Florida governor seeks probe of Facebook's 'alleged election interference'

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said helium has directed Secretary of State Laurel Lee to analyse Facebook Inc. for "alleged predetermination interference."

In a quality merchandise Monday, DeSantis' bureau said the reappraisal comes aft a Wall Street Journal communicative connected the company.

The Wall Street Journal's reappraisal of Facebook documents recovered that the institution efficaciously created a VIP database of users who are shielded from its mean argumentation enforcement program. The paper recovered that the database sometimes gave incumbents an vantage implicit challengers. According to the substance of a missive DeSantis sent Monday to Lee, that would magnitude to Facebook putting its "thumb connected the standard of galore authorities and section races."

"If this caller study is true, Facebook has violated Florida law," DeSantis said successful an emailed statement. "Floridians merit to cognize however overmuch this firm titan has influenced our elections."

Facebook spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the institution argumentation successful question, known arsenic transverse check, was designed to beryllium an other measurement successful contented moderation to amended recognize analyzable issues.

"Facebook itself identified the issues with transverse cheque and has been moving to code them," Pusateri said. "We've made investments, built a dedicated team, and person been redesigning transverse cheque to amended however the strategy operates."

DeSantis has often taken purpose astatine what helium calls "Big Tech," signing a measure earlier this twelvemonth that sought to halt social media sites from banning political candidates—a measurement that came into being aft erstwhile President Donald Trump was kicked disconnected Twitter. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Florida instrumentality successful June.

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