Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Saturday, May 31, 2025

Calls for Facebook, Twitter to halt trending sections ahead of election gather steam

Calls for Facebook, Twitter to halt trending sections ahead of election gather steam

The Mozilla Foundation sent a letter on Tuesday to Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey demanding they halt their trending features ahead of the 2020 election.

Calls for Twitter and Facebook to temporarily halt their respective trending features in the U.S. ahead of the 2020 presidential election are gaining steam with just two weeks until Election Day.

The Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit supporting public Internet service, on Tuesday sent a letter with more than 6,000 signatures to the two social media giants demanding they "immediately turn off two features that can amplify disinformation: Facebook's Group Recommendations and Twitter's Trending Topics."



"This approach would solve an urgent and unmet goal: curbing disinformation at scale while protecting against bias," the letter reads. "Right now, a false or misleading trending topic or violent group can reach millions of people before other safeguards to label content or remove groups can take effect. These actions would apply equally and neutrally across your platforms in the U.S."


The letter also praises the two companies for taking "significant steps to curb the spread of disinformation related to the U.S. election: labeling false information, rejecting misleading ads, limiting retweets, and removing accounts and groups that promote lies, hate, conspiracy theories and violence."

The Mozilla Foundation bought a full-page ad in The Washington Post to promote the letter on Tuesday.

"We’ll continue our zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and any other attempts to undermine the integrity of our service," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement to Fox Business.

The foundation is calling on users to sign letters addressed to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey through the organization's website. It is also calling on users to tweet directly to Dorsey demanding the site's "Trending Topics" feature be temporarily removed ahead of Nov. 3.

The nonprofit and others who support removing trending features are using the hashtag #UntrendOctober to promote the idea that started gaining traction on social media in late August.

Civil rights organization The Sleeping Giants, which helped organize a boycott against Facebook in June called "Stop Hate for Profit" after George Floyd's death, is also promoting Untrend October.

"[Twitter] has not gone nearly far enough in trying to deal with disinformation. Keep #UntrendOctober going and ask [Jack Dorsey] to disable Trending Topics for October," the organization wrote in a Sept. 1 tweet.


Twitter announced in an October blog post that it would be adding additional context to its Trending Topics feature in the "For You" tab in the United States before the election.

The Twitter spokesperson said the company has been "strengthening" how it tackles "disinformation and attempts to manipulate Trends, and recently introduced a number of significant product and enforcement updates that go hand-in-hand with the increased context that now accompany Trends."

"Specifically, we will only surface Trends in the 'For You' tab in the United States that include additional context, to help people gain an informed understanding of the high volume public conversation in the US and also help reduce the potential for misleading information to spread," the spokesperson said.

Social media's role in handling information related to the 2020 election and other breaking news has come under scrutiny in recent weeks and months; some experts argue that the platforms have too much power while others say they are not doing enough to censor certain speech.

Organizations called on advertisers to boycott Facebook over the summer after the website allowed a post from President Trump saying, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" in response to nationwide civil unrest after Floyd's death to remain published on the site despite Twitter's decision to censor it.

More recently, a number of Republican legislators have called on Twitter and Facebook to explain their reasoning behind their respective decision to censor a report from the New York Post about 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and his purported communication with the adviser to a Ukrainian energy company. The conversation has prompted questions about Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which gives liability protections to websites that allow users to post their own content.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Oct. 15 that Americans "ought to be able to sue" Facebook and Twitter for censoring certain posts and users.

“If you’ve been locked out of Twitter or if you can’t distribute this New York Post article on Facebook, you ought to be able to sue them," he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Meta and Anduril Collaborate on AI-Driven Military Augmented Reality Systems
EU Central Bank Pushes to Replace US Dollar with Euro as World’s Main Currency
European and Arab Ministers Convene in Madrid to Address Gaza Conflict
Head of Gaza Aid Group Resigns Amid Humanitarian Concerns
U.S. Health Secretary Ends Select COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations
Trump Warns Putin Is 'Playing with Fire' Amid Escalating Ukraine Conflict
India and Pakistan Engage Trump-Linked Lobbyists to Influence U.S. Policy
U.S. Halts New Student Visa Interviews Amid Enhanced Security Measures
Trump Administration Cancels $100 Million in Federal Contracts with Harvard
SpaceX Starship Test Flight Ends in Failure, Mars Mission Timeline Uncertain
King Charles Affirms Canadian Sovereignty Amid U.S. Statehood Pressure
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Founder Warns Against Trusting Regime in Nuclear Talks
Netanyahu Accuses Starmer of Siding with Hamas
Calls Grow to Resume Syrian Asylum Claims in UK
UAE Offers Free ChatGPT Plus Subscriptions to Citizens
Denmark Increases Retirement Age to 70, Setting a European Precedent
Iranian Director Jafar Panahi Wins Palme d'Or at Cannes
Israeli Airstrike Kills Nine Children of Gaza Doctor
Lebanon Initiates Plan to Disarm Palestinian Factions
Iran and U.S. Make Limited Progress in Nuclear Talks
Trump Administration's Tariff Policies and Dollar Strategy Spark Global Economic Debate
OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive’s Startup for $6.5 Billion to Build a Revolutionary “Third Core Device”
Turkey Weighs Citizens in Public as Erdoğan Launches National Slimming Campaign
UK Suspends Trade Talks with Israel Amid Gaza Offensive
Iran and U.S. Set for Fifth Round of Nuclear Talks Amid Rising Tensions
Russia Expands Military Presence Near Finland Amid Rising Tensions
Indian Scholar Arrested in Crackdown Over Pakistan Conflict Commentary
Israel Eases Gaza Blockade Amid Internal Dispute Over Military Strategy
President Biden’s announcement of advanced prostate cancer sparked public sympathy—but behind closed doors, Democrats are in panic
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki Erupts Again, Spewing Ash Cloud over Flores Island
Indian jet shootdown: the all-robot legion behind China’s PL-15E missiles
The Chinese Dragon: The True Winner in the India-Pakistan Clash
Australia's Venomous Creatures Contribute to Life-Saving Antivenom Programme
The Spanish Were Right: Long Working Hours Harm Brain Function
Did Former FBI Director Call for Violence Against Trump? Instagram Post Sparks Uproar
US and UAE Partner to Develop Massive AI Data Center Complex
Apple's $95 Million Siri Settlement: Eligible Users Have Until July 2 to File Claims
US and UAE Reach Preliminary Agreement on Nvidia AI Chip Imports
President Trump and Elon Musk Welcomed by Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim with Cybertruck Convoy
Strong Warning Issued: Do Not Use General Chatbots for Medical, Legal, or Educational Guidance
NVIDIA and Saudi Arabia Launch Strategic Partnership to Establish AI Centers
Trump Meets Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara in Historic Encounter
US and Saudi Arabia Sign Landmark Agreements Across Multiple Sectors
Why Saudi Arabia Rolled Out a Purple Carpet for Donald Trump Instead of Red
Elon Musk Joins Trump Meeting in Saudi Arabia
Trump says it would be 'stupid' not to accept gift of Qatari plane
Quantum Computing Threatens Bitcoin Security
Michael Jordan to Serve as Analyst for NBA Games
Senate Democrats Move to Censure Trump Over Qatar Jet Gift
Hamas Releases Last Living US Hostage from Gaza Amid Ongoing Conflict
×