Reporter Posed as Cambridge Analytica To Run Political Ads on Facebook. Facebook, To No One's Surprise, Failed To Catch That They Were Frauds. (businessinsider.com)

From a report: Facebook's new political ad transparency tools allowed Business Insider to run adverts as being "paid for" by Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy that dragged Facebook into a major data scandal this year. The investigation demonstrates that political advertising on Facebook is still open to manipulation by bad actors, even with greater efforts at transparency. This is despite commitments from chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to solve the company's misinformation problem. Vice first reported last week that the Facebook political ads tool could be manipulated, with the publication securing approval to buy fake Facebook ads on behalf of US Vice President Mike Pence, terrorist group ISIS, and 100 US senators. Business Insider carried out a similar test, setting up false political ads that were captioned as being "paid for by Cambridge Analytica," the defunct political advertising firm which harvested Facebook data and weaponized it during the 2016 US election. Cambridge Analytica is banned from Facebook and has gone into administration.

Comments

Re:So what if they don't catch fraud?

[rickb928]

"...Facebook's new political ad transparency tools..."

It would seem that Facebook developed these 'transparency tools' for a purpose. If that was to ensure greater transparency, well, they are in the business of enforcing something, just not law. If not, well, was this an exercise in avoiding criticism and responsibility?

If indeed this is an example of the impossibility of guaranteeing the identity of these advertisers, well, stop pretending and drop the pretense of having 'new political ad transparency tools'. they either have none, they are ineffective, or they are playing us. Or some combination thereof.

Re:Did they even look ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Banned ad on Facebook because of content.

Was paid for by an actual GOP candidate, but she was a minority. We all know how liberals are racists, so I have to assume that was why. Perhaps these reporters were all white.