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FB Claims Pivot from 2016 Election Tactics to one of user choice

Along with tens of millions of others [probably more but…] I was completely inundated with unsolicited, deeply unwelcome, mostly disgusting campaign ads in 2016. This Facebook blog post has a lot of ground to travel in a very short time to achieve any kind of user credibility: “…Starting this summer, we will put the Voting Information Center at the top of people’s Facebook and Instagram feeds. We expect more than 160 million people in the US will see this authoritative information about how to vote in the general election from July through November. We’re also working on updates to the registration reminders, vote-by-mail information, and election day reminders that we’ve run throughout the primaries. These updates will make it even easier for people to find reliable information about participating in the election and share it with their friends across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. We’ll have more to share here soon. More Control and Transparency for Political Ads  – Political ads play an important role in every election – and this year will be no exception. People have told us they want the option to see fewer political ads on Facebook and Instagram. After announcing this feature earlier this year we are now making it available as part of our preparations for the 2020 US elections. Starting today for some people and rolling out to everyone in the US over the next few weeks, people will be able to turn off all social issue, electoral or political ads from candidates, Super PACs or other organizations that have the “Paid for by” political disclaimer on them. You can do this on Facebook or Instagram directly from any political or social issue ad or through each platform’s ad settings. However, we know our system isn’t perfect. So if you’ve selected this preference and still see an ad that you think is political, please click the upper right corner of the ad and report it to us…”

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