The audit, which began in 2018 at the behest and encouragement of the civil rights community and some members of Congress, proceeded with Facebook’s cooperation. The purpose of the audit is to help Facebook identify, prioritize, and implement sustained and comprehensive improvements to the way it impacts civil rights.
At the start, the audit was to focus on voter suppression and voter information, building a civil rights accountability infrastructure, content moderation and enforcement (including hate speech and harassment), advertising targeting and practices, diversity and inclusion, fairness in algorithms, and the civil rights implications of privacy practices. They later added the topics COVID-19 and the 2020 census.
Here are some areas where Facebook failed its audit:
- In September of 2019, Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications, Nick Clegg, said that Facebook would continue to exempt politicians from its third-party checking program. He also announced the company had a standing policy to treat speech from politicians as newsworthy that should be seen and not interfered with by Facebook unless outweighed by the risk of harm.
- In October of 2019, Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he amplified his prioritization of a definition of free expression as a governing principle of Facebook. In the speech, he doubled down on the company’s treatment of politicians’ speech.
- The Auditors noted that Facebook’s definition of protecting free speech meant allowing harmful and divisive rhetoric that amplifies hate speech and threatens civil rights. “When it means that powerful politicians do not have to abide by the same rules as everyone else does, a hierarchy of speech is created that privileges certain voices over less powerful voices.”
- The audit summary points out that Facebook “has no qualms about reining in speech by the proponents of the anti-vaccination movement, or limiting misinformation about COVID-19, but when it comes to voting, Facebook has been far too reluctant to adopt strong rules to limit misinformation and voter suppression.”
- The summary also says: “Facebook’s failure to remove the Trump voting-related posts and close enforcement gaps seems to reflect a statement of values that protecting free expression is more important than other stated company values.”
The auditors have “grave concerns that the combination of the company’s decision to exempt politicians from fact-checking and the precedents set by its recent decisions on President Trump’s posts, leaves the door open for the platform to be used by other politicians to interfere with voting. If politicians are free to mislead people about official voting methods (by labeling ballots illegal or making other misleading statements that go unchecked for example) and are allowed to use not-so-subtle dog whistles with impunity to incite violence against groups advocating for racial justice, this does not bode well for the hostile voting environment that can be facilitated by Facebook in the United States.”