Are platforms “doing enough” for elections?
This is the season for all sorts of reports coming out about what online platforms should do around elections, but how do we tell if it is “enough”?
I want to thank all of you who voted in my poll about how I should handle both the newsletter and the podcast. I’ve been getting some very thoughtful responses that range from just general encouragement to the fact that some of you like one format over the other and don’t want to miss out if I’m doing it every other week, and others who are like, “Katie, don’t kill yourself.”
I’m still doing back-to-back this week because I have the content (Thursday’s podcast is on the Indonesia elections), but I will think over the next week about how I can better streamline all of this. I appreciate your feedback and patience as I figure this out.
One of the reasons I wanted to do both a newsletter and podcast this week is all of the election reports coming out. It’s like Oprah is doing one of her favorite things shows, except every org under the sun - or at least it feels that way - is coming out with its version of “Here’s what the tech companies (and a few others) should do to prepare for 2024.”
Let’s look at the various reports that have come out in the last few weeks (in no particular order):
Center for Democracy and Technology: Seismic Shifts: How Economic, Technological, and Political Trends are Challenging Independent Counter-Election-Disinformation Initiatives in the United States
Digital Action, convenor of the Global Coalition for Tech Justice: Year of Democracy
Accountable Tech, and others: Democracy by Design
Center for American Progress: Protecting Democracy Online in 2024 and Beyond
On top of that, you have the best practices guide we did at the Integrity Institute in May; our second one is coming out soon.
This week, the Code of Practice on Disinformation also released the July 2023 reports from some of the platforms, which includes some of their efforts, and the EU launched its DSA Transparency Database, where you can see in real-time the “specific statements of reasons to any affected recipient when they remove or otherwise restrict the availability of and access to information provided by the recipient.” There are many categories, but one is “Negative effects on civic discourse or elections.” When I first checked this an hour ago, there were like 6500. I just checked (at 7:30 pm Eastern on Sept 26), and there are 9571. It keeps going up with every refresh.
This afternoon, I had grand dreams that I would compile a comparative analysis of all these reports. Once I started pulling all the recommendations, I realized this would be a MUCH bigger project than I could do in just a few hours. This is because A) there are a lot of recommendations, B) there’s no standardization of how these groups did them, and C) they cover a wide range of topics. So, I will do it, just not today.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am THRILLED that we are finally talking about 2024. I’ve been begging for us to be doing so forever.
However, I’m going to come in with my usual words of caution and then some thoughts on how we should approach evaluating this work over the coming year:
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Not all platforms are the same. This means some of these reports are clearly aimed at the legacy platforms (Meta, Google, etc.) and don’t address the newer ones. We shouldn’t expect every platform to have the same problems, resources, or time to have built up the same defenses. Thus, we should view these reports as frameworks versus prescriptive answers to all our problems.
We don’t talk enough about the values tradeoffs. I understand where the authors and contributors to each and every one of these reports are coming from. I really do. But they also aren’t addressing the real tradeoffs they are asking the companies to make between all sorts of things, especially speech and safety. That’s where the real tricky stuff sits and where I think we should be doing more exploration.
These are aspirational asks. No one can do them all. - Both things can be true: we have a long list of things we would do in the ideal world and can’t do them all at once. I wish these reports would prioritize which recommendations they would want to tackle first and foremost and which are nice to have. That doesn’t make good politics, so I understand why they don’t, but they still should. Because I guarantee that any election person at any platform would look at all of this and start hyperventilating.
The reports provide valuable perspectives, but they don’t speak for everyone. The people who wrote these reports are very smart and well-intentioned. However, some only focus on the US. Others come from a very different perspective on freedom of speech. Again, some focus on the legacy platforms, not the newer ones. Let’s not forget that these aren’t the only organizations and people with perspectives on what should be done.
Companies are doing this work, even if they haven’t announced it yet. To be blunt, no platform will rush any public announcements about their election plans because someone put out a report. Frankly, it’s good that the reports come first so they can be incorporated into said planning. (I would have liked this planning to have started sooner, but I’ll take what I can get.) But please, I beg of all of you, when the platforms start coming out with their plans (which they will at some point), please don’t say that they did it just because someone put out a report.
Now, here comes the tricky part. How do we know if the companies are “doing enough” to prepare?
It probably won’t surprise you that I hate the phrase “doing enough.” It’s why I put it in quotes. As much as people would love to make this quantifiable - in the end, you have to mix a lot of qualitative into that cocktail.
But here are some things to watch:
Did they take the time to make policy? I’m not asking if you agree with it. I’m asking whether they took the time to weigh the hard questions and make value judgments. You might disagree with them, but no one will please everyone. The question is, did they care enough to even think about it?
How do they enforce said policies? Some platforms are going to have the ability to look for content proactively. Some are going to have the policies but can only reactively enforce them. We can debate the benefit of having a policy if you can’t enforce it (I think that exists), but we should be realistic about where a platform is. End of the day, nothing will be perfect, so stop expecting it to be. Still, we should watch how well they can do in this regard.
C-Suite decisions are different than what the front-line workers do. Two things can be true. We can desire that those ultimately in charge put more resources into this work. We can want them to make different decisions. At the same time, a group of people is doing the day-to-day work. They’re doing what they can in the restraints they’ve been given. But you know what - every time a report and/or headline comes out that says a company isn’t doing enough, the ones that take it the hardest are the front-line workers. They read an article or a report and then choose to stay at work rather than exercise or eat. That’s because there are so many problems to fix, and they are being told externally, inside the company, and by their inner ear that they aren’t doing enough. So, instead, they will burn themselves out to try to catch up. We should be able to hold the C-suite accountable for their decisions while applauding the rank-and-file work.
Things will change. This probably should be number one, but as much as we hate the fact that companies change their policies, org charts, and approaches, it is the reality of the situation. Yoel Roth said something at the UCLA panel we were at this week that just as public opinion pushed the pendulum to encourage the companies to invest in this space, public opinion is giving them the cover to pull back. We’re in for a roller coaster, and I think the various platform approaches will evolve over the next 15 months.
The work will continue to happen. We hear a lot about the chilling effect of the Congressional investigations, the court cases, public opinion, etc. It is true. I’ve been in multiple conversations where people have worried about the consequences of doing this work. But I’ve also repeatedly heard from many people about how they will not be deterred; they know how important this is and will figure out a way forward. More on this next week as I’ve got a whole motivational rant in me as to why people should stay in trust and safety, but needless to say, this work isn’t going away.
There are a lot of valid questions out there about platform approaches to the elections. I’m glad civil society is making their desires known. But there are many of them, and we need to be pragmatic in how all of this will play out. Because at the end of the day, we won’t ever really know if the platforms “did enough” until well after the election.
PS: I'm speaking at the Google and Defending Digital Campaigns Cybersecurity Summit: Protecting America’s Democracy on 10/4. More than 1,000 seats in Virginia are up for re-election in November creating a ripe battleground for nation states and hacktivists to launch targeted attacks. I'll be driving the conversation about the challenges and opportunities Virginia campaigns face in the upcoming elections. I hope to see you there. Space is limited and you can RSVP here: https://rsvp.withgoogle.com/events/protecting-democracy-summit/home