In 2008 and 2012 social media advertising was lauded as essentially "just another tool in the war chest to deploy on the campaign battleground". How that we've seen how things can go ... not as planned, people are looking for an out. And that's okay. Two things can be true: it was a new and interesting approach in 2008/2012 but now we've had enough of it and think there needs to be a correction. I still reread this[1] from time to time to remind myself how much things have changed. The article is spot on, but not in the way that the author I'm sure expected. All of these predictions came true, it just wasn't the utopia they bargained for.

>The John McCain campaign, for example, originally said that Governor Sarah Palin opposed the so-called bridge to nowhere in Alaska, Ms. Huffington said. “Online there was an absolutely obsessive campaign to prove that wrong,” she said, and eventually the campaign stopped repeating it. >“In 2004, trust me, they would have gone on repeating it, because the echo chamber would not have been as facile,” Ms. Huffington said.

>“There will be a lot of collateral damage coming to grips with the fact that we’re in a reality TV series, ‘Politics 24/7,’” Mr. Newsom said. >That’s a good thing, Mr. Trippi said. “This medium demands authenticity, and television for the most part demanded fake. Authenticity is something politicians haven’t been used to.”

>“When Congress refuses to go with his agenda, it’s not going to be just the president” they oppose, Mr. Trippi said. It will be the president and his huge virtual network of citizens.

[1]https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-interne...

As it happens: Facebook allows tailored, targeted advertising that leaves no trace. So lies on the platform are especially damaging because they cannot be disseminated.

And additionally it's a single platform, seemingly a single voice, so they have much more social responsibility than a fragmented assortment of publications which have different views and opinions.

-- Newspapers tend to have a lot of actual story, and the stories themselves are subject to certain laws regarding truth. The ads themselves are rarely political, usually it's the stories that are.

Yes, I disagree with dishonest political ads, and wish they didn't run on Facebook. But I don't see the need to change Facebook. As long as their terms of service are honest, I think they should be allowed to do whatever they want. If people don't like it, they can leave.

In order to solve this whole kerfuffle, we'll have to tackle that head-on. That people are misinformed, disinterested, and downright apathetic. You can ban political ads on Facebook tomorrow, and it won't solve those fundamental problems. It's just kicking the can down the road.

What if it's always been a problem? What if it's gotten worse by being able to segregate audiences painlessly? What if in the past there's just never been a single entity that could largely solve the problem? What if this single entity could fix a long-standing political problem and as a result make the outcome of politics better for everyone?

A combination of the perceived effect Facebook has had in elections over the past half decade or so and the fact that an election is coming up that many Facebook staff has an interest in, among other things.

How did Newspapers, Radio and then TV handle this for the past 1200 years?

I can't speak for all jurisdictions and certainly not going back that far, but in the USA, FWIW, there are federal regulations around the ads you're asking about that don't exist for online ads. Whether these regulations affect how truthful the ads are is certainly up for debate.