Re:Dissent at Facebook over hands-off stance on political ads
by Infinitesimus on Monday October 28, 2019 @08:47PM
(#21383327)
> It would be easy enough for Facebook to classify ads as political/non-political and for political ads have more scrutiny over what they decide to air.
I doubt it is as easy as you think because not all political ads look like "vote for foo!"
They will evolve to look like governor foo paid company xyz which sells home security products to make an ad about how unsafe the country is...while governor foo runs on a platform all about reducing crime rates...etc
Look at some of the propaganda during the 2016 election era for instance
Re:Dissent at Facebook over hands-off stance on political ads
by grandmczeb on Monday October 28, 2019 @09:45PM
(#21383599)
Facebook already classifies ads about "social issues, elections or politics" and those ads are subject to extra scrutiny[1].
Re:Dissent at Facebook over hands-off stance on political ads
by grandmczeb on Monday October 28, 2019 @08:32PM
(#21383244)
> Or make political ads visibile publicly for anyone to search for details as to who created them, how much they paid, how many people were targeted.
Isn't that already the case? You can already search all political ads and see who ran them, how much was paid, and the number of people who saw the ad.
Re:Dissent at Facebook over hands-off stance on political ads
by pm90 on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @12:10AM
(#21384199)
Is it? I can’t find any documentation on how to query all the political campaigns that are currently active, who is paying for them and who they’re targeting. All of this information is critically important to be made public to ensure the integrity of our elections.
Re:Dissent at Facebook over hands-off stance on political ads
by grandmczeb on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @12:43AM
(#21384296)
Did you look at https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/ ? It should show all active (and inactive) ads, information about the page that ran the ad, and who paid for the ad. It doesn't show targeting, but it does show amount spent and the gender/age/geography of who saw the ads.
It would be easy enough for Facebook to classify ads as political/non-political and for political ads have more scrutiny over what they decide to air. And have strict penalties against those who choose to mis-classify their ads.
Or make political ads visibile publicly for anyone to search for details as to who created them, how much they paid, how many people were targeted.
All these are valid solutions to the problem, but Facebook doesn't want to do it, because if they can get away with what they're doing right now, they can make a ton of ad money.