Dear friend,
Throughout last week and this week, protests against stay-at-home orders erupted in the streets of at least 10 states, thanks to prominent members of the gun lobby and the president himself.1
These protesters brought children. They brought guns. They blocked ambulances from getting into a hospital.2 And their demand to re-open the country well before public health experts say we're ready is putting frontline workers, who are mostly women, in grave danger.
How did several public safety-endangering protests happen despite nationwide measures against the coronavirus ? Facebook.
Three gun lobbyists in Minnesota created Facebook pages to spread misinformation and encourage these in-person protests in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. From there, similar Facebook pages spread to several more states. Trump has publicly supported these protests, claiming protesters are "liberating" their states.3
On the one hand, Facebook has been aggressively banning harmful content, including ones that concern COVID, following years of criticism and advocacy from people across the country.4 On the other, Facebook was just caught in a lie : the company falsely claimed, in keeping with its own policy, that it took down Facebook events that violate stay-at-home orders when it actually did no such thing.5 With the company under intense scrutiny once again, if enough of us speak out we can make Facebook enforce its own policy and shut down these dangerous right-wing pages.
Tell decision-makers at Facebook :
Protect frontline workers and the public.
Ban Facebook forums that spread lies about coronavirus
and encourage protests against stay-at-home orders.
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These right-wing protests fanned by Facebook are, above all, endangering frontline workers. In other words, women.
Women make up 77% of health care workers, 78% of social workers, and more than two-thirds of grocery store and fast-food employees, all of whom have little choice but to risk exposing themselves to the coronavirus to try to keep the rest of the public safe and cared for while this pandemic lasts.6
In fact, last week in Denver, Colorado, women health care workers courageously blocked traffic to stop protesters who were on their way to an in-person rally demanding the state lift stay-at-home orders.7
Over 45,000 people and counting have died of COVID-19 in the United States, and Facebook is ruining nationwide measures to flatten the curve by allowing these dangerous forums to continue.8
For the past few years, Facebook has been forced to take aggressive measures against fake, misleading, or harmful content after nationwide outcry against its complicity in spreading dangerous content. With the widespread outcry caused by these right-wing protests against COVID-19 safety measures, we can force Facebook to apply its own policy of banning dangerous content.
Thanks for speaking out !
Shaunna, Kat, Kathy, Anathea, Sonja, Melody, Lindsay, Pam, Maria, Kimberly, and Katie, the UltraViolet team .
Sources :
1. Pro-gun activists using Facebook groups to push anti-quarantine protests, Washington Post, April 19, 2020
2. Capitol protesters snarl streets, including Sparrow Hospital area, WLNS TV Channel 6, April 15, 2020
3. Pro-gun activists using Facebook groups to push anti-quarantine protests, Washington Post, April 19, 2020
4. Facebook will alert people who have interacted with coronavirus 'misinformation', Washington Post, April 16, 2020
5. Facebook says it removed events violating stay-at-home orders. But, it hasn’t removed them, Media Matters for America, April 22, 2020
6. How Millions of Women Became the Most Essential Workers in America, New York Times, April 18, 2020
7. Health workers face anti-lockdown protesters in dramatic photos, CNN, April 20, 2020
8. August may bring more US coronavirus deaths than expected, but next wave in winter could be worse, CNN, April 22, 2020.
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