14 ms·

Facebook will block ads from state-controlled media outlets

114 points by dsavant 6y ago

loeg 6y ago
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-media/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-...
- emayljames 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    > 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 6y ago
      My point in that is more "the US doesth protest too much", in that the US (government) is 100 miles from being truthful.
tehjoker 6y ago
What about the entirety of the mainstream US press? The corporations own the state and the corporations own the press. Common ruler.
- zachwood 6y ago
  Can we just ban these accounts?
  - Dahoon 6y ago
    The media he is talking about or do you want to censor those you disagree with?
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    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.
dj_gitmo 6y ago
Here is the blog post this article discusses. https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-media/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-...
SSLy 6y ago
Title should mention it's about the USA-ian media.
srameshc 6y ago
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-content-policies/political-content.html https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/prohibited...
gruez 6y ago
SuperPACs and shell companies are fine, right?
- baggachipz 6y ago
  Corporations are people, my friend. /s
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    Except sadly I think they actually are.
    - cjslep 6y ago
      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 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
        cjslep 6y ago
        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.
abstractbarista 6y ago
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 6y ago
  > 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.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    I'd rather have random foreign governments determining what idiot facebook users think than have facebook determine what idiot facebook users think.
    - throwaway2048 6y ago
      I don't think many people agree with you
  - YarickR2 6y ago
    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
    - DFHippie 6y ago
      It's not that they're good at picking their government, but that this is the best of awful alternatives. And everyone is capable of being taken in by sufficiently convincing lies. Do we give up and give the liars free rein or do we try to improve the situation? The simplest rough cut to improve the situation is to remove the voices of parties whose interests are clearly aligned against the citizens' making a wise choice. Does Putin want America to be misgoverned? Then maybe he shouldn't be free to spread lies during the election.
elmo2you 6y ago
> 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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
president 6y ago
They should also add a setting to "Hide all state-controlled media"
- dathinab 6y ago
  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.
latchkey 6y ago
Saw an antifa ad from a Trump official account today. Friend of mine says reporting it as harassment is better than the other options.
djsumdog 6y ago
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).
- jokoon 6y ago
  impossible, sure, but it will make things much harder for them, which is a big win
  - Dahoon 6y ago
    Most state-run and controlled media are much more free than pretty much all mainstream media in the US (see BBC). This is FB saying corporations are more trustworthy than state-backed free media which is laughable (see FOX and friends). This is like adding DRM to computer games. The only one hurt are those who shouldn't be.
    - jokoon 6y ago
      The goal is mainly foreign state controlled media, who try to have an audience in the US, or maybe in other countries where facebook has activity. The typical target would be russia today, for example.
- fossuser 6y ago
  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/0735213151 https://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Inside-Story-Steven-Levy/dp/...
davesque 6y ago
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.
buboard 6y ago
And the social media security theater goes on and on
garlicGum 6y ago
Does this include Fox?
- thrwaway_poli 6y ago
  NPR would make more sense.
  - bduerst 6y ago
    You created two new accounts back to back just to comment this - why?
- dathinab 6y ago
  It's controlled by private people which happen to strongly act in favor of the president. So no. But if you have the same kind of construct in e.g. Russia posting ads for US citizens it surely would count as state controlled....
- dathinab 6y ago
  I wonder if they would include Germans ZDF and similar which are state payed, but at the same time _not_ state controlled. (Through this doesn't meant they are not biased, not that there are no people with influence which are members of some party of the many parties in Germany which have influence to some of them). (To quite wikipedia: "It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all federal states of Germany.")
tarkin2 6y ago
I applaud the effort. Though more sophisticated foreign actors manipulate through nominally independent media outlets, it's at least a start.
- dathinab 6y ago
  Or straw man companies pretending to advertise products when they are advertising political statements.
dj_gitmo 6y ago
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-media/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-... 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.
noodlesUK 6y ago
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...
- ConsiderCrying 6y ago
  Do BBC and NPR actually buy Facebook ads? Especially NPR, I feel like it's not exactly the type of organization that would like Facebook or want to do business with them.
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    Or have the money to buy ads.
- mc32 6y ago
  Yeah it’s not clear. Granma, KCNA, Xinhua are probably clear, but deutsche welle, whatever friendly state... I’m guessing they’d be okay. I wanna know what they do about radio Yerevan.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    I'm not sure why it would be important to allow ads from state media even if generally considered benign. Why not just have a quiet period around the election? People seem to not be distinguishing between running targeted ads and allowing news to be transmitted. It doesn't seem like the latter requires allowing the former.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > How will this affect outlets like BBC, NPR, and others? They’re state funded, if not state controlled to a certain extent. IIRC, NPR and PBS are primarily funded through donations. Federal funding only makes up something like 10 or 15% of their budgets. IMHO, this is what "state-controlled" media looks like: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1914136/chinas-top-party-mouthpieces-pledge-absolute-loyalty https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/19... > Entertainment, social and international news should be edited in the “right direction”, just like domestic news, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday as he told state media and tabloids to alike to uphold the Communist Party leadership. > Party-owned media should put political awareness first and let “positive propaganda” be the majority of the public voice, Xi told heads and veteran journalists from media outfits including People’s Daily, CCTV and Xinhua. > “Party-owned media must hold the family name of the party,” Xi said. “They must embody the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority … their actions must be highly consistent with the party.”
Simulacra 6y ago
Would that not necessitate basically all of Chinese news organizations?
nix23 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    Kind of a poor soul with lots of money, i think you are on the point here.
- SonOfKyuss 6y ago
  Any source of party sponsorship of CNN? Trolling Trump for ratings doesn’t necessarily mean they are doing the bidding of the DNC. Fox on the other hand...
  - nix23 6y ago
    >Fox on the other hand... Yes again one-sided, owner of CNN are WarnerMedia and Turner Broadcasting System now you research for yourself what Turner's connections are, and especially WarnerMedia's.
Vysero 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
DevKoala 6y ago
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_ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownersh...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
yingw787 6y ago
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.
rdxm 6y ago
lol....does that include Fox News?????
seemslegit 6y ago
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.
ogre_codes 6y ago
This seems more like theatrics than any kind of reform. Did the issues around the 2016 election involve foreign state run media?
oldgregg 6y ago
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 6y ago
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)

114 points by dsavant 6y ago

loeg 6y ago

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-media/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-...

emayljames 6y ago
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 6y ago
  > 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 6y ago
    My point in that is more "the US doesth protest too much", in that the US (government) is 100 miles from being truthful.

tehjoker 6y ago

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

zachwood 6y ago
Can we just ban these accounts?
- Dahoon 6y ago
  The media he is talking about or do you want to censor those you disagree with?
- tehjoker 6y ago
  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.

dj_gitmo 6y ago

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

SSLy 6y ago

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

srameshc 6y ago

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-content-policies/political-content.html https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/prohibited...

gruez 6y ago

SuperPACs and shell companies are fine, right?

baggachipz 6y ago
Corporations are people, my friend. /s
- Avicebron 6y ago
  Except sadly I think they actually are.
  - cjslep 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
      - cjslep 6y ago
        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.

abstractbarista 6y ago

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 6y ago
> 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.
- centimeter 6y ago
  I'd rather have random foreign governments determining what idiot facebook users think than have facebook determine what idiot facebook users think.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    I don't think many people agree with you
- YarickR2 6y ago
  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
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    It's not that they're good at picking their government, but that this is the best of awful alternatives. And everyone is capable of being taken in by sufficiently convincing lies. Do we give up and give the liars free rein or do we try to improve the situation? The simplest rough cut to improve the situation is to remove the voices of parties whose interests are clearly aligned against the citizens' making a wise choice. Does Putin want America to be misgoverned? Then maybe he shouldn't be free to spread lies during the election.

elmo2you 6y ago

> 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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.

president 6y ago

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

dathinab 6y ago
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.

latchkey 6y ago

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

djsumdog 6y ago

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).

jokoon 6y ago
impossible, sure, but it will make things much harder for them, which is a big win
- Dahoon 6y ago
  Most state-run and controlled media are much more free than pretty much all mainstream media in the US (see BBC). This is FB saying corporations are more trustworthy than state-backed free media which is laughable (see FOX and friends). This is like adding DRM to computer games. The only one hurt are those who shouldn't be.
  - jokoon 6y ago
    The goal is mainly foreign state controlled media, who try to have an audience in the US, or maybe in other countries where facebook has activity. The typical target would be russia today, for example.
fossuser 6y ago
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/0735213151 https://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Inside-Story-Steven-Levy/dp/...

davesque 6y ago

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.

buboard 6y ago

And the social media security theater goes on and on

garlicGum 6y ago

Does this include Fox?

thrwaway_poli 6y ago
NPR would make more sense.
- bduerst 6y ago
  You created two new accounts back to back just to comment this - why?
dathinab 6y ago
It's controlled by private people which happen to strongly act in favor of the president. So no. But if you have the same kind of construct in e.g. Russia posting ads for US citizens it surely would count as state controlled....
dathinab 6y ago
I wonder if they would include Germans ZDF and similar which are state payed, but at the same time _not_ state controlled. (Through this doesn't meant they are not biased, not that there are no people with influence which are members of some party of the many parties in Germany which have influence to some of them). (To quite wikipedia: "It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all federal states of Germany.")

tarkin2 6y ago

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

dathinab 6y ago
Or straw man companies pretending to advertise products when they are advertising political statements.

dj_gitmo 6y ago

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-media/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/labeling-state-controlled-... 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.

noodlesUK 6y ago

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...

ConsiderCrying 6y ago
Do BBC and NPR actually buy Facebook ads? Especially NPR, I feel like it's not exactly the type of organization that would like Facebook or want to do business with them.
- DFHippie 6y ago
  Or have the money to buy ads.
mc32 6y ago
Yeah it’s not clear. Granma, KCNA, Xinhua are probably clear, but deutsche welle, whatever friendly state... I’m guessing they’d be okay. I wanna know what they do about radio Yerevan.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I'm not sure why it would be important to allow ads from state media even if generally considered benign. Why not just have a quiet period around the election? People seem to not be distinguishing between running targeted ads and allowing news to be transmitted. It doesn't seem like the latter requires allowing the former.
ardy42 6y ago
> How will this affect outlets like BBC, NPR, and others? They’re state funded, if not state controlled to a certain extent. IIRC, NPR and PBS are primarily funded through donations. Federal funding only makes up something like 10 or 15% of their budgets. IMHO, this is what "state-controlled" media looks like: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1914136/chinas-top-party-mouthpieces-pledge-absolute-loyalty https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/19... > Entertainment, social and international news should be edited in the “right direction”, just like domestic news, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday as he told state media and tabloids to alike to uphold the Communist Party leadership. > Party-owned media should put political awareness first and let “positive propaganda” be the majority of the public voice, Xi told heads and veteran journalists from media outfits including People’s Daily, CCTV and Xinhua. > “Party-owned media must hold the family name of the party,” Xi said. “They must embody the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority … their actions must be highly consistent with the party.”

Simulacra 6y ago

Would that not necessitate basically all of Chinese news organizations?

nix23 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Kind of a poor soul with lots of money, i think you are on the point here.
SonOfKyuss 6y ago
Any source of party sponsorship of CNN? Trolling Trump for ratings doesn’t necessarily mean they are doing the bidding of the DNC. Fox on the other hand...
- nix23 6y ago
  >Fox on the other hand... Yes again one-sided, owner of CNN are WarnerMedia and Turner Broadcasting System now you research for yourself what Turner's connections are, and especially WarnerMedia's.

Vysero 6y ago

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 6y ago
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.

DevKoala 6y ago

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_ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownersh...

deleted 6y ago

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yingw787 6y ago

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.

rdxm 6y ago

lol....does that include Fox News?????

seemslegit 6y ago

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.

ogre_codes 6y ago

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

oldgregg 6y ago

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 6y ago

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)