By this point, news that Facebook is going through some kind of scandal is the sort of thing that would come as no surprise to those that are familiar with the manner in which Facebook has been operating over the past few years. The latest scandal that the social media platform is embroiled in involves its refusal to stop political ads even though many of the ads that they are approving contain blatant misinformation that is definitely going to make it difficult for Facebook users to find out what is real in the political process all in all.
After Twitter’s founder and CEO Jack Dorsey announced that its platform will no longer be allowing political ads on its platform, Facebook found itself getting a lot of criticism for their own refusal to do something of this nature. However, Cheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, claimed that Facebook did not have to ban political ads because they were a much more transparent company which meant that they could incorporate political ads without having to worry about such things so much.
These comments have come under quite a bit of criticism, with the VP of Mozilla’s Advocacy Department, Ashley Boyd, saying that the Facebook COO is being disingenuous by stating that Facebook is transparent and there are no problems with the ad library. According to Boyd, Facebook’s ad library is so vast that at times the company often doesn’t know who is posting what, something that definitely gets in the way of people that might be trying to look at ads that are more or less in line with their own belief systems.
All in all, Facebook seems to be trying to shift the narrative away from some pretty well deserved criticism, but it seems like other people working in the industry are just not going to allow that to happen.
Photo: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call
Read next: Can Artificial Intelligence replace the 35,000 humans at Facebook?
After Twitter’s founder and CEO Jack Dorsey announced that its platform will no longer be allowing political ads on its platform, Facebook found itself getting a lot of criticism for their own refusal to do something of this nature. However, Cheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, claimed that Facebook did not have to ban political ads because they were a much more transparent company which meant that they could incorporate political ads without having to worry about such things so much.
"We believe in free expression, we believe in political speech and ads can be an important part of that," said Sheryl Sandberg when asked why Facebook won't ban political ads pic.twitter.com/4cgSScJnNG— Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) October 31, 2019
These comments have come under quite a bit of criticism, with the VP of Mozilla’s Advocacy Department, Ashley Boyd, saying that the Facebook COO is being disingenuous by stating that Facebook is transparent and there are no problems with the ad library. According to Boyd, Facebook’s ad library is so vast that at times the company often doesn’t know who is posting what, something that definitely gets in the way of people that might be trying to look at ads that are more or less in line with their own belief systems.
All in all, Facebook seems to be trying to shift the narrative away from some pretty well deserved criticism, but it seems like other people working in the industry are just not going to allow that to happen.
Photo: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call
Read next: Can Artificial Intelligence replace the 35,000 humans at Facebook?
