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Report

10 Sep 2019

Author:
Paul M. Barrett, NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights

USA: Report recommends major social media companies take additional action to counter disinformation in advance of 2020 election

"Disinformation and the 2020 Election: How the social media industry should prepare", September 2019

This report assesses some of the forms and sources of disinformation likely to play a role during the presidential election campaign in 2020... The report explores these risks and analyzes what the major social media companies—Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (owned by Google)—have done to harden their defenses against disinformation... In the absence of government regulation, it is incumbent on the companies to exercise more vigorous self-governance... To their credit, the companies are doing more—more communicating with each other, the government, and outside experts; more deleting of fraudulent accounts; more mobilizing of special teams focused on election irregularities. But there’s still much more to do.

... Recommendations to the social media companies:

  • Detect and remove deepfakes...
  • Remove provably false content in general...
  • Defend against for-profit disinformation...
  • Support legislation on political ads and voter suppression...

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