
Dissent at Facebook over hands-off stance on political ads - mindgam3
http://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/technology/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-political-ads.html
======
AnimalMuppet
If Facebook decides which political ads are truthful, then either they reject
_all_ political ads (because when was the last time someone ran a political ad
that was wholly truthful?), or else they have do decide where to draw the
line. Wherever they draw the line, they're going to reject someone's ad, and
be exposed to screams of how they're biased for the other side. That's not
going to end well for them.

I mean, just running them all is _also_ getting Zuckerberg raked over the
coals[1], but I think picking and choosing which ads are "truthful enough" is
going to be worse.

And that's if Facebook is actually completely unbiased. If this becomes a
vehicle for the biases of those at FB charged with judging the ads, that's
even worse.

[1] Zuck was getting raked over the coals in the name of truth, but I suspect
it was at least partly because those who did so thought they would benefit
politically if FB censored their opponents' ads.

~~~
j-c-hewitt
It's really a question of whether or not Facebook should submit to FEC
regulation or not. Other media outlets that run political ads need to submit
to FEC regulation. Why does Facebook get an exemption? Newspapers literally
have to run political ads by their editorial board and TV has to do something
similar. It's one of the reasons why political ads are so bland and content-
free: they don't want to make any claims that could be evaluated as true or
false.

~~~
wheelie_boy
Yes, it's not like this is a problem that hasn't been dealt with in other
media.

I think one of the things that makes it more difficult in the case of facebook
is that the ad targeting makes it possible to serve specific ads only to very
specific groups.

This means that if the ads say untrue or damaging things, most people will
never know, as opposed to newspaper or TV ads. In my mind this argues for at
least as strict controls, if not more stringent.

~~~
aaomidi
Part of the regulation could be that Facebook can only serve stateless
political ads. If a politician wants to advertise, they can't pick and choose
any parameters.

~~~
dahfizz
Surely there are some parameters that would make sense? I don't want to see
political ads from a local election across the country. There's also no reason
for me to see an ad for the Republican primaries if I am voting in the
Democratic primaries. Etc

~~~
notjulian
"Surely there are some parameters that would make sense?"

For sure...

"I don't want to see political ads from a local election across the country."

They should be targeting eligible voters. If a local election is taking place
across the country, then, of course, you shouldn't be seeing the ads.

"There's also no reason for me to see an ad for the Republican primaries if I
am voting in the Democratic primaries. Etc"

No, this defeats the purpose. We should be trying to expose people to more
viewpoints - not creating more echo-chambers.

~~~
bilbo0s
FEC rules don't really cover who sees what, they cover what anyone can see.

Now we can expand on those rules to dictate who can see what, but no matter
who views the ad, it would likely be bland, and confer no new viewpoint at
all. Lest it fall afoul of FEC rules.

What we're really talking about with FEC rules, is a return to the middle,
because extremist views can be shut down by pointing out misleading content in
the ads and subsequently rejecting them. Whereas the bland, meaningless stuff
will always be free of any misleading content, and be subsequently approved.

~~~
nimblegorilla
> Whereas the bland, meaningless stuff will always be free of any misleading
> content, and be subsequently approved.

I'm not sure what media you consume, but TV and radio ads always seem filled
with misleading content about political rivals.

------
Miner49er
One thing to note: this only applies to politicians. It seems normal people
and political groups can't post false political ads.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-
tec...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-
technology-202/2019/10/28/the-technology-202-facebook-takes-down-false-ad-
from-political-group-but-it-still-won-t-police-politicians-
directly/5db5bf61602ff10cf14f97e5/)

~~~
w-j-w
This is what makes Facebook's behavior really inexcusable. Facebook has
granted these people a special power on the platform, but are unwilling to
police it.

~~~
knzhou
Once again you are dammed if you do and damned if you don’t. If you like,
imagine a totally random hypothetical set of Facebook rules (for example, the
exact reverse of what the current rules are). You will find that it is easy,
really completely trivial, to come up with reasons that this is “inexcusable”
as well.

The whole discourse around this is poisoned. I have literally watched people
completely flip their principles in mere minutes, just to keep condemning
Facebook.

~~~
burkaman
You're not damned if you don't. Stop hosting political ads. I guess then
you're "damned" because you make less money, but I don't think that's what you
meant.

~~~
knzhou
And what is a political ad?

Does an ad for an abortion clinic count? How about an ad asking for donations
for Palestine? Or Hong Kong? Or wall construction? How about an ad that only
points out that stocks have gone up, along with a picture of Donald Trump and
a flag in the background?

Obviously this falls prey to the classic problem, which is that every partisan
sees messages that benefit the other side, even incredibly indirectly, as
insidious manipulation, while dismissing outright propaganda from their own
side as “just getting the truth out”.

~~~
tmh79
>> Does an ad for an abortion clinic count? How about an ad asking for
donations for Palestine? Or Hong Kong? Or wall construction? How about an ad
that only points out that stocks have gone up, along with a picture of Donald
Trump and a flag in the background?

FB has armies of content moderators and content policies to police non
political speech already. Look at the controversies surrounding "no
nudity/sexual imagery" > "banning/unbanning breast feeding pics" >
"banning/unbanning pics of the african tribe who nurse sick goat calves back
to health with human breast milk".

Its all complicated, every bit of it, and there is no reason to suggest that
political content moderation is any more difficult than anything else.

FB _can_ do it, they are already doing very complex content moderation. There
is nothing special about "political" speech.

~~~
knzhou
> Look at the controversies surrounding "no nudity/sexual imagery" >
> "banning/unbanning breast feeding pics" > "banning/unbanning pics of the
> african tribe who nurse sick goat calves back to health with human breast
> milk".

That is entirely my point. This is actually a famous story -- something as
objective and straightforward as banning nudity turned turned into a nightmare
with tons of exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions. Politics is the most
delicate, messy, complicated subject there is. Facebook obviously can come up
with _some_ policy, just like I could right now, but whatever it is, a
majority of people will be pissed off.

------
ALittleLight
250 signatures on a letter at a company with 35,000 employees is an eruption
of dissent?

I'm reminded of a quote about urban warfare, something like "In a city of 10
million, if 1% of the population opposes you, you have 100,000 adversaries."
That seems to apply here.

0.7% of the company is writing to complain? Okay - what amount do you expect
to complain? How many would complain about the opposite direction?

~~~
fuzzyset
Publicly stating your opposition to a contentious issue your company is facing
isn't exactly an easy thing to do. Workplace marginalization is a real thing.

~~~
the_watcher
It's pretty common at Facebook. Andrew Bosworth repeatedly writes about the
importance of malcontents, and there are many employees who repeatedly push
back on leadership. This takes place almost entirely on Workplace.

~~~
huntermonk
I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. This is correct.

I've never worked somewhere where challenging leadership is so encouraged.

------
devtul
I don't want a private owned _platform_ that as far as today plays a huge role
in being a place for the public discourse to regulate speech.

Of course, and it pains me to have to state the obvious for fear of
strawmaning, saved the applicable boundaries like distribution of child porn,
terrorist groups recruiting pages and so on.

Take Twitter as an example, does an abhorrent job on that, they have no
standard other than liked/disliked people.

\- They have no transparency, people you follow will get banned and you won't
be notified. \- People will get banned for tweeting exactly what "liked"
people tweeted. \- They made the utterly stupid decision of changing the
interpretation of their Verified mark from "This is the real person" which is
perfect, to "we kind of support whatever this verified person says" which
makes no freaking sense. Can you imagine a Bell PR guy saying at a press
conference "We are sorry for what one of our landlines customers said on the
phone, we turned their line off"?

It is transparent to me that any effort in making platforms like Facebook,
Twitter and so on to take the role of speech regulators isn't coming from
regular people, it comes to the detriment of the common folk like me and you.

~~~
simlevesque
I downvoted you because you are basically saying that if we don't agree with
you, we're not regular people or common folk.

~~~
CompanionCuuube
No, the comment was about the source of the driving force of the effort. Even
if there are regular people who share the same sentiment, the fact is that the
effort is being coopted by those special interests. Have you heard of the term
"astroturf"?

~~~
devtul
Exactly, thank you. It is clear some regular people approve, support, and
demand that too. But I think the bulk of the effort comes from big companies
and ONGs, pressure groups.

This is at least true for my country, to put it brutally short, European
influences are guiding legislative efforts regarding Fake News and media
control.

------
cryptica
It would give Facebook way too much power if they could decide what is true
and what is not. Better allow lies than to block free speech.

I wonder if this open letter by employees advocating for more control over
content combined with Mark Zuckerberg's 'hands-off stance on political ads'
are just a coordinated act of 'good cop, bad cop' designed to manipulate the
public. Also, my cynical side thinks that maybe some of these government
authorities are in on this charade.

It seems like a show to make people think that the good employees of Facebook
are on the public's side. Whatever the big mean Zuckerberg wants must be bad
for everyone.

Facebook must have a PR team the size of a small country working for them by
now. Of course everything they do is orchestrated. We have to be really
cynical to see through the BS.

The government is completely under the thumb of these big corporations. Many
of the regulations that are coming out of Washington are carefully crafted by
corporate lobbyists to superficially look like they're bad for corporations
and good for the public, but in reality they're intended to give corporations
more power and to create a moat around their monopolies. The government and
corporations are on the same team; their common objective is to fool the
public into slowly accepting the erosion of their most basic rights so that
corporations can have more money and governments can have more power for
themselves.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Facebook should allow politicians to lie in ads_

There are more options than "Facebook regulates its ads" and "Facebook permits
everything."

I am in favor of having a permanent, public repository of political ads, where
they have to sit for a "cooling-down" period prior to going out. This lets
journalists and the public fact-check them before they're blasted to a
targeted group.

Another option is FEC, or some other independent body, overseeing political
ads. There are a lot of options between open season and censorship, and it's
only to Facebook's benefit that the debate is constrained to this axis.

~~~
rayiner
We don’t need journalists to have even more of a strangle-hold over political
discourse. Because you know that any such institution would just let pass
false information that just happens to comport with liberal beliefs, while
giving enhanced scrutiny to assertions from other viewpoints.

~~~
whatthesmack
I was just going to upvote and keep scrolling, but I saw the three replies to
your post critique something you said that I strongly agreed with.

> We don’t need journalists to have even more of a strangle-hold over
> political discourse

This so true in this day and age. The quality of journalism has collectively
nosedived, but the journalists keep producing and continue to guide the
“conversation”. I’m not quite sure what those who disagree with the statement
actually _do_ believe is going well and why journalists need to have even
_more_ control over the conversation.

> ...would just let pass false information that just happens to comport with
> liberal beliefs

This is the natural course for a technology company in modern society. The
biases of tech company employees is clearly more left-leaning. If Facebook
employees or contractors were deciding what’s true and false, the information
displayed on Facebook would (does?) have a leftist slant. This is a bad thing
to any fair-minded person and why Facebook shouldn’t be regulating free speech
in political ads.

------
the_watcher
I have a lot of issues with the framing of this article (it's hard to imagine
_any_ major strategic decision of Facebook that you couldn't find 250
employees to sign their name opposing it, and nearly everything that happens
at Facebook has a corresponding, public, Workplace post).

Moving past that, the ideas mentioned in the final paragraphs did have one
interesting suggestion: change the visual display for political ads. Zuck has
consistently made the good point that it's very difficult to set a clear
boundary for what constitutes a political issue, but it is not difficult to
determine whether or not an ad is being run by or in service of _a given
politician_. Changing the visual display (even something as draconian as a
persistent disclaimer stating that this is an advertisement with claims made
by a politician and that everyone should do their own research) would at least
remind people of the policy.

------
iamleppert
Why should Facebook now be responsible for fact-checking political ads?
Watching the testimony where a bunch of politicians basically berated Mark
Zuckerberg about how it’s now Facebook’s job to police politicians and keep
them honest (because, you know, ALL politicians lie and cannot be trusted) is
very telling about the state of our government and democracy. Our leaders
cannot police themselves or their peers so they are looking to an outside
entity to do it, and moreover casting blame for their own failures.

Political attack ads have always been on cable TV, spouting bold-faced lies
and half-truths for as long as I can remember. It now seems that politicians
have found a new medium. And they want that service to bear the brunt of their
operational status quo. Why not address the real problem in politics that
leads to the symptoms of the disease at hand instead of shifting the work and
burden of honesty to someone like Facebook? Has it even been proven they are
equipped and capable of the task?

~~~
StanislavPetrov
Forget about "equipped and capable". Who decides what is "true"? Is it the the
US government's official version of "truth"? Is it "truth" that has the most
objectively provable information? How are vague and/or ambiguous claims, about
anything, supposed to be regarded in relation to their "truth"? Only someone
who is incredibly stupid and/or trying to advance their own agenda would
suggest that there is some sort of indisputable "truth" that can be discerned,
let alone discerned by Facebook.

The easy answer to this problem is, and has always been, to teach everyone how
to think critically. Teach the Socratic Method to every child from birth, and
reinforce that mode of thinking continually through their entire educational
journey. But there lies the rub. The powers that be aren't interested in
"truth" or people who are able to discern truth. They want to be able to
disseminate _their_ message, and have it uncritically absorbed by the masses.
That isn't possible if the people are intelligent and equipped with the tools
to think critically and recognize logical inconsistencies. For decades they
had it both ways. The government had a population who largely lacked critical
thinking skills and uncritically absorbed what they were told as "truth". The
government also largely controlled the message disseminated by the corporate
media outlets, which were very few before the explosion of the internet. They
controlled the narrative, and had conditioned a population that uncritically
accepted this narrative. Once the internet exploded on the scene, they lost
control of the narrative. All of a sudden you had people who weren't equipped
with critical thinking skills, who were extremely vulnerable to whatever
narrative was being pushed, and you had a wide variety of people pushing a
whole range of messages on the internet and over social media.

Now the genie out of of the bottle. Information and (dis)information spreads
like a virus across the internet and social media. How do you deal with this?
There are two ways. Either make a concerted effort to teach people how to
think, hash information and employ logical consistency in their thinking
(which the powers that be don't want to do, because it means the permanent
loss of control), or try to put the genie back in the bottle and silence all
competing narratives. Its clear that the powers that be have chosen to attempt
the latter, and it won't end well for anyone who believes in freedom of
speech, freedom of action or freedom of thought.

------
the_watcher
> 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.

For those who have never used Workplace, this literally just means "someone
posted it to Workplace." It's not an abnormal or unique thing. It also
wouldn't surprise me if "250 people signed it" means "250 people commented in
agreement". I wish the reporting gave more details on _who posted_ the
petitions and what it means to "sign the petition". I understand protecting
sources, but unless Workplace has added new features, anything posted _has_ to
come from someone with a profile.

That said, it's still (arguably, at least) news to cover internal divisions
over a policy, but unfortunately the authors don't seem to realize how common
it is at Facebook for employees to openly push back on leadership decisions
while concurrently working as hard as they can to deliver impact downstream of
them (it may sound odd, but it's entirely possible to disagree with a strategy
and _vocally advocate for your preferred course_ but also trust that your
leadership may be better equipped to set said strategy and work to implement a
strategy that is not what you would have chosen).

~~~
18pfsmt
Is _less than 1%_ of an employee population expressing disagreement worthy of
a discussion on HN?

NYT has completely dropped their mask of objectivity. This is clearly agenda
pushing by an extremist minority.

WaPO called 'al big-daddy' an "austere scholar" yesterday. Beyond ridculous.

~~~
the_watcher
Personally, I agree with you _in this example_. As I mentioned elsewhere,
given the culture at Facebook and its size, it's hard for me to imagine any
major strategic decision that _would not_ generate 250 employees willing to
sign their name opposing it, down to things like eliminating single-use
plastic.

In my original comment, I was simply conceding that covering internal
disagreement about a major policy, in general, is at least arguably news,
while still trying to make the rest of my point: that this article is either
written in bad faith or wildly unaware of how employees communicate internally
at Facebook.

~~~
18pfsmt
It seemed to me you had insider knowledge of FB and were adding value to the
discussion. Fair point that I missed your key point that is based on knowing
internal politics/ procedure. I look at the big picture of the U.S.
Constitution, and distributed power.

I believe in the Fediverse, and would rather take your employer out in the
marketplace, than using the federal government's monopoly on violence. You
might want to reconsider your alliances.

Find me a hedge fund that will short FB's stock and invest in Mastodon-based
service companies (no ads or tracking), please.

~~~
the_watcher
I'm... not sure what you mean about reconsidering my alliances?

------
partiallypro
Facebook has no business saying which ads are wrong/lies. If they do this it
opens up such a can of worms. Their stance is the only logical stance. I
imagine if AOC's ads were blocked on Facebook she would suddenly want answers
and claim she was censored.

~~~
throw_m239339
> Facebook has no business saying which ads are wrong/lies

I mean it can and it does. The problem for Facebook is who Facebook should
pander to. Politicians that want to break up Facebook, Google and co, or their
opponent? There is an obvious conflict of interest, but many businesses have
no problem promoting this or that political camp or politicians.

What is interesting in Facebook case is the internal struggle between the top
and some political activist employees who disagree on who Facebook should give
a platform to.

~~~
partiallypro
The people that want to break up Facebook are the same people that want
Facebook policing political speech. I don't see the conflict of interest on
Facebook's part in this regard.

~~~
int_19h
You're making an awful lot of assumptions. I want to break up Facebook; but so
long as it exists in its present form, I don't want it to be policing _any_
speech, much less political speech.

------
Bhilai
This has came up in my conversations with friends who work at Facebook and
they always seem to use some internal talking points about creating a
"Ministry of truth" type of situation. They argue that Facebook cannot (or
should not) be the arbitrator of truth. My answer to them is very simple, if
you want to be a (social) media company then you have to take some (social)
responsibility and not amplify falsehoods in an already charged environment.
Corporate profits at the cost of ruining the society by spreading falsehoods
should not be an acceptable norm.

~~~
knzhou
And precisely who do you think should be appointed to head your “ministry of
truth”?

For example, I believe Facebook employees currently skew 90% Democrat. Should
the committee seek out and add more Republicans in order to have a 50/50 split
reflective of the nation, or is a 90/10 split okay? If so, how do you justify
this to the other side?

~~~
sangnoir
> And precisely who do you think should be appointed to head your “ministry of
> truth”?

The FEC. If an ad can't be printed in a newspaper or shown on TV, it shouldn't
be on FB.

~~~
bryan_w
Then you may be surprised to find out that most ads being discussed are
allowed on TV: [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2019/oct...](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-
most-tv-networks-wil/)

------
40acres
I don't understand why Zuckerberg doesn't just cut his losses and remove
political ads. It does not seem worth it financially or non-financially.

~~~
tomohawk
What's a political ad? Better yet, what's a NON-political ad?

If McDonalds advertizes how good and healthy their Big Mac is, is it
political? What if someone complains that it contradicts some pending
legislation? What if someone complains about the racial make up of the cast in
the ad? What if the ad mentions a word that later someone complains about?

We live in a nation where we can't agree on what a man or woman is, and what
that means. In fact, just talking about it is now political.

So, who's going to judge whether something is political or not?

~~~
rrrx3
There are clear, well-defined rules around what constitutes a political
advertisement, published by the FEC. Some states have guidelines that go
further. A smart place to start, instead of feigned ignorance or poorly
constructed strawman arguments, might be there.

[https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-
di...](https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-
disbursements/advertising/)

~~~
tomohawk
The rules are not clear or well defined, and often result in litigation.
Often, what becomes determinitive is the context around the ad or the
situation of the entity placing it, and not the ad itself. So, to do this
Facebook would also have to track entities, etc.

------
newscracker
Honestly, I’ll believe that Facebook employees are sincerely concerned when I
see them walking out or quitting in large numbers. “Open letters” will do
zilch in a company known for lies, dishonesty and deception. Only if the
earnings take a big hit will Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg do anything.

Edit: Where were these employees when fake news and misinformation resulted in
the killing of thousands of people in other countries?

------
viburnum
Does anyone know of a good group for tech workers to join to counter these
issues? As an individual I don’t feel like I can do anything about this.

~~~
tathougies
> As an individual I don’t feel like I can do anything about this.

Welcome to living in a liberal democracy where we don't get to force someone
to stop saying something because it makes us mad.

~~~
hannasanarion
But we can because it causes measurable harm, such as influencing the
electorate to make decisions based on falsehoods.

We already have special rules for political advertisements on TV, radio,
public posting, and print. Facebook is claiming that the rules everybody else
follows don't apply to them.

~~~
chillacy
Those special rules are more permissive than what these employees are asking
for. The trump ads aired on most TV networks except for CNN, who objected
because the ad called them "fake news".

~~~
hannasanarion
Nobody is asking Facebook to ban Trump ads. They are asking Facebook to ban
ads with explicit falsehoods.

Trump pretty clearly uses "fake news" as an insult, not a claim of fact.

Contrast with ads with false claims that Facebook has approved, like "Pope
endorses Trump" or "Lindsey Graham voted for Green New Deal". No TV network
would run those.

~~~
chillacy
Really? I'm under the impression that TV networks _have to_ run ads even if
they're not truthful:

[https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2019/oct...](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-
most-tv-networks-wil/)

> Broadcasters are bound by [Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act of
> 1934] and therefore can’t reject a presidential candidate’s ad, even if
> contains false information. (The candidates do have to abide by disclosure
> rules to make it clear who paid for the ad.)

------
buboard
He should not have allowed political ads in the US election. I dont' remember
what was his excuse for allowing them but it sounded like a bad decision.
There's just no winning in that game. He allows himself to be used as a
scapegoat.

Of course then they 'll go on and ask for facebook to censor all _user posts_
, but that will probably hit free speech protections.

~~~
baq
Remember Zuck wanted to run for president not that long ago. He wants to sit
at the table and to do that he absolutely has to pick a side. How to do that
and still pretend it’s in the interest of shareholders is what we’re kinda
witnessing now.

~~~
knzhou
> Remember Zuck wanted to run for president not that long ago.

This is absolutely false. There has never been any evidence for this
whatsoever, and it is a good example of a falsehood becoming true in the media
by constant repetition.

~~~
ashelmire
If by this day, 40 years from now, Zuck hasn't at least launched an
exploratory committee for a presidential run, I would be extremely surprised.
If this were reddit, I'd promise to do something like eat an insect or a shoe
or something.

~~~
catalogia
This is the same man who tried to suck up to the PRC by asking Xi Jinping to
name his daughter. If he actually tried to run for POTUS, it would be a
shitshow.

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/119106...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11910668/Chinese-
president-snubs-Mark-Zuckerbergs-request-for-baby-name.html)

------
rpmisms
So, Facebook is operating like TV did forever?

~~~
mikece
I don't see how they have a choice. If they decide to exercise editorial
control then they might be considered in the content creation business by
virtue of exercising editorial control and forfeit immunity under Section 230
of the Communications Decency Act. If Facebook had to be liable for what was
published on their system they would be facing the possibility of liability
judgements many times their market cap.

Link: [https://technology.findlaw.com/modern-law-
practice/understan...](https://technology.findlaw.com/modern-law-
practice/understanding-the-legal-issues-for-social-networking-sites-and.html)

~~~
javagram
That is the exact opposite of what Section 230 does.

Section 230 allows platforms to make moderation decisions while retaining
legal immunity for the user created content they choose not to moderate.

However, this is currently being threatened by republicans in the senate and
Facebook is trying to avoid them taking steps to reduce the scope of 230
(which was already weakened recently by inclusion of a sex trafficking
exemption).

~~~
HeroOfAges
One of the biggest reasons Section 230 is being threatened by Republicans in
the senate is because they believe Facebook has a bias against conservative
content and viewpoints on their platform. If it's up to Facebook to moderate
content as they see fit, I find it very unlikely they would find a way to do
so without appearing to be biased against someone or something.

~~~
rayiner
Of course Facebook has a bias against conservative viewpoints. You think the
Facebook employees quoted in the article are referring to “misinformation”
such as false assertions that our schools are “underfunded?”

That is not to detract from the crazy things the right has said. But it’s
impossible to read the NYT or HuffPo or the like without cringing over
misleading assertions. And it’s not just those organizations. As a card
carrying ACLU member, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked up a froth
reading some email to members describing a case, only to be distraught when
the representation turned out to be gravely misleading when I researched the
case. I’ve started to notice that on HN, even EFF articles get some comments
these days asking “wait, is that characterization accurate?”

~~~
jacobolus
“Schools are underfunded” is not a factual claim, so I don’t see how it could
be “false”.

Trump’s ad claimed that Biden promised Ukraine $1 billion to fire a prosecutor
looking into “his son’s company”. This is an outright lie on several levels.

~~~
rayiner
In the abstract you’re correct. But as a practical matter, “underfunded” can
be a fact or an opinion. If you say “schools are underfunded, and here is why”
then that’s an opinion. If you say, “schools are underfunded, and that’s why
we need to tax rich people more,” that’s mich closer to using it as a factual
predicate. That implies that school funding has been measured against some
standard (such as what other countries spend) and found deficient.

As to the Biden thing, according to fact-check.org the claim came from “a
witness statement” filed in Austrian legal proceedings:
[https://www.factcheck.org/2019/10/fact-trump-tv-ad-
misleads-...](https://www.factcheck.org/2019/10/fact-trump-tv-ad-misleads-on-
biden-and-ukraine). Assertions in legal proceedings are routinely cited as
“facts” in the US media.

~~~
jacobolus
The “witness statement” comes from disgraced former Ukranian prosecutor Viktor
Shokin, and was made directly to Dmitry Firtash’s legal team. Firtash is a
Ukranian oligarch linked to the Russian mafia. It’s not entirely clear to me
yet what Shokin is getting out of it.

Firtash is trading his willingness to manufacture fake dirt on Biden in return
for the Trump administration dropping his extradition to the US to stand trial
for corruption. He has been stranded in Vienna for years, and wants to go back
to running his mob-tied business empire.

[https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/the-debunked-
biden-a...](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/the-debunked-biden-
allegations-are-incredibly-useful-to-dmitry-firtash)

[https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/watch-this-
closely-n...](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/watch-this-closely-new-
details-on-how-giuliani-pal-met-ukrainian-oligarch)

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/03/giuliani-claims-
ukraine...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/03/giuliani-claims-ukraine-
corruption-case-firtash-dmytro-wanted-extradition-whistleblower-impeachment-
biden/)

[https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/oligarch-used-
giul...](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/oligarch-used-giuliani-as-
means-to-gain-trump-s-favor-reports-71650885773)

etc.

Shokin’s affadavit is full of holes.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/timeline-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/timeline-
in-ukraine-probe-casts-doubt-on-giuliani-s-biden-claim)

~~~
rayiner
I strongly suspect you are correct. But notice that you had to go to witness
credibility. In an American court of law, that means the assertion would
survive a motion to dismiss. A jury would have to decide whether the witness
was telling the truth, or lying based on ulterior motivations.

Do you think the Facebook should be making calls on things that would be “jury
questions” in a legal proceeding? And if so, do you think Facebook employees
are an unbiased jury on that front?

~~~
jacobolus
When the truth is something like “A Russian-mob-tied Ukranian oligarch and his
disgraced pet prosecutor is trying to make up dirt about Biden who was sent as
the representative of the US/NATO countries to demand Ukraine fire that
corrupt prosecutor standing in the way of corruption investigations, because
the oligarch thinks he can trade manufactured dirt for political favors with
the US president.”

Then restating that as “Biden promised Ukraine $1 billion to stop
investigating his son’s crimes” is pretty much slander.

* * *

Personally I think that Facebook should not run political ads, period.

~~~
rayiner
Your “truth” is an inference that you are drawing based on circumstantial
evidence that contradicts the witness’s story. Even if I agree with you that
conclusion is probably correct, in US law we would treat that as a “disputed
fact” that would require a jury to resolve.

I think Facebook shouldn’t moderate political content, full stop, but if it
did, surely the limit is things that provably false without making judgment
calls or evaluating credibility. E.g. “Hilary Clinton was indicted for her
emails but Obama pardoned her.” It’s shocking to me that anyone would espouse
Facebook making editorial decisions on political ads based on inferences from
the evidence that in a court of law a judge wouldn’t be empowered to make.

And if Facebook moderators should be able to make inferences and weigh
credibility in deciding “truth” doesn’t that circle back to my point about
education spending? The US spends more on education than all but 1-2 other
OECD countries. Can’t a moderator infer from that the assertion that schools
are underfunded is false?

------
tenebrisalietum
I can't blame Zuck to work so hard and try to execute the balancing act to get
that political ad money, because it's targeting what is now Facebook's core
demographic.

Young people aren't using Facebook anymore. This doesn't mean young people
don't have an account, but I suspect no one under 35-40 is really engaging
with the platform meaningfully. Facebook is the new TV and is going to go out
like TV - in a slow, overly long drawn out whimper chock-full of
pharmaceutical, lawyer, and mesothelioma ads aimed at the aging demographic.

Facebook has a stranglehold over older people but younger people are not
falling into the trap. Facebook's ability to give Zuckerberg power is going to
fade over time.

~~~
cal5k
...you're aware that Facebook owns Instagram, yes?

------
renaudg
Silicon Valley's propension to introduce externalities into the world yet
never want to deal with the negative ones because "you guys have no idea how
hard this is" will never cease to amaze me. But hey, I guess this is why that
book is named "Chaos Monkeys".

You know, if it's too hard to run a political ads business that doesn't enable
mass scale targeted disinformation and wreaking havoc on democracies, then
maybe the responsible thing to say isn't "sorry our platform has enabled 2
major election fuck-ups in the Western world in 2016, but it's not our role to
be an arbiter of truth so we'll do nothing" but rather : "ok, we haven't yet
found a way to operate this that's not harmful to society, so we've decided
not to run political ads until we do " ?

Because at the end of the day, if you don't take this into your own hands and
instead you make it look like it's a choice between preserving a 15 years old
private company's bottom line and keeping centuries old democracies
functioning, that's gonna be a _really_ easy one to make for lawmakers around
the world.

The hands off stance is a recipe for being regulated into oblivion eventually,
which isn't good for shareholders either.

------
rayiner
Do you want to get CDA 230 repealed? Because this is how you get CDA 230
repealed.

------
luckydata
The problem to me can be summarized pretty simply: since unfortunately the USA
doesn't have any law on the books to require political advertisement to be
truthful (contrary to normal advertisement where it is enforced aggressively).

Considering how effective is Facebook at targeting individuals; you can do a
lot of damage spreading lies on the platform. The question is moral: even if
there's no law forbidding Facebook from spreading lies, should the company
hold itself to a higher standard?

IMHO Facebook should do that, because it risks creating a lifelong enemy in
the political side that's likely to win the next elections and as the Romans
would say, Vae Victis.

[https://www.factcheck.org/2004/06/false-ads-there-oughta-
be-...](https://www.factcheck.org/2004/06/false-ads-there-oughta-be-a-law-or-
maybe-not/)

------
tomohawk
Facts and truth are two different things. A set of facts can be chosen to say
something untruthful.

And there can be different 'truths' depending on the values people bring to
the analysis of facts.

Having Facebook, or their designates, arbitrate 'truth' will only create a
privatized ministry of truth.

------
ismail-khan
Title:

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

From the article:

> More than 250 employees have signed the message

Facebook has >35,000 employees. 250 signees is <0.7% of employees. Hardly
seems like an "eruption" of dissent.

The article does acknowledge this:

> While the number of signatures on the letter was a fraction of Facebook’s
> 35,000-plus work force...

So why use such a misleading title? "A tiny fraction of company employees does
not like company policies" is a statement you can make about every sizable
company.

------
MayeulC
Maybe it is just me, as I didn't see it in the comments. But why on earth
should Facebook have to run political ads at all?

This should be regulated. Provide the same exposure to all the candidates. No
targetted ads (how come targetted + political ever seemed like a good idea?).
Only link to their program if there's a need at all.

But I bet there's plenty of people in queue for ads on FB's platform, so I
don't think that not running political ads would hurt them much.

------
dwoozle
I don’t know why Zuckerberg has so colossally failed to convince the world
that Facebook, Inc. should not be an arbiter of what is true and what is
false.

------
specialist
The Correct Answer is to restore the Fairness Doctrine, updated to include
cable, social, etc.

Media companies rejoiced when Reagan sabotaged political discourse. Political
ads are huge money and are almost pure profit.

Why would Facebook, Twitter, etc. behave any differently?

[https://wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine)

~~~
buboard
Facebook makes way more than a couple hundred $$M that they spent in last
elections. And the cost of being broken up post election is far higher, so it
definitely doesn't make economic sense for them

~~~
specialist
What would Twitter be worth today without politics? CNN?

Perhaps the same is true of Facebook. Can't think why it wouldn't be, but
don't care enough to find out. Because it's Facebook.

------
docmars
The responsibility of handling and interpreting misinformation needs to be
shifted to the consumer. People will lie to you almost every day, and you must
figure out how to deal with it.

The validity of information should be vetted by those consuming it, not an
entity who is in any kind of power. If enough people think someone is lying or
untruthful, with enough evidence, then the content should be flagged, labeled,
or potentially taken down, because every consumer had the opportunity to
contribute their perspective leading up to handling said content.

We need to move away from the idea that certain authorities in our lives
(governments, companies, organizations, or any entity with significant power)
can determine what's true or not, because it's highly likely to be biased in
either direction.

It's incredibly easy for a collective body to double cross their word—to say
one thing and intend another at the expense of those who aren't in power.

The problem is, when an organization makes the decision to censor content, it
is usually a very small few who make that biased decision on behalf of
the—seemingly big—company. Effectively, it is a small team, or even one or two
people, unless it's done by a dedicated team of moderators driven by policies,
procedures—or worse: bribery—that may or may not be something those
individuals believe in.

When it's left to the people interacting with that content, it's their choice
in how to deal with it individually or collectively. That is maximum freedom.
To enforce censorship, as a government or organization, is to assume that
consumers are idiots, and that's not an assumption they should be making.

~~~
JohnFen
What you say has a kernel of truth -- we all need to be critical of everything
we see and hear -- I think you take it too far.

> The validity of information should be vetted by those consuming it, not an
> entity who is in any kind of power.

This would not lead to a place that would be good for anybody. Most people
don't have the time or skills needed to do this, and telling everyone that
they have to fact-check everything for themselves can only result in some
combination of two bad outcomes:

1) People will simply accept everything they read that confirms their own
preexisting beliefs.

2) People will simply reject everything they read that goes against their own
preexisting beliefs.

Both things encourage the continued decline of public debate as well as the
continued increase of overall balkanization and the demonization of our
neighbors.

Also, both will lead to a dramatically increased amount of lying.

~~~
docmars
So, Twitter?

------
oxplot
Why are the only two options to let ads through or reject them? How about,
fact check them and visibly mark them as being potentially false and a link to
more details. This should make both sides happy: Zuck who believes the public
should decide for themselves, and the rest.

~~~
knzhou
Again, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. In fact in this case
we’ve already been through this. Instead of “why does Facebook allow possibly
false ads” the discourse instantly becomes “why did Facebook allow this
possibly false ad to go without a marker / why did Facebook put a marker on
this ad that’s true in spirit”. For every action there is an equal and
opposite hit piece.

~~~
sachdevap
I've seen you repeat these arguments over and over in this thread, without
suggesting any solution. I am guessing you are content with the status quo of
Facebook.

~~~
knzhou
I agree there is a problem, I simply disagree that there is an easy solution.
All "solutions" people suggest either propose to make Facebook nakedly
partisan, or would just cause the very same criticisms to reignite in
essentially the same form the next day.

~~~
sachdevap
Facebook is already doing moderation of political content posted by non-
politicians. See the latest news about content removed about Lindsey Graham.
Facebook is choosing not to stay on the sidelines themselves already. They are
just doing so for politicians.

The status quo of Facebook is worse than them not touching any of the
political content on their site.

~~~
knzhou
This is yet another example of 'damned if you do and damned if you don't. If
Facebook did literally no moderation whatsoever, then there would be (and
indeed was, in the past) a furor of complaint over their callous indifference
to society. The second Facebook censors anything, they are immediately hit
with a furor of complaint that, under those standards, they are obligated to
censor some slightly less objectionable thing. They resist for a while, then
cave in, and the cycle repeats. For the past 10 years this has been a reliable
mine of outrage porn, but not a cause of real progress.

~~~
sachdevap
This is yet another example of you just dodging the problem. FB is arbitrarily
demarcating a line of their choosing with no consistency. Politicians are no
different from people, and should not be treated to a special "free speech
pass" on FB. Free speech for all, or free speech for none. There's no decent
reasoning behind this midway solution. The true reason for this is that the
politicians have regulatory leverage over FB.

~~~
knzhou
I addressed exactly this. This is what you are doing:

> The second Facebook censors anything, they are immediately hit with a furor
> of complaint that, under those standards, they are obligated to censor some
> slightly less objectionable thing.

This is like trench warfare. Facebook never drew an arbitrary line: it just
kept being pushed back by public and media pressure here and there, retreating
in bits and pieces. Obviously if you just ignore that history, it looks like
an arbitrary line now, but it was created by complaints almost identical to
the ones you're making.

~~~
sachdevap
Retreating in bits and pieces is a choice made by Facebook. No one forced them
to do this. It's their choice as a company trying maximize their
visibility/profits. I don't think people would have left FB if FB just decided
to not moderate political content at all. Just like right now, there is no
exodus of people from FB in spite of the outrage.

You are attributing very little agency to a company that makes its decisions
unilaterally (sometimes even ignoring laws). This is a gross misrepresentation
of FB's position. FB is not a victim here.

------
m463
Maybe it would be preferable to provide an immutable log of political ads that
have been run, who ran them and with _all_ targeting information.

This would be open and transparent and allow politicians to police the turf
instead of facebook.

------
braythwayt
This is not a rhetorical question:

If it's ok to lie in a political ad, if the entire responsibility for
determining its truthfulness lies on the shoulders of the people view the ad,
is it also ok for an administration to lie to citizens?

~~~
standardUser
Based on all of the evidence thus far, yes, there are no consequences
whatsoever for the federal executive to lie about all manner of topics
literally every day, up to an including matters of national security.

------
burtonator
These people are going to be constructively terminated.

Constructive termination is where they want to fire you for 'x' but can't
legally so they construct 'y' as the real reason for firing you.

------
zachguo
Why would people be willing to give up their fundamental rights so easily.
Isn't free speech mainly about invalidating what is false or immoral through
discourse?

------
rdlecler1
Why doesn’t Facebook just reject political ads and keep itself out of trouble.
It seems like it could be the less costly alternative.

------
obiefernandez
Am I the only one that wishes social media would just ban political
advertising altogether?

------
vageli
Why are we going after the platform and not the party posting the deceitful
ads?

------
salimmadjd
The mainstream media has lost control of the narrative because of places like
FB. Everything that covers politics is a form of political ad and EVERYONE has
an agenda. So how will you control that?

What NYT, WaPo others offered was a brand and certain Network Effects
(subscription). They can not compete with the Network Effects of FB and have
been trying to rein in FB.

These entities are desperate to regain control of the narrative or they'll
lose their value.

The reality is, NYT or WAPO can run false news or "political ads" under the
name of op-eds. On their own platforms they can highlight these op-eds on
their homepage or they can just boost them on FB. If NYT is fine with op-eds
that talks about anything political related as "political ads" then they have
a standing here.

It no longer has to be op-ed. Even their news coverage is turning to political
propaganda. You know how bad NYT's own editorial practice is? Just watch this
recent re-writing of history [0].

Any let's not forget it wasn't the political ads that gave us Donal Trump, but
the $5 Billion free advertising that Trump got by the mainstream media [1],
watch Bannon talk about how Trump got initial boost in the polls[2]

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78CE8eiWItY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78CE8eiWItY)

[1] [https://www.thestreet.com/story/13896916/1/donald-trump-
rode...](https://www.thestreet.com/story/13896916/1/donald-trump-
rode-5-billion-in-free-media-to-the-white-house.html)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKuPYArH0Gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKuPYArH0Gs)
(this is an interesting interview and Bannon talks about how Trump got his
boost in the polls by mainstream media)

------
adultSwim
"hands-off stance" That phrase is doing a lot of work

------
MaysonL
A few links that may indicate in which direction Facebook is biased:

[https://twitter.com/donie/status/1188593050546855937](https://twitter.com/donie/status/1188593050546855937)

[https://mashable.com/article/facebook-false-green-new-
deal-a...](https://mashable.com/article/facebook-false-green-new-deal-ad-
removed/)

[https://popular.info/p/the-republican-political-
operatives](https://popular.info/p/the-republican-political-operatives)

[https://popular.info/p/facebook-allows-prominent-right-
wing](https://popular.info/p/facebook-allows-prominent-right-wing)

------
jdkee
I posted this in the other thread on the topic,

"The Facebook workers called for specific changes including holding political
ads to the same standards as other advertising, stronger design measures to
better distinguish political ads from other content, and restricting targeting
for political ads. The employees also recommended imposing a silence period
ahead of elections and imposing spend caps for politicians."

In the U.S., political speech is often afforded the highest amount of
protection from govt. censorship (c.f. the FB is private platform/publisher).
One of the reasons articulated by some First Amendment commentators is that
political speech is important to self-government in a democratic society. To
quote Brandeis, "Political discussion is a political duty." Further, "Implied
here is the notion of civic virtue - the duty to participate in politics, the
importance of deliberation, and the notion that the end of the state is not
neutrality by active assistance in provided conditions of freedom . . . ." [1]

Public political speech should not be censored based on perceived truth or
falsehood. In fact, political speech that promulgates false or misleading
messages should be exposed to criticism. Again quoting Brandeis, "Sunlight is
said to be the best of disinfectants . . . ."

However, political speech is regulated to an extent by the F.E.C., e.g.
requiring disclosure notices, etc. However, the political speech issues
presented on FB can be more complex than that of traditional 20th century
print and broadcast media. For example, micro-targeting political speech to
certain demographics may cross the line from public political speech to
private speech, and perhaps should be affored less protections. See Alexander
Meiklejohn [2].

Also, content based prohibitions of speech tend to be more troubling than
content neutral restrictions, such as time, place or manner restrictions on
political ads or spending caps as mentioned in the employee statement above.

[1] Lahav, Holmes and Brandeis: Libertarian and Republican Justifications for
Free Speech, 4 J.L. & Pol. 451 (1987).

[2] Meiklejohn, Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Governemnt (1948).

------
Merrill
Just put a heavy crawling international distress orange outline around
political ads with a watermark saying "not fact checked".

~~~
devtul
Imagine a law mandating a sign be put on every toilet stall door with the
message "wipe your ass". Rather than overregulating, we should allow ourselves
time to adapt to this new world, this might include - block your kid's ears -
committing quite a few mistakes and learning with them.

~~~
Merrill
We do have restaurant washroom signs - "Handwashing Laws For All 50 States" \-
[https://www.signs.com/blog/handwashing-laws-for-
all-50-state...](https://www.signs.com/blog/handwashing-laws-for-
all-50-states/)

------
w-j-w
The amount of people making weak "both sides" arguments (nobody runs political
ads without lies in them) in this thread is alarming. Facebook is easily
capable of fact checking every ad on their platform, and if they can't, they
should'nt run them at all. We should be prepared to demand that all political
advertising be free of outright falsehoods.

~~~
spunker540
I agree that claims like "the earth is flat" and "vaccinations cause autism"
should probably be removed - but the trump ad in question while likely to be
false, does not constitute an outright falsehood. If you ask anyone on the
right they'll say it's probably true and at the very least just as truthful as
any leftist political ad.

Furthermore, in the 1400s an ad claiming that the world is round would have
been deemed outright false, and in the early 1900s an ad claiming equality
between all races would have been deemed outright false, and in 2001 an ad
claiming that Iraq had no WMDs would have been deemed outright false -- yet
all are now known to be true.

------
diego
The problem here is not so much Facebook (a company doing what companies do)
as it is the regulatory system they fit in. This situation is unprecedented,
as no single company had ever concentrated the media power Facebook has. Our
legislators are barely starting to understand the problem, the ball is in
their court really. In the meantime, Facebook will sit at the intersection of
what's best for the company and what the law allows.

~~~
throwawayhhakdl
Facebook probably has considerably less media power than TV stations of old.
But that was ok, because they got regulated.

------
rando14775
The problem with Facebook is that it's too big. Different online communities
have different standards of what sort of behaviour is acceptable. Facebook is
effectively splintered, there is no one community and so there is disagreement
on the community standards, to a degree that I don't think can realistically
be resolved. Splintering may very well be the result.

If social media were more decentralized, the responsibility would also be
decentralized. Standards would set by the communities. And as for overall
standards, that would be dealt with by the legislature and courts, which would
be a huge improvement, as those are way more transparent and fair than
Facebook et al.

Abuse of power by Facebook (or advertisers pressuring them) would be much less
of a problem if people could move more easily between social media platforms.

I think a more decentralized model of social media would be good all around.
Add some interoperability so you can still communicate when you're not on the
same platform, this should alleviate some of the tendencies for these
platforms to become so big and centralized.

------
aphextim
Buying political ad is kind of like buying a new car, or a firearm.

If you leave the dealership with your new vehicle, and decide to go run over
10 people, the dealer is not on the hook for your actions.

Same with gun stores not being held liable for gun owners.

There may be background checks in place to ensure they aren't selling a car to
someone that can't drive (Driver's license) or to make sure someone can own a
gun (Background check), but once you pass the initial screening you are on
your own for liability.

Political ads should be the same, basic KYC to verify the person buying the ad
is who they say they are or allowed to represent an entity, but beyond that
anything they want say let them say it, let the public scrutinize it, and let
their ideas be debated.

I could see a world of hurt if this was completely unregulated, as in anyone
could pretend to be anyone and buy an ad any which way without verification.
This would lead to an insane amount of slander/mudslinging.

Just my 2 cents, probably not worth a penny.

~~~
YellowBelly
Its more like having someone buy a firearm that has a bumpstock and then also
giving them a free stay at a hotel that looks out on a popular concert.

We're in the information age where information is starting to be used as a
weapon and we need to have ways in which we are protecting individual people's
right to not get undue influence by corporations or people in power.

The parties that are in control of the media need to take responsibility to
protect the public's rights and if they wont, the government should regulate
them.

~~~
geggam
>The parties that are in control of the media need to take responsibility to
protect the public's rights and if they wont, the government should regulate
them.

Disagree. It is your responsibility to be informed and call bullshit on things
that are lies.

IF you think the same politicians who get elected by lies are going to force
the corporations that line their pockets to tell the truth I have a bridge I
will sell you. Nice one right there in San Francisco.

