US stops helping Big Tech spot foreign meddling amid GOP legal threats

The US federal government has stopped warning some social networks about foreign disinformation campaigns on their platforms, reversing a years-long approach to preventing Russia and other actors from interfering in American politics less than a year before the US presidential elections. Meta no longer receives notifications of global influence campaigns from the Biden administration, halting a prolonged partnership between the federal government and the world’s largest social media company. Federal agencies have also stopped communicating about political disinformation with Pinterest, according to the company. In July 2023, a federal judge limited the Biden administration’s communications with tech platforms in response to a lawsuit alleging such coordination ran afoul of the First Amendment by encouraging companies to remove falsehoods about COVID-19 and the 2020 election. The shift erodes a partnership considered crucial to the integrity of elections around the world—just months before voters head to the polls in Taiwan, the European Union, India and the United States.