Facebook's Screening for Political Ads Nabs News Sites Instead of Politicians
The social network is letting some political ads slip through without the required verification, while blocking promotional posts by news organizations, which are pushing back.
by Jeremy B. Merrill and Ariana Tobin June 15, 12:39 p.m. EDT
One ad couldn’t have been more obviously political. Targeted to people aged 18 and older, it urged them to “vote YES” on June 5 on a ballot proposition to issue bonds for schools in a district near San Francisco. Yet it showed up in users’ news feeds without the “paid for by” disclaimer required for political ads under Facebook’s new policy designed to prevent a repeat of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Nor does it appear, as it should, in Facebook’s new archive of political ads.
The other ad was from The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news outlet, promoting one of its articles about financial aid for college students. Yet Facebook’s screening system flagged it as political. For the ad to run, The Hechinger Report would have to undergo the multi-step authorization and authentication process of submitting Social Security numbers and identification that Facebook now requires for anyone running “electoral ads” or “issue ads.”
When The Hechinger Report appealed, Facebook acknowledged that its system should have allowed the ad to run. But Facebook then blocked another ad from The Hechinger Report, about an article headlined, “DACA students persevere, enrolling at, remaining in, and graduating from college.” This time, Facebook rejected The Hechinger Report’s appeal, maintaining that the text or imagery was political.
As these examples suggest, Facebook’s new screening policies to deter manipulation of political ads are creating their own problems. The company’s human reviewers and software algorithms are catching paid posts from legitimate news organizations that mention issues or candidates, while overlooking straightforwardly political posts from candidates and advocacy groups. Participants in ProPublica’s Facebook Political Ad Collector project have submitted 40 ads that should have carried disclaimers under the social network’s policy, but didn’t. Facebook may have underestimated the difficulty of distinguishing between political messages and political news coverage — and the consternation that failing to do so would stir among news organizations.
https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-new-screening-system-flags-the-wrong-ads-as-political
This is really fucked up.................and these software engineers/ programmers can't figure this out when the ads are submitted for review............
