Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit Starting in July of 2019, while the Auditors were embarking on the final phase of the audit, civil rights groups repeatedly emphasized to Facebook that their biggest concerns were that domestic political forces would use the platform as a vehicle to engage in voter and census suppression. They said that they did not want 2020 to be a repeat of 2016, the last presidential election, where minority communities – African Americans especially — were targeted for racial division, disinformation and voter suppression by Russian actors. The civil rights groups also knew that the Civil Rights Audit was not going to go on forever, and therefore, they sought a commitment from Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg that a robust civil rights infrastructure be put in place at Facebook. Soon after these civil rights priorities were relayed by the Auditors, in September of 2019 Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications, Nick Clegg, said that Facebook had been and would continue to exempt politicians from its third-party fact checking program. He also announced that the company had a standing policy to treat speech from politicians as newsworthy that should be seen and heard and not interfered with by Facebook unless outweighed by the risk of harm. The civil rights community was deeply dismayed and fearful of the impact of these decisions on our democratic processes, especially their effect on marginalized communities. In their view, Facebook gave the powerful more freedom on the platform to make false, voter-suppressive and divisive statements than the average user. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in his October 2019 speech at Georgetown University began to amplify his prioritization of a definition of free expression as a governing principle of the platform. In my view as a civil liberties and civil rights expert, Mark elevated a selective view of free expression as Facebook’s most cherished value. Although the speech gave a nod to “voting as voice” and spoke about the ways that Facebook empowers the average user, Mark used part of the speech to double down on the company’s treatment of politicians’ speech. The Auditors have expressed significant concern about the company’s steadfast commitment since Mark’s October 2019 Georgetown speech to protect a particular definition of free expression, even where that has meant allowing harmful and divisive rhetoric that amplifies hate speech and threatens civil rights. Elevating free expression is a good thing, but it should apply to everyone. When it means that powerful politicians do not have to abide by the same rules that everyone else does, a hierarchy of speech is created that privileges certain voices over less powerful voices. The prioritization of free expression over all other values, such as equality and non-discrimination, is deeply troubling to the Auditors. Mark Zuckerberg’s speech and Nick Clegg’s announcements deeply impacted our civil rights work and added new challenges to reining in voter suppression. Ironically, Facebook has no qualms about reining in speech by the proponents of the anti-vaccination movement, or limiting misinformation about COVID -19, but when it comes to voting, Facebook has been far too reluctant to adopt strong rules to limit misinformation and voter suppression. With less than five months before a presidential election, it confounds the Auditors as to why Facebook has failed to grasp the urgency of interpreting existing policies to make them effective against suppression and ensuring that their enforcement tools are as effective as 9