A group of Democratic secretaries of state are calling on social media companies to detail their plans to moderate inflammatory content and artificial intelligence on their platforms during and after election day.
Seven secretaries of state – representing Maine, Rhode Island, Illinois, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and New Mexico – sent the letters to Google, X and Meta on Friday. Secretaries of state typically play some role in overseeing elections in their states.
The officials note that violent threats against election officials and disinformation about elections are already spreading online, saying they are “deeply concerned about the failure of major social media companies to clearly lay out their plans to moderate inflammatory claims and AI-generated election-related content ahead of, during and following election day”.
Throughout the 2024 election, false and misleading claims about elections have spread widely, playing on frequent myths like that noncitizens are voting en masse or that tabulation machines aren’t secure. Donald Trump often elevates these claims, as does X owner Elon Musk, as part of an ongoing narrative that Democrats can only win the election if they cheat.
Republicans in Congress and in the courts continue to go after attempts to flag misinformation during previous elections and call it censorship. In response, many platforms have taken a less active approach to moderating or removing content, and some have far fewer staff dedicated to trust and safety than they did in previous years.
Some of those signed on to the letters have been targets of threats and harassment personally for doing their jobs. Maggie Toulouse Oliver, the secretary of state in New Mexico, has faced threats in multiple instances and testified about them to Congress, at one point having to leave her home for her safety. Maine’s Shenna Bellows received threats and had her home swatted after she disqualified Trump from appearing on the state’s ballot in response to a voter challenge to his eligibility. “It was designed to make me afraid and send a message not only to me but to others,” she said at the time.
The secretaries of state want the three companies to report about how they are promoting official and trustworthy sources about elections, how they are responding to conspiracies that spread on their platforms and contribute to harassment and attacks on elections, how they are responding to potential AI threats, how they are engaging with federal government agencies about the ability of foreign actors to use their platforms to sow distrust, and how they are monitoring and moderating violent threats to elected officials and election administrators.
“These threats are not hypothetical,” the secretaries wrote. “From the widely reported doxing of election officials in Georgia after 2020, to viral, AI-generated video of political candidates, to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, social media companies are directly responsible for failing to stop foreign adversaries and other malicious actors from spreading the lies and fake content that have led to violence and declining trust in our elections.”
They concluded that they are “deeply worried” about how lies spread widely on social media platforms could result in violent consequences in real life, “with severe implications for election officials and for our democracy”.
