04/16/2024

Tech Companies are Failing to Keep Elections Safe, Rights Groups Say

They should adopt greater measures to safeguard people and elections

A quarter of the way into the most consequential election year in living memory, tech companies are failing their biggest test. Such is the charge that has been leveled by at least 160 rights groups across 55 countries, which are collectively calling on tech platforms to urgently adopt greater measures to safeguard people and elections amid rampant online disinformation and hate speech.

"Despite our and many others' engagement, tech companies have failed to implement adequate measures to protect people and democratic processes from tech harms that include disinformation, hate speech and influence operations that ruin lives and undermine democratic integrity," reads the organizations’ joint letter, shared exclusively with TIME by the Global Coalition for Tech Justice, a consortium of civil society groups, activists and experts. "In fact, tech platforms have apparently reduced their investments in platform safety and have restricted data access, even as they continue to profit from hate-filled ads and disinformation."

In July, the coalition reached out to leading tech companies, among them Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), Google (which owns YouTube), TikTok and X (formerly known as Twitter), and asked them to establish transparent, country-specific plans for the upcoming election year, in which more than half of the world’s population would be going to the polls across some 65 countries. But those calls were largely ignored, said Mona Shtaya, the campaigns and partnerships manager at Digital Action, the convenor of the Global Coalition for Tech Justice.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.