Attorneys hired to review Facebook's civil rights policies concluded today that the company has failed to adequately combat discrimination and voter suppression on its platform
The company-sanctioned report reflects a number of arguments advocates have made about the company, including that Facebook's policies prohibiting voter suppression and misinformation are not applied evenly, and that the company should be taking stronger steps to root out white supremacy and other forms of hate.
"Facebook has made policy and enforcement choices that leave our election exposed to interference by the President and others who seek to use misinformation to sow confusion and suppress voting," the audit states. Facebook should continue to broaden its policies about what constitutes voter suppression and misinformation and enforce that policy to the fullest extent possible, they write.
"The lack of clarity about the relationship between those two values is devastating," the auditors wrote. "It will require hard balancing, but that kind of balancing of rights and interests has been part of the American dialogue since its founding and there is no reason that Facebook cannot harmonize those values, if it really wants to do so."
Facebook tapped civil rights attorneys Laura Murphy and Megan Cacace to lead the independent review of its civil rights policies. The pair interviewed hundreds of civil rights leaders and lawmakers to catalog their concerns with Facebook, and then dug into Facebook's existing practices and policies. Wednesday's report marks the audit's third and final installment, though Murphy and Cacace have agreed to continue advising Facebook in a capacity still to be determined.
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