Yaël Eisenstat, ex-head of Global Elections Integrity Ops of Facebook joined the company in June 2018 but left her position within six months. Now after almost a year of leaving the social media company, Eisenstat writes an op-ed in the Washington Post to speak about the problems she faced during her tenure.
Having prior experience working with the CIA and the White House, Eisenstat had considerable experience with political advertising. However, during the course leading to the election 2016, she noticed a breakdown of civil discourse – that was mainly exuberated by social networks.
In fact, Facebook is now even exempting the politicians from the fact-checking process and allowing them to fully express their ‘freedom of speech’ on both – organic and paid advertising mediums, ahead of elections 2020.
However, Eisenstat aimed to help companies like Facebook realize their role in politics and ensure that their protocols did not harm the country – or even the world’s democracy.
Unfortunately, working at the company allowed her to witness several tactics that may be unethical. Specifically, the political ads that were posted as legit content by Facebook without any fact-check. This often results in the amplification of lies and dangerous content around the world.
According to Eisenstat, Facebook prioritizes profits over healthy discourse. The company manipulates innocent users with hyper-customized ads that potentially contain debunked information, especially if they are run by political campaigns.
Eisenstat also claims that many of her colleagues at Facebook pushed her to fix some of the political advertising issues. In fact, they are still pushing her and have sent an open letter regarding the seriousness of the issue. The letter is signed by hundreds of Facebook employees and is posted on the company’s internal forum.
Eisenstat does not want political advertising to be banned completely – as it is done by Twitter. However, she exclaims that it is now time for the government to step in and regulate the social media platforms to minimize the havoc caused by ‘freedom of speech.’
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Read next: Facebook is Setting a Limit on the Volume of Ads that a Page can Run at the Same Time!
Having prior experience working with the CIA and the White House, Eisenstat had considerable experience with political advertising. However, during the course leading to the election 2016, she noticed a breakdown of civil discourse – that was mainly exuberated by social networks.
In fact, Facebook is now even exempting the politicians from the fact-checking process and allowing them to fully express their ‘freedom of speech’ on both – organic and paid advertising mediums, ahead of elections 2020.
However, Eisenstat aimed to help companies like Facebook realize their role in politics and ensure that their protocols did not harm the country – or even the world’s democracy.
Unfortunately, working at the company allowed her to witness several tactics that may be unethical. Specifically, the political ads that were posted as legit content by Facebook without any fact-check. This often results in the amplification of lies and dangerous content around the world.
According to Eisenstat, Facebook prioritizes profits over healthy discourse. The company manipulates innocent users with hyper-customized ads that potentially contain debunked information, especially if they are run by political campaigns.
Eisenstat also claims that many of her colleagues at Facebook pushed her to fix some of the political advertising issues. In fact, they are still pushing her and have sent an open letter regarding the seriousness of the issue. The letter is signed by hundreds of Facebook employees and is posted on the company’s internal forum.
Eisenstat does not want political advertising to be banned completely – as it is done by Twitter. However, she exclaims that it is now time for the government to step in and regulate the social media platforms to minimize the havoc caused by ‘freedom of speech.’
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Read next: Facebook is Setting a Limit on the Volume of Ads that a Page can Run at the Same Time!
