The Democratic National Committee has criticized Facebook over “unkept promises” with regards to the measures the company said it would implement after the 2016 elections.
“Following the 2016 election, Facebook made a number of public promises of change. As the company makes new commitments in response to renewed public criticism, it is worth reviewing carefully how the company’s actions measure up to its words. In many cases, as documented below, Facebook failed to keep its promises,” read the memo obtained by The Post.
The DNC said that Facebook has not succeeded in limiting the spread of misinformation and sensational content on its platform. With the 2020 elections closing in, social media platforms, especially Facebook, considering the Cambridge Analytica scandal, is under great scrutiny.
While the DNC firmly expressed its dissatisfaction with Facebook’s efforts post the 2016 elections, the social media platform begged to differ and gave a glimpse of the changes that were implemented.
“Since 2016, Facebook has worked to secure our platforms from interference, tripled the number of people working on safety and security, and added political advertising transparency and controls, all while fighting misinformation with the help of an unmatched global network of over 70 fact-checking organizations including 10 in the US,” said Andy Stone, Facebook spokesperson.
The growing tensions between the Democratic Party and Facebook is clearly captured in the memo. With Zuckerberg’s decision not to censor the President’s comments in the wake of George Floyd protests, there is a growing belief amongst Democrats that Facebook is supporting President Trump.
The DNC memo also said that Facebook “uniformly allowed President Trump to lie about methods of voting in the 2020 election, even though the lies violate the clear text of the policy”.
Moreover, Trump, in posts on Facebook, alleged that foreign countries could print mail-in ballots and could be used to tamper with the elections. Facebook, without removing the posts, said that it did not see any evidence from authoritative sources that disproved what Trump said about mail-in ballots getting robbed.
“Explaining these decisions over email to the DNC, Facebook went so far as to state that there were no authoritative sources that could disprove allegations of widespread ballot theft from mailboxes; and, therefore, that the post was appropriate,” read the memo.
As the election looms closer, we’re likely to see more calls from the DNC for Facebook to “do more” to censor what it says is misinformation on the platform as candidate Joe Biden has stated several times that Facebook should be regulated for not censoring conversations and removing misinformation more thoroughly.
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