SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
youtube
November's Unsung Heroes: Election Workers
Poll workers and other volunteers are standing up for democracy and against disinformation. Voters need to stand with them.
Nov 04, 2024
They’ve withstood a global pandemic, power outages and even swarms of bees to help oversee one of the most accurate election processes in the world.
But nothing has presented more of a threat to millions of U.S. election workers and volunteers than the scourge of disinformation coursing across social networks in 2024. Complicating matters further is the small handful of bad actors who seem determined to transform these online lies into acts of violence at the polls and during the immediate aftermath.
These include lies about noncitizen voters that some of the most powerful online influencers are spreading, including Bad Actor Number One — X owner and far-right propagandist Elon Musk. Last week, he marked his second anniversary at the platform’s helm by continuing to boost the false claim that Democrats were transporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants into battleground states to skew the vote toward the party's candidates.
Again, none of this is true. “Election experts agree that noncitizens voting in federal elections is virtually nonexistent” reports Issue One, a national pro-democracy group that works to strengthen and defend the country’s election systems.
The money driving the disinformation
In its most recent report, Issue One revealed some of the dark web of secretive donors supporting the spread of such election disinformation. It’s a rogues gallery of former Trump administration officials with extensive ties to Project 2025, the far-right effort to dismantle U.S. democracy—and the system of checks and balances at its core—and replace it with an unconstitutional authoritarian regime.
Musk himself is a major source of support for the disinformation cabal. He has funneled tens of billions of dollars into efforts to remake U.S. politics in his image. In 2022, Musk spent $44 billion to take control of Twitter (now X), and has spent tens of millions more in an apparently illegal effort to pay for votes this year in Pennsylvania.
Last week, Wired’sVittoria Elliott revealed Musk as the money (more than $100 million and counting) behind a political action committee created to compile and amplify false reports of election fraud—and use these lies to disrupt the vote count. Elliott’s reporting links Musk’s effort with the disinformation-spewing “Election Integrity Network” that Issue One exposed.
Shelter from the storm
In the eye of this tornado of lies stand the election workers themselves.
For years, members of this mostly female civic workforce have warned about threats to their safety. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice set up its Elections Threat Task Force to assess threats of violence against election workers and, when needed, prosecute those who act on these threats.
Over and again tech execs like Musk and Mark Zuckerberg demonstrate their true values when they choose not to spend more on election protection.
David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, has led efforts to safeguard U.S. election processes, paying particular attention to the election administrators and public servants who voters encounter as they cast their ballots. “The fact is somehow the hundreds of thousands of election workers and the millions of volunteers who worked on the 2020 election managed the highest turnout we had ever had in American history,” he said during a recent Free Press webinar. And they did so, Becker added, in the middle of a global pandemic.
“Their work has withstood four years of more scrutiny than any election … in world history,” he said. In that time, Becker noted, they’ve been threatened and harassed “not because they did a bad job, but because they did an outstanding job. They’re American heroes in many ways [but] as we head into this election, they're exhausted.”
Unfortunately, these heroes aren't getting any relief from the technology platforms, which have retreated from previous commitments to safeguard election integrity. And this retreat isn’t just happening at Musk’s X.
X is backsliding, but so are other platforms
In an analysis released on Nov. 1, my colleague Nora Benavidez and I found that nearly every platform has avoided dialogue and accountability around the elections. “With few exceptions, the election-integrity problem has worsened since a 2023 Free Press research report found that the largest and most widely used platforms—Meta, X, and YouTube—were backsliding on commitments they made in the wake of the 2020 elections, as ‘Big Lie’ content overwhelmed much of social media,” we wrote.
Recent reporting and research indicate a trend of declining social-media engagement on public posts that provide useful information about the voting process, including information that would debunk the sorts of lies that vilify election workers. This trend has been documented most extensively on Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads, that have hundreds of millions of users in the United States. According to Free Press’ 2024 polling, more than half of voting-age Americans are using social-media apps to access news this election cycle. These platforms have the expertise to implement election-integrity measures. They have the resources to invest in human moderators and staffing. But over and again tech execs like Musk and Mark Zuckerberg demonstrate their true values when they choose not to spend more on election protection.
Poll workers pay the cost of this negligence. With more and more people in the United States using social networks as a source of news and information about voting, it falls on companies like Google, Meta, and TikTok to stop recycling widely disproved lies about the voting process and stand with election workers in defense of our democracy.
But don’t let the swarm of lies keep you from the polls. “What the voters of this country are experiencing is that voting for the vast majority of people is going to be convenient and easy and secure and safe,” Becker said during the Free Press webinar.
“And that’s the message I really want voters to understand … as some people might be on the fence wondering whether they should turn out or not. Turn out and vote. You’re going to have a good experience.”
Let’s hope he’s right.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Social Media Giants Make Billions Advertising to US Kids
"Our study suggests they have overwhelming financial incentives to continue to delay taking meaningful steps to protect children," said one Harvard researcher.
Dec 27, 2023
Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University revealed Wednesday that social media giants made nearly $11 billion in advertising revenue from U.S.-based users younger than 18 last year.
"As concerns about youth mental health grow, more and more policymakers are trying to introduce legislation to curtail social media platform practices that may drive depression, anxiety, and disordered eating in young people," said senior author Dr. Bryn Austin, a professor and founding director of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders.
"Although social media platforms may claim that they can self-regulate their practices to reduce the harms to young people, they have yet to do so," she continued, "and our study suggests they have overwhelming financial incentives to continue to delay taking meaningful steps to protect children."
For the study, published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, the researchers focused on Google's YouTube; Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram; Snapchat; TikTok; and Twitter—which its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, recently rebranded as X.
"Our finding that social media platforms generate substantial advertising revenue from youth highlights the need for greater data transparency as well as public health interventions and government regulations."
"This is the first known study to estimate social media platform-specific advertising revenue from youth," the researchers noted. "There were several limitations to our study methods and analysis. We heavily relied upon secondary estimated and projected data, as well as the assumption that youth and adults may see a similar number of advertisements; however... social media platforms do not publicly disclose any data on user base ages, nor the advertising revenue generated from them."
To build their simulation model, the team used 2021-22 data from Common Sense Media and Pew Research surveys, the market research company eMarketer, the parental control application Qustodio, and the U.S. Census Bureau.
They found that in 2022, YouTube had 49.7 million U.S.-based users under 18, followed by TikTok (18.9 million), Snapchat (18 million), Instagram (16.7 million), Facebook (9.9 million), and X (7 million)—from which the companies collectively generated $8.6 billion in ad revenue from users ages 13-17 and another $2.1 billion from those 12 and under.
For users 13-17, Instagram led the pack with $4 billion in ad revenue, followed by TikTok ($2 billion) and YouTube ($1.2 billion). For younger children, YouTube was on top at $959.1 million, followed by Instagram ($801.1 million) and Facebook ($137.2 million).
"Our finding that social media platforms generate substantial advertising revenue from youth highlights the need for greater data transparency as well as public health interventions and government regulations," said lead author Dr. Amanda Raffoul, an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
Demands for U.S. regulators and lawmakers to rein in Big Tech—particularly to protect children—have mounted in recent years. Bolstering those calls, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in May issued an advisory calling attention to "the growing concerns about the effects of social media on youth mental health," as the White House unveiled federal actions to better serve kids online.
In October, the District of Columbia and 41 states led by both Democrats and Republicans filed a pair of federal lawsuits against Meta over features allegedly designed to keep young people hooked on the firm's platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
The following month, in a move that Fight for the Future's Evan Greer called "absurd and dangerous," Meta sued the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after the agency proposed an order that would prohibit the company from monetizing minors' data.
Last week, the FTC suggested significant updates to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Zamaan Qureshi of the Design It for Us coalition celebrated that "the proposed rule directly targets Big Tech's toxic business model by requiring the invasive practice of surveillance advertising to be off by default, limiting harmful nudges that keep young people coming back to the platform even when they don't want to, and including protections against the collection of biometric information."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Google-Owned YouTube Makes Millions From Channels Pushing Climate Disinformation: Analysis
"It's time for YouTube to step up, detox its platform, and protect the integrity of the fight against the climate crisis," said Ekō's campaign director.
Jul 28, 2023
Google-owned YouTube is again facing allegations of profiting from not enforcing its own ban on the monetization of climate misinformation, this time in a report published Friday amid legislative battles in Brazil over policies on the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous rights, and social media.
Google announced in October 2021 that for advertisers and publishers along with creators on its video platform YouTube, the company would "prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."
For four weeks, researchers with Ekō—a group formerly known as SumOfUs that works to curb the power of big corporations—reviewed 60 YouTube videos in English and Portuguese that contained disinformation and conspiracy theories about Amazon deforestation, Indigenous rights, and the climate emergency.
Over two-thirds of the videos were monetized, and Ekō identified more than 150 brands in the ads. Using a common industry tool, researchers estimated that the channels—which collectively had over 40 million subscribers and more than 5 million views—earn $636,000 to $10.1 million a year through monetization.
"The proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories are helping to derail efforts by the Lula administration to advance policy agendas around Amazon protection, Indigenous land rights, and social media regulation."
"Well-known Brazilian and global brands like Lyft, Calvin Klein, Budweiser, Panasonic, and Samsung, as well as environmental and human rights groups like Friends of the Earth U.K., UNICEF, and the Peace Corps, are appearing next to extreme climate denial content and conspiracy theories," the report states, "effectively pouring money into the pockets of conspiracy theorists and climate deniers."
"Ekō researchers found top-name apparel, electronics, and drink brands appearing next to videos suggesting actor Leonardo DiCaprio funded nongovernmental organizations to commit arson in the Amazon," the publication continues. "Other false claims include that the rainforest is too humid to catch fire, and that manmade global warming is a lie."
"The proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories are helping to derail efforts by the Lula administration to advance policy agendas around Amazon protection, Indigenous land rights, and social media regulation," the document adds, pushing for policy "that prevents platforms from monetizing and profiting from disinformation and lies that are subverting the legislative process."
In a statement Friday, Ekō campaign director Vicky Wyatt also demanded action from the company.
"While global warming, deforestation, and wildfires reach their highest levels ever recorded, YouTube's shameless greenwashing is exposed—with the company giving profits to climate deniers to the tune of millions," said Wyatt. "This is a clear slap in the face to the brands whose advertisements unknowingly support climate disinformation. It's time for YouTube to step up, detox its platform, and protect the integrity of the fight against the climate crisis."
Ekō's analysis follows a May report from Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) for which researchers found 200 YouTube videos containing climate mis- and disinformation. The videos had a total of 73.8 million views and all had featured ads.
YouTube spokesperson Michael Aciman toldEngadget in response to those findings that the company is "constantly working" to remove content that violates its rules and welcomes third-party feedback to "help improve the accuracy of our enforcement over time."
"In 2021, we launched a new, industry-leading policy that explicitly prohibits ads from running on content promoting false claims about the existence and causes of climate change, which we designed in consultation with experts and authoritative sources on climate science," Aciman also said. "We do allow policy debate or discussions of climate-related initiatives, but when content crosses the line to climate change denial, we remove ads from serving on those videos.”
Meanwhile, Callum Hood, head of research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, part of the CAAD coalition, said at the time that "despite Google's green grandstanding, its ads continue to fuel the climate denial industry."
"Whether it's taking cash to target users with climate disinformation, or running ads that make climate denial content profitable, the company is selling out," Hood added. "Tech companies make big promises on hate and misinformation because they know it's hard to see if they've kept them. We need to force Google to open up the black box of its advertising business."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular