This past September, I was invited to share remarks at the International Day of Democracy at the European Union Parliament. Specifically, I was present to discuss the pros and cons of social media on democracy. I have not only advocated for social media for democracy, but also specifically trained pro-democracy groups to maximize their use of social media. And yet while serving as Director of Digital Mobilization on the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, I witnessed firsthand as social media was repurposed to damage our democracy, including coordinated digital voter suppression and rampant harassment, and witnessed the tech giants’ startling lack of responsibility for this mis-use of their platforms.
So I felt a responsibility to directly ask Facebook whether they would proactively address these anti-democratic abuses of their own platforms, not only in the United States, but also equip their staff and subcontractors to better understand the political, social, and linguistic differences around the globe. This week’s New York Times piece on Facebook’s hodgepodge of global content moderation standards leads me to believe that these concerns have not yet been adequately addressed. And that the question of whether social media is more good or more bad for democracy is far from settled.