Facebook blocks
ads in midst of US primary elections
1 June 2018
In the lead up to the California primary elections on June 5,
Facebook escalated its campaign of censorship by implementing a new policy
requiring anyone placing political ads to verify their identity and address.
The anti-democratic measure threw a lengthy and arbitrary procedure in front of
the numerous smaller candidates running across the country, to the benefit of
incumbents and other well-heeled candidates.
Under the new policy, Facebook is demanding from an individual
placing an ad: the front and back photos of his driver’s license or passport,
the last four digits of his social security number, and a mailing address. To
verify the mailing address, the individual must send a physical letter that
should arrive within 10 days. This applies to all those placing ads related to
elections or “any national legislative issue of public importance” in any place
where the ad is being run, including ads relating to “civil rights,”
“education,” “immigration,” “poverty,” “foreign policy” and the
all-encompassing “values.”
Facebook has used this policy to block my own campaign ads for
Senate and those of Kevin Mitchell running for Congress in the 51st District.
As of this writing, Facebook is preventing any campaign ads for seven days.
The full impact of this policy is hard to measure. The Tampa Bay Times lists at
least a dozen candidates in that state who have been affected, and many more
are scattered throughout the country. The policy was enacted although
inconsistently enforced on May 24, only 12 days before the June 5 primaries of
eight states, including California, cutting many candidates off from Facebook
advertising in the crucial final days of their campaigns.
The measure sharply favors established candidates. Some political
pages were informed in advance of the changes and given the opportunity to go
through the approval process before it was enforced. Many candidates running
for the first time only learned about the policy after our ads started being
denied. Moreover, larger campaigns can afford advertising on TV, radio and in
newspapers while they wait for Facebook to approve them for political
advertising.
Facebook’s policy has an entirely arbitrary character. The mailing
address of all candidates, as well as any political committee legally allowed
to spend money on elections, is publicly available online at the Federal
Election Commission. The identity and address of the ad purchaser is also
already available to Facebook in the credit card information used to purchase
an ad.
In a May 24 communication, “Hard Questions:
Why Doesn’t Facebook Just Ban Political Ads,” the company
claimed these measures were necessary for “greater transparency” to combat “bad
actors abusing our systems.”
What a farce! The entire premise of the changes is to direct the
public response to events through established channels.
The document lists twenty “issues,” outside
of elections, where any advocacy falls under the political ad policy. For
example: “An ad from an immigration lawyer would not be tagged as an issue ad,”
they write, “but if essentially the same ad were to also advocate for
immigration reform in any way, it would be considered political and be subject
to our policy.”
If you’re an anti-immigrant political action committee that
already filed its paperwork, Facebook is happy to sell you ads immediately. If
you’re a student in a border town outraged by the latest execution of an unarmed
immigrant by Border Patrol, you must wait 10 days. If you’re a state governor
who cut education funding, Facebook will post your ads immediately. If you’re a
newly formed strike committee, Facebook will need more than a week to confirm
your address.
Facebook justifies its actions with reference to “the
Russian-backed ads” during the 2016 election designed to “stoke partisanship or
fear as well as manipulate and deceive.” Under the guise of the conspiracy
theory that $100,000 in Facebook ads from Russians played a significant part in
the 2016 election, while the candidates and their political action committees
spent over $1.8 billion, Facebook has moved to censor “divisive content.”
In January, Facebook announced it was deprioritizing news and
political content on users’ News Feed, in particular those focusing on
“divisive national issues.” Instead Facebook would show users “trustworthy”
sites.
Facebook’s actions are part of a series of measures adopted by
Internet and social media companies, under the pressure of the state and
intelligence agencies, to censor the internet. These measures were initiated by
changes in Google’s search algorithms which begun in April of last year.
Demands for censorship have been led by the Democratic Party, including my opponent
in the elections, Dianne Feinstein.
As the Socialist Equality Party candidate for Senate, I call for
an immediate end to all forms of Internet censorship. The defense of the most
basic democratic rights, including the right to free speech, must be connected
to the independent mobilization of the working class against the Democratic and
Republican parties, on the basis of a socialist program—including the
transformation of all the major internet and social media companies into
democratically-controlled utilities, run in the interests of social need, not
private profit.
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