The Biden campaign has written to Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of regression over misinformation policies. As reported by Axios, the Biden campaign’s letter, sent on the eve of the first Presidential debate, presses Facebook over its misinformation polices to remove posts by Donald Trump.
Facebook and its misinformation policies have long become a politically charged issue. However, it has recently emerged that Facebook is failing to crack down on Coronavirus misinformation on the platform.
Facebook has also faced more backlash after an ex-employee blasted the company for its inability to tackled misinformation.
Now the company is coming under political pressure to make changes as the election draws closer. This is certainly the last bit of news Facebook would want to hear.
Biden blasts Facebook’s misinformation policies
The letter centres around the posts of President Trump and trying to get some of them removed. It even described the company as “the nation’s foremost propagator of disinformation about the voting process”. This is in spite of the fact Facebook has set up its own voting hub to trying and get users to register to vote.
The letter went onto say that “rather than seeing progress, we have seen regression”. This surrounds other accusations that claim Facebook’s promise of action has been used as a reason for inaction.
It also claims that the Biden campaign will call out Facebook’s failures over the next 36 days before the election.
Facebook responds to Biden letter
A Facebook spokesperson, Andy Stone, has responded to the letter. He points out that there are distinctly different opinions on both sides of the political spectrum on how Facebook should respond to misinformation.
Stone says that Facebook has “rules in place to protect the integrity of the election and free expression”. He claims Facebook will “continue to apply them impartially”.
This all comes after Trump has encouraged voters to go to Polling Stations to check if officials had tabulated their votes. He has amplified these views across both Facebook and Twitter.
Biden’s campaigning points out that these posts encourage illegal behavior. As a result, they believe, Facebook should take them down.
Social media was always going to play a big role in this election after all the controversy of four years ago. Platforms such as Facebook find themselves in a tricky position of how to deal with political messaging. They face pressure from both sides which makes their job to apply its own policies a very difficult one.