
Facebook Now Allows Politicians to Lie in Paid Ads - AlexandrB
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/10/facebook-now-allows-politicians-to-lie-in-paid-ads.html
======
mrtksn
Why do people expect to solve this problem on the distribution level instead
of legal or political level?

I don't see how this can be practical unless there's a "ministry of truth"
with an API that can check all the text for correctness. Even then, the issue
won't be solved as the same actors can simply mask their lies with misleading
statistics or fake ads.

Want to scare off people of mass immigration? You don't have to lie that
Turkey is about to join the EU, you can post ads about cheap plane tickets
from Turkey for families of 8 that are available as soon as Turkey joins the
EU. It doesn't even have to be a fake ad, you can set up an agency that will
indeed sell those tickets(but you're fine because Turkey is not joining EU
anytime soon).

Yes, maybe the mass social interaction capabilities empowered people who were
previously a laughing stock but I don't think that the way to counter this is
fact-checking on a publisher level. Even flat earthers gain some traction
despite the abundance of facts available.

~~~
baddox
I don’t really buy this argument that to do anything involving the accuracy of
claims there needs to be some new dystopian “ministry of truth.” We already
have really common well-accepted laws that involve the truth value of certain
claims. False advertising is illegal. Fraud is illegal. Lying under oath is
illegal. Am I to understand that people oppose all of these things?

~~~
saurik
You didn't seem to understand the argument, as the person you are responding
to is essentially saying "this is already illegal, and that's where that
should be solved"; the issue is that _in addition_ to making it illegal,
people also seem to believe it should be _impossible_ , which requires not
just "people can look at the ad, decide it is false, and then take the person
to court and make it go very very badly for them" but also "Facebook should
somehow manage to block these ads in the first place, preferably as
immediately and automatically as possible", which goes above and beyond "it is
illegal" and really requires the "API" version of truth.

~~~
baddox
I must not understand, because my understanding is that lying in political ads
is absolutely not illegal.

~~~
bananocurrency
Correct, you do not understand the argument. Even if it was made explicitly
illegal, you can create your own "facts".

~~~
baddox
I understand that claims can be generated in such a way to make them difficult
to verify or dispute. I agree with that part of the parent comment.

My criticism was not aimed at that part of the parent comment, but rather at
the suggestion that an absurd “ministry of truth” with a “correctness API“ is
necessary to have a system that recognizes that some claims are true and some
are not.

~~~
bathtub365
How do you see the system working?

------
teekert
I don't really understand the problem, Facebook is no arbiter of truth and
also not the Police. If we as a society need FB to deal with lying politicians
we have bigger problems.

In any case fact checking in Politics seems like a dirty game to me. I mean
where are the facts in believing a certain policy will change things for the
better? If only it were that simple we could just leave ruling our countries
to fact checkers and a random potential-fact generating machine.

~~~
jdashg
We have the bigger problems you mention.

Also, while companies are not required to attempt to do good and improve the
SNR of (whether you like it or not) wide-reaching debates on their platforms,
we should be disappointed when they decline to even attempt to handle the
externalities of optimized engagement at scale.

~~~
teekert
Well, lets take climate change. Many people are 100% convinced of human
induced climate changes affecting current day weather patterns. Although
science may put it at about 99% (depending on the source!). Now what is a
fact? What will happen with Trump denying human induced climate change on FB?
It's going to be a mess.

~~~
mantap
Ads denying climate change should not be accepted by Facebook. That's a
perfect example of untruthful advertising.

------
madiathomas
How on Earth will facebook fact-check each and every advert on their platform.
This is becoming ridiculous. We are expecting too much from facebook. Soon
they will need to employ million people in order to police their social
networks like a hawk. This is something that needs to be done by advertising
standards authority of a country, not facebook or any private company.

~~~
r_singh
Fair enough, it is quite difficult to do that (well not really if your net
profits are ~20B and if you let convenience and speed of ad deployment suffer
for quality and trust).

But the least they could do is increase transparency like how Snap has
attempted with their political ads library.

~~~
madiathomas
Are you suggesting that facebook must fact-check each and every of their
billions of advert? That will be to unmanageable. Facebook runs billions of
adverts annually. Even with a budget of the United States, they simply won't
be able to do it manually. Beside, checking if something is a fact or not is
not black and white.

~~~
r_singh
No, I'm suggesting that they make it slightly more difficult to create ads on
FB. Why do we see much less fake ads on conventional media? Because it's
difficult to be anonymous, the process is a lot slower and the publishing
medium (newspaper, TV, billboard) will have some sort of vetting in place.

Maybe FB could do that and give us access to who's paying for the ad so that
they can TRY to make it harder for fake ads to exist and we (as users) have
more information on who is trying to influence us.

------
KirinDave
Gosh, the tone of the discussion here is such that folks... act like
politicians lying is in fact a good thing and it was bad of Facebook to even
imagine they could stop it?

It's weird go me because the vector of this speech is advertising, and in fact
there are rather unobjectionable laws about false advertising. Why is
political speech somehow different in folk's mind?

It doesn't really matter though, because what this story is very good at
highlighting is that Facebook is essentially a machine to let rich interests
have historically unprecedented insight into your interests and control over
what you see. The more they do things like this, the easier it is to argue
that there is no safe audience for facebook and everyone should leave it.

------
ypcx
I'm thankful for Facebook Ads, they have successfully permanently drove me off
Facebook. When literally every second post is an ad, you know that site is
done.

------
LoveMortuus
Why is this even an article? Of course the Ad placement companies will put in
the Ads anything you tell them too, I mean, how many weight loss, breast
enlargement or penis enlargement Ads have you seen in the past 20 years?
Probably more then there are humans on the planet, but that doesn't mean that
ANY of then are actually functional. Many years ago, at least in my family, it
was a common practice to avoid any and all Ads like plague, because they were
considered a virus, not by themselves, but by clicking on them, you were
exposing yourself to them.

~~~
isostatic
> how many weight loss, breast enlargement or penis enlargement Ads have you
> seen in the past 20 years

Pretty much none, reputable sites don’t carry them, and spam stopped being a
problem a decade ago.

~~~
asdff
NYT still ships these oddballs with their newsletters. I saw one where you
drink just one cup of some weird substance before bed and you'd loose weight.
The image had a coke being poured into some red powder.

Take off your adblocker one day, and see how the ridiculous state of internet
advertising hasn't changed at all.

------
anon9001
I'd be more shocked if the headline was "Facebook Now Requires Ads to be
Truthful".

~~~
joering2
Its a little bit different tho; I personally reported few ads that claims were
definitely untrue and were easy to debunk which I did when reporting to FB.
They took these down within 5 days or so. Here you have situation in which
Facebook basically saying: we know there is no proof of Biden corruption and
all the evidence so far proves to the contrary, but we will let them continue
to demean his name thru these false ads. This is clearly done for profits
obviously - we are what? a year from election and Trump Facebook budget is at
$1.5 million per week (!!). Its a serious money and Facebook is publicly
traded company so morals, truth and character take a back seat :(

~~~
gfosco
No proof of Biden corruption? How about the video where he brags about
extorting Ukraine to fire the special prosecutor investigating the company his
son was being paid by? "I'm leaving in 6 hours... if he's not fired, you're
not getting the billion dollars." What evidence goes to the contrary?

~~~
rgbrenner
Biden's son served on the board of Barisma.. a company that was being
investigated for corruption. When Shokin inherited the case, he did nothing
with it. Just let it sit for a year+. He did that with a lot of corruption
cases, which is why western leaders (EU leaders, IMF, and Biden) wanted Shokin
removed.

Removing Shokin hurts Barisma.. Shokin was standing in the way of the case
being prosecuted.

So if you think Biden was doing this for his son, the question is: why put
pressure on Ukraine to remove the prosecutor that's preventing Barisma from
being prosecuted? It makes no sense. If Biden wanted to help his son, Shokin
was exactly the person he wanted in that position.

(Also note, Barisma was being investigated for actions taken before Biden's
son was hired.. Biden's son was not the target of the investigation.)

~~~
jakeogh
1st hand account from Shokin:
[https://i.redd.it/wp66quhos4p31.jpg](https://i.redd.it/wp66quhos4p31.jpg)

parent quote source:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urTk6O4c0mU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urTk6O4c0mU)

~~~
rgbrenner
There are records in the Ukrainian prosecutor's office, and statements on the
record by his colleagues and deputies that he did nothing with the case. In
2015 he literally took 0 actions on the barisma case. Literally nothing. He
didn't even touch the file.

His deputy (Kasko) resigned in frustration because Shokin made so little
progress in the corruption cases he promised to pursue.

And he says there were no complaints about him... but he refused to assist the
UK in a separate corruption case against Barisma... the IMF wanted him gone;
the ERDC; the entire G7; and the Obama admin (not just Biden) because he
failed in his job.

There were protests in Ukraine demanding his dismissal:
[https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-protest-prosecutor-shokin-
di...](https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-protest-prosecutor-shokin-
dismissal/27639981.html)

Shokin's statement (that you linked to in part) was made to help Firtash in a
court case in Austria. Firtash is another Ukrainian energy tycoon being
investigated for corruption, bribery, and money laundering. The fact that he's
going to bat to help corrupt individuals avoid charges kind of says it all
(the same people that as a prosecutor he would have been in charge of
prosecuting--Firtash was also under investigation at the same time.. he did
nothing on that case either).

~~~
jakeogh
Full statement: [https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-
Statement](https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement)

Refreshingly well sourced article:
[https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/09/report-former-
ukrainia...](https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/09/report-former-ukrainian-
prosecutor-viktor-shokin-swore-bidens-pressure-led-to-his-firing/)

------
imgabe
Most ads lie, or at least distort or omit the truth. Nobody should be using
the web without an ad blocker.

------
yoz-y
Last time Facebook done fact checking on something, they got accused by the
republicans for skewing news. If they started removing false political ads
they would be in a whole new level of shitstorm.

~~~
makomk
It's not just the Republicans they'd have to worry about. For example, when
the Washington Post tore apart Bernie Sander's claim that 500,000 Americans
were bankruped by medical bills each year, he doubled down and demanded they
retract the fact check - and a good chunk of the press sided with him on the
basis that only Republican claims should be subject to this kind of fact
checking. Some outlets even accused them of "partisan fact checking" and
undermining democracy for not turning their fact checking into a partisan
weapon.

This wasn't some minor detail either; he was suggesting his big expensive
flagship policy could save hundreds of thousants of Americans a year from
bankrupcy when it really couldn't. He stands by the bogus claim to this day.
Now imagine what kind of headache it'd cause Facebook if they pulled a Sanders
ad for using that or any other bogus debunked talking point...

~~~
AlexandrB
> For example, when the Washington Post tore apart Bernie Sander's claim that
> 500,000 Americans were bankruped by medical bills...

Are you talking about this[1]? Have you read it? The Post makes several
factual errors - like claiming that the study which was the main source for
the claim was not peer-reviewed - and ironically commits the same sin of
cherry-picking data that it accuses Bernie of by choosing to favour a much
more conservative estimate that only includes "bankruptcy caused by a
hospitalization".

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/28/sanderss-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/28/sanderss-
flawed-statistic-medical-bankruptcies-year/)

~~~
makomk
Yes, and of course I have. The big problem isn't that it's "cherry picked" or
that it wasn't peer reviewed - it's that the research Bernie Sanders based his
claim on doesn't even support his claim that medical bills are what bankrupted
those people. (I believe there's also other research that shows medical bills
are actually a really small proportion of the vast majority of those people's
overall debt load at bankrupcy.)

------
TomMckenny
And the calls for breaking them up dissipate accordingly.

------
acchow
Politicians lie all the time - during debates, during speeches, on TV ads.
Isn't it just expected?

~~~
AlexandrB
What's changed is that a politician's lies used to be public. Everyone could
see them and respond. Facebook allows a politician to lie peer-to-peer,
without the ability for critics to respond because they never get see these
lies.

------
buboard
"Politicians telling the truth" would be an oxymoron though

------
ilaksh
When did politicians start telling the truth in any public circumstance, paid
or unpaid? I'm getting old, maybe I missed this new development.

------
coconut85
Wonder how much the service of those fact checkers costs.

------
dschuetz
People should understand that they cannot outsource filtering BS from
everything. Advertising is a necessary evil to keep trade and economies going.
But it's mostly the recipients job to filter information. Pre-filtering is
patronising. While it's true that companies advertising their products with
blatant lies should be held accountable, it's not the same for politicians.

In technology for example there are clearly defined standards and safety
guidelines. Circumventing them with lies is punishable, and should be
punished. But in politics, especially in rallies, there is no clearly defined
code of conduct to make people vote for you. It doesn't mean that just
anything is permitted. But there are no clear rules either. A lying politician
who hopes to get elected will, or will not, get themselves elected, it depends
on gullibility of his voters. A lying politician holding an office is again
different, they are not permitted to lie in context of their work to avoid
scrutiny and responsibility (no matter what Trump does, it's still wrong to
lie while in office).

I think Facebook has made a very sensible choice. Fake ads and fake news are
bad, lying politicians are a necessary evil and it's up to us to point out
their lies and just not elect lying politicians into public service.

~~~
mch82
Companies should understand they’re not entitled to profitability.

Have you bought an ad in a traditional publication? The process involves an
editor (human) reviewing the ad, which can be rejected or sent for rework for
a variety of reasons.

Facebook automates away that human interaction, which enables it to operate at
a scale, and with a cost structure, traditional publishers cannot. It also
seems to enable a lower quality of advertising (possibly propaganda).

Maybe requiring Facebook to human review ads would suffocate its business
model. That’s Facebook’s problem to figure out.

------
michalu
This is not about "Facebook allows politicians to lie" it's about taking down
Trump's anti-impeachment ad.

The page claims it was debunked by "fact-checkers" but that in fact is a lie
and it provides no reference to any of those fact-checks.

[https://www.axios.com/joe-hunter-biden-ukraine-corruption-
tr...](https://www.axios.com/joe-hunter-biden-ukraine-corruption-
trump-1b031c30-3173-4a45-a6a7-2e551759063c.html)

It's just a political pressure to suppress this ad and presidential candidate,
as it's already happening across all platforms (Reddit limiting Trump's
subreddit appearance on top page, Twitter "warning sign," Facebook posts up a
message with captcha if you're sending a conservative news link on messenger,
to name a few.

Besides, this shouldn't even be on HN.

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newnewpdro
In other news, for-profit corporations accept money for profit.

------
skilled
Sheep are easy to lie to.

------
Halluxfboy009
Not surprising. As a society we've allowed politicians to lie whenever they
want. There are more laws and consequences against lying about what goes into
my cereal, than there are for what comes out of politicians' mouths.

Long overdue for that to change. "Consequences at the ballot box" simply does
not suffice anymore.

------
Zhenhenry
Interesting

