Hello,

The U.S. elections are underway, and Facebook Groups are a major vector for disinformation, extremism and other threats to election integrity.¹

To make matters worse, Facebook's own algorithmic recommendation engines actively grow these networks globally by promoting them to unsuspecting users — something the company has known since 2016, when the company's own researchers presented evidence showing that "64% of all extremist group joins are due to [Facebook's] recommendation tools..."²

With disinformation rampant as American voters begin to cast their ballots, Facebook must take the tangible step to reduce the number of people exposed to flat-out wrong information about voting. We hope to set a standard for Facebook to follow in upcoming global elections if the platform is similarly engulfed by misinformation.

Tell Mark Zuckerberg: Stop Group recommendations until the U.S. election results are certified.

Recently, the company acknowledged the role of Groups in spreading misinformation by discontinuing recommendations of health Groups to "prioritize connecting people with accurate health information."³ While this is a good step, this isn't a strategy — it's a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, with devastating consequences.

Facebook has known about this problem for years, but doubled down with an investment in Groups. Right now, Groups' growth is giving malicious actors a big audience while a divisive election is underway in the U.S., but we should all be worried. Without mechanisms in place to rein in such bad behavior, Facebook is giving a green light to anyone interested in manipulating voters elsewhere, too.

Tell Facebook: Stop group recommendations to protect the integrity of the U.S. elections.

  Sign the Petition  

Thanks for speaking out,

Ashley and the team at Mozilla

Sources:

1. Shira Ovide, "How Facebook Can Slow QAnon for Real," New York Times, 21 September 2020.
2. Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman, "Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less Divisive," Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2020.
3. Tom Alison, "Our Latest Steps to Keep Facebook Groups Safe," Facebook Newsroom, 17 September 2020.