You can be and say whatever you want online. Lie to anybody and everybody if you wish. Especially if you’re a politician. Facebook’s got your back!
The world’s largest social media company has decided that it has no obligation to police what politicians, or their supporters, tell you on their platform.
Facebook issued a blog post detailing its ad policy. The company basically says it will not relent to pressure to regulate political ads. It did however offer to let people opt out of political ads in general. But even that has a catch.
Facebook is catching flack from pretty much everybody over its decision to do basically nothing about its political ads that lie or mislead it members. Its policy reflects it hands off approach to content. And if users are mislead, fooled or lied to in a political ad, then its their own fault.
Facebook’s Director of Product Management Rob Leathern, says in the blog post that the company is “not deaf to” criticism.
“In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies. We have based ours on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”
Other social media platforms have decided to monitor and fact check political ads why not Facebook? In the case of Twitter it has banned political ads outright.
Facebook’s policy is to help the user decide what political lies and garbage they ingest. According to the company its Ad Library is the tool users can access to see what ads politicians are running on its platform and Instagram. Again, pick your poison. The tool will allow you to see what ads are running, who is posting them, on what platform, and how many people are seeing the ads. In addition if you don’t see the lie you prefer then you can even search for ads that feed into your pre-determined train of thought no matter how incorrect it is. Facebook is cool with that.
The only real benefit of the tool is the fact that you can limit the number of political ads you see.
Breaking It Down
Mark Zuckerberg is probably as dangerous to democracy as Donald Trump. Facebook is an out of control organization that is setting itself up for the ultimate government intervention; break up.
We continue to hear about one data scandal after another, lost personal information, mis-use of data, intrusion into private lives, relentless tracking and the list goes on. Zuckerberg seems to be about as aware as a crackhead with an unlimited supply. He seems to believe that he has no responsibility for the use of his medium. Remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal? Zuckerberg did everything he could to ooze enough slime so he could avoid prosecution. And in some ways it worked.
But, to address its political ad policy, Facebook is simply lying about the absence of federal regulation. Leathern seems to be asking for federal regulation when that is the last thing Facebook wants. His statement is an audacious lie. Facebook understands that regulation of political ads is the crack in the fortress wall that holds back more regulation of social media.
But the bottom line is that eventually his lack of responsible ownership of Facebook will come back at him. People are tired of finding out they have been lied to by politicians. They are tired of finding out that they voted for the wrong thing or person. They are tired of being manipulated by social media platforms, foreign governments and special interest groups.
And yet Rob Leathern has the audacity to to appear as if he is asking for government regulation.
Zuckerberg is a coward and a menace. While others are seeking to determine what truth is he is moving in the other direction. He is too afraid of facing the fact that he has a responsibility to call out lies. He is afraid of facing the truth of the role his company has played in the current divisive political climate. He is afraid to change what Facebook is for the sake of his own wealth survival and stock price. I encourage the next administration to break that shit up!
