
Facebook employees 'strongly object' to allowing false claims in political ads - jimnotgym
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/28/facebook-employees-strongly-object-to-policy-allowing-false-claims-in-political-ads
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jdkee
"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).

