The Latest Tech Hearing Is About Helping Trump on Election Day

[soothsayer]

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Danielle Citron
@daniellecitron
Spencer Overton and I have a piece in @Slate arguing that today’s Senate hearing is an assault on democracy that will prevent tech cos from tackling election disinfo at the precise moment we need their help

The Latest Tech Hearing Is About Helping Trump on Election Day
slate.com
https://t.co/OC3r0liE12?amp=1

Senate Republicans don’t want answers from the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter. They want to cow them.

Snip

Consider the long-standing Russian efforts to suppress the Black vote. In 2016, fake accounts built a significant following among Black users by focusing on racial inequality. On Election Day, the operators bought ads targeted at Black audiences encouraging them not to vote.

The pages weren’t actually run by Black activists, but by the Russian Internet Research Agency, which was trying to help elect Donald Trump. Although Black residents make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 38 percent of the Russians’ U.S. Facebook ad buys and 50 percent of the user clicks. While we cannot know the ads’ actual impact, the 2016 election marked the most significant decline in Black voter turnout in modern history.

These efforts are continuing. In March, Facebook and Twitter removed a network of Russian-backed accounts originating in Ghana and Nigeria targeting Black communities in the U.S. Just last week, intelligence officials reported that Russia and Iran stole U.S. voter registration data to interfere in the election, and that Iran sent personalized emails threatening recipients to “Vote for Trump or else!”

The Senate hearing is the latest in a series of threats by Trump and his allies to expose social media companies to legal liability for removing or flagging disinformation.

[SheltieLover]

1. Desperate repukes!