FACEBOOK EMPLOYEES ARE AGAINST ALL THOSE POLITICIANS WHO WANT TO USE THEPLATFORM BY SPREADING LIES AND SENSELESS POLITICAL PROPAGANDA
FACEBOOK EMPLOYEES ARE AGAINST ALL THOSE POLITICIANS WHO WANT TO USE THEPLATFORM BY SPREADING LIES AND SENSELESS POLITICAL PROPAGANDA
I have for a very long time been worried about politicians here in Africa who predominantly have been using twitter and facebook in spreading Senseless political lies that even are un realistic,segregative and in real just to promote their political ambitions.In Uganda, we have witnessed many of them delivering messages full of hatred, am not going to mention some names but, you know them, I know them and we all know them. This is very dangerous especially since it targets the youth who easily can be lured into acts that can put it heir lives to danger. And to facebook, it has promoted mistrust to the extent that per now there is none In Africa who can easily trust any information spread via facebook.
Facebook employees are urging Mark Zuckerberg to rethink his stance on allowing politicians to lie in political ads. In an open letter to company executives obtained by The New York Times, more than 250 people said the policy — which exempts such ads from Facebook’s third-party fact-checking standards — threatens what the company stands for:
Misinformation affects us all. Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for. We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.
They added that it fuels mistrust of the platform and “it communicates that we are OK profiting from deliberate misinformation campaigns by those in or seeking positions of power.”
“IT COMMUNICATES THAT WE ARE OK PROFITING FROM DELIBERATE MISINFORMATION”
Employees urged executives to restrict how politicians are able to target potential voters. Today, they are able to segment users based on how likely they are to vote or how susceptible they might be to a potential message — tactics made infamous by the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. “These ads are often so micro-targeted that the conversations on our platforms are much more siloed than on other platforms,” employees said. Facebook already applies such restrictions to ads related to housing, education, or credit, to stop potential discrimination.
Facebook’s ad policy has been under fire since September, when vice president of communications Nick Clegg attempted to explain why the company would no longer “referee political debates” by fact-checking political ads. Elizabeth Warren claimed the move was a clear sign they were taking “deliberate steps to help one candidate intentionally mislead the American people,” then escalated things further by posting an ad claiming
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook endorsed Trump . “We intentionally made a Facebook ad with false claims and submitted it to Facebook’s ad platform to see if it’d be approved. It got approved quickly and the ad is now running,” she tweeted .
Last week, the company took down an ad that falsely claimed Lindsey Graham (R-SC) supported the Green New Deal. The Really Online Lefty League, a liberal PAC, ran it to test whether Facebook’s policy applied to political organizations. Because the ad was purchased by a third-party group, it was subject to a stricter fact-checking policy than posts by the candidates themselves.
Two weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech at Georgetown University where he tried to crystallize his thoughts on free speech and his company’s role in moderating political conversations. The speech was widely criticized by the left and right; both parties thought Zuckerberg was shirking his responsibility for helping to spread misinformation. Now, it seems his own employees agree.
Hundreds of Facebook employees Few days ago signed a letter to Mr. Zuckerberg and other leaders of the social network, decrying the company’s decision to let politicians post any claims they wanted — even false ones — in ads on the site.
Here’s what the letter says:
We are proud to work here.
Facebook stands for people expressing their voice. Creating a place where we can debate, share different opinions, and express our views is what makes our app and technologies meaningful for people all over the world.
We are proud to work for a place that enables that expression, and we believe it is imperative to evolve as societies change. As Chris Cox said, “We know the effects of social media are not neutral, and its history has not yet been written.”
This is our company.
We’re reaching out to you, the leaders of this company, because we’re worried we’re on track to undo the great strides our product teams have made in integrity over the last two years. We work here because we care, because we know that even our smallest choices impact communities at an astounding scale. We want to raise our concerns before it’s too late.
Free speech and paid speech are not the same thing.
Misinformation affects us all. Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for. We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.
Allowing paid civic misinformation to run on the platform in its current state has the potential to:
— Increase distrust in our platform by allowing similar paid and organic content to sit side-by-side — some with third-party fact-checking and some without. Additionally, it communicates that we are OK profiting from deliberate misinformation campaigns by those in or seeking positions of power.
— Undo integrity product work. Currently, integrity teams are working hard to give users more context on the content they see, demote violating content, and more. For the Election 2020 Lockdown, these teams made hard choices on what to support and what not to support, and this policy will undo much of that work by undermining trust in the platform. And after the 2020 Lockdown, this policy has the potential to continue to cause harm in coming elections around the world.
Proposals for improvement
Our goal is to bring awareness to our leadership that a large part of the employee body does not agree with this policy. We want to work with our leadership to develop better solutions that both protect our business and the people who use our products. We know this work is nuanced, but there are many things we can do short of eliminating political ads altogether.
These suggestions are all focused on ad-related content, not organic.
1. Hold political ads to the same standard as other ads.
a. Misinformation shared by political advertisers has an outsized detrimental impact on our community. We should not accept money for political ads without applying the standards that our other ads have to follow.
2. Stronger visual design treatment for political ads.
a. People have trouble distinguishing political ads from organic posts. We should apply a stronger design treatment to political ads that makes it easier for people to establish context.
3. Restrict targeting for political ads.
a. Currently, politicians and political campaigns can use our advanced targeting tools, such as Custom Audiences. It is common for political advertisers to upload voter rolls (which are publicly available in order to reach voters) and then use behavioral tracking tools (such as the FB pixel) and ad engagement to refine ads further. The risk with allowing this is that it’s hard for people in the electorate to participate in the “public scrutiny” that we’re saying comes along with political speech. These ads are often so micro-targeted that the conversations on our platforms are much more siloed than on other platforms. Currently we restrict targeting for housing and education and credit verticals due to a history of discrimination. We should extend similar restrictions to political advertising.
4. Broader observance of the election silence periods
a. Observe election silence in compliance with local laws and regulations. Explore a self-imposed election silence for all elections around the world to act in good faith and as good citizens.
5. Spend caps for individual politicians, regardless of source
a. FB has stated that one of the benefits of running political ads is to help more voices get heard. However, high-profile politicians can out-spend new voices and drown out the competition. To solve for this, if you have a PAC and a politician both running ads, there would be a limit that would apply to both together, rather than to each advertiser individually.
6. Clearer policies for political ads
a. If FB does not change the policies for political ads, we need to update the way they are displayed. For consumers and advertisers, it’s not immediately clear that political ads are exempt from the fact-checking that other ads go through. It should be easily understood by anyone that our advertising policies about misinformation don’t apply to original political content or ads, especially since political misinformation is more destructive than other types of misinformation.
Therefore, the section of the policies should be moved from “prohibited content” (which is not allowed at all) to “restricted content” (which is allowed with restrictions).
We want to have this conversation in an open dialog because we want to see actual change.
We are proud of the work that the integrity teams have done, and we don’t want to see that undermined by policy. Over the coming months, we’ll continue this conversation, and we look forward to working towards solutions together.
This is still our company.
I have for a very long time been worried about politicians here in Africa who predominantly have been using twitter and facebook in spreading Senseless political lies that even are un realistic,segregative and in real just to promote their political ambitions.In Uganda, we have witnessed many of them delivering messages full of hatred, am not going to mention some names but, you know them, I know them and we all know them. This is very dangerous especially since it targets the youth who easily can be lured into acts that can put it heir lives to danger. And to facebook, it has promoted mistrust to the extent that per now there is none In Africa who can easily trust any information spread via facebook.
Facebook employees are urging Mark Zuckerberg to rethink his stance on allowing politicians to lie in political ads. In an open letter to company executives obtained by The New York Times, more than 250 people said the policy — which exempts such ads from Facebook’s third-party fact-checking standards — threatens what the company stands for:
Misinformation affects us all. Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for. We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.
They added that it fuels mistrust of the platform and “it communicates that we are OK profiting from deliberate misinformation campaigns by those in or seeking positions of power.”
“IT COMMUNICATES THAT WE ARE OK PROFITING FROM DELIBERATE MISINFORMATION”
Employees urged executives to restrict how politicians are able to target potential voters. Today, they are able to segment users based on how likely they are to vote or how susceptible they might be to a potential message — tactics made infamous by the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. “These ads are often so micro-targeted that the conversations on our platforms are much more siloed than on other platforms,” employees said. Facebook already applies such restrictions to ads related to housing, education, or credit, to stop potential discrimination.
Facebook’s ad policy has been under fire since September, when vice president of communications Nick Clegg attempted to explain why the company would no longer “referee political debates” by fact-checking political ads. Elizabeth Warren claimed the move was a clear sign they were taking “deliberate steps to help one candidate intentionally mislead the American people,” then escalated things further by posting an ad claiming
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook endorsed Trump . “We intentionally made a Facebook ad with false claims and submitted it to Facebook’s ad platform to see if it’d be approved. It got approved quickly and the ad is now running,” she tweeted .
Last week, the company took down an ad that falsely claimed Lindsey Graham (R-SC) supported the Green New Deal. The Really Online Lefty League, a liberal PAC, ran it to test whether Facebook’s policy applied to political organizations. Because the ad was purchased by a third-party group, it was subject to a stricter fact-checking policy than posts by the candidates themselves.
Two weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech at Georgetown University where he tried to crystallize his thoughts on free speech and his company’s role in moderating political conversations. The speech was widely criticized by the left and right; both parties thought Zuckerberg was shirking his responsibility for helping to spread misinformation. Now, it seems his own employees agree.
Hundreds of Facebook employees Few days ago signed a letter to Mr. Zuckerberg and other leaders of the social network, decrying the company’s decision to let politicians post any claims they wanted — even false ones — in ads on the site.
Here’s what the letter says:
We are proud to work here.
Facebook stands for people expressing their voice. Creating a place where we can debate, share different opinions, and express our views is what makes our app and technologies meaningful for people all over the world.
We are proud to work for a place that enables that expression, and we believe it is imperative to evolve as societies change. As Chris Cox said, “We know the effects of social media are not neutral, and its history has not yet been written.”
This is our company.
We’re reaching out to you, the leaders of this company, because we’re worried we’re on track to undo the great strides our product teams have made in integrity over the last two years. We work here because we care, because we know that even our smallest choices impact communities at an astounding scale. We want to raise our concerns before it’s too late.
Free speech and paid speech are not the same thing.
Misinformation affects us all. Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for. We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.
Allowing paid civic misinformation to run on the platform in its current state has the potential to:
— Increase distrust in our platform by allowing similar paid and organic content to sit side-by-side — some with third-party fact-checking and some without. Additionally, it communicates that we are OK profiting from deliberate misinformation campaigns by those in or seeking positions of power.
— Undo integrity product work. Currently, integrity teams are working hard to give users more context on the content they see, demote violating content, and more. For the Election 2020 Lockdown, these teams made hard choices on what to support and what not to support, and this policy will undo much of that work by undermining trust in the platform. And after the 2020 Lockdown, this policy has the potential to continue to cause harm in coming elections around the world.
Proposals for improvement
Our goal is to bring awareness to our leadership that a large part of the employee body does not agree with this policy. We want to work with our leadership to develop better solutions that both protect our business and the people who use our products. We know this work is nuanced, but there are many things we can do short of eliminating political ads altogether.
These suggestions are all focused on ad-related content, not organic.
1. Hold political ads to the same standard as other ads.
a. Misinformation shared by political advertisers has an outsized detrimental impact on our community. We should not accept money for political ads without applying the standards that our other ads have to follow.
2. Stronger visual design treatment for political ads.
a. People have trouble distinguishing political ads from organic posts. We should apply a stronger design treatment to political ads that makes it easier for people to establish context.
3. Restrict targeting for political ads.
a. Currently, politicians and political campaigns can use our advanced targeting tools, such as Custom Audiences. It is common for political advertisers to upload voter rolls (which are publicly available in order to reach voters) and then use behavioral tracking tools (such as the FB pixel) and ad engagement to refine ads further. The risk with allowing this is that it’s hard for people in the electorate to participate in the “public scrutiny” that we’re saying comes along with political speech. These ads are often so micro-targeted that the conversations on our platforms are much more siloed than on other platforms. Currently we restrict targeting for housing and education and credit verticals due to a history of discrimination. We should extend similar restrictions to political advertising.
4. Broader observance of the election silence periods
a. Observe election silence in compliance with local laws and regulations. Explore a self-imposed election silence for all elections around the world to act in good faith and as good citizens.
5. Spend caps for individual politicians, regardless of source
a. FB has stated that one of the benefits of running political ads is to help more voices get heard. However, high-profile politicians can out-spend new voices and drown out the competition. To solve for this, if you have a PAC and a politician both running ads, there would be a limit that would apply to both together, rather than to each advertiser individually.
6. Clearer policies for political ads
a. If FB does not change the policies for political ads, we need to update the way they are displayed. For consumers and advertisers, it’s not immediately clear that political ads are exempt from the fact-checking that other ads go through. It should be easily understood by anyone that our advertising policies about misinformation don’t apply to original political content or ads, especially since political misinformation is more destructive than other types of misinformation.
Therefore, the section of the policies should be moved from “prohibited content” (which is not allowed at all) to “restricted content” (which is allowed with restrictions).
We want to have this conversation in an open dialog because we want to see actual change.
We are proud of the work that the integrity teams have done, and we don’t want to see that undermined by policy. Over the coming months, we’ll continue this conversation, and we look forward to working towards solutions together.
This is still our company.
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