Tag Disinformation

Disinformation
Washington Post
May 02, 2023
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/02/ai-driven-political-ads-are-here-this-lawmaker-is-sounding-alarm/

Left-leaning advocacy group Accountable Tech has hired five new staff members: Robbie Dornbush as its chief of staff, who previously served as chief of staff and special assistant to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Bianca Recto as its communications director, who previously served as communications director for media start-up More Perfect Union. Nash Alam as its senior aampaign manager, who previous was a digital organizer for Groundwork Collaborative. Alison Rice as its campaign manager for youth initiatives, who previously worked with the Hub Project and NextGen America. Alyssa Sanchez as its operations manager, who previously worked with Oregon Futures Lab.

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Disinformation
AXIOS
Oct 22, 2022
Groups demand crackdown on online misinformation ahead of midterms

Concurrently, watchdog group Accountable Tech placed a $250,000 national television and digital ad buy starting this week, criticizing Meta for what the group describes as rolling back election integrity safeguards prior to the midterms.

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Disinformation
Washington Post
Mar 10, 2022
Human rights groups warn that more sanctions could hurt Russian Internet access

Kaili Lambe is Accountable Tech’s new policy and partnerships director. She previously worked as a senior campaigner at the Mozilla Foundation.

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Disinformation
Politico
Feb 24, 2022
Social media platforms on the defensive as Russian-based disinformation about Ukraine spreads

More broadly, the tech companies have not been transparent about real-time actions they’ve taken to dispel Russian state-run disinformation, according to Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech, a watchdog group, and former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton.

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Disinformation
Huffington Post
Feb 17, 2022
Google Has Made Millions Advertising Phony Government Handouts

“It’s just mind-blowing that on a platform like Google — which portrays itself as having gone above and beyond with ad transparency — you can pop up out of nowhere and run millions of dollars of blatant scam ads without raising any red flags,” said Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of the nonprofit Accountable Tech.

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Disinformation
CNN
Jan 28, 2022
Twitter says it has quit taking action against lies about the 2020 election

Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech, a nonprofit that pushes for reforms at social media companies, expressed surprise and dismay at Twitter’s Friday comments. “I actually praised Twitter when they rolled out a new civic integrity policy in 2021, which prohibits false claims about election results and includes a clear strike system for repeat offenders. To learn they decided explicitly to stop enforcing it two months later, and told nobody, is infuriating – especially for a platform that constantly plays up its commitment to transparent decision-making,” Lehrich said in a message to CNN. “They’ve managed to undermine faith in our democracy and their own credibility all at once.”

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Disinformation
The Verge
Oct 05, 2021
The whistleblower hearing hits Facebook where the company is weakest

“It’s the focus on the business model at the crux of this, because that is what ties all of these scandals together,” Rishi Bharwani, director of partnership and policy at Accountable Tech, told The Verge in an interview Monday. “It’s why Facebook is profiting off of and playing a determining role in the Rohingya genocide. It’s why Facebook is allowing the continued spread of COVID mis- and disinformation. It’s because they’re profiting off of it.”

Kenya Juarez Kenya Juarez
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Disinformation
Politico
Sep 28, 2021
House Judiciary mulls how to juice tech competition

"Dozens of civil society groups, including Accountable Tech...urged leaders of the House Science Committee in a letter dated Monday to take action against Facebook over its decision to revoke access to the NYU researchers."

Kenya Juarez Kenya Juarez
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Disinformation
Aug 18, 2021
Statement on Facebook’s Latest Claims about Tackling Vaccine Misinformation

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 Zach Praiss
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Disinformation
AXIOS
Aug 18, 2021
Facebook says it sees signs that COVID vaccine hesitancy is declining

The other side: Critics blasted Facebook, with Accountable Tech executive director Nicole Gill saying that "Facebook is teeming with deadly vaccine misinformation."

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Disinformation
The Guardian
Jul 21, 2021
‘A systemic failure’: vaccine misinformation remains rampant on Facebook, experts say

According to the social media watchdog Accountable Tech, 11 out of the top 15 vaccine related-posts on Facebook last week contained disinformation or were anti-vaccine. Another leading post on Facebook about the Covid-19 vaccines last week was a deeply inaccurate anti-vaccine rant from the rightwing Candace Owens, according to FWIW, a newsletter which tracks digital ad spends.

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Disinformation
Politico
Jul 21, 2021
Biden’s vaccine misinformation road not taken

“This includes appointing a senior White House official who would be exclusively dedicated to mobilizing a whole-of-government response to this crisis, in close cooperation with Congress, civil society, and federal agencies,” wrote Rebecca Lenn, a senior adviser for the online activist group Avaaz, in an email to POLITICO. In late December, Avaaz and Accountable Tech led a coalition of 50 nonprofits and consumer advocacy groups in urging Biden to place a disinformation specialist on his pandemic team.

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Disinformation
Vice
May 05, 2021
Trump Isn’t Getting Back on Facebook Any Time Soon

“It is a corporate PR tool designed to shirk responsibility and stave off actual regulation,” Jesse Lehrich, the co-founder of activist group Accountable Tech, said in a statement.

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Disinformation
NBC News
Mar 22, 2021
Big Tech’s critics have organized for years. Now, some are speaking with one voice.

The new coalition of 38 advocacy groups and nonprofits signed a letter calling for a ban on what it called “surveillance advertising.” It said that online ads powered by personal data and behavioral history have enabled radicalization and given tech platforms a dominant advantage over traditional ads bundled with journalism

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Disinformation
Buzzfeed
Dec 22, 2020
Biden Has Vowed To Put Science First To Beat The Pandemic. That Won’t Be Enough.

“There is no panacea for the information crisis — no simple bill or regulation that will alone cure its noxious society-wide impacts,” said the letter, which was signed by Accountable Tech, Greenpeace, the Center for American Progress, and others. “We must instead fight it with government-wide strategies.”

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Disinformation
AXIOS
Dec 21, 2020
Exclusive: Nonprofit coalition demands Biden act on misinformation

Between the lines: Organizers, which include Accountable Tech, MapLight and Avaaz, say the goal of the effort was to figure out what's doable in an administration with a lot on its plate — understanding that tech priorities may not be first in line.

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Disinformation
The Verge
Dec 04, 2020
Biden coronavirus appointee has cut ties with Facebook, transition team says

On Thursday, Accountable Tech co-founder Jesse Lehrich called Zients a “talented problem-solver” but said Facebook’s role in spreading anti-vaccine misinformation could not be ignored. “Facebook must be held accountable for amplifying misinformation that has undermined our pandemic response and sown baseless distrust in vaccines,” Lehrich said. “In order to guard against conflicts of interest, Mr. Zients should immediately divest of the significant equity he earned in Facebook from his service on the Board and commit to hiring an online misinformation expert to handle his team’s engagement with major social media platforms.”

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Disinformation
Wall Street Journal
Dec 03, 2020
Biden Says He’ll Ask Americans to Wear Masks for 100 Days After He Takes Office

Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of nonprofit Accountable Tech, which is critical of social-media companies, said Mr. Zients’s time on Facebook’s board raises concerns because of the way some users have turned to the platform to spread conspiracy theories about vaccines and the coronavirus.

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Disinformation
Dec 03, 2020
Statement on Jeff Zients Being Tapped as COVID Czar

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 Zach Praiss
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Disinformation
New York Times
Oct 07, 2020
A Dose of Vaccine Reality

A new ad from Accountable Tech, a nonprofit group that includes former Facebook employees, former election officials and members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, uses Zuckerberg’s own remarks to highlight what the group sees as failures at Facebook to protect the country from dangerous disinformation and violent criminals.

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Disinformation
Jul 30, 2020
Facebook and Twitter Must Act on Election Disinformation

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 Zach Praiss
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Disinformation
Jul 23, 2020
New Polling Highlights America’s Views on Big Tech, Facebook Boycott, Mark Zuckerberg

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 Zach Praiss
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Disinformation
KQED
Jun 25, 2020
The ‘Divided States’ of COVID-19 Response and a New Push to Hold Big Tech Accountable

Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, joins to discuss how the new group plans to fight misinformation on social media platforms.

Zach Praiss Zach Praiss
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