NHMC CONCLUDES THE FACEBOOK AUDIT RELEASED TODAY, AUTHORED BY A FORMER SENATOR WITH A HISTORY OF ANTI-IMMIGRANT, ANTI-MUSLIM RHETORIC, IS USELESS AND DECEIVES THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Los Angeles, CA - After analyzing the release of findings today of a roughly-year long audit of Facebook on whether or not the platform has an alleged liberal bias, a claim conservatives have long argued, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) concludes the information found in the report is largely useless, undermines the efforts by NHMC and its civil rights allies by giving airtime to baseless claims of bias against conservatives, and deceives the American people because the report was not conducted by a neutral, third-party firm.

"The mere fact that Facebook hired former Republican Senator Jon Kyl to conduct the report is shameless," said Alex Nogales, president and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. "Kyl has a history of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric, which violates Facebook's own Community Standards, and deceives and clearly prioritizes politics over safety of its most vulnerable users.

"Facebook's efforts to address civil rights concerns in its ongoing civil rights audit is where we believe its resources should be directed instead of reports like today's that is not only flawed in its methodology, but also has no data-based conclusions," continued Nogales.

The report comes at a time when conservatives have consistently voiced concerns that Facebook's policy for identifying hate speech is "unfair" and that hate speech guidelines are unnecessary.

"It's a slap in the face for people everywhere who experience hate online when conservatives argue that hate speech guidelines on Facebook are unnecessary," remarked Nogales. "Online hate has real life consequences. We saw this first hand by the recent murders of Latinos and Mexican nationals in El Paso, Texas by a white supremacist who was radicalized on the internet. We also know that anti-immigrant rhetoric used by the far-right, the Trump Administration, and the president himself, have direct connections to online violent extremism," said Nogales. "Facebook needs to get serious now about the real civil and human rights problems occuring on its platforms. Otherwise, we can expect another El Paso in the very near future," concluded Nogales.