When you’re not scrolling through wedding photos or baby photos on Facebook, you’re being pelted with ads that have been tailored especially for you. Don’t believe us? Go here and click “Your interests” to see what Facebook has learned about you.
That’s right. Every click you’ve made leaves a trail that helps Facebook put you into a box. Advertisers can then perform a surgical strike on your timeline, serving up an ad that’s tailor-made to get you to buy something or vote a certain way.
Facebook’s plan to fight global election interference
Today, Facebook announced that it’s trying to prevent a repeat of history. Over the last several years, foreign groups have weaponized Facebook’s data to manipulate voters. Now, Facebook’s ad transparency tools are available globally.
A post on Facebook’s blog states, “as part of the authorization process for advertisers, we confirm their ID and allow them to disclose who is responsible for the ad, which will appear on the ad itself. The ad and ‘Paid for by’ disclaimer are placed in the Ad Library for seven years, along with more information such as range of spend and impressions, as well as demographics of who saw it.”
Until now, Facebook’s ad verification program was only available in 50 countries and territories. Now, “proactive enforcement” will begin in Ukraine, Singapore, Canada, and Argentina. Humans and computers will review the ads.
See all the political ads Facebook is running
Facebook will also give more countries access to its Ad Library Report. The library reveals that in the United States, more than $649 million has been spent on ads related to social issues, elections, or politics since May 2018. So groups are spending nearly $50 million per month to try to influence you.
The ad library can reveal some interesting stats. Donald Trump’s page has spent more than $14 million on Facebook ads since May 2018. And you can see them all.
You can also click on a specific ad to see who saw it.
Remember, an advertiser can specifically target or exclude audiences. This map shows us that 13% of the ad’s audience was in Florida, a key state to any candidate’s electoral strategy.
We can also see that over the last 90 days, Trump’s campaign has spent $2.5 million, while former Vice President Biden spent the second most at $1.5 million. Something called the International Rescue Committee is third with $1.2 million, and ClassAction.com is fourth with $1.1 million.
Why this won’t work
The real issue is that this tool only helps with ads run by legitimate campaigns or Political Action Committees (PACs). Many of the forces working to undermine democracy keep a significantly lower profile.
According to Politico, this ad of an arm-wrestling Jesus was created in October 2016. For $1.10, the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency was able to spread it around Facebook, targeting people age 18 to 65+ interested in Christianity, Jesus, God, Ron Paul and media personalities such as Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Mike Savage.
The same Russian group spent $915 to target this ad to people ages 18 or older in Georgia, Maryland, Missouri or Virginia. By accumulating “likes” on these fabricated pages, the Russians were able to amplify future divisive messages organically.
While 29 million Americans saw these kinds of Russian-backed posts directly, the algorithm ended up pushing them out to 126 million Americans during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The total number of voters in 2016? Just under 139 million.
Another issue is that Facebook is expecting these advertisers to self-report their goals. According to their policy, “when ads about social issues, elections or politics appear on Facebook products, they’re required to include information about who paid for them.” And what happens if a group doesn’t disclose that information? Facebook expects you, the regular user, to report the ad.
What’s more likely, that Facebook users will police the platform or that they’ll simply scroll by or click like/share?
All of this action comes a month after Facebook refused to remove an altered video of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The page that posted that video is cranking out multiple videos every week. It’s not running ads. And if it’s not running ads, it’s not required to disclose who’s paying for their content. So Vladimir Putin himself could be running the page and spreading disinformation organically and we’d never know.
It’s possible that news organizations could clamp down on some of these pages by filing a copyright claim anytime a politically-motivated page uses their video. But that is something that only the copyright owner can do.
In theory, you could upload the entirety of “Avengers: Endgame” to Facebook and unless Disney complains, Facebook wouldn’t take it down.
As much as Facebook tries to clamp down on disinformation, those who want to manipulate the algorithm will find a way to bypass the safeguards. It’s up to all of us to consider our clicks before we make them. And better yet, maybe it’s time to delete Facebook entirely and get your political information from publicly funded straight-shooters like NPR and PBS.
