Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Will Bring Political Ad Transparency Tools To India Ahead of 2019 Elections (venturebeat.com)
As India inches closer to its general elections, Facebook announced today that it is bringing transparency to political ads on its platform in the country early next year. From a report: This would make India the fourth market -- after the U.S., Brazil, and the U.K. -- where Facebook offers users a disclaimer on political ads. Facebook began offering users in the U.S. information about the buyer of a political ad as part of a series of changes last year to fight misinformation and foreign meddling in elections. [...]
Facebook said Thursday that it will also maintain an online searchable Ad Library, as it has in other markets, which will document all the ads related to politics from a particular advertiser alongside other information such as range of impressions, demographics that saw the ad, and the budget that went behind an individual ad. India, which is Facebook's largest market, could be the biggest test yet for whether the company has learned from its recent mistakes.
So, Facebook - with its deep and troubling/criminal connections to Imperialist think tanks like the Atlantic council, and US government agencies like the NSA, will intervene in internal Indian policies before the upcoming elections. Perhaps they'll also help "discover"a Russian plot to subvert the elections, just like the retroactively "discovered" that at the behest of the US government and mainstream media.
I can't wait. I'm sure we're all going to LIKE it a lot though.
Rather than blocking ads from ideologies you disagree with, simply illuminating who is paying for ads would help a lot - what would be great is if they not only would say who is paying for a particular ad, but follow the chain of company ownership backwards and report the string of owners than let to the funding for that ad... Facebook has the kind of size and money it would take to accomplish that.
Now THAT would be some transparency! And to my mind bring some degree of redemption to Facebook.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Look folks, is it just me? Aren't a good chunk of you just tired of hearing about Facebook in the news? One cannot escape this thing every other day!
Sincerely, I am just sick of hearing about this. Sadly, I have nothing to do about it for Slashdot isn't making matters better.
behind 10 LLCs to obscure who's really paying for it? If you're a journalist with lots of free time maybe you can track that down (assuming they haven't covered their tracks well). Also, the point of a lot of these adverts is to influence the easily influenced. We already know a lot of them are being bought up by foreign governments looking to destabilize enemy nations on the cheap.
For starters I think foreign governments should have to disclose that in the adverts. Same for anyone financially tied to a major party (either direction, if they give money or they receive). And more education. Make college tuition free. An English Lit degree (or whatever the Indian equivalent is) might not get you a lot of jobs, but you've at least learned enough critical thinking to question a political advert. Pay attention to who keeps attacking education and start asking yourself why they're doing that.
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Eat a dick.
Wow the troll farm is out in force today. Again, eat a dick.
Another troll. Hello troll in your troll world.
Bill Gates and his mighty Poop In Da Jar are on it!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Otherwise, jail time.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Replying to myself - It just occurred to me this is very on-topic! You see, Facebook is a load of Shit in an innocuous container - curiously, very similar to Mr. Gates's current poopy talking point.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Who gets to set out what local "politics" is?
Should an ad company get to shape domestic politics in a nation with their own idea of "tools"?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
What happens when they hide behind 10 LLCs to obscure who's really paying for it? If you're a journalist with lots of free time maybe you can track that down
What I'm saying is that Facebook has the kind of money to track down those ten LLC's, and if they are serious about really having fair political ads, that is what they should be doing. It would take minuscule resources to dig all this up if you just had a small team doing it for every political ad buyer.
Also, the point of a lot of these adverts is to influence the easily influenced.
I still firmly believe there is no such person, especially not on Facebook. From friends and older family both far left and far right, not a single one of them is going to be influenced by anything MAYBE for some issues right on the margin. But nothing that is talked about on Facebook or covered by these ads.
For starters I think foreign governments should have to disclose that in the adverts.
Yeah that would be nice but obviously they will not, but Facebook of all people is probably in the best position to find that out., and reveal if that is the case.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Absolutely not doable with current US law
Why? You need to explain why something you categorically dismiss as being against law, is...
It's perfectly legal to look up company ownership records, and follow a path back to a root entity.
There are probably some masking techniques they could not get around, but most of the groups making these ads are not that clever. Even if you are stopped tracing back at some point you could probably find an interesting root for a lot of ads and groups.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Put up or shut up. Links please.
Nothing to see here, move along please.