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Friend,
More terrible news on the Twitter front: Yesterday The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk plans to lay off nearly 75% of the company’s employees when he takes over.1 This means there will be far fewer people on hand to monitor the site for hate and disinformation — and the impact will be apparent right away. Coupled with Musk’s plans to let Trump return to the platform, this spells disaster.
As it is, election disinformation is running rampant on Twitter and other social-media platforms. That’s why now more than ever, we’re determined to #FixTheFeed and hold social-media companies accountable for the spread of hate and lies in the lead-up to Election Day. Can we count on you to make your first gift to Free Press Action today so we can fight disinformation with everything we’ve got?
New polling makes clear that a majority of people in the United States across the political spectrum are fed up with the digital disinformation that is dividing us, harming people of color, exhausting health-care workers, endangering poll workers, intimidating educators, sparking violence in our communities and threatening our democracy.2 And with the midterm elections less than three weeks away, conspiracy theories and election lies are at an all-time high.
Free Press Action has been working for years to hold Facebook, Twitter and other social-media giants accountable. As a leader of the Change the Terms coalition, we have pressured tech companies to:
✅ Institute election-integrity measures
✅ Enforce platform rules equally regardless of a speaker’s social or political status
✅ Enforce rules equally across all languages
✅ Be more transparent about content-moderation policies
But if we’ve learned anything from this work, it’s that these companies won’t do a thing without immense public pressure. That’s where you come in:
If you’re as angry as most of us are about the unprecedented spread of disinformation and hate, please make your first gift.
Every single dollar makes a difference since we don’t take a dime from business, government or political parties. Thanks for giving what you can today.
With gratitude,
Candace and the rest of the Free Press Action team
freepress.net
1. “Documents Detail Plans to Gut Twitter’s Workforce,” The Washington Post, Oct. 20, 2022
2. “Poll: Most in US Say Misinformation Spurs Extremism, Hate,” Associated Press, Oct. 13, 2022
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