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> 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

> 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.
  - deft 6y ago
    Elections are only allowed to be rigged by private corporations!
    - elmo2you 6y ago
      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).
  - FridgeSeal 6y ago
    With a few people and some decent preparation you could probably fake most of this without too much effort. In fact, I wonder what the smallest amount of people and effort you'd need to get past this: if you can get away without having face-to-face you might be able to pull and do it with 1 person, a bunch of emails and some AI generated faces (inspiration courtesy of https://youtu.be/bqPARIKHbN8 https://youtu.be/bqPARIKHbN8 )
- xalava 6y ago
  Funny you should say that, this kind of shallow formal rules are typically what a government would propose...
  - nix23 6y ago
    And most of the times that proposal comes from corporations and or 'friends'...yes, we have a circle.
dathinab 6y ago
Reminds me of the time facebook made that (intentionally hard to use) database of "ads" to show that no manipulation was going on and then removed some clearly manipulative ads with the reasoning that they had not been marked as political ads and as such where not political but "just" illegal ads and shouldn't be in that database. > The decision is part of its efforts to prevent foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. election. Also surly Chinese, Russia and other propaganda actions will tell facebook that they are media outlets/state sponsored and not just lets say some company trying to sell some stuff.
- nix23 6y ago
  > Also surly Chinese, Russia and other propaganda actions will tell facebook that they are media outlets/state sponsored and not just lets say some company trying to sell some stuff Yes they have to, its clearly written in the conditions when you sign-up ;) uh and why not also the UAE? like just russia and china makes propaganda (hello trumpidumpi)
oarabbus_ 6y ago
>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. Ironically, "facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth/speech" is exactly the defense Zuckerberg made about the decision not to put a disclaimer on Trump's "looting and shooting" tweet. And people are still killing him over it. At this point, I'm not entirely sure what people want.
- dnautics 6y ago
  I would put it this way: I'm not sure if facebook is trying to have its cake and eat it too, or if facebook is caught between a rock and hard place. (I'm a bit sad this is downvoted)
- DFHippie 6y ago
  Different people want different things.
  - andybak 6y ago
    Quite often the same person wants different things depending on how it's framed and whether it supports their preconceptions. And yes that person is often you or I. None of us are immune to cognitive blind spots. Smart people are sometimes the worst offenders.
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      Eliezer Yudkowsky's Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People seems relevant. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AdYdLP2sRqPMoe8fb/knowing-about-biases-can-hurt-people https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AdYdLP2sRqPMoe8fb/knowing-ab... So does the concept of dysrationalia, proposed by Keith Stanovich. Ironically, the Wikipedia article quotes Robert Sternberg as saying: > I am afraid that Stanovich has fallen into a trap—that of labeling people as 'dysrational' who have beliefs that he does not accept. And therein lies frightening potential for misuse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysrationalia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysrationalia
TuringNYC 6y ago
Prediction: Soon, there will be "startups" which are venture funded via state-controlled sovereign wealth funds -- achieving the same end result. Entity Whack A Mole.
- fakedang 6y ago
  It's already happening - you can practically assume any startup formed in the Middle East (ex Israel) or China, is funded by an SWF entity, either directly or in the long chain of command.
chillacy 6y ago
I think they should just block ads from non-domestic media outlets instead, that way you don't have to distinguish between "state controlled" or not, just say that foreign states shouldn't run election ads in other countries.
- fakedang 6y ago
  But what do you expect? It's Facebook, it's got revenue targets to hit, partly boosted by Chinese and Arab and Russian money.
fakedang 6y ago
Thomas Friedman had the perfect assessment of Zuckerberg - a wannabe Rupert Murdoch of our generation.
- adventured 6y ago
  That's incorrectly ordered, Rupert Murdoch wishes he was Mark Zuckerberg. You can see that in the non-stop whining - projected envy - out of News Corp about the power of the FB platform over the course of many years. Zuckerberg is also ~12 times wealthier than Murdoch (who has a declining empire). Most recently: "News Corp Australia blamed Google and Facebook for undermining the profitability of Australian media outlets, including 60 of the company's local newspapers that may publish for the last time next week." https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/news-corp-slams-google-facebook-may-close-60-papers-20200401-p54g3j https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/news-corp-...
  - dntbnmpls 6y ago
    > That's incorrectly ordered, Rupert Murdoch wishes he was Mark Zuckerberg. Can't say he didn't tried. But even murdoch and his billions couldn't outzuck the zuck. "News Corp. to Acquire MySpace" https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jul-19-fi-news19-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jul-19-fi-news1...
  - oska 6y ago
    You're interpreting the statement as being about wealth. I'd rather interpret it as being about influence and Murdoch has held more political influence than Zuckerberg and probably still does.

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.
- deft 6y ago
  Elections are only allowed to be rigged by private corporations!
  - elmo2you 6y ago
    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).
- FridgeSeal 6y ago
  With a few people and some decent preparation you could probably fake most of this without too much effort. In fact, I wonder what the smallest amount of people and effort you'd need to get past this: if you can get away without having face-to-face you might be able to pull and do it with 1 person, a bunch of emails and some AI generated faces (inspiration courtesy of https://youtu.be/bqPARIKHbN8 https://youtu.be/bqPARIKHbN8 )
xalava 6y ago
Funny you should say that, this kind of shallow formal rules are typically what a government would propose...
- nix23 6y ago
  And most of the times that proposal comes from corporations and or 'friends'...yes, we have a circle.

dathinab 6y ago

Reminds me of the time facebook made that (intentionally hard to use) database of "ads" to show that no manipulation was going on and then removed some clearly manipulative ads with the reasoning that they had not been marked as political ads and as such where not political but "just" illegal ads and shouldn't be in that database. > The decision is part of its efforts to prevent foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. election. Also surly Chinese, Russia and other propaganda actions will tell facebook that they are media outlets/state sponsored and not just lets say some company trying to sell some stuff.

nix23 6y ago
> Also surly Chinese, Russia and other propaganda actions will tell facebook that they are media outlets/state sponsored and not just lets say some company trying to sell some stuff Yes they have to, its clearly written in the conditions when you sign-up ;) uh and why not also the UAE? like just russia and china makes propaganda (hello trumpidumpi)

oarabbus_ 6y ago

>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. Ironically, "facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth/speech" is exactly the defense Zuckerberg made about the decision not to put a disclaimer on Trump's "looting and shooting" tweet. And people are still killing him over it. At this point, I'm not entirely sure what people want.

dnautics 6y ago
I would put it this way: I'm not sure if facebook is trying to have its cake and eat it too, or if facebook is caught between a rock and hard place. (I'm a bit sad this is downvoted)
DFHippie 6y ago
Different people want different things.
- andybak 6y ago
  Quite often the same person wants different things depending on how it's framed and whether it supports their preconceptions. And yes that person is often you or I. None of us are immune to cognitive blind spots. Smart people are sometimes the worst offenders.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    Eliezer Yudkowsky's Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People seems relevant. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AdYdLP2sRqPMoe8fb/knowing-about-biases-can-hurt-people https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AdYdLP2sRqPMoe8fb/knowing-ab... So does the concept of dysrationalia, proposed by Keith Stanovich. Ironically, the Wikipedia article quotes Robert Sternberg as saying: > I am afraid that Stanovich has fallen into a trap—that of labeling people as 'dysrational' who have beliefs that he does not accept. And therein lies frightening potential for misuse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysrationalia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysrationalia

TuringNYC 6y ago

Prediction: Soon, there will be "startups" which are venture funded via state-controlled sovereign wealth funds -- achieving the same end result. Entity Whack A Mole.

fakedang 6y ago
It's already happening - you can practically assume any startup formed in the Middle East (ex Israel) or China, is funded by an SWF entity, either directly or in the long chain of command.

chillacy 6y ago

I think they should just block ads from non-domestic media outlets instead, that way you don't have to distinguish between "state controlled" or not, just say that foreign states shouldn't run election ads in other countries.

fakedang 6y ago
But what do you expect? It's Facebook, it's got revenue targets to hit, partly boosted by Chinese and Arab and Russian money.

fakedang 6y ago

Thomas Friedman had the perfect assessment of Zuckerberg - a wannabe Rupert Murdoch of our generation.

adventured 6y ago
That's incorrectly ordered, Rupert Murdoch wishes he was Mark Zuckerberg. You can see that in the non-stop whining - projected envy - out of News Corp about the power of the FB platform over the course of many years. Zuckerberg is also ~12 times wealthier than Murdoch (who has a declining empire). Most recently: "News Corp Australia blamed Google and Facebook for undermining the profitability of Australian media outlets, including 60 of the company's local newspapers that may publish for the last time next week." https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/news-corp-slams-google-facebook-may-close-60-papers-20200401-p54g3j https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/news-corp-...
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  > That's incorrectly ordered, Rupert Murdoch wishes he was Mark Zuckerberg. Can't say he didn't tried. But even murdoch and his billions couldn't outzuck the zuck. "News Corp. to Acquire MySpace" https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jul-19-fi-news19-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jul-19-fi-news1...
- oska 6y ago
  You're interpreting the statement as being about wealth. I'd rather interpret it as being about influence and Murdoch has held more political influence than Zuckerberg and probably still does.