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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 regul

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 7y ago
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.
- pm90 7y ago
  What this ignores is that there is a finite amount of ads one can run. It would be easy enough for Facebook to classify ads as political/non-political and for political ads have more scrutiny over what they decide to air. And have strict penalties against those who choose to mis-classify their ads. Or make political ads visibile publicly for anyone to search for details as to who created them, how much they paid, how many people were targeted. All these are valid solutions to the problem, but Facebook doesn't want to do it, because if they can get away with what they're doing right now, they can make a ton of ad money.
  - grandmczeb 7y ago
    > Or make political ads visibile publicly for anyone to search for details as to who created them, how much they paid, how many people were targeted. Isn't that already the case? You can already search all political ads and see who ran them, how much was paid, and the number of people who saw the ad.
    - pm90 7y ago
      Is it? I can’t find any documentation on how to query all the political campaigns that are currently active, who is paying for them and who they’re targeting. All of this information is critically important to be made public to ensure the integrity of our elections.
      - grandmczeb 7y ago
        Did you look at https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/ https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/ ? It should show all active (and inactive) ads, information about the page that ran the ad, and who paid for the ad. It doesn't show targeting, but it does show amount spent and the gender/age/geography of who saw the ads.
  - Infinitesimus 7y ago
    > It would be easy enough for Facebook to classify ads as political/non-political and for political ads have more scrutiny over what they decide to air. I doubt it is as easy as you think because not all political ads look like "vote for foo!" They will evolve to look like governor foo paid company xyz which sells home security products to make an ad about how unsafe the country is...while governor foo runs on a platform all about reducing crime rates...etc Look at some of the propaganda during the 2016 election era for instance
    - grandmczeb 7y ago
      Facebook already classifies ads about "social issues, elections or politics" and those ads are subject to extra scrutiny[1]. [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/180607332665293 https://www.facebook.com/help/180607332665293
- aaomidi 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      "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 7y ago
        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 7y ago
        > 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.
- the_reformation 7y ago
  Television advertising isn't stuck in the dark ages. Political candidates run and create ads targeted at specific counties or districts.
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    Next to Facebook targeting, that is the dark ages.
    - philwelch 7y ago
      True, but that level of targeting isn't completely unprecedented. Direct mail was an extremely targeted form of political advertising and faced zero content regulations. (Much of the targeting was achieved by buying magazine subscription data from magazine publishers; you could target households pretty effectively based on which magazines they subscribed to.)
- caconym_ 7y ago
  Agreed. The fact that it's harder to do on the web for whatever reason shouldn't mean they get to ignore the rules. I see this sort of paradoxical mindset all over the place: X breaks the rules but X is just so successful, or so full of potential, so shouldn't we just bend or break the rules for it? But the fact is that X is probably successful or full of potential in large part because it's been breaking the rules, and the rules exist for a reason.
  - adthrowaway123 7y ago
    If there were rules governing political ads in social media, they would look very much like Facebook's policy. At least TV ads (which are more tightly regulated due to the use of radio spectrum, which are public goods) are regulated as to force TV stations to air even political ads they deem untruthful: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... From that perspective, Facebook deciding to censor untruthful political ads would be much more akin to ignoring the rules.
- NoodleIncident 7y ago
  This used to be more of a problem, but IIRC they have forced political ads to be publicly visible to anyone on the page that's running the ads.
- taway7879 7y ago
  >> Yes, it's not like this is a problem that hasn't been dealt with in other media. And it was dealt with poorly. My whole life, minorities (persons of color esp) have been scapegoated in elections in ads on TV, etc. So, yes, political ad censorship has been dealt with by media, and the "deal" was that victims would be minorities. In a sense, Facebook just makes it fair. Now anyone can criticize anyone, everyone gets to suffer equally. Those who don't like it should have spoken up decades earlier. I'm posing anon for obvious reasons. My hope: Lets let Facebook win this round, so we as a society come up with decency rules that help all of us, rather than just defending protected groups.
  - jonfw 7y ago
    > minorities (persons of color esp) have been scapegoated in elections in ads on TV, etc. Do you have any sources for this?
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      IIRC, Willie Horton.
  - isoskeles 7y ago
    My whole life, minorities (people who earn more money than average esp) have been scapegoated in elections... What if you said this? What happens when Bernie Sanders run a dozen ads saying the “rich” haven’t been “paying their fair share” and what standard would allow this to be consider truthful, or will the ad need to define words like rich and fair (good luck on that 2nd one)?
    - pell 7y ago
      Yes, talking about corporations avoiding taxes is the same as talking about Mexicans and refugees coming to destroy your country. You really need a dose of nuance.
- adthrowaway123 7y ago
  This was dealt with in other media the same way that Facebook decided to deal with it. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... TV networks are required to air even untruthful ads as not to run afoul of regulations governing political ads. It's also likely that campaign laws requiring all political ads to be true would be unconstitutional. Either way, the very fact that the Elizabeth Warren campaign is promoting a fairly blatant falsehood (and many people are happy to parrot a false talking point in the name of truth) is a symptom of the same problem that would force any reasonable entity to make the same decision Facebook just did. Truth isn't very popular, especially in politics and people (on every side of most political issues) would lose their mind if falsehoods were strictly banned.
  - gleenn 7y ago
    I think it’s important to mention that Elizabeth Warren is displaying a blatantly false ad to illustrate this exact point: she thinks that it’s ridiculous that Facebook is airing obviously false ads and has no accountability.
    - adthrowaway123 7y ago
      The blatantly false part I'm talking about isn't "Mark Zuckerberg is endorsing Trump" which everyone understands to be the obviously false statement, but the subsequent argument that is still being repeated here that "If Trump tries to lie in a TV ad, most networks will refuse to air it." A whole bunch of comments here are along the lines of: how come Facebook isn't required to abide by the rules that other media companies have to follow? But this is the exact opposite of how things are - small media companies can adopt whatever standards they want, but the broadcast networks have to air even false political advertising, because these types of regulations are more about protecting fairness and free political speech than about the truth. This is an example of Facebook subjecting themselves to the highest possible standards, instead of making arbitrary editorial decisions that smaller actors can get away with.
bpodgursky 7y ago
This is not accurate. See the discussion here: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... > But overall, it’s inaccurate to say that "most networks" will refuse to air an ad by Trump with a lie in it. We could find no evidence that most networks reject false candidate ads.
thinkloop 7y ago
> one of the reasons why political ads are so bland and content-free I'm not sure I would describe them as bland: https://youtu.be/LcjEe9guEIA?t=435 https://youtu.be/LcjEe9guEIA?t=435. I bet the bland ones are by choice. > a question of whether or not Facebook should submit to FEC regulation or not There are official political ads by campaigns, and then there are non-official political-influencing ads/articles/etc. A new challenge will be defining how "political" something has to be for it to be considered a "political ad".
justin66 7y ago
> 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. I keep getting mailings in Ohio indicating that if I sign a petition to put a certain issue on the ballot The Chinese Will Know Where I Live And Come Get Me. It's a completely idiotic campaign, and of course, it's all blatant lies. (similar ads appear on television) This place you're living sounds relatively pleasant though.
- skybrian 7y ago
  Direct mail is entirely different. The campaign doesn't need anyone's prior permission to do it, and it might not even be sent by the campaign.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Then, is Facebook the newspaper, or is it the mail (in terms of how it should have to treat political ads)? j-c-hewitt thinks it's the newspaper. But why that and not the mail? Note well: I'm not saying that Facebook should be treated like the mail rather than the newspaper. But, given that they can target ads to individuals, that aspect seems more like the mail, at least to me.
    - rocqua 7y ago
      Facebook advertisements are a public forum. Moreover, there is an intermediary party that can exercise review. Direct mail is not a public forum. Moreover, who would accept or reject a direct mailing campaign?
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        How are Facebook ads a public forum? They send an ad to the viewer of a page. They can, and do, control viewer-by-viewer who sees which ads. That's like sending an ad to a mailbox. But I wish I could reject direct mail campaigns...
_bxg1 7y ago
I honestly didn't know there was an existing system for this, though it makes sense. And given that it does exist, it's an absolute no-brainer that the world's largest media platform should be subject to mass-media regulation.
skybrian 7y ago
It's surprising to me that they'd run it by the editorial board. How do you know? I mean, sure, newspapers have policies for acceptable ads, but don't they try to keep editorial and advertising separate? Example: "The Minnesota Daily at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, houses its news staff and advertising staff separately and does not hold meetings between the groups." https://splc.org/2018/10/student-media-guide-to-publishing-political-ads/ https://splc.org/2018/10/student-media-guide-to-publishing-p...
alfromspace 7y ago
If social media companies should be held accountable for the so-called integrity of our elections, shouldn't they presumably also be responsible for not censoring legal speech?
apendleton 7y ago
Leaving aside the question of whether or not the FEC should regulate social media ads (and personally I think they should), as a practical matter, they can't for the time being. As of a few weeks ago with the resignation of a commissioner, the FEC lacks quorum, and the administration apparently isn't planning to appoint any replacements for the time being, which means they can't issue rules governing Facebook or anyone else, nor can they initiate enforcement actions or investigations, or issue advisory opinions about what campaigns or companies should and shouldn't do to comply with existing rules.
- rocqua 7y ago
  Not saying that the current administration is trying to abuse this, but having the executive branch able to paralyze the body governing elections seems like a massive loophole. Is this something that congress could (technically, not politically) fix themselves, or do they really depend on a nomination from the executive branch?
  - darkarmani 7y ago
    > Is this something that congress could (technically, not politically) fix themselves, or do they really depend on a nomination from the executive branch? You could have any vacancy for more than X-days be filled by the minority party. (i mean even nominating an acting member -- you don't need to get an approval)
    - dmitrygr 7y ago
      Proposal assumes two parties and would codify this. Two parties is one of the ways Americans keep getting themselves screwed. No need to codify it. Maybe one day we shall fix it?
      - r00fus 7y ago
        Other parts of norms and conventions in USG assume two parties as well.
  - 7y ago
SilasX 7y ago
I can understand why FB shouldn't be allowed to just exempt itself from the FEC rules that other media follow. But I don't think their policy on "no filtering for truth" is something the FEC bans in those other media, so I don't see the privilege.
vonmoltke 7y ago
> 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. Only for political advertising related to federal elections. That's a subset of all political advertising.
humanrebar 7y ago
> Why does Facebook get an exemption? Because it's not apples to apples. Facebook is like NBC but it's also like Comcast. Comcast doesn't have an editorial board screening all the content that its product indirectly facilitates. Newspapers basically are content creators and curators at the core. If newspapers stopped doing that, they basically wouldn't exist. If Facebook eased up on ranking, filtering, and promoting, it would just be the old thefacebook.com.
- cloverich 7y ago
  Agree not apples to oranges but disagree w/ comparison to Comcast. The ad platform is literally Facebook's (and Google's) core business.
adthrowaway123 7y ago
This was pointed out elsewhere but needs to be repeated: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... The regulations exist in the exact opposite direction as you claim - TV networks are required to air even untruthful ads as not to run afoul of regulations governing political ads, which means Facebook's policy is closely aligned with the actual regulations as they exist. Also, most newspapers at least online are are outsourcing part of their ad placement to third-party ad tech companies so I'd be shocked if there was any editorial control.
MR4D 7y ago
Not sure which TV ads you see, but the TV ads I see suck. Not all of them, but many of them talk about how someone voted for something and completely mis-construe the intent. So there has never been truth in political advertising, only a thin veneer of pretending that this is ok. So I’m not sure that the boards have done their job. I’d certainly call bs on them, and that’s on ads from my own party!
paulddraper 7y ago
> Why does Facebook get an exemption? Snail mail and email also get exemptions. Let's not pretend like there was some overarching architecture for all of society's communication.

wheelie_boy 7y ago

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.

pm90 7y ago
What this ignores is that there is a finite amount of ads one can run. It would be easy enough for Facebook to classify ads as political/non-political and for political ads have more scrutiny over what they decide to air. And have strict penalties against those who choose to mis-classify their ads. Or make political ads visibile publicly for anyone to search for details as to who created them, how much they paid, how many people were targeted. All these are valid solutions to the problem, but Facebook doesn't want to do it, because if they can get away with what they're doing right now, they can make a ton of ad money.
- grandmczeb 7y ago
  > Or make political ads visibile publicly for anyone to search for details as to who created them, how much they paid, how many people were targeted. Isn't that already the case? You can already search all political ads and see who ran them, how much was paid, and the number of people who saw the ad.
  - pm90 7y ago
    Is it? I can’t find any documentation on how to query all the political campaigns that are currently active, who is paying for them and who they’re targeting. All of this information is critically important to be made public to ensure the integrity of our elections.
    - grandmczeb 7y ago
      Did you look at https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/ https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/ ? It should show all active (and inactive) ads, information about the page that ran the ad, and who paid for the ad. It doesn't show targeting, but it does show amount spent and the gender/age/geography of who saw the ads.
- Infinitesimus 7y ago
  > It would be easy enough for Facebook to classify ads as political/non-political and for political ads have more scrutiny over what they decide to air. I doubt it is as easy as you think because not all political ads look like "vote for foo!" They will evolve to look like governor foo paid company xyz which sells home security products to make an ad about how unsafe the country is...while governor foo runs on a platform all about reducing crime rates...etc Look at some of the propaganda during the 2016 election era for instance
  - grandmczeb 7y ago
    Facebook already classifies ads about "social issues, elections or politics" and those ads are subject to extra scrutiny[1]. [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/180607332665293 https://www.facebook.com/help/180607332665293
aaomidi 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    "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 7y ago
      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 7y ago
        > 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.
the_reformation 7y ago
Television advertising isn't stuck in the dark ages. Political candidates run and create ads targeted at specific counties or districts.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Next to Facebook targeting, that is the dark ages.
  - philwelch 7y ago
    True, but that level of targeting isn't completely unprecedented. Direct mail was an extremely targeted form of political advertising and faced zero content regulations. (Much of the targeting was achieved by buying magazine subscription data from magazine publishers; you could target households pretty effectively based on which magazines they subscribed to.)
caconym_ 7y ago
Agreed. The fact that it's harder to do on the web for whatever reason shouldn't mean they get to ignore the rules. I see this sort of paradoxical mindset all over the place: X breaks the rules but X is just so successful, or so full of potential, so shouldn't we just bend or break the rules for it? But the fact is that X is probably successful or full of potential in large part because it's been breaking the rules, and the rules exist for a reason.
- adthrowaway123 7y ago
  If there were rules governing political ads in social media, they would look very much like Facebook's policy. At least TV ads (which are more tightly regulated due to the use of radio spectrum, which are public goods) are regulated as to force TV stations to air even political ads they deem untruthful: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... From that perspective, Facebook deciding to censor untruthful political ads would be much more akin to ignoring the rules.
NoodleIncident 7y ago
This used to be more of a problem, but IIRC they have forced political ads to be publicly visible to anyone on the page that's running the ads.
taway7879 7y ago
>> Yes, it's not like this is a problem that hasn't been dealt with in other media. And it was dealt with poorly. My whole life, minorities (persons of color esp) have been scapegoated in elections in ads on TV, etc. So, yes, political ad censorship has been dealt with by media, and the "deal" was that victims would be minorities. In a sense, Facebook just makes it fair. Now anyone can criticize anyone, everyone gets to suffer equally. Those who don't like it should have spoken up decades earlier. I'm posing anon for obvious reasons. My hope: Lets let Facebook win this round, so we as a society come up with decency rules that help all of us, rather than just defending protected groups.
- jonfw 7y ago
  > minorities (persons of color esp) have been scapegoated in elections in ads on TV, etc. Do you have any sources for this?
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    IIRC, Willie Horton.
- isoskeles 7y ago
  My whole life, minorities (people who earn more money than average esp) have been scapegoated in elections... What if you said this? What happens when Bernie Sanders run a dozen ads saying the “rich” haven’t been “paying their fair share” and what standard would allow this to be consider truthful, or will the ad need to define words like rich and fair (good luck on that 2nd one)?
  - pell 7y ago
    Yes, talking about corporations avoiding taxes is the same as talking about Mexicans and refugees coming to destroy your country. You really need a dose of nuance.
adthrowaway123 7y ago
This was dealt with in other media the same way that Facebook decided to deal with it. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... TV networks are required to air even untruthful ads as not to run afoul of regulations governing political ads. It's also likely that campaign laws requiring all political ads to be true would be unconstitutional. Either way, the very fact that the Elizabeth Warren campaign is promoting a fairly blatant falsehood (and many people are happy to parrot a false talking point in the name of truth) is a symptom of the same problem that would force any reasonable entity to make the same decision Facebook just did. Truth isn't very popular, especially in politics and people (on every side of most political issues) would lose their mind if falsehoods were strictly banned.
- gleenn 7y ago
  I think it’s important to mention that Elizabeth Warren is displaying a blatantly false ad to illustrate this exact point: she thinks that it’s ridiculous that Facebook is airing obviously false ads and has no accountability.
  - adthrowaway123 7y ago
    The blatantly false part I'm talking about isn't "Mark Zuckerberg is endorsing Trump" which everyone understands to be the obviously false statement, but the subsequent argument that is still being repeated here that "If Trump tries to lie in a TV ad, most networks will refuse to air it." A whole bunch of comments here are along the lines of: how come Facebook isn't required to abide by the rules that other media companies have to follow? But this is the exact opposite of how things are - small media companies can adopt whatever standards they want, but the broadcast networks have to air even false political advertising, because these types of regulations are more about protecting fairness and free political speech than about the truth. This is an example of Facebook subjecting themselves to the highest possible standards, instead of making arbitrary editorial decisions that smaller actors can get away with.

bpodgursky 7y ago

This is not accurate. See the discussion here: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... > But overall, it’s inaccurate to say that "most networks" will refuse to air an ad by Trump with a lie in it. We could find no evidence that most networks reject false candidate ads.

thinkloop 7y ago

> one of the reasons why political ads are so bland and content-free I'm not sure I would describe them as bland: https://youtu.be/LcjEe9guEIA?t=435 https://youtu.be/LcjEe9guEIA?t=435. I bet the bland ones are by choice. > a question of whether or not Facebook should submit to FEC regulation or not There are official political ads by campaigns, and then there are non-official political-influencing ads/articles/etc. A new challenge will be defining how "political" something has to be for it to be considered a "political ad".

justin66 7y ago

> 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. I keep getting mailings in Ohio indicating that if I sign a petition to put a certain issue on the ballot The Chinese Will Know Where I Live And Come Get Me. It's a completely idiotic campaign, and of course, it's all blatant lies. (similar ads appear on television) This place you're living sounds relatively pleasant though.

skybrian 7y ago
Direct mail is entirely different. The campaign doesn't need anyone's prior permission to do it, and it might not even be sent by the campaign.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Then, is Facebook the newspaper, or is it the mail (in terms of how it should have to treat political ads)? j-c-hewitt thinks it's the newspaper. But why that and not the mail? Note well: I'm not saying that Facebook should be treated like the mail rather than the newspaper. But, given that they can target ads to individuals, that aspect seems more like the mail, at least to me.
  - rocqua 7y ago
    Facebook advertisements are a public forum. Moreover, there is an intermediary party that can exercise review. Direct mail is not a public forum. Moreover, who would accept or reject a direct mailing campaign?
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      How are Facebook ads a public forum? They send an ad to the viewer of a page. They can, and do, control viewer-by-viewer who sees which ads. That's like sending an ad to a mailbox. But I wish I could reject direct mail campaigns...

_bxg1 7y ago

I honestly didn't know there was an existing system for this, though it makes sense. And given that it does exist, it's an absolute no-brainer that the world's largest media platform should be subject to mass-media regulation.

skybrian 7y ago

It's surprising to me that they'd run it by the editorial board. How do you know? I mean, sure, newspapers have policies for acceptable ads, but don't they try to keep editorial and advertising separate? Example: "The Minnesota Daily at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, houses its news staff and advertising staff separately and does not hold meetings between the groups." https://splc.org/2018/10/student-media-guide-to-publishing-political-ads/ https://splc.org/2018/10/student-media-guide-to-publishing-p...

alfromspace 7y ago

If social media companies should be held accountable for the so-called integrity of our elections, shouldn't they presumably also be responsible for not censoring legal speech?

apendleton 7y ago

Leaving aside the question of whether or not the FEC should regulate social media ads (and personally I think they should), as a practical matter, they can't for the time being. As of a few weeks ago with the resignation of a commissioner, the FEC lacks quorum, and the administration apparently isn't planning to appoint any replacements for the time being, which means they can't issue rules governing Facebook or anyone else, nor can they initiate enforcement actions or investigations, or issue advisory opinions about what campaigns or companies should and shouldn't do to comply with existing rules.

rocqua 7y ago
Not saying that the current administration is trying to abuse this, but having the executive branch able to paralyze the body governing elections seems like a massive loophole. Is this something that congress could (technically, not politically) fix themselves, or do they really depend on a nomination from the executive branch?
- darkarmani 7y ago
  > Is this something that congress could (technically, not politically) fix themselves, or do they really depend on a nomination from the executive branch? You could have any vacancy for more than X-days be filled by the minority party. (i mean even nominating an acting member -- you don't need to get an approval)
  - dmitrygr 7y ago
    Proposal assumes two parties and would codify this. Two parties is one of the ways Americans keep getting themselves screwed. No need to codify it. Maybe one day we shall fix it?
    - r00fus 7y ago
      Other parts of norms and conventions in USG assume two parties as well.
- 7y ago

SilasX 7y ago

I can understand why FB shouldn't be allowed to just exempt itself from the FEC rules that other media follow. But I don't think their policy on "no filtering for truth" is something the FEC bans in those other media, so I don't see the privilege.

vonmoltke 7y ago

> 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. Only for political advertising related to federal elections. That's a subset of all political advertising.

humanrebar 7y ago

> Why does Facebook get an exemption? Because it's not apples to apples. Facebook is like NBC but it's also like Comcast. Comcast doesn't have an editorial board screening all the content that its product indirectly facilitates. Newspapers basically are content creators and curators at the core. If newspapers stopped doing that, they basically wouldn't exist. If Facebook eased up on ranking, filtering, and promoting, it would just be the old thefacebook.com.

cloverich 7y ago
Agree not apples to oranges but disagree w/ comparison to Comcast. The ad platform is literally Facebook's (and Google's) core business.

adthrowaway123 7y ago

This was pointed out elsewhere but needs to be repeated: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... The regulations exist in the exact opposite direction as you claim - TV networks are required to air even untruthful ads as not to run afoul of regulations governing political ads, which means Facebook's policy is closely aligned with the actual regulations as they exist. Also, most newspapers at least online are are outsourcing part of their ad placement to third-party ad tech companies so I'd be shocked if there was any editorial control.

MR4D 7y ago

Not sure which TV ads you see, but the TV ads I see suck. Not all of them, but many of them talk about how someone voted for something and completely mis-construe the intent. So there has never been truth in political advertising, only a thin veneer of pretending that this is ok. So I’m not sure that the boards have done their job. I’d certainly call bs on them, and that’s on ads from my own party!

paulddraper 7y ago

> Why does Facebook get an exemption? Snail mail and email also get exemptions. Let's not pretend like there was some overarching architecture for all of society's communication.