Blumenthal Leads Call for Stronger Action Against Disinformation Ahead of Georgia Senate Elections

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) led a group of five senators in pressing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about specific steps the companies are taking to protect against the spread of disinformation ahead of the upcoming run-off Senate elections in Georgia, including Spanish-language election misinformation.

“Facebook must expect an onslaught of the malign tactics of voter suppression and delegitimization seen in the Presidential election, and cannot backslide or regress in its moral and civic responsibility to protect our democracy,” wrote the senators in the letter to Facebook. A similar letter was sent to Twitter.

The senators’ letters follow pledges from the tech CEOs to sustain and improve their election protection effort for Georgia’s runoff during last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, including commitments to put in place robust content moderation measures, civic integrity policies, and other improvements ahead of the elections slated for January 5, 2021. 

“These measures must build on the playbook used in the Presidential election: fact-checks, labels, restrictions on algorithmic amplification for misinformation, additional context on trending topics, and limits on the sharing of content that violates civic integrity policies,” the senators continued.

The senators pushed the Big Tech giants to learn from and improve on previously implemented tactics to ensure their effectiveness, and emphasized the need to strengthen efforts to prevent the spread of misinformation in Spanish. 

The letter was also signed by U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), and Gary Peters (D-MI).

A copy of the full letter to Facebook is available here and below. The letter to Twitter is available here.

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