| Facebook can't escape the controversy over political ads. As it faces pressure from politicians and political groups, Facebook is starting to make exceptions to its policy that it won't fact-check advertisements published by politicians. Over the weekend, the company took down an ad posted by a left-leaning political action committee that falsely claimed Sen. Lindsey Graham supports the Green New Deal. Facebook said it took the action because the ad came from a political action group, not a politician, and therefore different rules applied. So the group found a workaround: One of the PAC members, Adriel Hampton, filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for California governor. Now a politician, as the logic of Facebook's policies go, he can run as many political ads as he wants. Except apparently not. Facebook on Tuesday evening said it was nixing Hampton's workaround. - This all began when Facebook announced it wouldn't fact-check political speech, including ads, and campaigns started to test the implications of this policy. In September, Facebook refused to take down an ad run by President Trump's reelection campaign that made false claims about former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and their activities in Ukraine. Since then, the company's been facing growing blowback over the policy.
[Emily Stewart / Recode] On the other hand, Twitter is banning political ads. As of November 22, Twitter will ban all political ads on its platform. The announcement came in a tweet from CEO Jack Dorsey. "This isn't about free expression," Dorsey said. "This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today's democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle." - This is a jump for Twitter: Twitter has policies that purport to curb politicians' false statements on its platform but has yet to use them, according to The Verge. Earlier this summer, Twitter said it would gray out tweets from public figures like President Donald Trump and restrict users' abilities to share them when they violated its rules, but it hasn't implemented this on any tweets so far.
- It's also a dig at Facebook: As Emily Stewart reports for Recode, Dorsey's announcement that Twitter is axing political advertisements ups the pressure on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to follow suit.
[Makena Kelly / The Verge and Emily Stewart / Recode] Russia is at it again — this time in Africa. A new report from the New York Times reveals how Russia has been testing new disinformation tactics on Facebook in countries including Mozambique, Cameroon, Sudan, and Libya. Facebook says it has removed three Russian-backed influence networks linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch who was indicted by the US and accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election, according to the Times. The posts had messages promoting Russian policies and criticizing French and American policies in the countries. - Russia is trying new tactics: The campaign across Africa shows just how Russia is continuing to try different disinformation techniques. "By spreading the use of its tactics to a region that is less closely monitored than the United States and Europe, researchers said Russia appeared to be trying to expand its sphere of influence in Africa, where it has started distributing propaganda and building a political infrastructure," the Times reported.
[Davey Alba and Sheera Frenkel / The New York Times] Uber is suing Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation asked Uber to start providing real-time location data for its scooters. But Vice reports that Uber, which owns scooter company Jump, said it will not share this data because of privacy concerns. The company plans to file a lawsuit to stop LADOT from suspending the company's permit to operate in the city, according to Vice. - What each side wants: Los Angeles wants the anonymized scooter data so it can verify that scooters are being placed in lower-income areas and are available for those residents. Additionally, the city "wants to check which companies may be ignoring rules that limit the number of vehicles they are allowed to operate," according to Vice. But activists and Uber are worried about the "privacy implications of sharing such data with the city, and argue it could, if deanonymized, unmask individual riders."
[Joseph Cox / Vice] |
