You announced recently that the official policy of Facebook now allows politicians to pay
to spread disinformation in 2020 elections and in the future.
So I just want to know how far I can push this in the next year.
Under your policy, you know, using census data as well, could I pay to target predominantly
black zip codes and advertise them the incorrect election date?
No Congresswoman, you couldn’t.
We have, even for these policies around the newsworthiness of content that politicians
say and the general principle that I believe-- But you said you’re not going to fact-check
my ads.
We have-- if anyone, including a politician, is saying things that can cause—that is
calling for violence or could risk imminent physical harm or voter or census suppression
when we roll out the census suppression policy, we will take that content down.
So you will— there is some threshold where you will fact-check political advertisements,
is that what you’re telling me?
Well, congresswoman, yes for specific things like that where there’s imminent risk of
harm-- Could I run ads targeting Republicans in primaries
saying that they voted for the Green New Deal?
Sorry, could you repeat that?
Would I be able to run advertisements on Facebook targeting Republicans in primaries saying
that they voted for the Green New Deal?
I mean, if you’re not fact checking political advertisements, I’m just trying to understand
the bounds here.
What’s fair game.
Congresswoman, I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head--
So you don’t know if I’ll be able to do that?
I think probably.
Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact checking with political
advertisements?
Well congresswoman, I think lying is bad.
And I think if you were to run an ad with a lie that would be bad.
That’s different from it being—from it—in our position the right thing to do to prevent
your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you lied.
So we can—so you won’t take down lies or you will take down lies?
I think this is just a pretty simple yes or no.
Congresswoman— I’m not talking about spin.
I’m talking about actual disinformation.
In a democracy, I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians
that they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves.
So you won’t take them down?
You may flag that it’s wrong but you won’t take it down?
Congresswoman, it’s—it depends on the context that it shows up.
This is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a congressional hearing with Mark Zuckerberg
in the aftermath of Facebook’s decision that it’s allowing lies in political ads.
And the reason here is simple: Facebook isn’t interested in holding itself accountable for
the information that’s spread on its platform; it’s only interested in accepting money
for it.
And the issue has come to the forefront given, what else, but a surge in ads from the Trump
campaign with proven lies.
And that includes the claim that the Ukrainian prosecutor was forced out for leading a corruption
investigation into Burisma, where Hunter Biden was on the Board of Directors.
And demonstrably false ads like these have been viewed by millions of people while Facebook
continues to rake in funds at a rate sometimes as high as a million dollars a week by the
Trump campaign.
Now Facebook’s excuse is that they’re not in the business of limiting speech by
politicians, that people should have the right to hear what elected officials have to say,
even if it’s completely false.
But this is actually a step BACKWARDS.
Because on television, cable networks have the ability to reject ads that contain lies.
And they do—including the very ad about Hunter Biden that’s brought this issue into
the mainstream.
So for Facebook to claim that it’s impossible to police this type of thing, when television
networks already do it, is proof that it’s not about their inability to do so, it’s
about their unwillingness to.
Another excuse we’ll hear is that Facebook views itself as a technology platform and
not a news platform.
Which sounds like it makes sense until you consider the fact that its algorithm allows
it to decide what information will reach you.
In other words, Facebook is actively curating the news you get to see.
It favors certain media sources over others, and even allows sources that have shown a
proclivity to lie to continue to disseminate news unabated.
To claim, then, that Facebook isn’t a news platform is to purposefully disregard WHAT
Facebook does and HOW its users view the site.
It is a bad faith excuse to wash its hands of any and all responsibility while still
allowing it to achieve its ultimate goal of collecting checks from campaigns desperate
to lie to Facebook’s users.
Now, Facebook’s solution has been to make political ads public so that researchers and
the media can investigate the content of the ads themselves, that a public debate over
the merits of the ads is the most democratic solution.
Only, if you actually think these low-information voters these ads target are then going to
delve into an in-depth research campaign of an ad they see on Facebook rather than just
taking it at face value, you’re kidding yourself.
For some of these people, just turning the computer ON is an accomplishment.
But beyond that, people – especially low-information people – often trust that the ads they’re
seeing from a political campaign are true, behavior that’s been reinforced in that
TV networks historically DON’T air such brazen lies.
So while Facebook is leaning on this idea that it’s better to just allow outright
lies and the invisible hand of the marketplace will just work it all out, that solution doesn’t
have any basis in reality.
The fact is that if Facebook isn’t capable or willing to be responsible in the way that
it disseminates information that it’s more than happy to cash the checks for, then political
ads shouldn’t be allowed on the site.
In the same way it moderates content like violence and pornography, the site has a responsibility
to make sure that the information that they are actively SHOWING us is not false.
And Facebook might claim that this is a false equivalency, that lies in political ads aren’t
the same as showing violent content.
But these ads are purposefully designed to sway low-information voters into voting candidates
into offices that DO impact real lives.
The people who voted for Trump, perhaps based on false pretenses, elected a person whose
foreign policies might mean that someone who would’ve otherwise lived—doesn’t.
Those ads might sway people to vote for Trump who could rip healthcare away from someone
with a pre-existing condition, who could relax emissions standards and impact someone with
asthma, who could loosen building regulations for a construction worker who will be less
safe on the job.
These ads might seem innocent, but the votes they can inspire have real world impacts.
So AOC and other Democrats SHOULD run ads with brazen lies and push the envelope as
far as they can go.
Because until Facebook deigns to stop cashing those checks and instead holds itself accountable
to find an acceptable solution, it’s only proving itself to be part of the problem.