Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

More than 100 groups demand social media platforms do more to fight election disinformation

online disinformation
tommy/Getty Images

Two days after Elon Musk said he would lift Twitter’s permanent ban on Donald Trump if his acquisition goes through, more than 100 organizations called on social media companies to combat disinformation during the 2022 midterm elections.

In a letter sent to the CEOs of the biggest social media companies on Thursday, the leaders of civil rights and democracy reform groups requested the platforms take a series of steps, including “introducing friction to reduce the spread and amplification of disinformation, consistent enforcement of robust civic integrity policies; and greater transparency into business models that allow disinformation to spread.”

The letter – whose signatories include Common Cause, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Campaign Legal Center, the League of Women Voters and the NAACP – praised the companies for instituting plans to combat disinformation while demanding the platforms do more and do it consistently.


Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet intends to offer a bill Thursday to establish a federal commission to regulate tech companies. According to The Washington Post, the bill would give the government authority to review platforms’ algorithms and to create rules governing content moderation.

“We need an agency with expertise to have a thoughtful approach here,” Bennet told the Post.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

But for now, the companies receiving the letter (Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snap, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram) make their own rules. And in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection fueled by unfounded claims that Joe Biden stole the presidential election from Donald Trump, the groups behind the letter fear further damage to democratic institutions.

“Disinformation related to the 2020 election has not gone away but has only continued to proliferate. In fact, according to recent polls, more than 40 percent of Americans still do not believe President Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election. Further, fewer Americans have confidence in elections today than they did in the immediate aftermath of the January 6th insurrection,” they wrote.

The letter lays out eight steps the companies can take to stop the spread of disinformation:

  • Limit the opportunities for users to interact with election disinformation, going beyond the warning labels that have been introduced.
  • Devote more resources to blocking disinformation that targets people who do not speak English.
  • Consistently enforce “civic integrity policies” during election and non-election years.
  • Apply those policies to live content.
  • Prioritize efforts to stop the spread of unfounded voter fraud claims, known as the “Big Lie.”
  • Increase fact-checking of election content, including political advertisements and statements from public officials.
  • Allow outside researchers and watchdogs access to social media data.
  • Increase transparency of internal policies, political ads and algorithms.

“The last presidential election, and the lies that continued to flourish in its wake on social media, demonstrated the dire threat that election disinformation poses to our democracy,” said Yosef Getachew, director of the media and democracy program for Common Cause. “Social media companies must learn from what was unleashed on their platforms in 2020 and helped foster the lies that led a violent, racist mob to storm the Capitol on January 6th. The companies must take concrete steps to prepare their platforms for the coming onslaught of disinformation in the midterm elections. These social media giants must implement meaningful reforms to prevent and reduce the spread of election disinformation while safeguarding our democracy and protecting public safety.”

Read More

Should States Regulate AI?

Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-CA, speaks at an AI conference on Capitol Hill with experts

Provided

Should States Regulate AI?

WASHINGTON —- As House Republicans voted Thursday to pass a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation by states, Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-CA, and AI experts said the measure would be necessary to ensure US dominance in the industry.

“We want to make sure that AI continues to be led by the United States of America, and we want to make sure that our economy and our society realizes the potential benefits of AI deployment,” Obernolte said.

Keep ReadingShow less
The AI Race We Need: For a Better Future, Not Against Another Nation

The concept of AI hovering among the public.

Getty Images, J Studios

The AI Race We Need: For a Better Future, Not Against Another Nation

The AI race that warrants the lion’s share of our attention and resources is not the one with China. Both superpowers should stop hurriedly pursuing AI advances for the sake of “beating” the other. We’ve seen such a race before. Both participants lose. The real race is against an unacceptable status quo: declining lifespans, increasing income inequality, intensifying climate chaos, and destabilizing politics. That status quo will drag on, absent the sorts of drastic improvements AI can bring about. AI may not solve those problems but it may accelerate our ability to improve collective well-being. That’s a race worth winning.

Geopolitical races have long sapped the U.S. of realizing a better future sooner. The U.S. squandered scarce resources and diverted talented staff to close the alleged missile gap with the USSR. President Dwight D. Eisenhower rightfully noted, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” He realized that every race comes at an immense cost. In this case, the country was “spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Closeup of Software engineering team engaged in problem-solving and code analysis

Closeup of Software engineering team engaged in problem-solving and code analysis.

Getty Images, MTStock Studio

AI Is Here. Our Laws Are Stuck in the Past.

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises a future once confined to science fiction: personalized medicine accounting for your specific condition, accelerated scientific discovery addressing the most difficult challenges, and reimagined public education designed around AI tutors suited to each student's learning style. We see glimpses of this potential on a daily basis. Yet, as AI capabilities surge forward at exponential speed, the laws and regulations meant to guide them remain anchored in the twentieth century (if not the nineteenth or eighteenth!). This isn't just inefficient; it's dangerously reckless.

For too long, our approach to governing new technologies, including AI, has been one of cautious incrementalism—trying to fit revolutionary tools into outdated frameworks. We debate how century-old privacy torts apply to vast AI training datasets, how liability rules designed for factory machines might cover autonomous systems, or how copyright law conceived for human authors handles AI-generated creations. We tinker around the edges, applying digital patches to analog laws.

Keep ReadingShow less
Nurturing the Next Generation of Journalists
man using MacBook Air

Nurturing the Next Generation of Journalists

“Student journalists are uniquely positioned to take on the challenges of complicating the narrative about how we see each other, putting forward new solutions to how we can work together and have dialogue across difference,” said Maxine Rich, the Program Manager with Common Ground USA. I had the chance to interview her earlier this year about Common Ground Journalism, a new initiative to support students reporting in contentious times.

A partnership with The Fulcrum and the Latino News Network (LNN), I joined Maxine and Nicole Donelan, Program Assistant with Common Ground USA, as co-instructor of the first Common Ground Journalism cohort, which ran for six weeks between January and March 2025.

Keep ReadingShow less