A letter to the House Committee on Financial Services
Members of the Committee on Financial Services,
We are Build Tech We Trust, a coalition of predominantly women of color CEOs and executive leaders in tech combating extremism and radicalization online. We joined together after the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton to disseminate resources for those working to hold tech companies to account.
Facebook has the ability to surface, promote, and demote conversation in our public discourse and this gives Facebook unprecedented power with little to no oversight. Like you, we were disappointed by Mark Zuckerberg’s speech at Georgetown this week. We support your effort to probe deeper into Facebook’s positions on misinformation, hate speech, and the responsibilities it has to protect its users and the public interest. Facebook is a corporate entity but it’s becoming evident, it has the power of a nation state. Whether or not Zuckerberg has good or malintent is immaterial. His impact has been to leverage his company’s megaphone to align with leaders who are undoing democracy for financial gain.
As tech leaders from marginalized groups, we’re all too familiar with the language that large tech companies use to justify the harm that they cause. As such controversies like Gamergate demonstrate, historically marginalized people have been the first to feel these harms. Research shows 1 in 4 Black Americans have faced online harassment because of their race or ethnicity, and women continue to be subjected to harassment and violent threats much more frequently than members of other groups, but to date our concerns have neither been heard nor addressed.
We now know that platforms like Facebook have the potential to cause disastrous and irreparable harm. They’ve influenced elections, radicalized mass shooters, and facilitated genocide.
We read your call to propose questions for Wednesday’s hearing. Below, are the questions that we would like Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to hear and answer. We also include a list of articles that we think provide helpful context at the end of this letter. Thank you for this invitation and your service. Should you like to speak to us, we would be happy to set up a conversation.
Sincerely,
The Build Tech We Trust Coalition
Other Useful Reading
Facebook’s Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men From Hate Speech But Not Black Children
Facebook removed post by ex-manager who said site ‘failed’ black people
Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t know his civil rights history
Facebook’s Uneven Enforcement of Hate Speech Rules Allows Vile Posts to Stay Up
Facebook’s Hate Speech Policies Censor Marginalized Users
Let’s Stop Pretending Facebook and Twitter’s CEOs Can’t Fix This Mess
