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1 Million People Call on MPs to Fix FaKebook at Parliament Hearing
A man in a massive Mark Zuckerberg head and angry emojis greets Facebook’s CTO, calling on MPs to defend democracy from disinformation
Hours before the testimony of Facebook’s Chief Technological Officer in Parliament, global citizens movement Avaaz brought a massive Mark Zuckerberg head flanked by people wearing angry emoji masks to Portcullis House to deliver a 1 million strong call to Facebook and MPs to defend democracy from the fake news, accounts, ads and disinformation attacks still spreading across social media.
Avaaz has given MPs on the Committee a 4 Point Plan to Fix FaKebook in consultation with millions of members around the world, officials from Brazil to the EU, and social media executives. The plan calls for governments to ensure Facebook bans all bots, alerts the public any and every time users see fake or disinformation, fund fact checkers around the world, and submit to an independent audit to review the scale and scope of the crisis.
Alaphia Zoyab, Senior Campaigner at Avaaz said: “Mark Zuckerberg has become the CEO of FaKebook, a platform polluted by fake news, fake accounts and disinformation. It’s clear we cannot rely on the good intentions of Silicon Valley CEOs to clean this up, which is why a million people are calling on our MPs to Fix Fakebook and defend our democracies.”
Mark Zuckerberg has refused to appear in front of UK MPs, but the CEO did testify at the US Congress two weeks ago where Avaaz set up a fake army of Mark Zuckerberg cutouts to represent the army of fake bots and accounts flooding our democracies.
Avaaz’s 4 Point Plan to Fix Fakebook, includes:
Ban the Bots - Facebook has banned tens of thousands of fake accounts to protect French and German democracies. Yet currently, there is no commitment to extend that protection to millions of fake accounts. It is critical that Zuckerberg delete “Fakebook” by banning ALL fake or imposter user accounts.
Alert the Public - Hundreds of millions of people have been misled by disinformation campaigns on Facebook. Yet they have not committed to mitigating the damage by prominently notifying individual users each and every time they have viewed (not just shared, but viewed) fake, malicious, or disinformation campaign content.
Fund the Fact Checkers - While artificial intelligence is crucial, any corrective system will need to rely on human fact checkers. Facebook has taken steps in only 6 countries, but they have not committed to help rapidly stand up a new and independent industry of fact-checkers that is fully multilingual, global and capable of the breadth, volume and speed required to stem the flow of lies.
Tell the Truth - Facebook needs to commit to full disclosure of the extent of fake users, fake activity, and disinformation campaigns on its platform, and support independent audits to assess them.
ENDS
CONTACTS
Julie Deruy +33 6 76 47 72 59, julie@avaaz.org
Olivia Boyd, 07977 272 193, Olivia@avaaz.org