Facebook and Political Ads

(Originally written on January 19, 2020)

Ever since Google announced restrictions on its political ad policy and Twitter banned political ads from their platform, people have then since turned to the second biggest advertising platform: Facebook. However, Facebook, who unveiled their advertising platform in 2007, has made it undoubtedly clear that they will not fact check or alter ads by politicians - even if they contain lies- in the interest of the First Amendment; a.k.a the freedom of speech. Yet, if politicians do spread lies in their ads on social media sites, they could risk changing people’s ideas and opinions of the election and all in all, change the course of America’s future. So, who is on the right side here? Facebook, or the rest of the United States?

The most important event that we have to recognize here is when the First Ten Amendments of the United States were passed on September 25, 1789, and when they were ratified, on December 15, 1791. James Madison, our fourth president, wrote the First Ten Amendments to protect the individuals of the United States; to protect their rights to property, their natural rights as individuals, and limit the government's power over the citizens. One of the main points in the first amendment was freedom of speech, or more specifically, “the right to express information, ideas, and opinions free of government restrictions based on content and subject only to reasonable limitations (as the power of the government to avoid a clear and present danger).” Now, the essential reason why Mark Zuckerberg refuses to make changes to his advertising policy is due to this amendment. Zuckerberg believes that Facebook, which is a private company, should not be responsible to filter the content that is coming from politicians to citizens as it’s a clear violation of the First Amendment. Yet, people have argued against this. They say that politicians can lie, and directly influence how the elections can turn out.

To understand the nuance in this circumstance, let’s go back sixty years to the case when The New York Times published an advertisement by supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. that criticized the police in Montgomery, Alabama, for their mistreatment of civil rights protesters. The advertisement had a number of mistakes and lies, such as the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether or not students had been expelled for participating. In response, Montgomery police commissioner L. B. Sullivan sued the Times in court for defamation. The original verdict was that Sullivan would be awarded $500,000 in damages. The New York Times then appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court of Alabama, which affirmed the verdict. They then appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court of the United States who agreed to hear the case. In March 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously voted 9-0 that the Supreme Court of Alabama failed to recognize the importance of freedom of speech, as outlined in the First and the Fourteenth Amendments. In the aftermath of this case, the Supreme Court of the U.S created an exception to the First Amendment: as long as someone is not targeting and harming a person or a group of persons, they have the right to speak whatever they wish to speak, whether they are lies or not.

With this exception in mind, Facebook is legally not doing anything wrong. With the political ads, all Facebook is doing is giving politicians a platform to advertise their own beliefs and to show what they will do if they become president. The politicians may be saying the truth, half-truths or blatant lies. In today’s world, it’s become very difficult to judge which one it is. The interpretation of the ads always depends on who’s looking at the ads. Whether someone perceives a statement as true or false is always influenced by their own opinion and bias. And we humans have plenty of them.

So, what’s the solution here to this problem? One thing is certain - most Facebook ads are being micro-targeted to certain people who fit a certain profile the politicians want to target. Then there’s also a question of whether politicians lies harm people. Again, the answer will depend on what one considers lies or not. One possible solution could be that Facebook can limit micro-targeting. Facebook, rather than showing specific ads to specific people, should be able to show any ad to anybody. Another modification that Facebook could do is actually a suggestion that Mark Zuckerberg himself said. At his talk at Georgetown, Zuckerberg mentioned, “ . . . to remove content when it could cause real danger as effectively as we can.” While Facebook should not fact check political ads, they should measure the potential of the ripple that the ad can send throughout the online community. If the ad does have the potential to cause real danger to people, Facebook should delete the ad before it causes any imminent danger in our society.

Clearly, in today’s society, there is a fine line between personal rights and how we, the people, are influenced by what we see. Banning political ads or not fact-checking them either is neither the right or wrong thing. There are, for sure, changes that must be made in order to have the perfect society we envision today, but for now, Facebook is doing the right thing regarding our rights and citizens and political ads.