/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65584642/1177753337.jpg.0.jpg)
Vox Article
Yahoo Article
Mark Zuckerberg and the whole Facebook community team is under fire for their policy on fake ads. Democrats are not satisfied with the Trump campaign being able to essentially make up facts about Joe Biden and the Ukraine affairs. The Warren Campaign started countering this by also starting to put out bent truths.
Facebook cites their argument for keeping up false facts as freedom of speech. This however is also riding on the fact they do not want to anger any major conservative leaders, as these leaders already play off the liberal media bias narrative.
However, we learned about the media and its impact on people and voters. The fact that Facebook is allowing political campaigns (and only political campaigns) to essentially feed their audiences false facts or even borderline propaganda is very scary. This will only allow for more polarization and the hatred contributed to each side.
What do you think about the decisions that Facebook has made about its Political Ads Policy?
Do you think it is okay for political campaigns to be able to bend or falsify facts?
8 comments:
I believe Facebook does indeed have the right of free speech and they do have the right of posting these fake ads and information. However, I believe that it is unjustified as it provides false information for campaigns and can lead to bigger problems. Additionally, I agree to what Owen said and I believe that this Facebook incident will lead to more polarization as more people would lean more to the left or the right and would not consider swaying in the middle. In some degree I believe it is justified for campaigns to bend some facts about their campaign as it is simply just a method of marketing. However, if the facts that they let out are bent too much, I believe it would be unjustified as they would just be stating false information.
Facebook does hold the right to free speech, but the users also have the right to hide such fake ads. Facebook should implement an option to hide fake ads, so that users can tailor what's exposed to more trustworthy and genuine news. In turn, this would require Facebook to add a discretion stating that certain ads are fake or could be biased. Facts that are falsified or biased should generally be prohibited, since it restricts the public from accessing truthful resources and corrupts the public without notice, thus infringing upon the ideology of being 'free' individuals in the land of the 'free.'
I think that Facebook's decision to allow fake ads is understandable, given the idea of free speech. After all, to the people that create those ads, the information presented is most likely their truth, their "speech." Since Facebook won't remove the ads, it is even more important that people are educated on how to spot false information and on how to source the credibility of the information.
Jadon brings up a great idea; another option is to have a setting that allows fake ads to be hidden from the viewer. However, this may start a debate on what is considered fake news, as each person's perception alters the definition of the "truth." To have only factual information as ads would not capture the attention of the viewers, causing companies to stop buying ad space. But if people can find a middle ground on the rules to this setting, it could become very effective.
You're right; it's scary that Facebook is allowed to post these fake ads.
However, as everyone else has mentioned, it's free speech, and policing speech is arguably worse than choosing to not filter untrustworthy ads. Not to mention, it would be a very hard task to do without getting backlash from the Republicans and it would give the impression that they have an anti-conservative bias. As Shirleen mentions, it should ultimately be the users who decide how to spot the credibility of the information. In defense of the ads, Zuckerberg says “most people don’t want to live in a world where you can only post things that tech companies judged to be 100 percent true."
While Jadon brings up a good point of making a "hide fake news" function, it's unrealistic because no matter how fabricated information may be, news will always be interpreted as fake or real by different people. By labelling what is fake news, it essentially brings up a similar issue to that of what banning them creates: an underlying bias.
A possible alternative could be the option for users to filter and choose which sources of ads they want to see, however, it's unlikely Facebook would agree to these terms as it would presumably result in a lower revenue from ads. One might also argue that a filter option would worsen the issue of Facebook being able to collect private user data because it would add to a database of information about their party, ideologies, etc.
Personally, no matter what sort of "free speech" principle they try to use to justify their actions, I think it's definitely not acceptable for political campaigns to just make up lies or bend facts. It's unfair, confuses many people, and honestly can backfire on its intended purpose. Wouldn't a campaign that promotes lies appear, well, dishonest, and make the candidate look rather unfit for the presidency? Unfortunately, there are technically no rules preventing such actions, but I still feel that there should be some kind of unwritten political norm upheld to keep the presidential race as lie-free as possible. There are other ways to make opponents look bad; for example, digging up questionable or controversial things they have done in the past. Yes, with the First Amendment, the Constitution (and now Facebook) allow fake ads and the like, but I'd like to believe that morally, allowing such activity is unacceptable.
While Facebook does have the right to free speech, as Srishty said, censoring fake news could pose an even bigger problem. People are quick to point fingers at articles or opinions and dismiss them as “fake” simply because they challenge their beliefs. It’s hard to draw a line between “fake news”, bending/exaggerating the truth, or simply holding a more controversial opinion. Censoring “fake news” isn’t an option, but unfortunately the spread of fake news might lead to increased polarization and even more skepticism of the media. While some skepticism is healthy, not trusting anyone leads to conspiracy and isolating oneself in a political echochamber. It seems as if Facebook is stuck between a rock and a hard place; they would come under fire no matter what decision they make to either censor themselves or allow free speech.
I think that Facebook is put in a difficult situation when it comes to this policy because free speech is held in very high regard in the US, and it could definitely put the company in a very bad light if they start restricting what can be said on their site. I do believe that there should be push back against fake news in general as fake news is very dangerous and broadcasting these false facts can misinform thousands of people, bordering on propaganda. This all leads to misinformed voting and dishonest/corrupt people ending up in power. A democratic system based on lies is definitely detrimental to the nation, and fake news leads to parties' strategy focusing more on attacking the other side rather than promoting their ideals. However, I think that Facebook will have ultimately have little impact on this issue given the sheer amount of news, contradictory stories, and the unavoidable bias that occurs. It can sometimes be hard to pick out fake news, and in the end, people will see what they want to see. There is an unavoidable selective perception that almost everyone carries with them that can make them blind to fake news or even blind to real news, and there is basically nothing that Facebook can do about this. Even if Facebook were to restrict the ads, people will still get the fake news from another media source, and Facebook would likely be dismissed as another "overly liberal site." It is really unfortunate that so little can be done about the effects of fake news, and I hope that parties will stop trying to use such negative ways to reach their goals.
Ad fact-checking can’t be done consistently in the United States. Given the task of policing for truth on Facebook, it’s unrealistic and simplistic to demand veracity from a system that is too big to govern. Anonymous lies and spams are not necessary evils inherent in the internet. Anonymity is not essential to the preservation of speech free from governmental interference. Protecting the identity of sources to prevent governmental retribution is easily distinguishable from a guarantee of anonymity for all speech. Essentially, we are talking about censorship, decide what people can say, maybe even what opinions they are expressing, when backed up by examples that may not be accurate. The truth is a rare thing in politics and devout followers of one party are unlikely to even read posts from the opposition parties, so is there any point in trying to analyse political stories for accuracy? Where Facebook has to consider intervention, is where a personal smear campaign is viral. While we may all like to hate politicians, they have families, and they can get harmed as well.
Post a Comment