Tech giant Meta has elected liberal billionaire and “disinformation” censorship donor John Arnold to its board of directors, the company announced earlier in February.
Meta’s platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, have engaged in content censorship across various topics, including abortion, COVID-19 and elections. Arnold’s for-profit philanthropy outfit Arnold Ventures has given nearly $14 million to five organizations connected to countering perceived disinformation and misinformation, The Washington Examiner reported in December 2022. (RELATED: Facebook Censored Posts Saying COVID Was Man-Made At Biden Admin’s Behest: REPORT)
I’m thrilled and honored to join the board of Meta. https://t.co/GGmzuoceXY
— John Arnold (@JohnArnoldFndtn) February 14, 2024
Meta’s press release about the election of Arnold neglects to mention any of his philanthropy’s work related to so-called misinformation and disinformation.
“Arnold Ventures seeks to tackle some of the most pressing problems in the United States by applying evidence-based solutions to improve outcomes in public systems, including health care, education, criminal justice, infrastructure, and public finance,” it states.
Arnold Ventures has given nearly $10 million to American Journalism Project (AJP), according to the Examiner.
AJP believes the fading faith in media has enabled “disinformation” to proliferate and that Americans no longer possess the same “fact base,” according to an “insight” on its website.
In Apr ’18, responding to criticism of Facebook’s role in democracy & the elections, FB and a group of funders, including @Arnold_Ventures, announced an initiative to allow researchers access to their data to study how social media spreads false info & increases polarization. 1/9
— John Arnold (@JohnArnoldFndtn) December 18, 2019
“I look forward to being a part of Meta’s board, and to contributing my insights as we work together in our collective responsibility to Meta’s users and the wider community,” Arnold said in the press release.
Arnold Ventures also donated $1.5 million to Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the Examiner reported. SSRC runs a project called Mediawell, with Arnold Ventures funding its “Social Media and Democracy Research Grants” in part, according to its website.
The grants “support research that examines the impact of social media and related digital technologies on democracy and elections, in order to generate insights and advance new avenues for inquiry in an independent, transparent, and ethical way, according to the highest standards of data privacy and academic norms,” its website says.
SSRC also launched “the Mercury Project,” which is focused on mitigating the adverse health impacts of “mis- and disinformation,” according to its website.
Arnold Ventures also contributed half a million dollars to Global Witness in 2020, the Examiner reported. The group claims “the reality of the climate crisis is an undeniable truth,” and recommends that “Facebook and all social media companies produce … plans to meaningfully reduce the spread of climate disinformation on their platforms.”
“Instead of enabling a harmful environment, [big social media platforms] should be quicker to act on content that clearly violates their policies,” Global Witness recommends. “Properly resourcing their content moderation systems would help reduce the amplification and spread of disinformation around climate or climate science, and incendiary or hateful content.”
Meta and Arnold Ventures did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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