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This week, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg was among four tech CEOs to testify before Congress. The historic testimony helped make clear that tech monopolies have achieved dominance by conducting dangerous surveillance, gobbling up startups to kill off competition, and directly threatening our democracy.
Dear friend,
Donald Trump's campaign has bought hundreds of Facebook ads to spread misinformation about the November election, and Mark Zuckerberg is refusing to stop him.1 The ads use misleading statements and outright myths to attack voting by mail.2
Mark Zuckerberg said he won't fact check the blatantly false ads, and Facebook even claimed one of Trump’s misleading ads "was appropriate."3 Perhaps this is because Facebook's business model is based on them profiting from misinformation like this, even if it might deter people from voting. It’s time for our government to act.
Sign the petition to tell Congress and the FTC: no voter suppression for profit!
Mark Zuckerberg claims that private companies shouldn't be the "arbiters of truth." But Facebook does have policies against misinformation, it just applies them selectively. For example, when it comes to human rights activists and journalists, Facebook has no problem taking down accounts and suppressing content.4
And when misinformation about coronavirus reached millions of people this spring, Facebook only took down false posts after a study found that 40 percent of coronavirus claims that Facebook's own fact checkers had marked as false remained on the site.5
But Facebook exempts politicians' ads -- including Trump's -- from any fact-checking. And even though Facebook claims it bans political ads that discourage people from voting, the platform has done nothing to stop the Trump campaign from publishing its harmful ads.
As Facebook employees wrote in a letter to Zuckerberg last October raising concerns about this policy, "It doesn't protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy."6
Zuckerberg has been very willing to give Trump free rein to incite violence and spread misinformation, especially because Trump is a key client for Facebook. During 2019, the Trump campaign spent nearly $20 million on over 200,000 Facebook ads.7
Facebook's business model is based on misinformation and incendiary content. It's how they make their money. We need government regulators like the Federal Trade Commission as well as Congress to investigate and take action to change Facebook's advertising and business models to stop them from promoting misinformation.
The stakes are too high to let Zuckerberg's hypocrisy and Facebook's hunger for profits run rampant. We must demand federal action. Will you help?
Thanks for taking action,
Julia and the team at Demand Progress
Sources:
1. Media Matters, "Facebook is letting the Trump campaign publish at least 529 ads with false claims of voter fraud," May 19, 2020.
2. Brennan Center, "The False Narrative of Vote-by-Mail Fraud," April 10, 2020.
3. Washington Post, "DNC blasts Facebook for 'unkept promises' ahead of ad boycott meetings," July 7, 2020.
4. NBC News, "'Facebook doesn't care': Activists say accounts removed despite Zuckerberg's free-speech stance," June 15, 2020.
5. Politico, "Facebook to tell millions of users they’ve seen 'fake news' about coronavirus," April 16, 2020.
6. New York Times, "Read the Letter Facebook Employees Sent to Mark Zuckerberg About Political Ads," October 28, 2019.
7. The Guardian, "One year inside Trump's monumental Facebook campaign," January 28, 2020.
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