Facebook Says It Won't Back Down From Allowing Lies in Political Ads (nytimes.com) 154
Facebook said on Thursday that it would not make any major changes to its political advertising policies, which allow lies in ads, despite pressure from lawmakers who say the company is abdicating responsibility for what appears on its platform. The New York Times: The decision, which company executives had telegraphed in recent months, is likely to harden criticism of Facebook's political ad practices heading into this year's presidential election. The company also said it would not end so-called microtargeting for political ads, which lets campaigns home in on a sliver of Facebook's users -- a tactic that critics say is ideal for spreading divisive or misleading information. Political advertising cuts to the heart of Facebook's outsize role in society, and the company has found itself squeezed between liberal critics who want it to do a better job of policing its various social media platforms and conservatives who say their views are being unfairly muzzled.
The issue has raised important questions regarding how heavy a hand technology companies like Facebook -- which also owns Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp -- and Google should exert when deciding what types of political content they will and will not permit. By maintaining a status quo, Facebook executives are essentially saying they are doing the best they can without government guidance and see little benefit to the company or the public in changing.
The issue has raised important questions regarding how heavy a hand technology companies like Facebook -- which also owns Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp -- and Google should exert when deciding what types of political content they will and will not permit. By maintaining a status quo, Facebook executives are essentially saying they are doing the best they can without government guidance and see little benefit to the company or the public in changing.
Ban my enemies, push my message! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ban my enemies, push my message! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is indeed a difference between lies and different opinion.
There are cases where there are posts like...
Trump Said this where he didn't
Clinton Said that where she didn't
Vs.opinion
Trump actions are leading to this outcome
Clinton views can caused these outcomes
A lot of these political lies are dangerous because they are often pushing people out of the hypothetical course of action. To making a group afraid of an other group. In which will lead to violence over the most mundane things. The brand of Shoes people wear, the type of car they drive, what type of chicken sandwich they eat... Because those Nike wearing, Prius Driving, Poppies Chicken eating guys are out to get the New Balance Wearing, Ford Driving, Chick-Fillet eating guys.
Re:Ban my enemies, push my message! (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is framing. For example, Trump once said "There were very fine people on both sides." regarding Charlottesville. This is a fact. However, he also went on to say "The white nationalists should be condemned totally" when asked for clarification less than a minute later, indicating he was referring to the pro- and anti- statue removal protesters as very fine people, while excluding the white nationalists (and probably antifa). That part is completely ignored and to this day large swaths of people believe Trump was endorsing white nationalism in that speech, even the neo-nazis themselves, because left wing media selectively presented the truth.
How would you even word a rule to prevent such things?
Re:Ban my enemies, push my message! (Score:5, Insightful)
You missed the point entirely.
They do not care about preventing such things, the ONLY objective is to be the arbiters of truth. That is all. When you see people trying to control the message and actively begin to silence the opposition then you know where the problem is it, there is no need to really work it out further. Those trying to silence are more evil than those that are just lying or wrong, because of what silencing others will lead to if allowed to continue.
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Those trying to silence are more evil than those that are just lying or wrong, because of what silencing others will lead to if allowed to continue.
I disagree. How is lying not already silencing the truth? The following is also true:
"Those trying to lie are more evil than those that are just silencing, because of what lying to others will lead to if allowed to continue."
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"First, you are not a telepath."
Let me help you out with this one "Professor".
World History. It is jam fucking packed full of examples nations that have done this, are doing this, and examples of how just exactly what I said goes down will in fact, no mistake, no telepathy needed, just a pair of fucking eyes and a brain, going to exactly happen.
This is not a mystery, its not even a secret. Examples, upon examples, upon examples piled so fucking high that perhaps you are not able to see the forest for the
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But you can create a rule for factually false. If Trump didn't say those words at all, that's a lie, and the rest is clearly op
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IOW, lies of omission is acceptable.
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That's not a particularly good example of a factual issue, since the opinion typically expressed is that people who join avowed X at a protest for a cause of theirs cannot be rationally distinguished
Democrats support gun control. Nazis support gun control. Democrats support abortion. Nazis support abortion. I still contend that you can rationally distinguish these two groups, even if they were standing side by side and burning American flags together. To claim that rational people can not distinguish groups when presented with information is to believe oneself to be above all others; the pinnacle of rationality, and pity the poor deluded masses who can't tell up from down.
The specific protest wa
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Seems simple enough. If an ad says:
"Trump said 'There were very fine people on both sides.'" then it's factual. If it says "Trump said 'White nationalists are very fine people'" then it's a lie.
It's a bit disturbing that people can't tell the difference between facts, opinions and lies, and will seriously argue that you can't distinguish between them.
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You seem to have made the common mistake of conflating untruth and lie. A lie is, essentially, to intentionally deceive another. There are other conditions that exclude cases like magic shows where deception is expected but "to intentionally deceive another' is a decent shorthand for the definition. Using untruths is just one way to lie, and if the person conveying the untruth actually believes it then it's not even a lie, as they are not deceiving intentionally.
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So, a lie repeated without intent to deceive ceases to be a lie?
So there are no lies in political ads, because the intent of the ad agency contracted by the politicians is not to deceive, but just to earn money through dissemination of received information with no regard to its truthfulness.
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None of the rules that my own dad lived by and 100's of reporters in the 1990's and before lived by exist today. Every bit of (supposed) News today is biased news, Fox, CNN, NBC, yes CBS, and all are 100% biased. There is no news tod
Re:Ban my enemies, push my message! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, this situation is basically what people were afraid of twenty years ago with the rise of blogging. Mass media used to be fairly expensive, and so well-paid, professional journalists took their role as a pillar of democracy seriously. The internet hit that business model hard, so today most "journalists" are entertainers, either of the professional variety, or randos from the internet.
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well-paid, professional journalists took their role as a pillar of democracy seriously.
Walter Duranty [wikipedia.org] is unavailable for comment.
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Then why did the right fight so hard to get rid of the Fairness Doctrine if everyone was telling the same stories anyhow?
Exactly. This was the turning point. Opinion pieces no longer had to give airtime to an alternate view. I also remember when such pieces were clearly labeled as such. Good times.
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Not even close to true.
Even the legendary paragon of "truth" that ruled the TV News for decades, Walter Cronkite, was a biased asshole that deliberately lied, twisted, spun, and misrepresented the news. He demanded bribes from companies to suppress negative news stories, or took "gifts" to talk up others. He chose what to report, and how to report it, based on what he wanted people to know, not what the truth was.
There has never been a time when 'journalists' were unbiased. It was just that for most of U
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What's your definition of "extreme left" - Dick Cheney? You are clearly a batshit crazy fascist.
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Your projection from your faaaar out wingnut bubble is noted.
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When the stakes are what they are, and you have people vying for power, there will never be black and white "truths" and "lies". When you have an ad (or news story) that says "In a conversation about white nationalists and counter protesters Trump said 'There were very fine people on both sides.'" where does that fall? It is factually accurate, but the intent of the statement is a lie.
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That is not a lie. As you said, it is accurate. Yes, it's probably designed to be misleading, but "probably designed to be misleading" is an opinion.
We probably do not want anybody censoring opinions, or censoring based on opinions. But that is not the same as censoring outright lies. There is potentially some transition area between the two, but they are distinct and a conservative policy could successfully, and safely, differentiate in the vast majority of cases.
As I said, it's disturbing that the world h
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Which makes all the more important the fact that Facebook refuses to limit microtargeting of political ads. Yes, fact-checking is a hairy business, and Facebook cares more about not being held liable for what slips through than they care about "truth" per se.
But the more serious issue is the ability to send different (and potentially polar opposite) messages to different groups of people. Arguably the biggest bit of damage done via Facebook in 2016 was to target black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania -
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The problem is framing. For example, Trump once said "There were very fine people on both sides." regarding Charlottesville. This is a fact. However, he also went on to say "The white nationalists should be condemned totally" when asked for clarification less than a minute later, indicating he was referring to the pro- and anti- statue removal protesters as very fine people, while excluding the white nationalists (and probably antifa). That part is completely ignored and to this day large swaths of people believe Trump was endorsing white nationalism in that speech, even the neo-nazis themselves, because left wing media selectively presented the truth.
You may be an expert on left wing media; I'm not. All I can say is that I've seen both parts of that quote reported in places I'd consider "left" leaning, as well as more centrist like NPR and the BBC. Hearing the second part doesn't change the fact that Trump clearly didn't feel it was necessary to criticize white nationalists until he was pressed to take a stand, and then he said the most politic thing. The fact that he didn't shout it out the first time says a lot about Trump right there.
The first part b
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Wanting to preserve monuments to slavery and terrorism makes you "fine people"? GTFOH. All the
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Exactly. This is what the moderators seem to be missing, and not bothering to research enough to learn.
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If they ban the ads it won't do anything about the fake news and memes anyway.
On Twitter they try to show you the highly liked debunking of such posts. It doesn't always work but at least it's an attempt.
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Because those Nike wearing, Prius Driving, Poppies Chicken eating guys are out to get the New Balance Wearing, Ford Driving, Chick-Fillet eating guys.
Damn commies are always tryin' to come after us real 'Mericans.
Yes, almost all my tennis shoes are New Balance (I have really wide feet), I drive an F150, and just about the only fast food I eat is chikfila.
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In a lot of cases, both for Clinton and Trump, detractors of the candidate will say: "x said this" and then the supporters will say "no they didn't" and then when you go looking at the 'facts', even the fact checkers will be biased in their response (eg. Snopes) but then admit that really, they did say something like that, they just didn't word it exactly like that.
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There's also "Warren said she'll reduce carbon emissions by ...%"
She did. Make your choice what to shut down entirely: All the aviation, all the sea transport, all the heavy land transport, all the agriculture, choose 3, leave 1. Otherwise that goal is unachievable. Are we already in the "lies" territory or is she really gonna subsidize a teepee to every US family, because they'll need it if her carbon goals are met.
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Well, no, that's not true either. These days, many of the accusations of lies involve conflicts about objective facts. e.g. "I can't release my tax returns because I'm under audit."
The reason this doesn't bother me, though, is that Facebook isn't hiding or blaming anyone else for the lies they may decide to publish. They say they are here to deceive the public for profit. They admit it. Facebook's announcement that
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So you're cool with the example that Warren made, where she bought an ad on fb and printed a bald lie in said ad? She admits that what was printed in the ad was a lie. Facebook printed it regardless. It's okay for politicians buy an ad and make up whatever they feel like to print in the ad? I think people who think that's okay have a very poor grasp on truth or fact and have little regard for anything that has an impact on people. I'd have a hard time taking such a person seriously about anything.
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Bullshit. Lies are often quantifiable. You can often verify something with a 30 second google search.
Key word: "often"
ie. Not always.
You can bet that if Facebook gets involved they'll just reinvent the way they lie to us so it can't be verified with a 30 second google search. The status quo is better, all things considered. At least we can still post links to the evidence.
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You can bet that if Facebook gets involved they'll just reinvent the way they lie to us so it can't be verified with a 30 second google search.
Good? I'd say not being able to spout undeniably false assertions is a step in the right direction.
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True, and don't other medias (TV, newspapers) have rules and standards to follow, and are disallowed from sending out false ads? If so, why should FB be exempt?
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They're not talking about lies, they're talking about political messages. Yes, they may contain lies (eg. promise something they won't be able to uphold) but at the point they are uttered and from one particular viewpoint they often aren't lies. Most messages have wording carefully selected by political analysts, lawyers and media advisors so they aren't false.
Now what the left wants to do is basically point at everything they don't agree with and say lies! - if you believe that men can't become biological
Re: Ban my enemies, push my message! (Score:2)
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What do you want them to do? If they do something, Trump and Republicans will definitely target them for the next 5 years, if not, the left is claiming they'll leave Facebook en masse (they won't) and perhaps within 9 years or so they'll be targeted with some legal code they can't comply with.
The best thing for them to do right now is claim they're a platform and not a publisher, leave everything alone and at least they'll be protected by current law.
Free Speech (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Free Speech (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Free Speech (Score:4, Informative)
Yes but political speech is the most protected, as the Supreme Court does not allow the government AKA politicians, to be the arbiters of truth or falsity spoken against them.
That's the context of this.
Re:Free Speech (Score:4, Informative)
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"Yes but political speech is the most protected"
It sounds like you may have identified the problem.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to hold people in charge to a higher standard, rather than a lower one?
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A politician lying is not magically political speech.
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Well then those instances are covered by the law and Facebook has no obligation to create a pre-trial system. If someone is slandered in an ad, they could go sue the creator of the ad and resolve their legal disputes through the proper channels. I don't want Facebook to have to decide before any accusations are made and without all of the evidence that would be gathered within the court setting on whether something would be considered defamation, false advertising, and so on. Not because I think they should
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In almost all those cases it is not the lying that is illegal. E.g., I can tell someone I intend to do something in a contract, fully intending not to do it. That is lying. But if I change my mind and do it, or the applicable conditions could never come up, etc., then I will not be punished, even if I admit before a judge that I had never had any intent of fulfilling that part of the contract. Conversely, I can be sincere in signing a contract and fail to meet my obligations for reasons outside my control
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Don't know that they are. But IF they manage to force this onto FB and similar services, I have to wonder if the politicians will be required to not lie. Or is it only the serfs who have to tell the Truth, not the Ruling Class?
Re:Free Speech (Score:4, Informative)
This is "Other people are permitted to censor demonstrable lies". If you choose to tell lies, other people are allowed to notice.
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Lying destroys society if it becomes too prevalent.
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All human history is a sordid tale of people lying to sit atop the heap.
Telling the truth is a political promise to gain followers so you can seize control.
All top politicians are psyhchopaths lite. Far from being empathetic, they can lie convincingly because they don't care what others think of them.
Conceptually, I get the reason they are doing this (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine it is so that they will not be burdened with having to fact-check any ad which someone says is lying.... Although I think if they are going to do this, they should probably explicitly disclaim each and every political advertisement individually, stating that it represents the opinions of the advertiser only, and may express ideas that are inconsistent with some world-views, adding that it should not be taken to represent the opinions held by Facebook or its associates.
Since they are somehow limiting excluding any fact checking to political ads, this sort of disclaimer should be easy to add immediately before each and every one.
As a convenient bonus it also creates a reminder to the person seeing the ad that if they want to know what it objectively true, they cannot count on Facebook to deliver (which is something Facebook seems happy to admit to anyways by publicly stating they are adopting this policy in the first place, so why not be explicit about it each and every time it is relevant?)
Why is Facebook special? Lie all you want on TV. (Score:2)
Why is Facebook special? TARGETING (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not quite.
With poltiical ad TV commercials, the viewer is also explicitly told specifically who paid for that ad to be placed there, so the viewer will know not only what allegations are being made about somebody but also who specifically was endorsing those allegations.
And it's equally important to note that this knowledge has a factual basis, even if the content of the advertisement does not.
One could make an argument that Facebook has
Hands off! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hands off! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Tech companies must not be made the determiners of what is and what is not a lie from a politician. It is up to the American people to decide that and to decide what level of lying they will accept from a political candidate. Part of the process is one side lying and the other side pointing out the lying. That is how it has been and that is how it must continue to be if we wish to continue as a democracy. Let it alone. Otherwise, you end up with computers deciding elections and court cases.
Philosophically, I agree with you. But you can't just close your eyes to the fact that this approach is failing, badly. Most people get their news primarily from social media, and the echo chamber effect that social media creates means that it's now perfectly possible for complete falsehoods to be viewed as completely true by large segments of the populace, because they'll never see anything different. They'll never actually hear the other side pointing out the lies, except as filtered through their bubb
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Pretty simple (Score:2)
It is impossible to completely vet everything, but ya gotta make an attempt. Facebook has approved lies. This leaves Facebook with zero credibility. They need to be taking a look at that weird alien looking guy in charge.
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Are radio and tv stations expected to do the same thing?
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If you say that you are going to publish lies even when you know they are lies but you publish them anyhow - well then it is pretty difficult to say that you are not a liar and promote propaganda.
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Irrelevant. Facebook has always claimed that it does not own the content posted on Facebook (merely that it has the rights to use it). It is not responsible for evaluating the truth value of material posted there.
This is the textbook definition of barking up the wrong tree.
Re:Pretty simple (Score:5, Interesting)
Relevant, as Facebook aggressively pushes things to you.
Long time ago, when I still used shit like that, it used to be that Facefuck, Shitter and the rest of the "social media" garbage had a "feed", which included things I selected and they came in roughly chronological order.
Today this is long, long gone. They started first to re-order the "content" they don't "own" based on "likes" or "views", now they push things they determine are "worthy" of seeing in ways that even Fuckerberg claims to not know in full.
That makes them fully responsible for what is in those feeds, and if they choose to push lies, then they are an active and powerful peddler of lies, and should be regulated and punished accordingly.
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Irrelevant. Facebook has always claimed that it does not own the content posted on Facebook (merely that it has the rights to use it). It is not responsible for evaluating the truth value of material posted there. This is the textbook definition of barking up the wrong tree.
Well, FB could publish a page about you and Greta Thunburg engaging in kinky sex with gay dolphins and hamsters, and since she has become a political figure, you cannot stop Facebook.
Regardless, post modernism "we will lie to you knowingly and you cannot do a thing about" it only ends up making people consider everything that Facebook posts is a lie. Which is what I have already consider them to be a hotbed of propagandistic lies.
You can call it irrelevent, but knowingly posting things that you know
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So their reputation decreases if they do nothing and if they censor, it decreases from accusations of favoring one party.
And surrounding it are threats to break up fb or remove legal protections from lawsuits over stuff people post.
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So their reputation decreases if they do nothing and if they censor, it decreases from accusations of favoring one party.
And surrounding it are threats to break up fb or remove legal protections from lawsuits over stuff people post.
I've received propaganda from both parties or camps if you like. So everyone will claim favor. Tough titty.
Facebook's present reputation is well earned and well deserved.
And if you knowingly and purposely post false propaganda, then you need to be punished.
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How would you like a justice system in which the judge decided whether the prosecution or the defense was telling the truth and then censored all their evidence before the jury accordingly?
A democratic political system is also adversarial in nature. The premise is not that all politicians will behave in the best manner (telling the truth or otherwise). If that were the case, those politicians could be elevated to office directly without needing voter sign-off. The premise instead is that, when all parties
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How would you like a justice system in which the judge decided whether the prosecution or the defense was telling the truth and then censored all their evidence before the jury accordingly?
You would lie a judicial system where there ws no such think as libel?
Or where it is approved that falsehood is not only accepted, but encouraged, and considered a great way to make money.
A democratic political system is also adversarial in nature.
And run by lies apparently. And you approve of it. That has nothing to do with democracy my friend. That has to do with a Our side is right, therefore engaging in lies about our enemy is right, just, and moral.
But anyhow - we know where you stand. If a person is a politician, they are open to any attacks, and fact ch
Should Facebook be Above Responsibility? (Score:3)
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Is Facebook a company capable of starting a war, that is not responsible for any of its actions?
If millions of American voters can't figure out what the truth is, why would you expect a company whose staff are American voters to be able to figure out what the truth is?
The real solution to this: make it illegal for political campaign material to reference any individual except the candidate. A candidate would have to stand on their own merits, not by undermining their opponent. Any flaws or shortcomings they have should be identified by news media.
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There it is... is facebook the arbiter of facts and should they be expected to be? Those who worry about truth in political ads on facebook are unlikely to be able to prove someone has outright lied or defamed them else the ads would be stopped and the matter would be taken to court.
There's one thing they *could* fact check.... (Score:3)
Beyond that, yeah.... they may not need to fact check at all.
When you see political tv commercials, they always state (usually at the end) that it was a paid announcement by such-and-such.... hold Facebook ads to the same standard... and the only fact that Facebook should be required to check is that who the ad is claiming paid for the ad is who Facebook actually *did* receive the money from.
How to tell if a politician is lying: (Score:2)
Their lips are moving.
Requiring truth from a political ad would prevent most political ads.
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Requiring truth from a political ad would prevent most political ads.
I'm failing to see a downside here...
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Their lips are moving.
Requiring truth from a political ad would prevent most political ads.
Indeed. Facebook just does not want their political ad business to vanish completely.
The need is for transparency. (Score:2)
Political Ads = Lies (Score:3)
Doesn't everyone understand that political ads are lies? They distort the truth to the point of being false.
Facebook's a broadcaster (Score:2)
It's really not all that complicated or difficult:
Facebook's a broadcaster: It behaves & talks as if it's a broadcaster, it makes its money the same way that commercial broadcasters do, & most importantly, it has the same implicit responsibilities that broadcasters do. Facebook should adhere to the same broadcasting standards that are set out in law for other broadcasters. That includes vetting advertising to make sure it isn't false, misleading, or inflammatory. Facebook should face the same fines
Facebook is ALL IN on corruption (Score:2)
Zuckerberg is a danger to democracy worldwide, because he profits from undermining free and fair elections.
Fake News (Score:2)
I'm curious how universally they'll apply these rules anyway.
For example, I saw just yesterday someone posting:
- the Australia fires are the most widespread blazes ever (not true; fires in 1974 were nearly TEN TIMES the area)
- the fires have burned nearly 10% of Australia's area...in fact it's almost 1%.
So are those considered fake news? Purveying lies? Will someone punish this person?
JUST LEAVE FACEBOOK FOR FUCK'S SAKE! (Score:2)
All politicians lie... (Score:2)
So none of their bullshit ads would be allowed to run.
I would love to see our elected officials removed from office for lying to the general public. But it will never happen.
Kudos for honesty (Score:2)
As long as they're being honest about this, I'm cool with it. I'll get my news from a real news source that maintains some level of journalistic integrity, a
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If I have a big enough checkbook, I can inject ANYTHING into the Facebook newsfeed.
Nope. They have standards for non-political ads. For example, they have to be truthful. It's only the political ads where you can lie.
As much as I hate facebook (Score:2)
I imagine they are doing this because it would take too much time to fact check everything. Of course they could penalize the liars though, come to think of it... like "if we catch you lying, you'll owe us another 25% and we take your shit down". But alas, they just want easy money and probably are taking bribes anyway.
Facebook, Arbiter of Truth? (Score:2)
It gets really hard to draw the line, and by doing so Facebook makes itself liable for "interfering in the election" by being the source of truth of what's get b
Would it not be easier (Score:2)
To simply prohibit any and all political ads on social media platforms ?
( I would love to see them gone from all media myself, but that's a pipe dream. )
I suppose it would be, were there not so much money involved. :|
Iraq not having WMD's would have been a "lie" (Score:2)
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea needs to Google the word "censorship" and then pull their heads out. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now was lamenting this policy from Facebook, yet she has lied for years on the subject of Syria. If the people pushing this were remotely serious about shutting down lies and propaganda, they'd be demanding that every media person from Rachael Madcow to Cenk Uygur be banned from news. They're not.
This makes sense (Score:2)
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They are under tremendous pressure to censor in ways politicians from both parties want, or, as they might have said in a Monte Python skit "Be a shame if your corporation got broken...up." or "Be a shame if we removed section 230 protection."
This is disgusting behavior for government.
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Because the publisher is in total control of what's being printed and that affects the paper's reputation. Facebook isn't a publisher in this sense - they're a defacto public forum where everyone can shout out and they take paid advertising.
You are attempting to conflate the posts by random people with paid advertisements. They are totally different. And Facebook is in total control of what's in the paid advertisements, in that they can and do reject advertisements they do not want to publish. That's why there's no ads for porn.