Why Facebook needs to drop Political Ads, for now.
In the past few weeks we have published a few pieces on Facebook’s policy regarding political candidates’ ads (here and here). This has led us to circulating a sign-on letter calling on Facebook to shut down political advertising at least through the 2020 election. Below, is a bit of an FAQ about our position on this highly complex issue.
Why are you making this ask?
We draw the line and a platform as large and interwoven in our daily lives as Facebook authorizing lies and disinformation on any scale. We do not want our children growing up in a world where truth and facts don’t matter. We must have some baseline of truth if we care to have a functioning democracy.
Is this the right solution?
We wish there were a less drastic alternative that also protects our democracy. Banning micro-targeting, implementing a blackout period in advance of election day, and, obviously, requiring ads to be truthful (as Facebook does for literally all other ads), are among the measures to consider. We believe that policies and product changes should be tested thoroughly, and put through rigorous scenario planning exercises before being deployed at a mass scale. That’s why our suggestion is to pause and take time to consider the right solution instead of live-testing a policy that has outsized second and third order consequences globally.
What happens to challenger candidates vs incumbents? Isn’t this shifting the power balance? Can’t Facebook just insist on candidates’ ads being truthful as they do with all other ads?
There are significant downsides to banning political ads. Among them, is the risk that challengers will be disadvantaged relative to incumbents. We hope political ads will return to Facebook at whatever point the right policies can be implemented to protect American democracy. Until those policies are tested, with well-considered implementation and execution plans in place, banning political ads serves the greater good.
But Facebook says it is protecting free speech, isn’t that a good thing? Aren’t you asking Facebook to suppress free speech?
Facebook’s leadership is relying heavily on principles of Free Speech to defend this policy, leaning in no small part on Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, which requires broadcast networks to run anything from a political candidate without any censorship. In our view, laws for broadcast (and their underlying principles) cannot apply in the same way to social networks with their ability to micro-target and persuade small but critical groups. In the age of disinformation and deep fakes, it could not be more important to get the laws right. As an unregulated platform, it can do what it wants. Until well-informed regulation is in place, we will continue to ask Facebook to go to whatever lengths are necessary to implement guardrails that protect our democracy.
Facebook has been a world-changing company in many ways, not least of which has been providing an open platform to marginalized and under-represented people and movements. Nothing we are proposing changes that — it will remain a platform anyone can use to promote their messages. The only restriction is on paid amplification of those messages. Would we prefer to allow for that amplification? Absolutely. Simply not at the cost of spreading disinformation related to perhaps the most consequential election in American history.
So how does a candidate get the word out? Is this really the best ask? What happens to issue ads?
As of today, candidates, PACs, and grassroots groups can all still run issue ads and must disclose who paid for the ad. These ads will run through the independent fact checking network and must meet certain criteria, including proof of identification. Does this mean that the system can still be abused? Yes. Which is why we have a simple ask for Facebook, suspend these ads until you have a solution that doesn’t promote misinformation. In other words, shut down political advertising until you are certain that you are doing more good than harm. We are not looking for perfect, we are looking for a better policy than is in place now. We appreciate that there is much to debate here and welcome the discussion about how this can be implemented and how political ads are defined.
