The controversy over false political ads
Facebook is defending its decision to allow politicians to lie in online political advertising. The social media giant has announced that such political advertisements are exempt from its third-party fact-checking reviews.
Facebook employs several fact-checking organizations to try to curb the spread of disinformation on its platform.
In a blog post in September, vice president Nick Clegg wrote, “We don’t believe, however, that it’s an appropriate role for us to referee political debates and prevent a politician’s speech from reaching its audience and being subject to public debate and scrutiny.”
The company’s decision has come under criticism from politicians and its own employees. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren accused Facebook of “taking money to promote lies.”
Her campaign ran an advertisement that was deliberately misleading to underscore the issue.
Hundreds of Facebook employees signed an open letter blasting the decision to allow politicians to post false claims in online advertisements.
According to journalist Judd Legum, Donald Trump’s campaign has spent more than $1.5 million in online ads.
Third-party fact-checkers deemed the claims in this online advertisement from the Trump campaign to be false. However, the ad is permitted on Facebook’s platform.
One such online video campaign targeted Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The ad stated, "Joe Biden promised Ukraine $1 billion dollars if they fired the prosecutor investigating his son's company."
PolitiFact and Factcheck.org reviewed the claim and concluded it was false. Despite being debunked, the ad is allowed under Facebook’s new rules.
One of the fact-checking companies Facebook employs has urged the company to change its policy.
Alan Duke, co-founder of Lead Stories, told CNN, “There is an urgent need for a fair method to identify egregiously false political ads in 2020. Our experience as fact checkers shows me that too many people are too fast to fall for disinformation.”
One of the critical concerns is microtargeting, which allows politicians and groups to aim online ads at specific people or demographics.
In November, Google announced new rules that limit the microtargeting of ads. The new policies forbid advertisers from targeting users’ public voter records or political affiliations.
In contrast to Facebook, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced it would ban all political ads. Dorsey tweeted, “This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address.”
Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted that Twitter's move was an effort to “silence conservatives,” despite the policy affecting all political parties.
So far, despite the outcry in some quarters, Facebook is not budging.