On Wednesday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren released a new plan to target the rampant spread of disinformation that plagues U.S. elections. The 2020 presidential hopeful wanting to hold Big Tech companies accountable isn’t too surprising, given that she’s brought Facebook to task in the recent past. Her plan still covers new ground, however, stressing that social media giants and our government need to do serious work to curb misinformation. She also wants to create civil and criminal penalties for knowingly spreading disinformation online with the intent of voter suppression.
Facebook, as Daily Kos previously covered, does allow misinformation, provided it’s in a political ad. Warren’s plan encourages Facebook, as well as YouTube, TikTok, Google, Reddit, and Twitter, to explicitly label state-controlled media (Like Russia Today, also known as RT) on their respective platforms. She also wants these companies to establish “consequences” for accounts that try to interfere with voting, noting that not all misinformation comes from “fake accounts” or “foreign interest.”
Warren writes that right now, contrary to what companies might be saying, major tech companies aren’t making enough of an effort to curb misinformation. “Tech companies are trying to assure the public they have changed,” she writes. “But their efforts are no more than nibbles around the edges: periodic purges of inauthentic accounts, banning political ads on some platforms, and slow, inconsistent fact-checking. The same fundamental threats to our elections remain.” The Massachusetts senator also urges these big tech companies to be more transparent about algorithms.
Of major interest, she wants new civil and criminal penalties for anyone who knowingly pushes false information about voting in our elections, like when to vote or how to do so. “I will push for new laws that impose tough civil and criminal penalties for knowingly disseminating this kind of information,” she writes, “which has the explicit purpose of undermining the basic right to vote.”
If elected, Warren pledged to reinstate the cybersecurity coordinator position at the National Security Council. Why don’t we have such an important position? You can thank Trump for that, as his administration eliminated the role.
Her plan also suggests establishing new rules that would allow these social platforms to share information with the government and one another, making it a cross-platform crackdown. She notes this would be done while “respecting individuals’ privacy.” She also said she’d consider more sanctions, using Russia as an example.
“I’m sending a clear message to anyone associated with the Warren campaign: I will not tolerate the use of false information or false accounts to attack my opponents, promote my campaign, or undermine our elections,” she writes, referring to misleading reports, videos, audio, or manipulated videos. “And I urge my fellow candidates to do the same.”
She made a Twitter thread about the subject as well.