EDITORIAL On Political Advertising
A social network disconnect
This fall, Facebook announced that the company wouldn’t fact-check advertisements from politicians, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has faced a tsunami of political and media criticism ever since.
On Wednesday, he faced the most interesting rebuke so far — from one of his peers.
“We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally,” tweeted Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey. “We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought.”
Dorsey went on to explain what he believed to be the difference between free expression and political advertising: “Paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle,” he wrote.
He added that it was “not credible” for Twitter to say that it was working hard to stop people from “gaming our systems,” but that they “can say whatever they want” should they pay Twitter for a targeted ad.
Both statements were a clear swipe at Zuckerberg, who has insisted that Facebook’s policy is about democratic free speech, and that the company’s investments in election security are working to prevent bad actors from spreading misinformation on the platform. (Dorsey certainly drove the point home by making his announcement just a few minutes ahead of Facebook’s quarterly earnings call.)
It’s certainly entertaining to watch two tech titans duke it out in the court of public opinion, but this battle is bigger than both of them.
Political misinformation on social media platforms warped the 2016 presidential election. In the years since then, technological improvements in artificial intelligence and “deep fake” video have increased the sophistication of misinformation campaigns, while inaction on Capitol Hill and loopholes in platform policy have ensured that bad actors will continue finding ways to deceive voters.
The landscape is complicated, and there are no easy answers.
Zuckerberg’s refusal to engage with the realities of political propaganda and platform responsibility is sophomoric and dangerous. Free speech is not the same thing as paid speech. Neither is the same as misinformation. It’s galling enough that Facebook has chosen to profit from the latter; pretending that it’s doing so for the good of the republic is simply outrageous.
Hundreds of Facebook’s own employees agree — in a letter they recently sent to Zuckerberg, they wrote “this policy has the potential to continue to cause harm in coming elections around the world,” and urged him to hold political ads to the same standards as other ads. Vocal internal dissent is relatively rare at Facebook. The public opposition of both employees and competitors should encourage Zuckerberg to reconsider this decision — ideally as soon as possible.
But Dorsey’s approach carries risks of its own. How will Twitter judge what kind of advertising should be labeled political? Could the policy have a disproportionate impact on advocates for social causes, or new candidates seeking to challenge incumbents?
When an increasing number of issues carry political overtones, simply banning political advertising is a more complex task than it may first appear.
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Jim Patterson comment: I agree with Jack Dorsey that “Paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle.” I'd substitute "global political infrastructure" for "democratic infrastructure." If an entity, such as a Communist government, can control elections around the world, and I believe they continue to do so, then Social Media could lead to increased Communist influence and, possibly, domination. This should alarm everyone. Those seeking to use social media platforms, like Twitter, for political misinformation campaigns will work to find ever more subtle ways to influence political systems and gain broader control.
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