top of page
Aug 19, 20204 min read

How has Facebook impeded civil rights?

By: Kay Rollins


Last month, workers at Relman Colfax published two years of work. The report, a scathing indictment of Facebook’s impact on civil rights, exposed voter suppression, frequent hate speech, and poor content moderation practices on the platform, prompting new calls to punish or break up the massive conglomerate. But these developments aren’t new: Facebook has been violating our rights for more than a decade. After a 2012 investigation, the FTC concluded that Facebook “deceived'' its customers by “telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.” More recently, Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked with Trump in 2016, to breach the data of 50 million users. Facebook was also a hotbed for Russian disinformation during the 2016 election and continues to be targeted for foreign influence. These problems impact a huge portion of American adults:, 7 out of 10 adults still use the platform. With such widespread influence, understanding Facebook’s impact on civil rights is key to defending those liberties— especially with the 2020 election coming up.


While Facebook‘s community guidelines officially outlaw “misinformation” about voting, the platform refuses to take down misleading posts targeted at potential voters. Postpublica and First Draft, a firm which studies misinformation, found that of the most engaged Facebook posts that mentioned vote by mail, half of them included false or misleading information. Many of the posts propagate claims about the potential for fraud in vote-by-mail: One— with over 140,000 shares— advocates for restricting the process, saying that voters can use ballots sent to previous tenants to vote multiple times in the election. In a more widely publicized instance, Facebook has also refused to take down false claims from President Trump about state voting laws. But Trump isn’t the only one: Auditors agree that Facebook gives the powerful more freedom to misinform than the average user. Even though most Americans trust politicians on issues of voting, Facebook ensures that these same politicians have the least regulated voices on their platform, creating a breeding ground for misinformation. Therefore, despite taking down over 100,000 similar posts with misinformation, last month’s civil rights assessment found that Facebook is still “far too reluctant to adopt strong rules to limit misinformation and voter suppression.” Unfortunately, much like the poll taxes and literacy tests of its day, the voter suppression on Facebook tends to target people of color and low- income communities: Marginalized groups intend to vote by mail at a higher rate than other groups, leaving them vulnerable to these misleading claims. While little quantitative data exists on the impact of Facebook on voting by mail, Facebook's tolerance for misinformation allows people to spread disinformation and obstruct others’ right to vote.


Civil rights aren’t just about voting— they’re also about the right of marginalized groups to have equity in society. Unfortunately, Facebook has become a platform for alt-right groups to organize and attack marginalized communities across the country. A study by the Tech Transparency Project found that white supremacists use the website as both a recruiting ground for new members and a place to organize acts of violence— like the Unite the Right Rally, which left one dead in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2018. Of the 221 white supremacists organizations designated by the SPLC, 51% have a Facebook presence. Anti-semitic posts proliferate on the website as well: According to the ADL, over 200,000 members of the frequently anti-Semitic “QAnon Public Group” remain uncensored. While Facebook refuses to censors these pages, they also actively direct people towards them: internal research from 2016 “found that 64% of all individuals in extremist groups joined based on a suggestion from Facebook.” These groups pose a major threat to civil rights in America: white supremacist, anti-Semitic, and alt-right groups seek to strip voting rights, end equal protection laws, and threaten the lives of millions of marginalized individuals.


While many of these threats to civil rights come from inside the US, Russian or other foreign propaganda has proliferated on Facebook for the same purposes. The Mueller report confirmed the long-suspected role that Russia played in the 2016 election on Facebook, saying that they used the website to inflame social divides and undermine the election process. To Facebook’s defense, the Russian government was tech-savvy and hid their involvement well, so Facebook might not have even known the extent of these importations until after the election. However, even after they knew, Facebook maintained their lackluster content moderation on foreign influence, making them culpable in the continued abuse of the Kremlin: Facebook still does not remove factually incorrect political ads posted by political groups, which Russia took advantage of in the 2018 midterms to sow disinformation. In just the last few days before the midterms, Facebook discovered more than 100 new Russian troll-farm accounts. Implicit in Civil rights is the assumption that one can vote free of correct Ian or manipulation— and Facebook has failed to address this.


Although Facebook cannot patrol every post on their site, they can certainly do better. So, as the 2020 election approaches, it’s important to put pressure on social media platforms to protect civil rights, rather than degrade them.


Discussion questions:

  • How can the federal government protect our elections from disinformation?

  • How should Facebook handle white supremacists on its website?

  • Can Zuckerburg ever restore the image of Facebook?

  • Should social media posts from politicians be held to the same standards as posts from normal people?

  • What can be done to hold Facebook accountable for violations of their civil rights?


Sources used/further reading:





Comments

bottom of page