CfA's December 10, 2021 Newsletter

This Week:

• CfA Sues FEC for Failure to Investigate Coordination between the Russian Government and President Trump’s 2016 Campaign: This week, Free Speech For People and Campaign for Accountability filed a federal lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in the U.S. District Court in D.C. seeking declaratory and injunctive relief for the Commission’s failure to respond to a five-year-old complaint regarding the Russian government’s political spending in the 2016 election and coordination with former President Trump’s campaign. (Press Release, Complaint)
  • “The FEC owes the public a full and open accounting of any illegal 2016 campaign coordination,” said CfA Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith. “The FEC’s failure to act robs the public of any insight into past election malfeasance and leaves bad actors undeterred from improperly meddling in the future. Transparent enforcement is as much about deterrence as restitution, and the FEC’s continued failure to act provides neither.”
  • Business Insider covered the lawsuit.

• Xanax, Ecstasy, and Opioids: Instagram Offers Drug Pipeline to Kids: On Tuesday, CfA's Tech Transparency Project (TTP) released a report demonstrating how Instagram allows teen users as young as 13 to find potentially deadly drugs for sale in just two clicks. After creating multiple Instagram accounts for hypothetical minors between the ages of 13 and 17, researchers found that Instagram not only allowed the teen users to easily search for age-restricted and illegal drugs, but the platform’s algorithms helped them connect directly with drug dealers selling everything from opioids to party drugs. (Press Release, Report)
  • During Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri's testimony before the Senate on Wednesday, Utah Senator Mike Lee questioned Mosseri about the report's findings, admonishing the company for its complicity in illegal drug sales to teens.
  • TTP's research was the first to report a flaw in Instagram's safety feature implementation which caused accounts created by minors on the desktop version of the app to be set to 'public' by default. Mosseri acknowledged the flaw when questioned by Senator Marsha Blackburn the following day.
  • Numerous outlets including NBC, CNN, Business Insider, and The Verge covered the report.

• ‘Thinstagram’: Instagram’s algorithm fuels eating disorder epidemic: On Wednesday morning, TTP and Reset released a report showing that Instagram continues to promote dangerous eating disorder information to vulnerable users including young teenagers, despite promises to remove such content. Researchers found that Instagram recommended accounts full of disturbing images of underweight women to users who showed an interest in getting thin. (Press Release, Report)
  • Instagram's failure to stop the spread of content glorifying disordered eating was the subject of much discussion during Mosseri's testimony later that afternoon. Senator Richard Blumenthal's office similarly created a fake Instagram account for a teen, started following accounts promoting eatings disorders, and said: "Within an hour all of our recommendations promoted pro-anorexia and eating disorder content.”
  • Buzzfeed News covered the report.

What We're Reading:

• Two Democratic Senators urge federal investigations into Facebook for allegedly misleading claims: "Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Maria Cantwell are urging federal regulators to investigate Facebook over allegations the company misled advertisers, investors and the public about public safety and ad reach on its platform.
  
  On Thursday, Warren urged the heads of the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission to open criminal and civil investigations into Facebook or its executives to determine if they violated U.S. wire fraud and securities laws.
  
  A day earlier, Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, encouraged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Facebook, now called Meta, violated the agency’s law against unfair or deceptive business practices. Cantwell’s letter was made public on Thursday." (CNBC, December 9)

• Amazon is misleading consumers with 'deceptive' ads in search results, FTC complaint says: "Amazon is potentially misleading consumers by not being clear enough in indicating which of its search results are paid advertisements, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday.
  
  More than a quarter of Amazon search results are sponsored by third parties and not adequately labeled to make that obvious to the average user, according to the complaint, which was filed by The Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of US labor unions. Researchers at SOC, who analyzed more than 130,000 search results, allege that Amazon was in violation of all FTC guidelines for identifying online ads in search results, the complaint said." (CNN, December 9)

• House goes after Trump with bill to curb presidential abuses of power: "The House passed a sweeping legislative package on Thursday designed to guard against abuses of presidential powers as part of a package of reforms put forth by Democrats in the wake of former President Trump’s White House tenure.
  
  The legislation, titled the Protecting our Democracy Act, passed almost entirely along party lines by a vote of 220-208. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who has been critical of his party’s continued embrace of Trump, was the only Republican to vote to pass it, with all Democrats in support." (The Hill, December 9)

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