Last month we joined several allies in a lawsuit challenging President Trump on an executive order seeking to punish social media companies for fact checking the President’s online posts. That order came after the President tweeted false information calling the security of voting-by-mail into question and Twitter added a note to the tweet pointing people toward factual information about mail-in-ballots. To help protect our democracy, social media companies must do a better job of moderating false and misleading content. Our lawsuit will preserve their ability to do so — even in the face of a President attempting to sow chaos to boost his re-election campaign.

But standing up to self-serving politicians alone is not enough to improve political information online. We must demand better from social media giants like Facebook as well. Last week, Facebook announced a handful of cosmetic changes designed to safeguard the election — but the meager adjustments don’t go nearly far enough. We outlined exactly where Facebook’s changes fall short on MapLight.org as well as in our weekly Decoder newsletter tracking news and research on deceptive digital politics. And because we know Congress will not put meaningful reforms in place ahead of the election, we’re supporting a new Election Integrity Roadmap from Accountable Tech to demand that social platforms immediately implement bold policies to prevent the spread of misinformation leading up to the election. 

In the weeks ahead, we’ll continue fighting to protect the integrity of the 2020 election as well as the long-term health of our democracy. Thank you for your support during this critical time.

Best,
Dan

Daniel G. Newman
MapLight President & Co-Founder