Labeling posts is not enough. Social-media platforms must immediately remove false claims about the 2020 vote.

Friend,

Like all of you, we’ve been paying close attention to the aftermath of the 2020 election. And we’ve been sharply focused on how the media and social-media platforms have responded to President Trump’s unfounded declaration of victory.

So far, much of the mainstream media is holding the line. Despite Trump’s premature attempts to declare himself the winner, the broadcasters and cable-news networks — including Fox News — have not accepted his claims.

But Trump’s reach on social media is massive and the platforms aren’t doing enough to curb his lies. Facebook has added weak content warnings and is still allowing his messages to be shared. And as Trump continues to tweet false claims, his repeated violations are still reaching hundreds of thousands of people.

Tell Facebook and Twitter to remove lies about the 2020 election.

Trump has spent his entire presidency undermining voters’ confidence in this election and sowing doubt about the results. With every tweet lying about mail-in voting and each refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump has stoked chaos and fear — and attempted to sabotage the integrity of this election.

And as he began asserting that he was the winner last night, he has behaved exactly as expected.

While campaigns have a right to claim momentum, the current discourse has quickly and sharply devolved into outright lies about which votes are valid — and conspiracy theories are whipping up a dangerous public frenzy online.

These claims shift the conditions in which votes are tallied, and directly undermine our access to a fair and complete count. They also sow seeds of discontent that can lead to violence and instability — and we know from the tragedies in Charlottesville, Kenosha and other communities how quickly things can prove disastrous or even deadly.

Facebook and Twitter cannot let disinformation stand: Demand that they remove lies about the election — including those from the president himself.

Facebook and other social-media platforms collect data about us and then use that information to target disinformation and hate to those who are most susceptible to it.¹ This system helps Trump weaponize narratives to undermine civil rights — especially the rights of Black, Latinx and other voters of color, who are a big part of the voting population in cities where Trump is seeking to halt vote tallying.

Disinformation is always dangerous, but in this moment it directly undermines the likelihood of a peaceful transfer of power, endangering lives across the country and the very future of our form of government.

This is not business as usual. This isn’t about supporting one party or candidate over the other. It’s about protecting the vote, the most fundamental building block of our democracy.

Don’t let politicians take away our voices. Demand that social-media platforms remove lies about the 2020 election process and outcome — this week and all the weeks and months ahead.

Thanks for all that you do,

Candace, Collette, Carmen and the rest of the Free Press Action team
freepress.net

1. “Facebook’s Content-Moderation Policies Are a Hot Mess,” Common Dreams, Oct. 28, 2020