Selena Gomez: Big Tech ‘profiting from evil’

LOS ANGELES – Hours after a furious crowd of Trump supporters took control of the United States Capitol in a violent uprising, Selena Gomez placed much of the blame on Big Tech’s feet.

“Today is the result of allowing people with hate in their hearts to use platforms that should be used to bring people together and allow them to build a community”, tweeted the singer / actor. “Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai, Susan Wojcicki – you all failed with the American people today and I hope you will fix things going forward.”

It is just the latest effort by Gomez, 28, to draw attention to the danger of Internet companies that critics say have profited from the misinformation and hatred on their platforms. Gomez has been calling Big Tech for months – publicly on the same platforms she’s been fighting and in particular in conversations with the big hitters in Silicon Valley.

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In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, Gomez said she is frustrated with what she considers the companies’ lackluster response and that they need to “stop doing the bare minimum”.

“It is not about me against you, one political party against another. It’s about truth versus lies and Facebook, Instagram and big tech companies need to stop allowing the lies to flow and pretend to be the truth, ”said Gomez in a New York phone interview. “Facebook continues to allow dangerous lies about vaccines and COVID and the elections in the United States, and neo-Nazi groups are selling racist products via Instagram.

“Enough,” she said.

Representatives for Facebook and Twitter declined to comment. Google did not respond to a request for comment from the AP.

Gomez is among an increasing number of celebrities who use their platforms to publicize social media, including Sacha Baron Cohen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Kerry Washington and Kim Kardashian West.

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Gomez fell in love with the subject in 2017, when a 12-year-old girl commented in one of her Instagram posts: “Go kill yourself”.

“That was my tipping point,” she said. “I couldn’t handle what I was seeing.”

Social media experts have argued that companies like Facebook and Twitter played a direct role in the Capitol uprising, allowing plans for the revolt to be made on their platforms and through algorithms that allow dangerous conspiracy theories to take off. That’s despite executives, like Facebook’s Sandberg, insisting that the planning for the riots took place largely on other smaller platforms.

“Operational planning was taking place in spaces that Selena, for example, was identifying for Sheryl Sandberg in advance, saying, ‘You know, we need to do something about extremism of white supremacy online and its ability to just form a Facebook group and chat with joy to each other, plan what you’ll do next, ”said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, who helped educate Gomez about online misinformation.

In emails shared exclusively with the AP, Gomez told Sandberg in September that “a search for a ‘Three percent’ militia group results in dozens of pages, groups and videos focused on people waiting and preparing for war civilian, and there are dozens of groups entitled ‘white lives are important’, filled with hatred and lies that can cause people to be hurt or, even worse, killed. “

That’s while Facebook banned United States-based militia groups from its service in August.

In the same email, Gomez also points to several ads with lies about the possibility of electoral fraud remaining on Facebook and Instagram and questions why this was being allowed.

“I don’t believe that you can’t check the ads before accepting money, and if you can’t, you shouldn’t profit from it,” she wrote. “You are not just doing anything. You are profiting from evil. “

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In an email response to Gomez, Sandberg defends Facebook’s efforts to remove harmful content, saying the platform has removed millions of hate speech posts and prohibits ads that cause division, provoke or discourage people from voting. She did not directly address the examples of advertising that Gomez pointed out.

“It is about rodeos and saying what people want to hear,” said Gomez of his interactions with Sandberg and Google, among others. “I think at this point we all learned that words don’t match unless the action happens

After the violence at the United States Capitol, technology companies have made some of their biggest changes so far.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms have banned President Donald Trump, drawing criticism from some, including the American Civil Liberties Union, that he was censored, and praise from others who say the president abused his platform by encouraging violence.

On a topic defending Trump’s Twitter ban, CEO Jack Dorsey said that “offline damage as a result of online speech is proven to be real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all.”

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In addition to banning Trump, Facebook has removed videos and photos of rioters from the Capitol. The company also added text to posts questioning the election, confirming that Joe Biden was legally elected and saying it was taking coercive measures against militarized social movements like QAnon.

While the changes are positive, they are “just a drop in the ocean,” said Jeff Orlowski, director of Netflix’s “Social Dilemma”, a popular 2020 film that showed how the pursuit of Silicon Valley profit can pose a threat existential for the US democracy.

Voices like Gomez’s can be a big help in getting the message across, considering his hundreds of millions of followers, Orlowski said.

“Think about the advertising revenue for each Selena Gomez post. Think of the advertising revenue for each Donald Trump post, the advertising revenue for each post on The Rock or anyone else, ”he said. “These people are literally generating millions of dollars for these companies … The top 20 people on Instagram probably have the biggest influence on Mark and Sheryl compared to anyone else, until Congress as a whole has enough momentum and energy to draft some legislation. “

Orlowski and Ahmed said they expect reforms in the Biden government, including a move to hold social media companies accountable for the posts they allow, an effort that has gained momentum and attracted bipartisan support.

“The issue is no longer ‘There will be change’,” said Ahmed. “The question is, ‘What kind of change are we going to achieve?'”

Meanwhile, Gomez promises to continue fighting as long as he has a pedestal.

“As long as I have this, I’m going to do good things with him,” she said. “I think that is my purpose.”

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Associated Press writer Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report from Oakland, California.