FB/Social Media
Free Press, Disinformation, and John Oliver
October 15, 2021
On Sunday’s airing of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the show featured a segment on how Facebook and other social-media platforms are failing to address the rising threat of non-English disinformation. Here’s the inside scoop: For the past two months, members of Free Press Action’s staff worked with one of the producers of Last Week Tonight to help focus the show on this very issue!
With a reach of more than 4 million viewers, this Last Week Tonight segment was a milestone accomplishment in our efforts to raise awareness of this critical problem — one that disproportionately harms Black and Brown communities. None of this work would be possible without you and we’re eager to double down on our efforts to fight disinformation in all languages.
Back in late 2020, we began uncovering the depths of non-English disinformation on Facebook. We learned that less than one third of disinformation in Spanish is flagged on Facebook, compared to 70% of English-language content. Since then, we’ve launched the #YaBastaFacebook campaign with our partners to urge the platform to fully enforce its rules against non-English disinformation.
But this problem is hardly limited to Facebook and we haven’t seen enough meaningful action from the other platforms, either.
That’s why we are demanding that Nextdoor, Twitter, YouTube (and Facebook!) come clean about how they’re moderating non-English-language content.
Fight Back with Free Press Action
Disinformation doesn’t just divide us — it can have real life-and-death consequences, especially during the pandemic. And all of us are fed up.
Free Press Action has been leading the charge for accurate news and information from before the Trump era to today. Right now our team is preparing a sophisticated multi-pronged approach to effectively battle disinformation on multiple fronts in the weeks and months ahead — including getting Trump and his PAC kicked off Facebook for good.
Will you donate today to fund this fight? Every gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $10,000 — but only through Oct. 31.
Please give today!