ATLANTA (AP) — A number of Democrats serving as their state’s high election officers have despatched a letter to the guardian firm of Fb, asking it to cease permitting adverts that declare the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Within the letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the secretaries of state from Colorado, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Vermont mentioned permitting such adverts will additional erode belief in elections and gas threats of political violence towards election employees, which already has led some to depart the occupation. Additionally signing the letter was Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, who doesn’t oversee elections.
“Meta is permitting extremists and election deniers to additional undermine our elections,” the secretaries wrote within the letter, which was emailed to the tech big on Thursday. “As Secretaries of State, we’re strongly against Meta’s resolution to permit adverts selling election denialism and urge you to repeal this coverage earlier than it inflicts extra harm.”
Almost 4 years later, conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election and false claims of widespread fraud and manipulation of voting machines persist. Former President Donald Trump continues to insist, regardless of no proof of widespread fraud, that he gained that election as he seeks a return to the White Home.
Critiques, recounts and audits within the swing states the place he disputed his loss have all affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s victory, and even Trump’s former lawyer common mentioned there was no fraud on a scale that might have tipped the election. In an interview this week with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Trump falsely claimed he gained Wisconsin regardless of dropping to Biden by about 21,000 votes. Trump advised the information outlet he would settle for the outcomes of the November election “if the whole lot’s trustworthy.”
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For the reason that 2020 election, election employees throughout components of the nation have confronted demise threats and harassment. A current survey by the Brennan Middle for Justice at NYU discovered that 34% of native election officers mentioned they knew of a number of native election officers or election employees who left their job at the least partially due to security fears, threats or intimidation. The setting has led to a historic turnover of election employees all through the nation.
YouTube, the Google-owned video service, introduced a coverage much like Meta’s final yr wherein it mentioned it might cease eradicating content material that falsely claimed earlier U.S. presidential elections have been tainted by fraud.
Meta has defended the work it’s doing to guard elections globally. An organization spokesperson supplied particulars about how the corporate views elections, referencing its 2022 plan for the midterm elections wherein the corporate mentioned it’ll “frequently overview content material to find out if it violates our group requirements, together with our insurance policies on election and voter interference, hate speech, coordinating hurt and publicizing crime, and bullying and harassment.”
As a part of its work, Meta mentioned it might take away election-related content material that features misinformation in regards to the “dates, areas, instances and strategies of voting” together with requires violence associated to voting or the end result of an election. In that plan, the corporate specified it might reject adverts calling into query the legitimacy of an upcoming or ongoing election.
Nevertheless it’s the adverts associated to the 2020 election which have the group of Democratic secretaries of state involved, together with numerous marketing campaign adverts earlier this yr repeating false claims that the election was rigged. The letter was organized by the Democratic Affiliation of Secretaries of State, a political motion committee affiliated with the Democratic Nationwide Committee, and was circulated solely amongst Democrats.
“When individuals consider an election was stolen they’re much less more likely to believe within the system, and that depresses turnout,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows mentioned in an interview Friday. “We would like voters to know the reality about elections and really feel empowered to take part.”