Platforms Fail to Deliver on Vows to Counter Disinformation

Meta, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok failed to deliver on their promises to put reforms in place to curb misinformation, disinformation and hate speech on their platforms, according to a report called “Empty Promises” compiled by FreePress.

Members of a coalition of more than 60 civil and consumer rights groups met with executives of the social media companies and presented 15 priority reforms to implement ahead of the midterm elections to fight amplification of hate and lies.

The effort was all for naught.

“The platforms’ promises of improvement amount to little more than public-relations exercises in a dysfunctional system where changes to policies can’t be checked comprehensively for accuracy and real-world impact," says the report. "The companies provide just enough information to seem credible but their reporting lacks the context needed to give external stakeholders a full picture.”

Disinformation and misinformation are as bad today as they were during the 2020 election.

View full chart above found in Empty Promises report

WSJ Takes Cheap Shot at RS. Rolling Stone magazine ran an exclusive bombshell report on Oct. 23 about how Donald Trump and his cronies plan to challenge the midterm election results in Philadelphia and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

It reported that Trump told his legal advisors to “prepare scorched-earth tactics” to challenge the tally as a “dress rehearsal” for his potential run for president in 2024.

The article received major pick-up in the Washington Post, Variety and Daily Beast.

The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 27 ran an op-ed by Stephen Moore, former president of the Club for Growth and economist for FreedomWorks, that hit the RS for a “history of making reckless and defamatory accusations."

In 2019, RS ran a profile of Moore in which it claimed he owed the IRS $75K in taxes when he actually overpaid on taxes dating back to 2014.

In Moore’s broadside, RS, which was “once a fun pop-culture magazine, has evolved into a dreary leftist propaganda outlet.”

That same dreary propaganda outlet is warning Americans about Trump’s bid to steal another election.

Sign of these troubled times… Ketchum has launched a trauma-informed consultancy to support clients dealing with traumatic events.

Jim Joseph, Ketchum US CEO, cited the pandemic and non-stop and disturbing news about acts of violence against marginalized communities, as well as women’s and LGBTQ+ rights as some of the issues that companies, governments and communities are struggling with.

“Ketchum is the first major communications agency to take a stand to not only become trauma-informed as a workforce, but also to implement trauma-informed perspectives into communications planning and programming to affect client outcomes,” said Katharine Manning, a member of the firm’s trauma team.

The Omnicom-owned firm in September picked up agency of record duties for The Anxiety and Depression Association of America.