'Billionaire philanthropy won't save us': Mark Zuckerberg's $300 million donation to 'election integrity' met with criticism

'Mark Zuckerberg has raked in $40,800,000,000 since the pandemic began. That's 136 times the $300 million donation he hopes will distract us'

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced he and his wife Priscilla Chan will donate $300m “to preserve [the] integrity of our elections” by funding voting access initiatives in a statement the couple released on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old billionaire said he was committed to expanding voting access and providing “local and state officials across the country with the resources, training and infrastructure necessary to ensure that every voter who intends to cast a ballot is able to” come November.

His announcement comes as Facebook — the most popular social media platform in the world — faced increasing criticism over its handling of political misinformation, as well as repeated failures to prevent fake news and dangerous conspiracy theories from spreading online.

The couple’s donation would go to the Centre for Tech and civic Life, as well as the Centre for Election and Innovation Research.

“Many counties and states are strapped financially and working to determine how to staff and fund operations that will allow for ballots to be cast and counted in a timely way,” the couple said. “These donations will help to provide local and state officials across the country with the resources, training and infrastructure necessary to ensure that every voter who intends to cast a ballot is able to, and ultimately, to preserve integrity of our elections."

The CEO faced backlash from critics over the donation, however, with some saying he wasn’t going far enough to preventing his platform from disrupting the electoral process.

“Mark Zuckerberg has raked in $40,800,000,000 since the pandemic began,” former US Secretary of Labour Robert Reich wrote in a tweet. “That's 136 times the $300 million donation he hopes will distract us from all the ways he's allowed fascism and misinformation to erode our democracy.”

“Billionaire philanthropy won’t save us,” he continued, adding: “Tax the rich.”

Zuckerberg has previously defended his company’s approach to handling some of President Donald Trump’s controversial posts on Facebook and examples of politicians using the platform to post misleading advertisements or misinformation, saying private companies like his should not serve as “arbiters of truth” during an interview with the Fox News show The Daily Briefing.

Responding to a decision Twitter made in May to fact-check one of the president’s tweets, Zuckerberg told the network at the time: "I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. I think in general private companies probably shouldn't be – especially these platform companies – shouldn't be in the position of doing that."

His donation to the electoral research hubs also comes at a time when the president and his allies have attacked efforts by many states to expand access to mail-in voting in the midst of a global pandemic. Mr Trump has largely avoided attacks on states with Republican strongholds which are also expanding mail-in voting access, instead focusing on Democratic-held regions and battleground states critical to his re-election.

Mr Trump has previously said that if the US were to conduct universal mail-in voting, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again” in an interview with Fox News’ morning show, Fox & Friends.

Research has consistently shown that mail-in voting does not favour one major political party over another; rather, it has shown that more voters from both parties participate in the electoral process.

The centres thanked Zuckerberg and his wife for the donation, which they said would “promote safe and reliable voting in states and localities during the Covid-19 pandemic”.

David Becker, executive director of the Centre for Election Innovation and Research, also said in a statement: “This donation will greatly assist election officials as they seek to inform voters about their voting options and any changes, educate them about how they can successfully ensure their ballot is received and counted, and bolster transparency and legitimacy.”