With The Facebook Papers adding daily to the evidence of the inability and unwillingness of social media giants to combat disinformation and other harmful content, Common Cause today released an extensive report on election disinformation, including a comprehensive set of reforms needed to curb this huge and growing problem and protect our right to vote in elections next week, next year, and beyond. Based on more than 15,000 hours monitoring social media in the 2020 election cycle, together with legal and policy expertise, “사실: 선거 허위 정보로 인한 피해” details the seriousness and scale of the threat, current applicable state and federal laws, and the woefully inadequate and inconsistent civic integrity policies of the social media giants. The report concludes with a sweeping series of reform recommendations to better enable us to fight back against election disinformation.

“In America, we expect and deserve clean elections but Facebook and other social media giants have largely failed in their duty to identify and remove election disinformation from their platforms. It is time for more regulation and outside oversight before these companies allow still more damage to be done to Americans’ faith in our elections,” 말했다 Karen Hobert Flynn, Common Cause President. “The social media companies are not the only culprits here, but they have to varying degrees stood by while The Big Lie has gained momentum on their platforms. Today, roughly 1 in 3 Americans—and nearly two-thirds of Republicans—wrongly believe the 2020 election was ‘rigged and stolen from Trump.’ Those lies, which flourished on social media, ultimately fueled the January 6 insurrection.”

The report provides an overview of election disinformation, explaining what it is, how it’s being spread, and who is spreading it. It identifies the most common forms of election disinformation to include communications providing the wrong election date, bogus election rules, voter intimidation, untrue claims about election integrity or security, and untrue claims post-election about results. It finds most common vehicles for disseminating disinformation include social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, junk websites, mainstream media like Fox News, search engines like Google, as well as email, text messages, and robocalls.

“Common Cause staff, disinformation analysts, and thousands of volunteers have been on the front lines fighting election disinformation and we have witnessed firsthand its explosion on social media in recent years,” 말했다 Jesse Littlewood, Common Cause Vice President for Campaigns. “We have also seen and documented the social media companies’ failures in their public commitment to prevent the spread of disinformation about elections – failures echoed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. The current state of affairs is nothing short of dangerous and the time is now for comprehensive reforms.”  

The report goes on to detail current federal and state laws regulating election disinformation—voting rights, campaign finance, communications, consumer protection, media literacy, and privacy laws—and the shortcomings of current laws. It then examines the civic integrity policies of some of the largest social media companies, the policies Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have put in place to address abuses of their platforms for the dissemination of election disinformation. Those policies, the report shows, have proven insufficient and ineffective in combatting the very serious threat of election disinformation.

“The time to act is now before any more damage is done and our actions must be sweeping in order to combat the dire threat of election disinformation,” said Yosef Getachew, Common Cause Media and Democracy Program Director. “The reforms must include changes to state and federal laws encompassing voting rights, campaign finance, privacy, media, as well reforms to federal and state executive and regulatory agencies. Social media companies must also take additional steps to strengthen their civic integrity policies and close loopholes that allow bad actors to spread harmful content.”

The report’s final section and primary focus is a series of state, federal and corporate reforms to help stem the flow of election disinformation that is undermining Americans’ faith in the nation’s elections. Reform recommendations detailed in the report include the following.

소셜 미디어 회사는 민주주의를 훼손하는 콘텐츠에 맞서기 위한 정책을 강화해야 합니다.여기에는 투표 및 선거에 관한 권위 있는 정보를 사용자에게 제공하고, 선거에 관한 허위 정보의 확산과 확산을 줄이고, 콘텐츠 검토 정책 및 관행에 관한 투명성을 높이는 것이 포함됩니다.

국회와 주 의회는 투표권법을 명시적으로 개정해야 합니다. 선거의 시간, 장소 또는 방법에 관한 허위 정보의 고의적 유포를 금지합니다. 또는 투표를 방해할 의도로 유권자 자격에 대한 자격 또는 제한을 변경하는 행위.

국회와 주 의회는 디지털 시대에 맞춰 캠페인 자금 공개 법률을 업데이트합니다., 포함하다 “디지털 광고에 대한 "지불 금액" 면책 조항과 공개를 회피하기 위해 그룹 간에 이체된 자금을 밝히는 효과적인 조항이 있습니다.

국회와 주 의회는 포괄적인 데이터 개인정보 보호법 통과 소비자를 개인정보의 부당한 수집, 사용, 공유로부터 보호합니다.

국회는 지역 언론을 강화하는 법률 제정 정부, 공공 안전, 공중 보건, 경제 개발, 지역 문화에 대한 고품질 정보에 대한 대중의 접근을 보호합니다.

국회는 연구원과 감시 기자의 소셜 미디어 데이터 접근을 보호하기 위한 법안 통과연구자들이 소셜 미디어 기업의 간섭이나 보복을 두려워하지 않고도 소셜 미디어 플랫폼 관행을 연구할 수 있게 해줍니다.

국회는 온라인 플랫폼 차별 알고리즘을 금지하는 법안 통과 이러한 알고리즘이 어떻게 작동하는지에 대한 투명성을 더욱 높이기 위해.

백악관과 전국 주지사들은 선거 허위 정보 근절에 앞장서야 한다여기에는 집행, 규칙 제정 및 조사 권한이 있는 기관에 이러한 역량을 사용하여 선거 허위 정보를 퇴치하도록 지시하는 행정 명령을 내리는 것도 포함됩니다.

To read the “As a Matter of Fact: The Harms Caused by Election Disinformation” report, 여기를 클릭하세요.