CfA's August 6, 2021 Newsletter

This Week:

• False Election Audit Claims Surge on Facebook: On Thursday, CfA's Tech Transparency Project (TTP) released a report highlighting how Facebook is allowing false claims about the Arizona election "audit" to go unchecked on its platform. Militia groups on Facebook have seized onto these lies, using them to rile up support and encourage direction action on and off the platform.  (Press Release, Report).
  • "This is yet another situation where Facebook’s refusal to rid its platform of dangerous disinformation could very well result in real world violence. This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that fueled the deadly January 6 insurrection, and it’s completely unacceptable that it still runs rampant on Facebook over six months later," said CfA Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith.
  • The report was covered in an opinion piece by Greg Sargent in The Washington Post.

• A World Without Surveillance Advertising: Last week's announcement that Facebook would no longer allow advertisers to micro-target teens based on interest categories exposes the broader issue of the risks that similar ads pose to the rest of us. Surveillance advertising can be used to target addicted communities, promote pseudoscience, enable discrimination, fuel violent extremism, and fan the flames of political polarization. (Blog Post).
  • Last year, TTP joined a coalition of advocates in calling for an end to surveillance advertising altogether.
  • Legislators have also taken action to curb the practice. Last year, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA 18th District) introduced the Banning Microtargeted Political Ads Act to prevent advertisers from using surveillance advertising in political ad campaigns.

What We're Reading:

• Amazon faces wider fight over labor practices: "Since the start of the pandemic, Amazon has ramped up its hiring, bringing on hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide. But challenges to the company’s labor practices are growing quickly, too. Those challenges were underscored when a hearing officer for the National Labor Relations Board recommended a new union election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, saying the company’s conduct during the organizing campaign had precluded a fair vote." (New York Times, August 4)

• Judge sanctions lawyers for bringing 2020 election conspiracy lawsuit: "A federal judge has sanctioned lawyers who filed suit against Dominion Voting Systems, Facebook and others, claiming conspiracy in the 2020 presidential election. Originally, plaintiffs sued on behalf of all registered American voters and said the 2020 election involved a conspiracy between governors, secretaries of state, election officials, Dominion, Facebook and more. In an opinion on Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the District of Colorado N. Reid Neureiter said, 'The Complaint is one enormous conspiracy theory.'" (Politico, August 4)

• Senate Democrats unveil bill to protect election officials, prevent election subversion: "A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) unveiled legislation Thursday aiming to combat efforts to undermine election results and install new protections for election workers, who have received a rise in violent threats since the 2020 election. The bill, titled the Protecting Election Administration from Interference Act, would extend existing prohibitions on threats to election officials to include individuals involved in ballot-counting, canvassing and certifying election results." (The Hill, August 5)

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