Barack Obama Says People 'Dying,' Democracy 'Under Threat' Due To Disinformation On Social Media

Former President Barack Obama said “people are dying” due to disinformation on social media services in a speech at Stanford University, the Washington Post reported on Thursday,

What Happened: Obama in his speech said social media firms were not transparent about their algorithms and the workings of their software, as per the report.

Obama said social media algorithms have evolved such that “no one on the outside of these companies can accurately predict what they’ll do … and sometimes the people who built them aren’t sure … That’s a problem.”

The former U.S. president said he was convinced current trends would get worse if nothing was done, according to the Post.

“Without some standards, the implications of this technology for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order, are frightening and profound.”

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Why It Matters: Obama said “very specific choices” made by social media companies have left "democracies more vulnerable.”

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc FB was warned privately by Obama about the issues surrounding disinformation two months before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, according to a separate report from the Post.

Last month, Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk posted a poll to his followers on Twitter Inc’s TWTR platform asking if the company’s algorithm should be open-sourced.

The following month, Musk purchased a 9% stake in Twitter to become its largest individual shareholder. He then offered to purchase the company outright but faced pushback from Twitter’s board.

On Thursday, Musk disclosed that he had secured three commitment letters for $46.5 billion from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding and other financial institutions to buy the Jack Dorsey-founded social media platform.

Price Action: On Thursday, Twitter shares spiked 1.4% in the after-hours trading to $47.70 after closing 0.7% higher in the regular session. On the same day, Meta Platforms shares closed 6.2% lower at $188.07 in the regular trading, according to data from Benzinga Pro. 

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Photo courtesy: Matt Johnson on Flickr