
Facebook will block ads from state-controlled media outlets - dsavant
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/facebook-will-block-ads-from-state-controlled-media-outlets.html
======
djsumdog
Operation Mockingbird. COINTELPRO. Edward Bernays.

Historically, the United States has always had actors within traditional
media. It is literally impossible to block out domestically state-controlled
outlets.

The article seems to focus on foreign state actors, but shouldn't their
policies block all political ads at all? I feel like Facebook should just get
out of that space entirely if the want to appear entirely safe/neutral (or as
much is possible).

~~~
fossuser
In particular the narrow targeting of the political ads seems really
problematic.

In Steven Levy's book [0] he goes into detail about this, the Trump campaign
would show ads that specifically appeal to certain users while avoiding
showing them ads that would turn them off.

If you were in a targeted group known to be anti-immigrant then you'd get the
anti-immigrant ad, if you were in a group that was pro-immigrant you might get
the tax-cut ad, if you were someone that would never vote for Trump then you'd
get anti-hillary ads, etc.

This isn't at all neutral. FB's newsfeed also being algorithmically ordered
for engagement (or really any way that's not chronological) is also _not_
neutral. I'm partial to the argument that FB can't be arbiters of what's true
and what's not, that people should hear the political speech as long as it's
truly coming from those politicians - _but_ this breaks down when FB allows
people to narrowly target the message while also manipulating the general
feed.

People are only hearing subsets of political speech precisely targeted to
manipulate them. It's not informative, it's leveraging confirmation bias and
hiding contradictory information.

I generally agree with the point that they're better being neutral, but then
they should _be_ neutral and not algorithmically rank for individual user
engagement or allow this kind of targeting on political ads. Otherwise they're
making editorial decisions as a publisher and should be held to that higher
standard.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Inside-Story-Steven-
Levy/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Inside-Story-Steven-
Levy/dp/0735213151)

~~~
grandmczeb
> If you were in a targeted group known to be anti-immigrant then you'd get
> the anti-immigrant ad, if you were in a group that was pro-immigrant you
> might get the tax-cut ad, if you were someone that would never vote for
> Trump then you'd get anti-hillary ads, etc.

That doesn't seem that different than e.g. tailoring a speech to emphasize
whatever polices are important to the city a candidate is speaking in. I could
imagine it being a problem if you're presenting completely different policies
to different people (e.g. pro-gun to rural, anti-gun to urban) but all
political Facebook ads are public and archived so I imagine that would get
found out pretty quickly.

~~~
fossuser
I think there’s a difference in kind when it’s targeted this precisely,
repeatedly, and at scale.

Most people aren’t going to see a candidate speak in their city, and even if
they do - the targeting can’t be as precise. On national TV they’ll see a more
general message.

Most people are on Facebook though and vulnerable to these targeted ads.

Even in their city, I think a tailored message is different than an ad tested
for engagement in its ability to manipulate effectively (particularly when the
candidate also lies, it’s easier to hide lies when you’re selecting people
already motivated to believe them, and only showing the lies directly to those
people).

------
noodlesUK
How will this affect outlets like BBC, NPR, and others? They’re state funded,
if not state controlled to a certain extent. Just listen to people’s attitudes
towards the BBC recently. Will they be prevented from taking out Facebook ads?
I think I’d prefer that honestly, because I don’t want my taxpayer or TV
License money buying Facebook ads...

~~~
east2west
I don't know about BBC or NPR, but VOA and Radio Free Asia are much more
borderline. A valid argument can be made that they are not really independent
of US government.

~~~
msla
It is against Federal law for the VOA to advertise to Americans, so I doubt it
will be a problem.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act)

There was a Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, but I can't tell if that
had any meaningful impact on whether the VOA can advertise to Americans.

(I know Facebook is used worldwide. Can the entities which purchase ads say
that their ads must never be shown to people of certain nationalities? Would
that suffice in the face of a Federal law?)

As for BBC vs NPR, the BBC is funded by what is essentially a tax, the license
fee, whereas NPR is mostly funded through fees, grants, sponsorships, and
contributions; in 2012, 10.9% of its funding came from Federal sources.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR)

------
elmo2you
> Facebook announced that it will no longer allow state-controlled media
> outlets to run ads on its social networks, effective this summer.

Luckily, there is a clear determining factor for what state-controlled means.
If it comes from a foreign country's territory, or if it simply agrees with an
opinion also held by a foreign nation, it must be state controlled.

> The decision is part of its efforts to prevent foreign interference in the
> 2020 U.S. election.

Because luckily, only foreign states try to influence elections. Luckily, no
national meddling ever happened within the USA. It was all Russians, or
Chinese looking like Russian.

> Facebook also is starting to label state-controlled media outlets, giving
> users more information about who owns and runs those entities.

Luckily, Facebook is the perfect arbiter for making such assertions. Only by
branding foreign and independent media outlets as such, can the good name and
reputation of Facebook and other altruistic independent sources of information
be protected by such evil.

/sarcasm

~~~
hadrien01
From Facebook's announcement:

 _We look at several factors that may indicate editorial control by a
government, including:

\- Mission statement, mandate, and/or public reporting on how the organization
defines and accomplishes its journalistic mission

\- Ownership structure such as information on owners, stakeholders, board
members, management, government appointees in leadership positions, and
disclosure of direct or indirect ownership by entities or individuals holding
elected office

\- Editorial guidelines such as transparency around sources of content and
independence and diversity of sources

\- Information about newsroom leadership and staff

\- Sources of funding and revenue

\- Governance and accountability mechanisms such as correctional policies,
procedure for complaints, external assessments and oversight boards _

~~~
wizzwizz4
So… if:

\- it says its goals are honest journalism,

\- it's privately owned (and hence not required to disclose its owners),

\- it has public guidelines and policies promoting transparency, neutrality,
independence and accountability,

\- its newsroom leadership and staff are careful about what they put on their
official Facebook accounts,

\- it has an abuse@ address and an internal oversight board, and Facebook has
assessed it

then that's okay? I think I'd be able to get an organisation past stronger
checks, and I'm not even particularly good at that sort of thing.

That last check is the hardest one to game, but it's also likely to have a
high false positive rate, so I wouldn't be too worried about my hypothetical
shady organisation getting past that.

~~~
deft
Elections are only allowed to be rigged by private corporations!

~~~
elmo2you
Essentially (de facto): yes.

Generally I like to remind people of an infamous quote, from a truly nasty
period at the beginning of the last century. Because I believe it illustrates
the true nature of this fact you pointed out:

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a
merger of state and corporate power” ― Benito Mussolini

It is possible that what (eventually) will go down in the history books
regarding the USA, might be how astonishingly effective the decades upon
decades of positive propaganda have blinded/confused/divided it's own citizens
from noticing the true nature of the machinery that runs the country (and has
done so, maybe even ever since WW2).

------
loeg
The blog source[1] announcement makes no mention of RT or Xinhua specifically,
as enumerated by CNBC. Neither article mentions whether the BBC will be
categorized in this fashion.

[1]: [https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-
controlled-...](https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-
media/)

~~~
emayljames
And so the US draws closed it's Iron Curtains. For the US imply that
undemocratic corporations are the arbitrators or truth is laughably absurd. An
honest person has nothing to fear from the lies of another.

~~~
DFHippie
> An honest person has nothing to fear from the lies of another.

Some problems with this:

1\. an honest person in a democracy must fear how ads influence her neighbors,
regardless of how they influence her

2\. honesty does not buy you an all-seeing eye, so honest people can be fooled
by a dishonest person's lies

3\. lies are laundered when they are repeated by well-meaning, fooled honest
people, so whatever superpowers one honest person has against dishonesty, they
are neutralized by this kryptonite

~~~
emayljames
My point in that is more "the US doesth protest too much", in that the US
(government) is 100 miles from being truthful.

------
srameshc
Bigger issue is the political ads, this feels more like a quick PR stunt. It
failed to have a policy like twitter.
[https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-
policies/prohibited...](https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-
policies/prohibited-content-policies/political-content.html)

------
dj_gitmo
Based on the blog post it seems like they are giving themselves a lot of
wiggle-room to include or exclude whomever they like.

    
    
        If we determine that there are enough protections in place to ensure editorial independence, we will not apply the label. Publishers looking to prove their independence must be able to demonstrate at least: 
    
            A statute in the host country that clearly protects the editorial independence of the organization
    
            Established procedures, processes, and protections at the media organization to ensure editorial independence 
    
            An assessment by an independent, credible, external organization finding that the statute has in fact been complied with and established procedures have been followed
    

[https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-
controlled-...](https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-
media/)

I'm going to be a little idealistic here, but I would rather see a greater
emphasis on media literacy online. Provide the reader with some context and
help them make informed decisions. No it won't work on everyone, but it's
better than panicking.

Any media source can be illuminating if you know how to read it. RT contains
the perspective of the Russian state, as well as a lot of western journalists
who are outside the western mainstream for whatever reason. The stories are
often embarrassing for western states, but that's fine as long as the the
reader knows the intention of the source, and they are aware there is some
propaganda mixed in.

------
abstractbarista
What defines state-controlled? This only results in better shell operations.
Cat and mouse, forever more. :)

Personally, I'd rather just see ads from anyone who wished to buy them. This
way, at least I _know_ who is trying to push what.

(I don't and never will automatically believe anything an ad shows me. And
neither should a single citizen.)

~~~
kelnos
> _I don 't and never will automatically believe anything an ad shows me. And
> neither should a single citizen._

Unfortunately you are not the norm.

~~~
YarickR2
This brings up an interesting question. How come citizens are deemed qualified
and knowledgeable and educated enough to vote for their governors, but not
knowledgeable and educated enough to spot fake news and make their own good
judgement. This is somewhat contradicting , IMHO

~~~
wizzwizz4
There are people who _definitely should not be voting_. The trouble is… how do
we decide who they are? Well, it's as simple as _whoops_ we're in a
dictatorship now.

Plus, the unwashed masses might not be very good at deciding who's acting in
their best interests… but the set of people who are good at deciding who to
vote for has _different interests_ (on average) to the set of all people. So
even if there were a perfect way of doing this, it wouldn't achieve what we
want it to achieve.

I really want the minimum voting age to be lowered to 7 – it's something my
seven-year-old self swore to do. But then parents would basically get an extra
vote for each child they have, given how easy it is to control a seven-year-
old's access to information and how much trust they place in their parents'
judgement, and that would be _really bad_. So I'm not actually going to
support such a measure.

(Rebellious teens, on the other hand… well, perhaps 14-year-olds voting
wouldn't be so bad. Except there would then be higher incentives to manipulate
them, and do we really want to put 14-year-olds through that? Well… you could
argue they're already being put through that, so perhaps? But —)

------
gruez
SuperPACs and shell companies are fine, right?

~~~
baggachipz
Corporations are people, my friend. /s

~~~
Avicebron
Except sadly I think they actually are.

~~~
cjslep
Yeah my apartment neighbor, who is a corporation, broke down crying the other
night from all the stress at work and the news. Cried really loudly, could
hear through my walls. But at least their ex-wife-divestment lets him see his
kids-subsidiaries on the weekends. But he's going to be moving out soon to be
closer to his mother, who is a conglomerate and frail, so he can take care of
her.

A real tear jerker of a life. But for some reason he never worries about
eating healthy -- or eating at all, for that matter. Maybe I should try giving
him some body-positive feedback for emotional support.

Bah, you know what, maybe it's my flawed humanism getting in the way, maybe
it'll be easier for me to just become a corporation, too.

~~~
Avicebron
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood)

~~~
cjslep
Woosh. I _know_ the legal definition of Corporate Personhood. This is not the
same idea as saying "I believe corporations are human-people", which is what
the sarcastic poster was playing with. _That_ distinction is the point of the
satire: we all know you meant the former when you agreed with the sarcastic-
poster on the latter; hence the satire exposing the absurdity of it.

------
DevKoala
This is good, however, it ignores the fact that the US media is governed by
six major entities and each one is strong enough to carry out the intentions
of foreign actors.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownersh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership)

------
davesque
Are state-controlled media outlets really the problem? I feel like the issue
is ads being purchased by groups tied to state actors (but not necessarily in
any official capacity). Also, fake accounts posting misleading information
(but not purchasing ads) is also a huge problem.

------
Vysero
I for one want to give FB the benefit of the doubt here. I think perhaps their
hearts are in the right place on this one, and I hope they can define a solid
set of guidelines.

~~~
commandlinefan
It's clear that they're caving to public pressure - all the more concerning
because too many members of the public who might be on the other side have
themselves been pressured into silence for fear of what the cancel mob can
take away from them.

------
tarkin2
I applaud the effort. Though more sophisticated foreign actors manipulate
through nominally independent media outlets, it's at least a start.

~~~
dathinab
Or straw man companies pretending to advertise products when they are
advertising political statements.

------
nix23
Does that include party sponsored Medias like fox or cnn or is the hole party
situation not recognized as 'state-controlled'?

Sounds like a terrible complicated situation where social-medias are, if i
where Zuckerberg, i would just sell the hole thing and live my live, cannot
believe that something like that makes fun.

~~~
fenwick67
VC founders are usually delusional and think their product changes the world
for a dramatic net good, Zuck won't quit because he probably thinks Facebook
is the best invention of the century and it needs him at the helm.

~~~
nix23
Kind of a poor soul with lots of money, i think you are on the point here.

------
dj_gitmo
Here is the blog post this article discusses.
[https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-
controlled-...](https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-
media/)

------
oldgregg
Facebook's survival is precipitated on globalism and an impotent national
identity. They can't have any more China's standing up to Facebook's imperial
demands for total surveillance of every citizen. Thus, the globalist BBC will
be welcomed with open arms while any entity that wishes to protect their
indigenous culture and opposes globalization in any way will now be a "threat"
\-- it's all rather transparent.

------
rurban
Whow, this would hurt 90% of all media. They clearly didn't think that
through, independent media is super rare nowadays.

But now we have an incentive to prove all the media control, and thereby kill
them off. Without ads not much controlled media. Only the biggest players
which are paid by the state will survive.

(worked in state and in independent media)

------
ogre_codes
This seems more like theatrics than any kind of reform. Did the issues around
the 2016 election involve foreign state run media?

------
yingw787
I wonder how much money Facebook will lose by simply not running ads for say
one week. One week before the election, turn off all ads to a particular area,
then run ads made by FB marketing for everybody to say vote in the election, I
don't care who.

------
Simulacra
Would that not necessitate basically all of Chinese news organizations?

------
SSLy
Title should mention it's about the USA-ian media.

------
buboard
And the social media security theater goes on and on

------
president
They should also add a setting to "Hide all state-controlled media"

~~~
dathinab
Or limited advertisement to _product_ advertisements if they want to stay
objective.

EDIT: And have a completly different "ad" system for political advertisements
limited to sources from countries you whitelist defaulting to your country of
origin which are all manually "fact", racism checked, and "source" checked
etc. What isn't possible for general purpose product adds might very well be
possible for political ads.

------
seemslegit
How are they planning to decide which outlet is state-owned ? Friend-of-Putin
Times will happily represent that it is 100% privately owned company that is
privately owned by someone who just happens be good friends with Putin.

------
garlicGum
Does this include Fox?

~~~
thrwaway_poli
NPR would make more sense.

~~~
bduerst
You created two new accounts back to back just to comment this - why?

------
latchkey
Saw an antifa ad from a Trump official account today. Friend of mine says
reporting it as harassment is better than the other options.

------
tehjoker
What about the entirety of the mainstream US press? The corporations own the
state and the corporations own the press. Common ruler.

~~~
zachwood
Can we just ban these accounts?

~~~
tehjoker
I'm not saying anything that can't be persuasively argued. There are in fact
books about this, the most famous being "Manufacturing Consent" which proposes
a five pronged propaganda model that ensures media compliance with US state
interests. Calling to censor opinions like that shows how narrow liberal
opinion is and unwilling to tolerate dissent.

