Facebook Says Technical Glitches Improperly Blocked Campaign Ads

Facebook revealed Thursday how internal technical glitches had disrupted the delivery of some ads from the Joe Biden and Donald Trump campaigns, but said it made changes to resolve those hiccups in the run-up to the November U.S. presidential election. From a report: The social media giant's admission followed complaints from the Biden camp about how thousands of its ads had been blocked. Facebook said in a blog post it spotted "unanticipated issues" affecting both campaigns, including technical flaws that caused a number of ads to be "paused improperly." "No ad was paused or rejected by a person, or because of any partisan consideration," Facebook said in its post. "The technical problems were automated and impacted ads from across the political spectrum and both Presidential campaigns."

How about properly blocking campaign ads?

[jfdavis668]

I'm really getting tired of them.

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[DontBeAMoran]

How about deleting your Facebook account and never visiting that website ever again? That would solve your problem.

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[jfdavis668]

Then how would I get invites to play Candy Crush?

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[Tablizer]

So no more e-life? That's deeper into the nerd abyss.

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[tsqr]

I must lead a charmed life. I don't ever see campaign ads in my FB feed.

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[rtb61]

But, but, but, it's not our fault the computers did it.

The modern child's excuse but mommy I didn't do it the computer did ;D.

Re: This is a problem

[Ensign_Expendable]

I am one of the few that donâ(TM)t care who wins. I just didnâ(TM)t want Bernie or HRC. Iâ(TM)ll be happy when all these mudslinging campaign ads end. It gets worse every election cycle.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You're free to believe whatever you want to believe... this is America, after all. Doesn't necessarily make it true, however. Not saying it's impossible, just that making such absolute statements makes one look like a dope.

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[ChrisMaple]

If Biden wins, it's likely that Democrats in either house of Congress will be able to block any impeachment attempt, no matter how damning the evidence.

Since Harris is nastier and perhaps more leftist than Biden, it's hard to estimate whether any particular Republican or Democrat will think that ousting Biden for Harris is to his or her personal advantage.

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[rogoshen1]

implying that biden isn't just a friendly looking face for conservatives and moderates who are either fed up with trump, or simply never liked him. This is while serving as a trojan horse to push through the radical bernie-tier policies the DNC so craves. Essentially their far left candidates were nigh unelectable in the general.. so as an end-run, they get Joe to run. And as an added he has ties to the previous administration.

if I were a betting man, and he happens to win (i don't think it'll happen, bu

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[LynnwoodRooster]

They cannot block Biden choosing to step down "for the good of his family".

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[Shotgun]

Did you miss the fact that 13 top members of the Kamala campaign donated to the fund to bail out the looters?

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[_xeno_]

Either by the "25th Amendment Council" that Nancy Pelosi is pushing, or by impeachment when the media starts reporting on his pay-to-play schemes*. He'll be immediately be replaced by Kamala, while Bernie and Warren are already demanding Secretary positions (Labor and Commerce, respectively), and AOC is talking about moving to a "higher office".

There are rumors that the Bernie campaign found out about the laptop and emails in December of last year, but they didn't run with it, because Bernie himself nixed "going negative" against Biden. I don't know how true that is, but a lot of the stuff revealed in the email was known of in February during the primary, there just wasn't any definitive proof, just speculation. At least, everyone assumed there was no definitive proof.

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[jellomizer]

I normally go third party when I vote for the presidential elections. As I feel both parties primary stance is to beat the other guy. Not any ideology or methodology, which seems to change on a whim based on who is running.

I vote third party because I normally feel who ever wins will be working for the best interest of the entire country, and when they become president faced with the real complicated problems at hand they will realize their stump speeches lack the nuance that is required. It is find to be

Blocked Biden say Morons Can Code

[rookiebeotch]

Have you heard Biden say Any moron can code? Joe Biden 2019 - "Anybody who can go down 300 to 3,000 feet in a mine, sure in hell can learn to program as well, but we don't think of it that way," [https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-new-hampshire-campaign-code-1479913] Yes programmers are mostly monkeys...hahah so true.

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[Tablizer]

With enough practice, sure.

Translation

[NaCh0]

What Facebook really meant is that these ads were blocked because we act like a publisher even though Section 230 doesn't allow us to say this.

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[memory_register]

It definitely looks that way. FB and Twitter both act like publishers when it suits them and pretend to be platforms when it doesn't.

Hint

[ArchieBunker]

These are private platforms. They can publish whatever they like. You also have the choice to either use them or not.

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[Shotgun]

Everyone talking about 230 agrees with you. They can publish whatever they like.

They can also get their asses sued off by people they defame with what they publish, and held accountable for any child porn they publish.

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[smooth wombat]

These are private platforms. They can publish whatever they like.

Facebook was paid to run these ads. When you're paid to do something, you do it. No excuses.

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[quonset]

Yes, that baker should make the cake. That's their job. Baking cakes.

Should surgeons get to decide if they're going to operate on Jews?

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[rossz]

Once the baker accepts payment, yes, bake the cake. Or run the ad.

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[LenKagetsu]

Your religion is a protected status, you can't deny a service based on that if you are publicly accessible.

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[Chibi Merrow]

Show me where it says that in Section 230.

thought experiment

[jm007]

let's say FB were a person that made tasty sandwiches but also had a reputation for dishonesty and general shady behavior

then you one day asked what was in the sandwiches but they got all shifty and dodgy with some bs answer.... would you still eat the sandwiches?

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[jellomizer]

That is kinda of the point of having Regulations.

If you feel a restaurant is making something that could be dangerous to eat, you can ask for a Health Inspection of the facility, to make sure everything is on the up and up.

Often people with such reputation is often unearned, while the person who could earn such a distinction is seemed like an upstanding citizen. They are just better at lying.

This guy who you think is shady, may be from appearance. They may have some mental health issues like Tourette Synd

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[jm007]

lol, okay I'll bite (hehe)

- stipulate they have earned the rep for dishonesty and shady behavior... maybe not all the time, but you can't tell when
- the sandwiches don't make you sick, you just don't know what's in them, but they taste good
- this is just a person you know, not a company subject to regulations
- if it were just a matter of a secret ingredient, then saying so isn't dodgy, it's direct and hopefully truthful (but you don't know for sure)

the question is that left to our own decisions and not defe

It doesn't matter why

[rickb928]

If they can't do it reliably, stop.

If they intend to block ads, tell us why. If you can do that, you can program it to do that. See above.

If you pick and choose content, give us the criteria. We should at least know what you choose for us, so we can choose for ourselves. If we don't know, we can't choose.

If you want to be protected from the content you publish, then either deny it all, or permit it all, with clear exceptions for community standards we ALL can agree on. Or not, your choice how to run your bu

You had ONE job!

[Shotgun]

The entire revenue stream for FB is delivering ads.
If they're screwing this up, what are they doing with your small business ad?

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[jellomizer]

I expect it was because the users were not flagged as political. So Facebook does Targeted Ads, if you are doing a political ad, and the person isn't flaged as political then it would miss them.

There seems to be a lot of what I feel stupid loopholes around Political Ads. So they need to be treated differently.

Credibility

[ChrisMaple]

The heads of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are lying in their Congressional testimony; everything they say that cannot be independently verified should be assumed to be self-serving and nothing else.

Someone accidentaly turned on the bullshit filter?

[bumblebees]

Some overly eager tech accidentaly turned on the bullshit filter at fb and it worked as intended.

There's a sure-fire way to avoid this fiasco

[LynnwoodRooster]

Just don't block political ads in the first place.