Wyden, Merkley, Colleagues Urge Social Media and Encrypted Messages Companies to Increase Resources Toward Combating 2024 U.S. Election Disinformation

Wyden, Merkley, Colleagues Urge Social Media and Encrypted Messages Companies to Increase Resources Toward Combating 2024 U.S. Election Disinformation

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley said today they have joined Senate colleagues in calling on 11 of the largest and most popular social media and encrypted chat companies in the United States to increase resources needed to combat 2024 U.S. election administration and certification disinformation.

"We are deeply concerned that the dissemination of election disinformation via your products and/or platforms - if left unmitigated - will suppress voter participation, sow doubt in U.S. democracy and incite political violence," the senators wrote."Considering the increase in election disinformation on digital platforms during recent elections, there is ample cause for concern."

"During the 2020 and 2022 U.S. federal elections, foreign adversaries supported the creation and targeting of election disinformation to undermine our democracy. During the 2020 elections, research showed that election disinformation in Spanish stayed up for longer on social media, as compared to English," the senators continued.

The senators urged Meta, Google (YouTube), TikTok, X (Twitter), Reddit, Snapchat, Amazon (Twitch), Discord, Signal, Telegram and Apple (Messages) to:

1. Share information about the size and capacity of their 2024 U.S. elections safety resourcing - including personnel and technologies - broken down by language;
2. Commit to increasing their 2024 U.S. election safety team and technology resourcing for the 10 most commonly spoken languages on their platform(s);
3. Share information about how they plan to de-amplify and/or remove election disinformation (whether created using AI or not) and/or user accounts who spread this disinformation, when in violation of their policies;
4. Share their plans for amplifying official election information before, during and after the 2024 U.S. elections; the letter also encourages companies to offer translation of official election information as a public service;
5. For encrypted chat providers, explain whether they have a reporting system for their users to flag unwanted election disinformation and what enforcement measures are in place.

The letter was led by U.S Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.). In addition to Wyden and Merkley, the letter was signed by U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

The full text of the letter is here.