Facebook Changes Their Advertising Rules To Allow Ads with Lies
In case you missed it, Facebook has updated their advertising policy to make it easier for people, companies, and campaigns to publish ads that contain false or misleading statements, a move which ought to be condemned equally from conservatives and liberals.
The old rule was that you couldn’t publish ads that contained such statements, but the protections were rolled back last week to allow any statement that hasn’t been proven to be false by an independent fact checking organization, and even that flimsy rule doesn’t apply to politicians, so they can, in theory and in practice, publish ads on Facebook that contain completely false information with no repercussions. Even before this rule change, misinformation campaigns on Facebook led to the extreme political division our country is experiencing, and significantly influenced several high profile elections around the world. I recognize that that’s a lofty claim — if you don’t believe me, check out this piece I wrote about a film called “The Great Hack,” and then watch it for yourself on Netflix.