Dear John

When YouTube, Meta, and X dropped their previous policies for identifying and warning about election disinformation, lies, and conspiracy theories, they put the 2024 election at greater risk of distortion and corruption than ever.

Few historical traditions in this country are as important to protect as our free and fair elections, but today’s social media giants have chosen to abdicate their responsibilities to do their part to enlighten and educate a well informed electorate.

Giving in to pressure from MAGA extremists, these major platforms are allowing lies to run roughshod through their spaces. In the case of X, owner Elon Musk has personally reposted dozens of highly damaging distortions and deepfakes that have received millions of views.

The previous protections helped to keep the public aware of deliberate fabrications with no basis in reality, in the service of preventing chaos and violence. But when the platforms’ billionaire owners choose profit over protecting democracy, the public becomes the target of bad actors, whether domestic or from foreign nations including Russia, China, and Iran.

According to a new database aggregated by the News Literacy Project, over 800 faked social media claims related to the 2024 election have been identified and debunked so far. It’s a dizzying experience to read through these hundreds of claims, and realize there is no way to identify every fake report judging by face value alone.

Demand Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, YouTube CEO Sundar Pichai, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino step up for democracy and stop election misinformation on their platforms now!

Mark Twain may or may not have said, “A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots,” but the continued persistence of this quote over 150 years later shows the potentially long life of an unverified statement. Twain might be wryly amused by the longevity of this claim, but today’s lies online are even more pervasive.

According to a study this year published by Statista using YouGov polling statistics, over 65% of older Americans ages 65 years old and older reported seeing election disinformation online daily this year, compared to 37% of younger Americans from 18 to 29 years old. It’s not clear whether older respondents were actually exposed to more fake posts than younger ones, or if they were quicker to identify the fakery, but it’s clear that all age groups are targeted.

Election disinformation can cause serious harm, undermine confidence in democracy, and polarize people in non-intersecting information bubbles who question too little of what they see and hear. Purposefully deceitful information was the basis for Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection, a mob’s violent and deadly reaction to a torrent of lies as the losing candidate orchestrated attempts to overthrow a legitimate election.

We deserve better. We deserve well-enforced disinformation policies in our social media to provide essential guardrails against lies and deceit.

In the words of an unattributed quote from the internet, “Don’t let nobody take you back to a level that you’ve already leveled up from.” We don’t know who said it, but it’s worth passing along as we monitor closely the outcome of the 2024 vote.

Demand Meta, YouTube, and X restore their 2020 election misinformation protocols immediately and keep them in full force at least through Inauguration Day.

Thank you for insisting the social media platforms join in the fight for a free and fair election.

- DFA AF Team