement election misinformation policies that are responsive to the threats we face.”

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