| Friend,
Big. Tech. Cares. No, they really do. That’s why last Friday, 20 Big Tech companies promised to do more to stop the spread of AI-generated disinformation and deepfakes that are appearing online to deceive voters during this consequential election year.1
When something sounds too good to be true, it often is: Every election cycle, tech companies pledge to uphold a vague set of democratic standards and then fail to fully deliver on these promises.2
It’s cold comfort to learn that platforms including Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, TikTok and X have signed a “voluntary accord” to crack down on political deepfakes and election lies. As I wrote in an Op-Ed for CNN,3 the accord does not outright ban the use of political deepfakes. Nor have the platforms agreed to scale up their election-integrity teams — the same teams many of these companies have gutted over the last year. And we know what happens when these companies fail to confront election lies: The failure to prevent the spread of disinformation was a key factor leading to the Jan. 6 insurrection.4
If the platforms truly want to prevent a repeat of their 2020 failures, they need to do more than just pinkie-swear to do better. Free Press has called for actual proof that these companies are enforcing their rules and are urging the platforms to clearly flag and debunk deceptive content, something they’ve failed to do with any consistency in the past.5
Free Press will always demand real commitments from tech companies — can we count on your donation today to keep our work going in this high-stakes election year? Last year, we released our latest report on the failures of social-media platforms. Big Tech Backslide found that Meta, X and YouTube eliminated a total of 17 critical policies across their platforms in 2023,6 rolling back election misinformation policies and laying off wide swaths of their trust and safety teams.
Tech companies are turning their backs on the outsized — and potentially dangerous — role they play during election years.7 As the AI tools used to create deepfakes of politicians become widely available, social media will be overrun with more disinformation than ever before.8 Unless the platforms enforce stronger rules against the proliferation of lies, we expect more high-tech efforts to hijack elections around the world.
Free Press will continue urging the companies that signed this toothless pledge to implement a detailed set of guardrails against rampant abuse of AI tools by reinvesting in real people to safeguard voters. We’re also calling on lawmakers to require tech platforms to publish regular transparency reports on their AI tools and rules for political ads.
Free Press is fighting on multiple fronts against AI abuses and threats against civil society, but our work cannot continue without your continued support.
Democracy cannot survive without reliable access to accurate news and information. Voluntary pledges from the companies that act as intermediaries to this information are just PR exercises. Unless the companies permanently restore election-integrity teams and actually enforce rules against the rampant abuse of AI tools, democracy worldwide could well hang in the balance.
Thank you,
Tim and the rest of the Free Press Action team
freepress.net
1. “Leading Tech Firms Pledge to Address Election Risks Posed by AI,” CNN, Feb. 17, 2024 2. “Microsoft, Google, Meta and Other Companies Pledge to Prevent AI Election Interference,” NBC, Feb. 16, 2024 3. “Opinion: Big Tech Companies Are Saying the Right Thing About Fighting Deepfakes. But Will They?” CNN, Feb. 23, 2024 4. “Facebook Whistleblower Testifies in Congress,” CNN, Oct. 5, 2021 5. “New Report: Free Press Research Exposes Social Media's Role in the Looming Election Crisis,” Free Press, Oct. 27, 2022 6. “Free Press Report Documents Big Tech's Rollback of Social-Media Safeguards and the Threat to 2024 Elections,” Free Press. Dec. 7, 2023 7. “New Report — Freedom on the Net 2017: Manipulating Social Media to Undermine Democracy,” Freedom House, Nov. 13, 2017 8. “With the Rise of AI, Social Media Platforms Could Face Perfect Storm of Misinformation in 2024,” CNN, July 17, 2023  |
