Facebook Bans Ads From The Epoch Times (nytimes.com) 42
Facebook has banned advertising from The Epoch Times, the Falun Gong-related publication and conservative news outlet, as the social network struggles to implement a consistent political advertising policy. The New York Times reports: Facebook issued the ban on Friday after NBC News published a report this week that said The Epoch Times had obscured its connection to recent Facebook ads promoting President Trump and conspiracy content. The Epoch Times, started in 2000 by a group of Chinese-Americans affiliated with the religious group Falun Gong, has in recent years ridden the wave of conservative, pro-Trump social media popularity to build a large social media following. On its website, it advances conspiracy content such as anti-vaccination theories, while its YouTube channels promote the pro-Trump fringe movement QAnon and other topics.
The Epoch Times's official Facebook accounts were banned by the social network in July. But according to the NBC report, it then ran new Facebook ads without disclosing that they were associated with the outlet. The ads ran under page names such as "Honest Paper" and "Pure American Journalism" and purchased by MarketFuel Subscription Services and Perpetual Market, which are decoy names for The Epoch Times, according to NBC News. Facebook introduced political advertising transparency rules in 2018 that require political advertisers to divulge the name of organizations responsible for the ads. But The Epoch Times was apparently able to sidestep those rules before being caught. Stephen Gregory, publisher of The Epoch Times, said in a statement that Facebook did not earlier respond to requests for clarification on why its ads were taken down, so it began "publishing its advertising on a number of other, new Facebook pages." He added that "these ads were overtly Epoch Times advertisements for our subscription."
The Epoch Times's official Facebook accounts were banned by the social network in July. But according to the NBC report, it then ran new Facebook ads without disclosing that they were associated with the outlet. The ads ran under page names such as "Honest Paper" and "Pure American Journalism" and purchased by MarketFuel Subscription Services and Perpetual Market, which are decoy names for The Epoch Times, according to NBC News. Facebook introduced political advertising transparency rules in 2018 that require political advertisers to divulge the name of organizations responsible for the ads. But The Epoch Times was apparently able to sidestep those rules before being caught. Stephen Gregory, publisher of The Epoch Times, said in a statement that Facebook did not earlier respond to requests for clarification on why its ads were taken down, so it began "publishing its advertising on a number of other, new Facebook pages." He added that "these ads were overtly Epoch Times advertisements for our subscription."
Facebook? (Score:1)
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Once more (Score:3)
Facebook shows it's China's bitch.
Re:Once more (Score:4, Informative)
Facebook shows it's China's bitch.
Considering Facebook is blocked in China that seems really doubtful.
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Facebook, social media for the foolish and gullible, the sheeple channel (that is a lot truer than it should be but then 100IQ is average and that means 50% are lower than that, facebooks target audience).
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Hey, do you know how hard it is to get free liver transplants for your entire board of directors?
Re:Once more (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, this is over the top. Going along with the demands of China is getting out of hand when they react to Chinese government propaganda about the HK protests by ... censoring the opposition to the Chinese government. What assholes.
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That's only because guys like Zuck want to be in charge.
Nicely Done (Score:2)
An article about the Epoch Times [theepochtimes.com] that manages to avoid any link to the actual entity.
That's sort of a delicate and careful way of avoiding the Streisand Effect, eh?
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We can't have anyone making up their own mind now, can we?
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It'd be nice to be able to make up your own mind without economically benefiting a bunch of charlatans.
And their response (Score:1, Insightful)
An article about the Epoch Times [theepochtimes.com] that manages to avoid any link to the actual entity.
That's sort of a delicate and careful way of avoiding the Streisand Effect, eh?
Thanks for the link. The site seems like a legitimate newspaper, nothing obvious leaps out as fake, misleading, or bad.
Here's [theepochtimes.com] their response to the ban.
In short, Facebook originally banned them without saying why, Epoch Times had no reason to suspect it was because of the political content.
Also, they point out that New York Times [facebook.com] and CNN [facebook.com] do what Epoch Times was banned for... with impunity.
More double-standards from Facebook, the sort of thing that's going to cause the government to come down on them with a
Re:And their response (Score:5, Funny)
The site seems like a legitimate newspaper, nothing obvious leaps out as fake, misleading, or bad.
Just curious, what kind of a head injury do you have?
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More double-standards from Facebook, the sort of thing that's going to cause the government to come down on them with a load of regulations.
Are you under the impression that the First Amendment is soon to be repealed?
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It's certainly not the Daily Kos some of you love and revere.
Like what? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re: Like what? (Score:3, Insightful)
No collusion. Read it and weep if you must. You nevertrumpers make it harder to dislike the guy, who doesn't even happen to be very likeable.
Re: Like what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Like what? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure Obama figured it'd help his side. And when it didn't, well, we have the last 3 years of "investigating collusion" and "impeach Trump".
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Re:Like what? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a country where, much like science, you have to prove that something happened. There was not enough evidence to prove collusion, Hence, Trump did not do anything. Sorry this is difficult for you.
I am not Trump's biggest fan, I have my criticisms, and yet people like you are constantly putting me in a position where I have to defend him. You are the reason we're going to get another 4 years.
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Re: Like what? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Might want to stop listening to the record backwards and expecting explicit instructions on how the ruskies are out to get you.
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The opposite was not proven true;
The only thing that is proven here is that you have no idea how the concept of presumtion of innocence works. No legal entity in the United States has the power or authority to declare anyone innocent of anything.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Sounds like a Trump ideological conspiracy. (Score:3)
"Falun Gong or Falun Dafa is a Chinese religious spiritual practice that combines meditation and qigong exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. The practice emphasizes morality and the cultivation of virtue, and identifies as a qigong practice of the Buddhist school, though its teachings also incorporate elements drawn from Taoist traditions. Through moral rectitude and the practice of meditation, practitioners of Falun Gong aspire to eliminate attachments, and ultimately to achieve spiritual enlightenment."
(Wikipedia)
I think this is the most incongruous "blame Trump" mashup I've seen, and that's a pretty high bar.
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Falun Gong is the Chinese scientology equivalent.
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Their support is simply because Trump is fighting the Chinese government. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as they say.
Like many religions, what they claim to be about and what they are actually about are two very different things.
They morphed weirdly (Score:2)
They morphed weirdly from a very very very pro-Falun Gong propaganda mag to a very very very pro-Donald Trump mag almost overnight. The sudden shift in 'reporting' was just plain bizarre and their slavering adulation of Trump is downright creepy.
If you sign up you get 2 free gifts- one is a glossy brochure all about how amazingly fantastic Donald Trump is, and the other is a "Spygate" poster to hang on your wall. As Dave Barry says, "I'm not making this up."
US brands (Score:2)
Expect more censorship in the US to get more approval from Communist govs.
Yup, that's right. (Score:1)
Oh yes ... (Score:2)
... Facebook would never tolerate anything political. Quite consistent here.
You can't even parody this stuff. What a weird world.
Hit Piece (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been watching The Epoch Times for a while now. I have not seen them push "conspiracy" material. Maybe something is there, but I haven't seen it. Their articles have good, reliable sources and one of their writers, Brian Cates, is the expert when it comes to the FISA abuse story. They also cover lots of stories that other organizations don't even mention.
Yes, the opinion articles certainly put Donald Trump and his administration in a good light (I wasn't aware that was a crime), but when it comes to the factual content in the articles, the information checks out. Very solid publication - so solid that I recently bought a subscription. I haven't subscribed to a news organization's content in well over a decade - and that was a dead tree newspaper.
Epoch Times does good work. Several news organizations have been publishing highly negative articles about them these past few weeks. The motive, of course, is to do damage to the reputation of the organization. As far as I'm concerned this speaks far, far more about NBC / CNN / NYT than it does the Epoch Times.
But the wonderful thing is that you, yourself, can go to their website [theepochtimes.com] and read their articles and decide for yourself instead of taking the word of some hack journalist or some random person commenting on Slashdot.
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Perhaps you should peruse their Heath section and how loaded it is with dangerous nonsense https://www.theepochtimes.com/... [theepochtimes.com]
Or their many articles promoting fear of vaccines https://www.theepochtimes.com/... [theepochtimes.com]
The other problem with this paper is how obviously slanted and biased it is. Looking right now, there isn't any coverage of the Brazil wildfires in the first entire 3 pages of articles. Meanwhile there are *17* different positive spin articles about Trump.
It's total garbage.
Translation (Score:3)