Facebook Fought Rules That Could Have Exposed Fake Russian Ads (bloomberg.com)

According to Bloomberg, Facebook has for years fought to avoid being transparent about who's behind election-related ads online. "Since 2011, Facebook has asked the Federal Election Commission for blanket exemptions from political advertising disclosure rules -- transparency that could have helped it avoid the current crisis over Russia ad spending ahead of the 2016 U.S. election," reports Bloomberg. From the report: Communications law requires traditional media like TV and radio to track and disclose political ad buyers. The rule doesn't apply online, an exemption that's helped Facebook's self-serve advertising business generate hundreds of millions of dollars in political campaign spots. When the company was smaller, the issue was debated in some policy corners of Washington. Now that the social network is such a powerful political tool, with more than 2 billion users, the topic is at the center of a debate about the future of American democracy. Back in 2011, Facebook argued for the exemption for the same reasons as internet search giant Google: its ads are too small and have a character limit, leaving no room for language saying who paid for a campaign, according to documents on the FEC's website. Some FEC commissioners agreed, while others argued that Facebook could provide a clickable web link to get more information about the ad.

Facebook wouldn't budge. It warned that FEC proposals for more political ad disclosure could hinder free speech in a 2011 opinion written by Marc Elias, a high-powered Democratic lawyer who later became general counsel for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. Colin Stretch, a top Facebook lawyer, said the agency "should not stand in the way of innovation," and warned that such rules would quickly become obsolete. When it came time for the FEC to decide in June 2011, the agency's six commissioners split on a 3-3 vote. Facebook didn't get its exemption, so an advertiser using its platform was still subject to a 2006 ruling by the FEC requiring disclosure. But the company allowed ads to run without those disclaimers, leaving it up to ad buyers to comply.

Comments

"current crisis over Russia ad spending"

[turkeydance]

nope. no crisis.

Re:"current crisis over Russia ad spending"

[ClickOnThis]

Including having the UK Parliament publicly make statements about Trump's mental health and or fitness for office before the election? How about that? How about the US media that aired those abusive statements and comments?

If the UK parliament were to comment on a candidate's mental health, and the media (US or otherwise) reports on it, that's perfectly fine.

But if the UK parliament were to pay money to run political ads on US media about a candidate's mental health, then yes, that's illegal.

Re:"current crisis over Russia ad spending"

[davide marney]

Here's a summary of the FEC regs: https://www.fec.gov/updates/fo...

"In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC, 800 F. Supp. 2d 281, 290 (D.D.C. 2011), aff’d 132 S. Ct. 1087 (2012)."

So, depends on the nature of the advertisement. If it's issues-oriented, it's probably fine.

Podesta's leaked emails proved Facebook...

[Anonymous Coward]

colluded with Hillary's campaign:

http://truepundit.com/wikileaks-bombshell-podesta-emails-prove-facebook-colluded-with-hillary-clinton-during-election/

So now we're supposed to believe that about $50k worth of Facebook ads tilted the election to Trump despite the fact Hillary spent over $1.2 billion during her campaign?

Re:Podesta's leaked emails proved Facebook...

[Mashiki]

The alternative is to believe that Hillary and her team made bad decisions and also did not spend all that money effectively.

You mean besides being an unlikable candidate, pissing off core democrat voters, rigging their own primary? That even when Donna Brazile leaked debate questions to Clinton she still lost the debate? Nah, none of that is her fault we know that. She keeps screeching and saying so, it was all that Russia's fault. And she would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been those pesky kids from 4chan and their cartoon frog.

The most hilarious thing was pepe. Even the hillary loving pundits in Canada went on and on about how stupid she was trying to make it into something.

Truepundit is a conspiracy-pseudoscience site

[Anonymous Coward]

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com...

CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE

Sources in the Conspiracy-Pseudoscience category may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence. These sources may be untrustworthy for credible/verifiable information, therefore fact checking and further investigation is recommended on a per article basis when obtaining information from these sources. See all Conspiracy-Pseudoscience sources.

Factual Reporting: MIXED

Notes: Though they do occasionally publish a legitimate story, some are conspiracies. This source also currently delivers news straight from the Daily Caller which has a strong right-wing bias. Most articles from True Pundit have anonymous authors. This source has also been flagged for false information and has an unproven claim. Simply not trustworthy.

It's the kind of site that dreams up "Pizzagate" conspiracies when it's not too busy reposting other conspiracy loons' vague "new world order" conspiracies.