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Facebook Takes Down a False Political Ad -- from a PAC (reuters.com) 85

An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: Facebook Inc said on Saturday that it had removed an ad which falsely claimed that U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham supported the Green New Deal, demonstrating that it will fact-check ads from political groups but not politicians.

The ad, which ran on Friday, was put up as a stunt by a left-leaning Political Action Committee, or PAC, called The Really Online Lefty League, to test Facebook's political ad policies... Facebook spokesman Tom Channick told Reuters on Friday that since the new ad came from a political action group, rather than a politician, it was eligible for review by the company's third-party fact-checking partners.

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Facebook Takes Down a False Political Ad -- from a PAC

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  • by The New Guy 2.0 ( 3497907 ) on Sunday October 27, 2019 @01:39PM (#59352960)

    Uhm, US Law is a mess here. McCain–Feingold says that Facebook has to accept all political ads, or none at all. The thing is, PACs aren't allowed to lie, such as in that ad they pulled. So, this makes Facebook an arbiter of truth, which it isn't good at doing. Seems like they just care about money over there, so how about a fine for lies that causes them to drop all political ads?

    • by Big Bipper ( 1120937 ) on Sunday October 27, 2019 @01:53PM (#59352984)
      I wonder if Facebook was tipped off in advance that the ad was fake just so they could crow about removing it ?
      • Its all a show.
        • Rethink Libel Laws (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Sunday October 27, 2019 @02:24PM (#59353042)

          Easy solution is to reverse the Sullivan decision. If that happened, this PAC or anyone be else could be held liable for lies.

          It would also improve public discourse.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            It would also improve public discourse.

            Probably not. What is a lie is often in the eye of the beholder. And many, many people (including possible jurors) are deep in their own personal reality exclusion zone. I think this would just make the whole thing even more aggressive and dishonest than it already is. If that is possible...

            • For that matter, why should we have laws against deceptive or false advertising, when a lie is often in the eye of the beholder? Or even slander and libel? Is there even such a thing as objective truth?

              Malicious liars should not be able to hide behind 1A protections if they can be proved to be malicious liars. Especially corporations, and even more especially corporate funded PACs and NGOs.

              If you want an example of what happens when public discourse is left to choke and fester on lies [washingtonexaminer.com] with only a mumbled no [washingtonpost.com]

        • by rtb61 ( 674572 )
          The show in this case, pushing the lie, if Facebook take down stories about politicians, than politicians will not lie in the ads on Facebook. Screw the ads, check the track record of the politician. Reality is all political ads should be banned in the age of the internet and the government should put up a web site for all politicians to advertise on and people can access that, add in forum to discuss what is going on and you are done. In the US instance, the US congressional library can host it. Solves all
          • There are many ways to lie, and some of them don't require lying. Stating a perfectly true fact can easily give a false impression if other information is deliberately omitted.

      • If you follow politics at all, you don't need to be tipped off about something like this. Even if you weren't sure, the claim being made is the type of thing that would make a normal person question whether or not something like that is actually correct. Given that the group's aim was to determine if Facebook would fact check them, they had to pick something so blatantly false that it couldn't slip past by accident.

        What should have given Facebook a little more pause was when they looked into the group ru
        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          What should have given Facebook a little more pause was when they looked into the group running that ad because their organization's acronym is TROLL. I think it should have been pretty obvious what the intention was, or at least that the group trying to run this ad was doing so because of some ulterior motive.

          You think there is any actual intelligence involved in that "fact checking"?

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I wonder if Facebook was tipped off in advance that the ad was fake just so they could crow about removing it ?

        Would not surprise me one bit. Or they actually instigated the whole thing. ZuckerFucker is not known for honesty, integrity or really any positive personal qualities.

      • I thought when AOC was grilling Mark Zuckerberg about political ads, she used a false add about Republicans supporting the Green New Deal as an example...
      • I wonder if Facebook was tipped off in advance that the ad was fake just so they could crow about removing it ?

        This is literally the hypothetical that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed when questioning Zuckerman the a few days ago. He refused to answer if he would block such an ad and now we have a partial answer. He will block that ad if a PAC submits it but the hypothetical was Ocasio-Cortez asking what he would do if she posted that ad so in theory that could be a test she might try out.

    • Does accept mean that they have to take anything or that they just can't make a blanket refusal to some person or group? I'd agree that it's pretty stupid of them to single out different groups for different treatment, but if they're willing to take ads from this group that don't violate Facebook's policies then I don't really see a problem.

      Trying to make some sweeping generalization out of a law creates just as many problems. For instance, if Facebook has to accept all political ads, can someone start a
      • Tough one here.

        I believe it is broader than just Facebook.
        ALL political ads, for any elected position, should be staunchly regulated, wherever they are published.
        There are even blatant lies, or out-of-context postings, on recent TV ads!
        I don't see the same public stink made about the presenters (i.e. TV networks) here as against Facebook.

        How might we invoke regulations here, you may ask?
        How about requiring absolute, substantiated facts?
        "Alternate facts" need to be recognized as lies, or just opinio
    • by bigpat ( 158134 )

      So, this makes Facebook an arbiter of truth, which it isn't good at doing. Seems like they just care about money over there, so how about a fine for lies that causes them to drop all political ads?

      The people and organizations running the ads should be responsible for the fraudulent claims. And the people harmed should be responsible for filing the lawsuits. That has always been the free speech line in America. Anything else is just government censorship by proxy.

      And I think the attack ad against Biden that kicked this off... no more false than dozens of other political attack ads I have seen over the years. Pulls together facts and weaves them together with a possible narrative. If we are going

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        Who determines what is fraudulent? CNN/NYT/MSNBC have proven they can't tell truth from fiction (citation: All the headlines they have made over "Russian Collusion" that have been proven false). The other side doesn't trust Fox. Does the party in power get to chose? That will surely be neutral (sarcasm for the SJWs) A "supposedly neutral board" (which does not and cannot exist--we all have biases)? That is why ads are not supposed to be refused (they are anyway, especially ones from an organization that di
        • dang it universe where absolutely everything is true b/c you can't tell the difference between facts and fiction.

          LORD! why couldn't you have made it possible to recognize a distinction between facts and fiction! Why did you go and make fact and fiction EXACTLY alike! what were you thinking, GOD!?!??!

        • CNN/NYT/MSNBC have proven they can't tell truth from fiction

          There's a difference between can't and won't. Just because a newspaper publishes false stories does not mean fact checking is beyond possibility.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Everyone makes mistakes. Reputable sources publish corrections.

    • Uhm, US Law is a mess here. McCain–Feingold says that Facebook has to accept all political ads, or none at all. The thing is, PACs aren't allowed to lie, such as in that ad they pulled. So, this makes Facebook an arbiter of truth, which it isn't good at doing. Seems like they just care about money over there, so how about a fine for lies that causes them to drop all political ads?

      Could you provide a link to the regulation (McCain–Feingold)? I can only find https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and it doesn't seem like the correct one

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      Since when are PACs not allowed to lie? It's political opinion and protected by the first amendment.

      Second of all, they didn't lie, they put together a video that in the credits explained that it was from the Lefty League and not authorized by any candidate, moreover, they didn't put anything in the video except the slogan to a non-existent campaign "Conservatives for a Green New Deal" but they did do a good job at demonstrating that conservatives have historically been concerned about climate and environme

      • Defamation law comes into play here.

        In this case, it was a group knowingly making a false statement with the intent to harm another. Facebook quite reasonably may want to be involved in publishing defamatory statements when they can avoid it.

        • by tinkerghost ( 944862 ) on Sunday October 27, 2019 @04:22PM (#59353282) Homepage

          In this case, it was a group knowingly making a false statement with the intent to harm another. Facebook quite reasonably may want to be involved in publishing defamatory statements when they can avoid it.

          The problem being, they've stated and shown that the same type of statement delivered BY an actual candidate making false claims about an opponent will be permitted.

        • by guruevi ( 827432 )

          You need stronger proof to claim defamation. They actually praised the people they quoted for having the correct ideas. They intended it to be satire, but as I said, head needs to be surgically removed for them to see the joke is on them.

      • It's political opinion and protected by the first amendment.

        Lies and falsehoods are not protection by the first amendment.

        • Generally speaking, yes they are...

          Take for example New York Times v Sullivan. Or Hustler Magazine v Falwell. Or Rickert v Washington. Or United States v Alvarez...
        • by guruevi ( 827432 )

          You're entering the dangerous territory of the state being the arbiters of truth. I know both Warren and other Democratic frontrunners have proposed this Ministry of Truth, a separate division of the state to manage "lies and corruption" controlled by the executive with powers of removal across all branches of government but its historically been proven to be the predecessor of fascism and dictatorship.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Isn't the way it's supposed to work that Facebook can take the ad down or not, and that decision is then subject to an expensive legal review process in the courts? The court ultimately decides if it was a lie.

      So it seems to me like the problem is really money: If you have enough you can either be a liar or be an arbitrator of truth, if you don't then the threat of crippling lawsuits has a chilling effect.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Is social media now the publisher or good censor?
    • by dirk ( 87083 )

      No, that is not how the law works. Yes, they must accept ads from all politicians, but that doesn't mean they can't put restrictions on them. For example, if a political ad had nudity, they could decide they didn't want to run it, even for cable channels that can show nudity. The law says if they accept ads from one politician, tey must accept ads from their opponents so they cannot just decide they are not going to run ads from Biden if they are accepting ads from Trump. But they can still reject individua

    • All the PAC groups have to do now is put out their opposition party politician's false claims and then it gets taken down by FB "fact checking" which then by default "fact checks" the liar politicians claim and shows it to be false
  • The group posting the ad calls it a "test." Is that because they got caught?

    • The group posting the ad calls it a "test." Is that because they got caught?

      There might be a clue in the group's acronym: "The Really Online Lefty League"

    • they were pretty open about this. Talk about the advert was all over left wing YouTube.

      I'm not at all surprised it got taken down. Facebook doesn't want to alienate the GOP and Trump's campaign because their angling for what is literally billions in advertising dollars to be spent next year, but a tiny left wing PAC? Yeah, they can go pound sand.
    • by guruevi ( 827432 )

      You can still find the ad, it turned out to show that conservatives aren't out to kill off the population of earth just to get some money. It demonstrated that Teddy Roosevelt, Reagan and even Graham agree that we have to take care of the environment and they all introduced plans to actually do that.

      They went way off message and the message backfired, hence Facebook took it down and called it a stunt. It's similar to calling Republicans the party of slavery, when it was Southern Democrats that went to war o

    • The group posting the ad calls it a "test." Is that because they got caught?

      What is interesting is how much it shows who is actually paying attention to politics and who isn't because this is clearly a test because it is exactly what was proposed in a recent congressional hearing. They're not making it up because they were caught if they were trying to sneak something through they would have picked something that wasn't literally asked to Zuckerberg a few weeks ago.

  • So politicians can still lie freely on Facebook and elsewhere because, you know, it's all about the base: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
  • Doesn't explain why Facebook does give a platform to lying politicians. You might think politicians lying was an everyday thing.
    • Money.

      They get money from the lying politicians, then they gey more money from the opposing politicians running ads to dispute the lies and/or fling back their own lies. It's a very lucrative business.

  • ... buy ads. They can put their messages out there without copyright, people can cover them... but I see no reason to have politics pay billions of dollars constantly to the media. Politics is not a business, it's how we run our public infrastructure.

    • But this is about the only redeeming feature of politics, the amount of money the campaigns spend helps boost the economy.
      • by pyrrho ( 167252 )

        not really, big media is a wasteful industry, it'd be better spent on material infrastructure. In fact, I don't understand why, with this kind of money, candidates don't spend it on local infrastructure... you can make a park or clean up some waterfront for peanuts and get press that way. If they had to attract press with these kinds of stunts, THEN it would be money well spent.

        • by robsku ( 1381635 )

          Excellent point here. I'm heavily for limiting the campaign budget, as I consider oversized campaign budgets pretty much a completely toxic to democracy. Since when in the USA was the last time that someone who isn't above the middle class got elected as president? I don't know if such miracle ever happened, but what about even just congressman? Pretty much it seems to be all rich folk, detached from the everyday life of common people.
          Now, I live in a different country all together, but the same issue I see

          • sometimes into the House of Representatives but even that is pretty rare, they're mostly at least top of the upper middle class, lawyer/doctor, wealthy... not that they might not have come from the working class and worked hard for that.

            thing is, you could have a totally constant cost network for political communication, such as C-SPAN type channels and web sites where viral popularity might drive exposure, rather than money. Obviously, that's not the greatest thing in itself... but people that want to see

            • by robsku ( 1381635 )

              The problem now is people need to stop accepting information passively and seek out information for any system to work.

              Agreed - but what could we do to try and change things into that direction? It's definitely what needs to happen...

              But the problem with spending billions every two years means you have a corruptly motivated media system based on profit rather than information oriented incentives.

              Indeed >:(

      • TV Station WMUR in New Hampshire is only profitable during the NH Primary season, and is money-losing at all other times.

      • But this is about the only redeeming feature of politics, the amount of money the campaigns spend helps boost the economy.

        how? all that money goes into sinkholes. that's why republicans keep pushing for more money in politics it allows them to grease palms as it were

    • So much for "freedom of speech"...
      • free speech is people freely saying something, paying to amplify speech is another, that's commerce, specifically marketting.

        How would prohibiting paid ads stop SPEECH, could you describe that? I know I'd see everything every candidate had to say. Why wouldn't you. You won't do it for free, you only listen if it comes to you, is that it? You're laziness is "free" speech... "free" of effort on your part?

        By the way, media would cover and transmit those messages, if you think about it. And we have things

    • That might seem like a good thought, but ultimately creates a problem when no one covers you or your message. What recourse do you have at that point other than letting yourself be shut out. If you can raise money to pay for the ads or if you want to spend your own fortunes to promote your political message I don't have a problem with that.

      Even if there weren't obvious problems with this proposal, the first amendment wouldn't allow for any laws that outright prohibiting political advertisements.
      • if there is no way to outspend people into non-representation the only way this would happen would be if some people make viral message and others don't... in other words, people make popular messages.

        People like myself would see all the adds put out, they would be in places like C-SPAN and various websites. These billions spent, almost all go to big media companies... that's not an allowable partnership between our government and press. That's not a free press, that's coopted press.

        This by the way is pat

        • You're free to decide to avoid consuming news sources that contain political advertising (paid or otherwise) but that doesn't mean you get to demand that everyone else cannot accept money to host political ads. Even ignoring that it's unconstitutional (read (no really, go read it!) the bit about "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;" which has nothing to say about whether or not it is paid for or not) you would never get a group of politicians (you know the peop
          • by pyrrho ( 167252 )

            I don't have the power to say that all by myself, but we as a culture CAN say that. And if you are saying there is no abridgment on speech of any kind because of the first amendment... I don't understand how you could think that. However, I also said, "what I think is..." and that's just a fact... I don't think we need paid political speech. And I am certain there is a legal basis for paid speech not being synonymous with free speech. You might as well say the commerce clause means you can't make prostitut

      • Even if there weren't obvious problems with this proposal, the first amendment wouldn't allow for any laws that outright prohibiting political advertisements.

        All sorts of limits on campaigning/campaign financing can be put in place. Obviously - since "shall not be infringed" gets infringed on a regular basis, rights have been ruled to not be absolute, etc and so forth.

        But with what amounts to two private corporations having a stranglehold on the American political process you can also bet that there will never be a law passed that does anything about it either.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re "billions of dollars constantly to the media"
      In a free nation people have the right to publish.
      Groups of people have the right to publish.
      Why should any one side of politics who controls "public infrastructure" that decade get to decide what/who can make use "public infrastructure" politically that year?
      Thats why people and groups can "buy" ads to talk about politics in any way they want.
      Citizens who vote can they see what the ads are about.. not some "public infrastructure" that puts limits on spe
  • Did they call him just to make sure he hadn't gone green? He flipped on his opinion of Trump, he could have flipped on this too.
  • As long as the rules are understood, I don't care what Facebook puts up as ads. They should be marked in a way so that they will be understood as political ads, not just random commentary. If Facebook's rules are that politicians can say whatever (lie) and not be censored, then it's understood that what's in the politician's ads may actually *be* lies.

    Likewise, if the rules are that PACs must be truthful, and will be censored if caught, then that's what you know to expect going in.

  • The tactic presenting your arguments as FACTS and those of your opponents as MYTHS, is quite old. In the 1980s, the pro Isreaeli propaganda outfit Flame promised "Facts and Logic about the Middle East. And the "fact" that Donald Trump lies 14 times a day, every day, for the past 1000 days is surely fodder for political fundraising.

    People want clarity. And Hucksters are willing to sell it to them.

    • Wow, how does he find the time?

      The real question is how many of those are original lies and how many of those actually impact my life. See, I don't care if you disagree with the President about the size of his inaugural crowd or whether the economy grew at 3.9% vs 4%. I don't think most people do either. I think most people don't even see those as lies but salesmanship.

      Big lies like 'you can keep your doctor', 'there is no crisis at the border' and 'globalization is good for the USA' (cause ya know,

  • This very literal example is one she used in her questions to Zuckerberg this week. She literally asked him she could post ads about republicans supporting the Green New Deal.

    Ethics violation ?

    • The day after AOC asked that hypothetical question, a third party took the idea and ran with it for a measly 50$. So no.
  • Congress needs to update that Free Speech Right to more appropriately address true freedoms.

    MY interpretation of what the Founding Fathers had in mind was to be free to speak out with real truths.
    Lies, especially blatant lies, should be considered as dangerous incitements as those of
    someone yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater where no fire is known to exist.
    The harm those lies, or mis-contextual statements, cause are as significant as the potential harms,
    or even deaths, caused by the ensuing

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