Washington, DC – Today, Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s, wrote a letter to the CEO of Facebook, Inc. Mark Zuckerberg, condemning the social media platform for failing to protect the civil and voting rights of its users. The letter was written in light of Zuckerberg’s recent decision to exempt politicians from Facebook’s rules and allow them to lie with impunity. The letter outlines how Facebook may face legal liability if it does not change course.
In the letter, Clarke raised several key issues that demonstrate Zuckerberg’s disregard of the current need for civil rights protections, a failure to commit to a meaningful civil rights audit, and that Facebook—despite proof of concerted efforts to undermine our democracy on its platform—cannot be trusted to prevent election interference.
“We continue to see election disinformation and racially motivated content affecting African Americans, Latinos, and other marginalized communities on Facebook’s platform due to a failure to effectively moderate its content and failure to fully enforce its ban on white nationalism and white supremacist content,” said Kristen Clarke. “I am encouraged by Mark Zuckerberg’s willingness to engage on these issues. That said, we will use every tool in our arsenal to hold Facebook accountable when taking action that runs contrary to our organization’s efforts to protect voters and their constitutional rights as well as the values Mr. Zuckerberg claims to extol.”
The letter concludes with an overview of the various consumer protection and civil rights laws Facebook may be infringing under its policies and practices, including anti-discrimination and equal opportunity laws, voting rights laws, antitrust laws, and more.
Read Kristen Clarke’s full letter