Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit
the amount presidential candidates have spent on Facebook ads over time (either in aggregate or breaking down
spend by date) and as well as searchable spend information for other (non-presidential) candidates.
By improving searching options and identifying ads that are targeted to smaller audiences, these updates to some
extent advance the civil rights community’s goals of making the Ad Library a useful tool for uncovering and
analyzing voter suppression and misinformation targeted at specific communities. Facebook has asserted that
privacy risks could be potentially created by sharing additional information about the audiences targeted for political
ads, such as ZIP codes, or more granular location information of those receiving the ads. Due to this limiting factor,
the current Ad Library updates do not fully respond to the civil rights community’s assertions that such information
is critical to identifying and addressing patterns of online voter suppression. Civil rights groups have provided
Facebook with specific suggestions about ways to provide transparency without sacrificing privacy, ands continue
to recommend that Facebook explore and commit to privacy-protective ways to provide more visibility into the
targeting criteria used by advertisers so that the Ad Library can be a more effective tool for shedding light on
election manipulation, suppression, and discrimination.
E. Additional Auditor Concerns
1.
Recent Troubling Enforcement Decisions
The Auditors are deeply concerned that Facebook’s recent decisions on posts by President Trump indicate a
tremendous setback for all of the policies that attempt to ban voter suppression on Facebook. From the Auditors’
perspective, allowing the Trump posts to remain establishes a terrible precedent that may lead other politicians and
non-politicians to spread false information about legal voting methods, which would effectively allow the platform
to be weaponized to suppress voting. Mark Zuckerberg asserted in his 2019 speech at Georgetown University that
“voting is voice” and is a crucial form of free expression. If that is the case, then the Auditors cannot understand
why Facebook has allowed misrepresentations of methods of voting that undermine Facebook’s protection and
promotion of this crucial form of free expression.
In May 2020, President Trump made a series of posts in which he labeled official, state-issued ballots or ballot
applications “illegal” and gave false information about how to obtain a ballot. Specifically, his posts included the
following statements:
•
“State of Nevada “thinks” that they can send out illegal vote by mail ballots, creating a great Voter Fraud
scenario for the State and the U.S. They can’t! If they do, “I think” I can hold up funds to the State. Sorry, but
you must not cheat in elections”
•
“Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was
done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. . .” (Note: reference to absentee “ballots”
was subsequently changed to “ballot applications”)
•
“There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail
boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor
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