Readout of Civil Rights Leaders Call with Facebook

Fighting Hate & Bias News, Media & Tech News, Voting Rights News 07.7,20

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shin Inouye, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, [email protected], 202.869.0398
Phoebe Plagens, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, [email protected], 212.965.2235

WASHINGTON – Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., issued the following joint statement on their call with Facebook leadership:

“The civil rights community is united in the concerns we have about Facebook’s efforts to fight hate and protect our elections, among other issues. The company’s recent announcements have been incremental, rather than the kind of bold action needed to seriously address the harmful impact of voter disinformation and hate speech on the platform. Our conversation today with Facebook’s leadership was a continuation of our ongoing efforts to push the company toward substantive change to its policies governing voter suppression and disinformation.

“We await the release of tomorrow’s civil rights audit report and will continue to push Facebook’s senior leadership on all outstanding problems identified in the report. This is not the end of our efforts to hold Facebook accountable and work for real change. As long as the platform is weaponized to spread hate and undermine our democracy, a united civil rights community will continue to fight.”

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 220 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.

Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization and has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.