Protecting fake news
More than a year ahead of the 2020 election, alarming signs are emerging that social media platforms will once again be used to spread false information, deepen national discord and potentially affect the outcomes of the democratic process.
The difference is that this time, the companies know what’s happening — and have chosen not to fight it.
On Tuesday, Facebook rejected a request from Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to remove an ad released by the Trump campaign that falsely accuses the former vice president of offering $1 billion in aid to Ukraine if the nation fired the prosecutor investigating a company tied to his son.
CNN rejected the ad, noting that it made false assertions. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing by Biden or his son, Hunter, who was a board member of a Ukrainian gas company during part of his father’s second term.
Meanwhile, Facebook claimed the ad didn’t violate company policy.
“Our approach is grounded in Facebook’s ... belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is,” Facebook’s public policy director for global elections, Katie Harbath, wrote in a letter to the Biden campaign. “Thus, when a politician speaks or makes an ad, we do not send it to third party fact checkers.”
This is a shocking abdication of responsibility, but Facebook is not alone. YouTube and Twitter have allowed the ad. Alarmingly, so have media companies, including Fox, CBS and MSNBC.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, the GOPled Senate Intelligence Committee released a grim report reaffirming the role of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign and warning of new signs of interference in the 2020 election. The panel suggested Congress consider new disclosure laws for online speech. It also recommended that the White House “reinforce with the public the danger of attempted foreign interference in the 2020 election.”
The odds of Washington taking either action in time for 2020 are slim to none. What’s more surprising is the tech companies’ refusal to learn from their mistakes. As online political misinformation becomes more sophisticated, we need both a public and private sector willing to protect the integrity of our democracy. Sadly, it seems we have neither.