The FBI participated in a flawed effort to stop Russian disinformation at the behest of a Ukrainian intelligence agency that instead ensnared authentic American accounts – even a verified Russian-language US State Department account, the House Judiciary Committee alleges in a new report obtained first by CNN.
In this case the article states Meta did not comply with the requests and responded to the FBI with concerns about the accounts being flagged. It also states that Meta was not pressured to comply with the requests.
I think this is a tricky situation. It’s in the interest of social media companies to limit the spread of misinformation on their platforms. When that misinformation is coming from state actors (e.g. Russia) it’s not uncommon for the US Government to have the best knowledge of those efforts. It follows that the social media company would want to consult with the US Government to improve their efforts. But the US Government obviously also has its own interests and biases that can very easily corrupt those efforts.
There has been cases (as pointed out in the last court case) where I think the government did cross the line from advisory to directive. I think that’s a problem that absolutely needs to be addressed.
IMO the answer to this is a bit of a one-way communication and transparency. The US Government should keep a publicly accessible database of what it believes to be misinformation efforts including posts, accounts, etc. Third parties can audit that DB and conduct their own reviews. It would then be up to them whether or not to use that information to aid their own efforts. The public can also review that information and they (and the media) can point out the flaws and mistakes they believe are being made.