The third meeting of the International Grand Committee on Disinformation and ‘Fake News’, a multi-nation body comprised of global legislators with concerns about the societal impacts of social media giants, has been taking place in Dublin this week — once again without any senior Facebook management in attendance. The committee was formed last year after…
What does the First Amendment have to do with Facebook? It depends on whom you ask.Mark Zuckerberg would probably say: a lot. Over the past few weeks, he has repeatedly invoked the First Amendment to justify Facebook’s controversial decision to exempt posts and paid advertisements by political candidates from its fact-checking system. In a speech…
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had an undisclosed meeting with Donald Trump at the White House in October, not long after Facebook quietly eased its policies to let politicians lie in ads and as intense pressure was building on the company to roll that change back, NBC News reported on Wednesday.An NBC source said that ultra-conservative…
Everything about digital political ads, from their truthfulness to even their design, has been a hot-button issue for the past few months. Facebook and Twitter have already weighed in with their stances, and now Google has also announced that it will restrict how political groups can target audiences starting early next year. In a nutshell,…
Facebook has lost its only fact-checking partner in the Netherlands, Dutch digital newspaper NU.nl, over its policy of allowing politicians to openly lie in ads on the platform, according to an article on NPO 3.NU.nl’s decision to bail comes amid widespread blowback over the Facebook policy. Critics, including some of its own employees, have argued…
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Here’s one more tricky topic to navigate with your family this holiday season: gold and silver retirement scams. An investigation by Quartz detailed these scams, which con seniors into moving their retirement funds to volatile precious metals investments. Gold and silver investment scams aren’t new, but they’ve been directed at conservative seniors on Facebook over…
Twitter is ditching political ads. Angela Lang/CNET Twitter will stop selling ads concerning candidates for office, elections or political issues such as climate change and immigration, the company’s CEO said Wednesday, staking out a position that sets the social network apart from industry giant Facebook. In a series of 11 tweets, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey…
The ban on political ads announced by Twitter two weeks ago has come into effect, and the rules are surprisingly simple — perhaps too simple. No political content as they define it may be promoted; candidates, parties, governments or officials, PACs and certain political nonprofit groups are banned from promoting content altogether. The idea intended…
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Washington, DC (CNN Business)In announcing new limits on political advertising Wednesday, Google took aim at an issue that a growing cross-section of business leaders, government officials and researchers say is a threat to democracy. The problem they’ve id…
Aaron Bartnick Contributor Aaron Bartnick (@AaronBartnick) served as Digital Director for Congressman Seth Moulton’s presidential campaign. He is currently completing graduate studies at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. As the digital director for Congressman Seth Moulton’s 2020 presidential campaign, I was responsible for everything the campaign did on the internet: the emails you claim…
A few weeks ago, we were talking about whether companies like Facebook and Twitter should ban all paid political advertising from their platforms. Now the debate has narrowed to a secondary question: Where political ads are allowed, should their micro-targeting be prohibited? Google is the first to make this restriction formal policy: The company announced…
Xinhua News, China’s largest state-run news agency, is currently buying ads on Facebook that feature a video of Bill Gates talking about China. The video ad is a fascinating example of the ways in which the Chinese government is using Facebook, which is banned in mainland China, to spread propaganda online while headlines around the…
Facebook has continued to fumble efforts to extract itself from its self-imposed political nightmare, with the company seeing increasing backlash to both its political advertising policies and continuing to stonewall criticism of its choice to partner with far-right outlet Breitbart on its news platform.The company hasn’t backed down from its bold—some would say dystopian—stance of…
These practices are in line with what you already see in conventional TV, radio and print ads, Google said.The search firm is also taking a tougher stance on truth in advertising than Facebook, if only slightly. It’s clearing up its ad policies to explicitly forbid deepfakes, misleading census claims or any other ads and links…
Facebook announced a number of new brand safety features to protect advertisers on its platform. Image: Chesnot/Getty Images By Matt Binder2019-11-20 21:19:43 UTC Facebook made a move to calm advertiser fears as the company continues to deal with the fallout from its political ad policies. On Wednesday, Facebook announced an array of new test features…
As Jack Dorsey announced his company Twitter would drop all political ads, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg doubled-down on his policy of refusing to fact-check politicians’ ads. “At times of social tension there has often been an urge to pull back on free expression . . . We will be best served over the long term by…
