As fall slowly rolls in, people seem invigorated by interest/action around election integrity. I've been working on election integrity all year, so I put together a short list of what I'm working on, with recommendations for what you can do: 1/ 🧵 Issue #1: Threats to Democracy & the Rule of Law. We have candidates who make light of the peaceful transition of power, harass minority groups, mention plans to roll back basic rights, even prevent ppl from needing to vote again. 2/

Free speech 101 🧵 for Elon Musk & everyone: 1/ Social media platforms have the ability as private companies to remove content if they choose without it violating the First Amendment. But they also promise users, in terms of service/moderation policies/community guidelines, to do certain things to limit hate, abuse, lies. 2/

NEW research from yours truly, @freepress & @changeterms. We analyzed @meta @tiktok_us @Twitter @YouTube policies & application of those policies to assess how prepared social media companies are to fight hate, extremism, lies re: the upcoming elections. A 🧵 on our findings. 1/ Following the 2020 election we saw our democracy go all the way to the brink. Real-world violence did not happen in a vacuum: the unchecked spread of online lies about the 2020 election being “stolen” from Trump fueled violence IRL on January 6. 2/

From my media literacy days, some advice on how to guard against falling for misinfo: In any crisis moment, imagery and videos are particularly powerful. And we’re especially susceptible to believing what we see in those. It takes time to fact check a video or image source. So don’t share or comment without taking the time.

A 🧵 on tech policy & protecting civil rights online as Congress is moving lots of reforms. 1/ I am thrilled that Congress is taking the harms caused by and on social media platforms seriously. This is momentum we need to continue pushing to achieve real accountability and civil rights protections online. 2/

A 🧵 on what's happening in the Senate today with a markup on the American Innovation & Choice Online Act (S. 2992). From our perch @freepress, we have concerns about the consequences this so-called "antitrust" bill will have: 1/ S.2992 is described as antitrust reform but it only applies to a few companies — online entities above high-user thresholds or w/ annual revenues upwards of half a trillion dollars. So that's Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, possibly Microsoft or Walmart, Tencent and TikTok. 2/

No one is surprised Facebook knew it was amplifying disinformation and incitement. But I am very excited to have this much internal evidence upon which we may consider proper regulatory steps to correct course. I’ll be live tweeting my thoughts here about @60Minutes 1/ The Facebook whistleblower says the platform constantly chooses growth over safety. No one is malevolent but the incentives are misaligned for profit. 2/

Anxious. But also, I am thinking of all the tools and resources we have for activists and journalists. 1/

https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1384590602071859200

First, if you find yourself reading things online and unsure what is fact vs. what is maybe false/misleading, check out our @PENamerica guide on how to spot protest-related dis/misinfo: 2/ pen.org/pen-americas-g…

A thread on misinformation, because sometimes we all need to remember the basics of what's at stake. 1/ The spread of misleading information (whether it's MIS or DISinfo) threatens the very fabric of our democracy, with false narratives undermining our ability to engage in fact-based public discourse & influencing people’s attitudes and behaviors. 2/