Facebook tries to block tool aimed at promoting transparency around political ads

[lil devils x]

"Facebook tries to block tool aimed at promoting transparency around political ads
The standoff comes as campaigns ramp up spending ahead of Election Day.

Facebook has told researchers at New York University to stop using a digital tool that tracks how people are targeted with political ads ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The demand, sent last week and confirmed by NYU on Friday, centers on the academics’ use of a web browser plug-in that gives Facebook users a way to share specific political ads they are seeing on the site.

Political advertisers primarily target their ads to specific demographic groups, so the NYU tool — which collects roughly 16,000 ads each week — allows researchers to see how campaigns and other groups are crafting messages to voters based on race, age, location or other criteria.

In its notice to NYU, Facebook said that the use of the plug-in broke the company’s terms of service, and ordered the academics to stop using the tool by Nov. 30 or face “additional enforcement action." NYU said it will not take it down.
“We’re not going to comply with it,” Laura Edelson, an NYU researcher who is part of the project, told POLITICO. “What we are doing is perfectly legal and is in the public interest.”
The standoff comes as social media giants are facing increased scrutiny over how political operatives are using their platforms to reach voters online, often in messages that use people’s personal data to pinpoint them with individualized ads.

The plug-in is part of a broader project from the university aimed at archiving all political ads from official campaigns and partisan groups that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars, collectively, to promote Republican and Democratic candidates in the 2020 election.
In that separate relationship with Facebook, NYU researchers can collect some granular information on political ads. The system went down for several hours on Oct. 22 because of a technical glitch, though Facebook and researchers said the blackout was not related to the academics’ plug-in.

Edelson, the NYU researcher, said her tool is particularly crucial to understanding how different political groups are targeting voters in the 2020 election, which is being fought online more than previous presidential elections because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“When things get through the cracks and vulnerable communities are targeted with harmful content, they have a right to know,” she said. “People are concerned about how they are being targeted, and Facebook has not done a good job in providing that level of transparency.”

More here:

Facebook tries to block tool aimed at promoting transparency around political ads

The standoff comes as campaigns ramp up spending ahead of Election Day.

www.politico.com

Good for them not to take it down. At least they can keep it up until after the election before possibly facing penalties. The way Facebook has been targeting communities is important. In addition to them admittedly throttling left leaning news, they have helped the right target their political ads.

With Zuck's Blessing, Facebook Quietly Stymied Traffic to Left-Leaning News Outlets: Report

"When Facebook tweaked its newsfeed algorithm in 2017 to reduce the visibility of political news, the company’s engineers intentionally designed the system to disproportionately impact left-leaning outlets, effectively choking off their traffic in the process.

According to a Wall Street Journal report this week, Facebook bigwigs at the time were concerned about how these changes would affect right-leaning news outlets and wanted to avoid adding fuel to critics’ argument that the platform has an anti-conservative bias. However, in its attempt to appear unbiased, the company evidently overcorrected (which it has a history of doing). Facebook’s engineers overhauled the update to affect left-leaning sites more than previously planned, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself OK’d the redesign, sources told the Journal. The changes weren’t aimed at any particular outlet, the company later said."

With Zuck's Blessing, Facebook Quietly Stymied Traffic to Left-Leaning News Outlets: Report

When Facebook tweaked its newsfeed algorithm in 2017 to reduce the visibility of political news, the company’s engineers intentionally designed the system

gizmodo.com

It is one thing for them to do it, it is another to lie about it. It is their private business and can do what they want with their site, they just should be transparent about it rather than lie to people about being unbiased.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Zuckerberg worried about his Rubles obviously

 

[Gergar12]

Zuck the corporate cuck. In all seriousness, this guy is just the worst.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Facebook is just the fucking worst, but unfortunately as a student there is no escape.

Fuck Zucc specifically too. Hopefully the next movie about his is purely unflattering.

 

[BrawlMan]

This is why I'm glad I never thought of getting a Facebook page. I called it out back in 2009 when I said that Facebook would just be the new Myspace, only worse. Some people laughed at me for it, but who's laughing now you idiots?

 

[lil devils x]

This is why I'm glad I never thought of getting a Facebook page. I called it out back in 2009 when I said that Facebook would just be the new Myspace, only worse. Some people laughed at me for it, but who's laughing now you idiots?

I had always refused to ever make an account, then family created a Facebook group to talk about my Dad when he was in the hospital after his first stroke so that we could all post in one place for family information and discuss our visits and what his physicians were telling us when we went up there since I have a huge family and this phone tag thing was getting ridiculous. So of course I had to put aside my stubbornness and make an account, but I never put any personal information on it or photos because of what Zuckerberg has stated previously about his rights to such data, and that such data was not even safe according to the people who downloaded Facebooks servers and overrode any settings anyone had regardless. After my father passed away, I only use it to either talk to family or buy/sell on the marketplace or in local groups, which, as you saw from my Mega bloks haul, at least provides me some compensation for having to use it in the first place.

I still feel the same way I did about Zuckerberg, I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him, which isn't far because I am a petite female that likely couldn't lift him in the first place without a forklift. XD

 

[Houseman]

It is their private business and can do what they want with their site, they just should be transparent about it rather than lie to people about being unbiased.

Companies "should" do a lot of things, like allow for free speech. Now you see the downside of the "they're a private company!" argument. What they "should" do and what they want to do, are not the same thing.

Why oh why would you ever trust or expect a profit-motivated company to act in any other way but their own best interests?
Why not just give the scorpion a ride on your back as you cross the river? Surely it won't sting you, right?

 

[lil devils x]

Companies "should" do a lot of things, like allow for free speech. Now you see the downside of the "they're a private company!" argument. What they "should" do and what they want to do, are not the same thing.

Why oh why would you ever trust or expect a profit-motivated company to act in any other way but their own best interests?
Why not just give the scorpion a ride on your back as you cross the river? Surely it won't sting you, right?

Lying to increase business however is fraud, and in fact illegal. That is why some false advertising suits later resulted in fraud charges as well.

 

[Houseman]

Lying to increase business however is fraud, and in fact illegal.

Then why did you say "It is their private business and can do what they want with their site"?
Either they can do what they want, or they can't, because it's illegal. Which is it?

 

[lil devils x]

Then why did you say "It is their private business and can do what they want with their site"?
Either they can do what they want, or they can't, because it's illegal. Which is it?

It is their site, they can do what they want as long as it is legal. Just like you can do what you want in your house as long as it is legal. Lying to people to increase your business is not legal, as that is a scam. No different than selling people fake Rolex out of your coat claiming it is real. They can be as biased as they want, just they can't lie and say they are not in order to increase their business.

Selling fake Rolex's and claiming they are real increases business too, but there is reason that is illegal as well. This is the same thing.

 

[Houseman]

It is their site, they can do what they want as long as it is legal

Therefore, the "It is their private business and can do what they want with their site" statement was irrelevant, as you had intended to reference illegal activity the entire time?

"You can do what you want, it's a free country."
"But Jill, he literally murdered a guy! That's one of the things you absolutely cannot do."
"I know. Just saying."

I will no longer reply, as it's clear that you aren't going acknowledge my point or admit any sort of fault.

 

[lil devils x]

Therefore, the "It is their private business and can do what they want with their site" statement was irrelevant, as you had intended to reference illegal activity the entire time?

"You can do what you want, it's a free country."
"But Jill, he literally murdered a guy! That's one of the things you absolutely cannot do."
"I know. Just saying."

I will no longer reply, as it's clear that you aren't going acknowledge my point or admit any sort of fault.

*Rolls eyes* How many people say " My house, my rules" and "It is my property, I can do what I want" Both statements imply " as long as it is legal". That was implied in my statement as well. Quit overreacting. The reason I said they should be transparent about their bias IS due to it being illegal for them to lie to increase their business.

 

[Baffle]

who's laughing now you idiots?

Billionaire lizard Mark Zuckerberg.

 

[BrawlMan]

Billionaire lizard Mark Zuckerberg.

Other than him.

 

[Gordon_4]

Other than him.

The NSA and SIS are probably having a good chuckle since Facebook is saving them millions in man hours for domestic signals intelligence.

 

[Agema]

Companies "should" do a lot of things, like allow for free speech. Now you see the downside of the "they're a private company!" argument. What they "should" do and what they want to do, are not the same thing.

Why oh why would you ever trust or expect a profit-motivated company to act in any other way but their own best interests?
Why not just give the scorpion a ride on your back as you cross the river? Surely it won't sting you, right?

One can absolutely think a company has a right to do what it wants with its property whilst at the same time not trusting it an inch to do the "right" thing with its property. I mean, that's basic capitalist theory from Adam Smith: societal gain comes from letting people do what they want with their property to maximise their individual gain.

One can also state that a company has a right to do what it wants with its property as an argument to implicitly say that it shouldn't have that right (because it misuses it).

I think L'il's point is more important than you treat it as. There exists the idea of informed consent, so there is a transparency issue where there can and maybe should be a right to really know what companies like FB are doing with the information they have on us. (This underpins some of its scandals of the last few years about data harvesting and what it is used for.) One can also consider whether the T&Cs are actually reasonable to give people a proper idea what they are signing up for, or whether it's not potentially concealing under innocuous phrases things that customers should be explicitly warned about.

 

[Trunkage]

The NSA and SIS are probably having a good chuckle since Facebook is saving them millions in man hours for domestic signals intelligence.

Who needs to spend money on PRISM when we juts give our info away for free?

 

[CM156]

Who needs to spend money on PRISM when we juts give our info away for free?

Or pay for the privilege.
I refuse to get an Alexa in my home and a few people I know treat me like a luddite because of it.