[W:128] Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads

[Rogue Valley]

Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads

In an open letter, the social network’s employees said letting politicians post false claims in ads was “a threat” to the company.

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO on Capitol Hill last week.

10/28/19
SAN FRANCISCO — The letter was aimed at Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his top lieutenants. It decried the social network’s recent decision to let politicians post any claims they wanted — even false ones — in ads on the site. It asked Facebook’s leaders to rethink the stance. The message was written by Facebook’s own employees. Facebook’s position on political advertising is “a threat to what FB stands for,” the employees wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times. “We strongly object to this policy as it stands.” For the past two weeks, the text of the letter has been publicly visible on Facebook Workplace, a software program that the Silicon Valley company uses to communicate internally. More than 250 employees have signed the message, according to three people who have seen it and who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation. Many employees have been discussing Mr. Zuckerberg’s decision to let politicians post anything they want in Facebook ads because those ads can go viral and spread misinformation widely. The worker dissatisfaction has spilled out across winding, heated threads on Facebook Workplace, the people said.

Facebook has been struggling to respond to misinformation on its site since the 2016 presidential election, when Russians used the social network to spread inflammatory and divisive messages to influence the American electorate. Mr. Zuckerberg has since appointed tens of thousands of people to work on platform security and to deter coordinated disinformation efforts. This month, President Trump’s campaign began circulating an ad on Facebook that made false claims about former vice president Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is running for president. When Mr. Biden’s campaign asked Facebook to remove the ad, the company refused, saying ads from politicians were newsworthy and important for discourse. In the Facebook employee letter to Mr. Zuckerberg and other executives, the workers said the policy change on political advertising “doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.”

Elisabeth Warren has identified Facebook as a “disinformation-for-profit machine”.

This week on Capitol Hill Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pinned Zuckerberg down with glaring examples of political lies his Facebook platform would allow.

Related: Read the Letter Facebook Employees Sent to Mark Zuckerberg About Political Ads

 

[Rexedgar]

How is FaceBook a thing any more?

 

[AliHajiSheik]

How is FaceBook a thing any more?

They are the single most effective advertising engine and because they track you even when you aren't on their sites.

 

[Craig234]

I'm actually on the side of the companies being hands off on lies, and finding another solution. The classic answer is, 'fight them with the truth in the marketplace of ideas', which is largely obsolete when money lets one side drown out the truth with the lie repeated a thousand times, but still.

If Facebook bans a post by trump with a lie, then what's to stop any communication company from banning ads that tell the truth, by falsely claiming they're lies? It's a very dangerous precedent putting companies over candidates as the arbiters of truth, that seems harmless in an obvious case like trump lies, but actually is hugely dangerous, and threatens the operation of free speech.

 

[Rexedgar]

They are the single most effective advertising engine and because they track you even when you aren't on their sites.

That speaks volumes about us’n.

 

[Bodi]

Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads

In an open letter, the social network’s employees said letting politicians post false claims in ads was “a threat” to the company.

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO on Capitol Hill last week.



Elisabeth Warren has identified Facebook as a “disinformation-for-profit machine”.

This week on Capitol Hill Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pinned Zuckerberg down with glaring examples of political lies his Facebook platform would allow.

Related: Read the Letter Facebook Employees Sent to Mark Zuckerberg About Political Ads

I am not a fan of censorship... at all.

 

[Bodi]

They are the single most effective advertising engine and because they track you even when you aren't on their sites.

I don't have a facebook account...

 

[Craig234]

I am not a fan of censorship... at all.

Neither am I, but I'm also not a fan of money having too much power over public opinion, combined with mass media and advertising and think tank propaganda factories.

 

[ajn678]

It should be up to the people to determine what a lie is in a political ad. They have been lying for decades on TV. If a person can't do the basic concept of research, they probably should be banned from voting in the first place.

 

[Rexedgar]

I don't have a facebook account...

Me and my dog have four accounts.........

 

[Bodi]

Neither am I, but I'm also not a fan of money having too much power over public opinion, combined with mass media and advertising and think tank propaganda factories.

I can't believe that we are not already there... but eventually NOBODY is going to believe these lying politicians.

I have been there for years...

 

[3leftsdoo]

Well, if Facebook wasn't a toxic work environment - or rather network of toxic work-hives - previously, they are now.

Democrats gonna burn Facebook down too.

From the inside.

:donkeyfla

 

[Bodi]

Me and my dog have four accounts.........

That makes up for Trolls like me... wait, Hermits like me without an account.

 

[Craig234]

I can't believe that we are not already there... but eventually NOBODY is going to believe these lying politicians.

I have been there for years...

Most of the lying isn't even by politicians.

It's by 'pundits' and other forms of misinformation campaigns and lies of omission by corporate media and much more.

 

[OrphanSlug]

The elephant in the room happens to be the one thing being ignored, who should Facebook hand these ads off to in order to 'fact check' them?

We are quite literally holding Facebook to a different standard just because it is convenient to the argument, but politicians and interest groups will run questionable ads with distortions, exaggerations, if not outright lies on every network channel they can get their hands on.

The 'open letter' does not really address this either, but rather suggest Facebook in several ways distance themselves from political ads and observe standards that are also not universal across all the means that politicians get their messages out there.

It is not a very popular opinion to have these days given the gang up mentality of these things, but why hold Facebook to a different standard?

 

[3leftsdoo]

Me and my dog have four accounts.........

Is it a Russian wolfhound?

Is it?!?!?!?!?

:2mad:

 

[3leftsdoo]

I can't believe that we are not already there... but eventually NOBODY is going to believe these lying politicians.

I have been there for years...

Only the OTHER party's politicians lie!!!!

 

[Bodi]

Most of the lying isn't even by politicians.

It's by 'pundits' and other forms of misinformation campaigns and lies of omission by corporate media and much more.

True... but I don't care. The whole process is ****ed up. I don't trust anybody in politics, period. They are in it for themselves, their family, profit, power, etc. The only honest politicians are the ones that have gotten away with their lies and not yet been caught.

 

[Bodi]

Only the OTHER party's politicians lie!!!!

Sadly, that is what too many people think.

 

[Drawdown]

Zuckerberg needs to fire them

 

[3leftsdoo]

True... but I don't care. The whole process is ****ed up. I don't trust anybody in politics, period. They are in it for themselves, their family, profit, power, etc. The only honest politicians are the ones that have gotten away with their lies and not yet been caught.

And Jimmy Carter.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads

In an open letter, the social network’s employees said letting politicians post false claims in ads was “a threat” to the company.

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO on Capitol Hill last week.



Elisabeth Warren has identified Facebook as a “disinformation-for-profit machine”.

This week on Capitol Hill Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pinned Zuckerberg down with glaring examples of political lies his Facebook platform would allow.

Related: Read the Letter Facebook Employees Sent to Mark Zuckerberg About Political Ads

I think you got the wrong link on top?

 

[3leftsdoo]

Zuckerberg needs to fire them

Well, they just turned Facebook (even more?) toxic.

But firing them?

Bad optics.

Telling that these people are - theoretically - the smartest in the world.

 

[Bodi]

And Jimmy Carter.

He was just a peanut farmer that got lost...

 

[3leftsdoo]

He was just a peanut farmer that got lost...

...on the road to Glory...