Facebook is keeping its political ad rules broadly applicable. That’s a good thing.
Media outlets ought not be exempt from transparency and disclosure vis-a-vis political content.
On April 23, I had the chance to attend a lunch and Q&A with Facebook’s politics & advocacy team about their then-recently announced rules on political advertising & transparency. The idea, which I broadly support, was to reduce the risk of “fake news” and misleading advertising by making clear who is paying for what ads, and to whom those ads are being targeted.
It’s a good idea, but difficult to execute while pleasing everyone.
When the Q&A started, it immediately became clear what would be Facebook’s biggest and most troubling edge case: promoted content about political figures, but published by news organizations.
In a nutshell, Facebook’s policy is that any sponsored content (i.e., ads) on their platform about political figures or “issues of national importance” would require a “paid for by” disclaimer.
But that definition lacks nuance, and would apply to (among other examples) such obviously non-electioneering communiations as a promoted C-SPAN video of presidential debates, or a reasonably unbiased Associated Press article about President Trump’s immigration policy. That it lacks nuance is good.
News publishers wanted to be exempt from these disclosure rules because they believe that news coverage is distinct and different from political advocacy. That can be true, but it’s not necessarily true. The distinction is often blurred, and the more sunlight the better. “Democracy,” as The Washington Post says, “dies in darkness.”
Going forward, news publishers will continue to be included in the political ad archive but will be segmented as such. This seems like a minimum viable product effort to address the criticism without wholly rebuilding the product, and—while it likely won’t assuage all concerns from publishers—it’s a solid compromise.
It’s important to have transparency in political advertising, and the mere fact that an article is being promoted by a media outlet does not mean that it’s not electioneering. The aggressively pro-Democrat online outlet Daily Kos, for example, regularly raises money and directs action in support of candidates while also evading FEC regulation by virtue of it being a for-profit journalistic enterprise. There is a blurry gray area, exploited on both ends of the political spectrum, where reporting becomes advocacy—and Facebook is right to be overbroad in its efforts.
