TECH

What happens on social media can have a powerful impact offline.

Major social-media companies have a responsibility to address the spread of toxic content. And yet most of the largest online platforms are failing to take the necessary steps to protect users, even as AI-fueled manipulation threatens us all. 

This retreat from content moderation, civil-society oversight and trust-and-safety measures means that tech companies are not prepared to protect users and democracy in 2024. In 2020, election disinformation disproportionately targeted people of color, women and non-English speakers — and this trend continues today.

Our Demands

We need swift action from tech companies:

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  • Invest in greater platform integrity by reinstating election-integrity safeguards and other policies that previously curbed dangerous and false content.

  • Bolster staffing of trust and safety, moderation and other integrity-related teams to ensure more efficient enforcement across languages.

  • Enforce rules against election lies and hate in political advertising. Require human review of political ads, with enhanced scrutiny and labeling of ads containing generative AI.

  • Require disclosure of AI-generated political content, including ads. Prohibit the use of deepfakes in political ads and algorithmically promote factual elections content. Ensure that any generative AI products have usage policies and are supported by adequate trust-and-safety features, monitoring and enforcement teams.

  • Place greater friction to reduce the visibility and easy distribution of election-related content that has been flagged and is awaiting review.

  • Hold influencer, public-figure and political-candidate accounts to the same moderation and enforcement standards as everyone else’s accounts.

  • Enable civil-society oversight of enforcement practices by regularly sharing virality and enforcement reports. Disclose which AI tools and models your platform uses to evaluate and moderate content and the data they are trained on. Ensure reliable and affordable access to data tools that researchers and journalists can use to study your platforms in a timely manner.