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).
The sinister side of me saw an orchestrated attack by the media (lets call them the establishment) that FB or Zuck can not be trusted to manage FB [1]. There has been a constant narrative, just google around these keywords. Surprisingly from the same "journalistic" machine that pushed a pro-Iraq war narrative without asking the questions they should have asked for [2].
My cynical view is, that this was a way to push FB to censor media content in favor of the establishment. Essentially, FB should allow Washington Post, NY Times, etc. to be shared with no shadow censorship, but the lesser established journalistic outlet should be censored.
You can see it from their side. NY Times or Washington Post are brands. But with FB, their brand value is not bringing them as much traffic as lesser entities. So, if I'm Bezos or others who own these entities, I would be unhappy to see FB providing an equal playing field to everyone.
I think the "RussiaGate" provided the best push for this argument. That if there is no censorship by FB, foreign players can influence our election. Though Comey's letter shown to have impacted the election [3], the $50k of ad buying on FB, made the news round and continues to pervade among many people that these ads probably changed the outcome of the election.
I'm sad to see Zuck and FB have succumbed to these pressures and are closing down venues for alternative journalist to state their views.
I think the EFF is being generous here. Facebook blocks posts to certain types of political material even if it is posted by an American citizen. They would round out and wax and wane about 'terrorist material' - content such as the ISIL newsletter (which overall is not 'gross', especially compared to some American cinema). But blocked content is broader than that.
Facebook is also part of a network of other American Social Media companies that have automated systems to block content posted that match certain patterns and known propaganda efforts by other nations.
Recently an anti-TPP website was blocked simultaneously across several communication providers (https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/38pmg8/hey_redd...). This was a mistake as the website name closely matched the name of a Russian Anti-TPP propaganda campaign.
The mere existence of the ability to coordinate content blocking across service providers means that a censorship network exists - the question becomes whether it is 'abused'.
It's difficult to ascertain abuse, of course, given the Obama Administrations policy with regard to censorship and propaganda and its weakening of the Smith-Mundt Anti-Propaganda Act. The Administration believes that the US government is not responsible for having its influence operations online spill over to affect American people - it is merely prohibited from actively and specifically targeting Americans. That is, the new policy is that it's okay - even expected - for Americans to be 'collateral damage' in censorship and propaganda campaigns.
Thinkers like Cass Sunstein are traded high up in the US Government - Sunstein wrote a book on the 'Problem of Free Speech'. Broadly this influential Washington Legal Scholar believes that speech that is actively harmful or misinformed can and should be 'addressed' by the state - and he recommends ways in which that can happen.
The Snowden documents reveal that (so far as we know non-specific American targeting) the mass surveillance networks are intrinsically tied to influence operation capabilities - outside those capabilities at the GCHQ (which legally are not prevented from targeting Americans) - and who engage quite heavily in psychological influence campaigns.
I have personally, repeatedly witnessed Facebook selectively block posts of mine linking Wikileaks material, the Snowden documents (when they were first being published), and leaked drafts of the Trans Pacific Partnership and watched as others complained about having their posts trying to organize protests on May Day blocked similarly.
It's true also that Facebook has been associated with at least two studies on societal manipulation programs with researchers that are funded by the Department of Defense in the same area. Many people remember the "Emotion Manipulation Study" - fewer the vote influence study. These sorts of programs have been called for in the past 10 years of Defense Document planning and DARPA today, under their SMISC program, study similarly how to shape and track ideas in social media networks like Twitter.
I'm honestly glad that the EFF is finally giving this issue some attention.
Facebook was used in 2016 by the Kremlin for disinformation warfare with the express purpose of swaying the results of our presidential election. Facebook recently adopted an official policy that they will not remove political ads which are blatantly, demonstrably false. This policy was drafted by Katie Harbath, Facebook's Public Policy Director of Global Elections, who was previously Chief Digital Strategist for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Freedom of speech is a straw man. It only applies to government interference in the free speech of individuals. Facebook is a private platform, with no obligation to protect the free speech of its users. They are using it as an excuse to protect the spread of disinformation.
FB has been doing political censorship for over a decade. First they started with torrent links, then anarchist propaganda. Since they introduced shadow-banning i haven't really followed the latest developments, but they definitely have been collaborating with other entities on what to censor.
Facebook should definitely remove stuff from foreign actors trying to impact some political outcome (like Russia messing with Brexit or American elections) and any promotion by groups to incite violence (like gangs, ISIS propaganda, hate groups, etc.).
But political and partisan stuff is a slippery slope. For example, I wouldn't touch Alex Jones stuff. Maybe derank his content and posts promoting his content, but banning him all together is a step too far. Like it or not, were in a weird place in American politics where conspiracy theorists not only have influence in political parties, but also get elected President. Facebook banning figures, and to be more specific, conservative figures when conservatives already believe Facebook is biased against them is just a bad idea.
If Congress wants Facebook and Twitter to silence speech, they need to pass a law. That law needs to be clear about what is inbounds and what is out. If not, Facebook is opening itself up to legal challenges from the Right and is only going to erode trust from half the population.
We are in a weird place in American politics and Facebook should tread lightly. Also, Congress should do it's damn job and not rely on companies to use discretion. If Facebook bans something that the left deems is biased against them then Facebook, once again, will be in big trouble with half the country.
It's only censorship if the government does it. If Facebook runs editorial on any of it's content, it simply follows the same process private (and/or) foreign media companies have done since 1776.
Abuse? Ad tech doesn’t give a shit. Ad tech is complicit. And it isn’t just dictatorships - it’s the powerful in general (eg how they censor pro-Palestinian content [1]).
What do you do in a situation like this? Simple. Let Facebook open source it’s policies and algorithms which regulate its platforms. Let us see what the watchers have deemed worthy of censorship and intervention. Let Facebook publish how much the Egyptian and Saudi governments spend on their platforms to undermine their citizens. They won’t though because Facebook, in this area (foreign power related) has carefully ensured that it remains aligned with US foreign policy positions.
And yet Facebook is a privately owned company and thus should be free to allow or deny any content including particular political ads. Isn’t that the whole freedom of speech thing?
and? isn't FB doing the same everywhere, especially recently in the US? pretty sure they block whatever even smells like a pro Trump militia in the US.
I'm no fan of Facebook by any measure, but I think when it comes to current political content and ads they are in a very tricky position.
If they say something is not allowed, at least one group will claim they are suppressing free speech. But if they allow it, they end up having to allow some misleading or completely false disinformation.
That's very naive. Facebook works very closely with governments and have big interests that may coincide with some despot interest. Which means they are in a position to silence opposition as a favor for some government.
"The Facebook workers called for specific changes including holding political ads to the same standards as other advertising, stronger design measures to better distinguish political ads from other content, and restricting targeting for political ads. The employees also recommended imposing a silence period ahead of elections and imposing spend caps for politicians."
In the U.S., political speech is often afforded the highest amount of protection from govt. censorship (c.f. the FB is private platform/publisher). One of the reasons articulated by some First Amendment commentators is that political speech is important to self-government in a democratic society. To quote Brandeis, "Political discussion is a political duty." Further, "Implied here is the notion of civic virtue - the duty to participate in politics, the importance of deliberation, and the notion that the end of the state is not neutrality by active assistance in provided conditions of freedom . . . ." [1]
Public political speech should not be censored based on perceived truth or falsehood. In fact, political speech that promulgates false or misleading messages should be exposed to criticism. Again quoting Brandeis, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants . . . ."
However, political speech is regulated to an extent by the F.E.C., e.g. requiring disclosure notices, etc. However, the political speech issues presented on FB can be more complex than that of traditional 20th century print and broadcast media. For example, micro-targeting political speech to certain demographics may cross the line from public political speech to private speech, and perhaps should be affored less protections. See Alexander Meiklejohn [2].
Also, content based prohibitions of speech tend to be more troubling than content neutral restrictions, such as time, place or manner restrictions on political ads or spending caps as mentioned in the employee statement above.
[1] Lahav, Holmes and Brandeis: Libertarian and Republican Justifications for Free Speech, 4 J.L. & Pol. 451 (1987).
[2] Meiklejohn, Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Governemnt (1948).
Let's be frank here: Free speech and facebook never go together. They want to present as a respectable forum where prominent people like politicians can have their platform (same with Twitter). That needs some kind of filtering. And, as we saw with pretty much the entire American press, as soon as you start filtering and selecting, you start to induce gross biases and distortions of the truth. The truth only comes out in a clutter of contradicting opinions, engaging discussions, pieces of evidence and leaked materials. Of course, that is an ugly mess not many people want to put up with.
As it stands (or once stood), Facebook more or less permits free speech on its platform, modulo pornography and gun sales. I'm against algorithmic "censorship" against their definition of "government propaganda." Let the educated reader decide that for herself (indeed, my Facebook friends -- who are also my IRL friends -- aren't agents of government propaganda by participating in our Democracy via discussing their rather-diverse political views over a public forum).
It's a little too transparent that "government propaganda" here means Donald Trump. I hope that Facebook is merely acquiescing to bad PR from the left here with a faux apology.
It's a shame that they were pressured to feel responsible when they are merely a communications medium. I don't recall telegraph operators feeling responsible for antebellum slavery or radio broadcasters feeling responsible for the rise of Adolph Hitler (of which Trump's mainstream democratic election as our President cannot even reasonably be held in comparison to either _actual_ historical atrocity).
By writing this rather dissident post here, I am not "exploiting" Hacker News.
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).
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