I think there will be increasing scrutiny over Facebook's ability to wipe their hands while claiming "it's free speech."
There's a reason the media were information gatekeepers: there's a responsibility to be accurate and unbiased.
Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by swaying public opinion. There has to be consequences- sorry, but in my opinion not every voice deserves to be equal.
>there's a responsibility to be accurate and unbiased
In what universe is this true? Historically journalists have had long eras of questionable judgement, e.g. the yellow journalism era. Sometimes it feels like they're not really any better.
Journalists have been information gatekeepers because of a structural monopoly. As this monopoly is being broken down by technology, of course the entrenched interests will clamor against the disruptors, claiming a sense of propriety that never really existed in the first place.
For a social network that may have hosted content that may have convinced people to vote for a candidate you don't like? What sorts of consequences do you have in mind here?
And where exactly do you draw the line between "manipulating" Facebook to help a candidate and using Facebook legitimately to get a candidates message out there?
>Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by swaying public opinion.
And Facebook's product was used in 2008 to help Obama get elected.
And several traditional media were used in all previous elections to get presidents elected.
If the media are information gatekeepers, why do they allow political ads without challenging the misinformation in those ads? What were the consequences of CNN, Fox News, etc for not being proper information gatekeepers?
Drawing the line at Twitter/Facebook is very arbitrary (and perhaps convenient).
I'd agree that the traditional media has had their hands in shaping the narrative to some extent in past elections and pointing to Facebook is slightly convenient for them.
But there is a vast chasm of difference between using social media to organize people and mobilize a campaign's message (as Obama's campaign sort of did in 2008, a lot of that engagement was organic though) and using the Facebook ad network and a network of phony accounts tied to real people in influencer groups to spread a litany of propaganda and false information meant to foment outrage and cultivate doubt in the integrity of the American election system.
1. Do not treat Facebook differently from traditional media - we seem to agree on this.
2. The use of phone accounts to influence people should be targeted in and of itself - not just because it happened to help win an election.
And on the side:
>using the Facebook ad network and a network of phony accounts tied to real people in influencer groups to spread a litany of propaganda and false information meant to foment outrage and cultivate doubt in the integrity of the American election system
Influencer groups spreading propaganda and false information is common amongst special interest and lobby groups, in both traditional media and social networks. I do not like it, but I do not see Facebook being in any way special about it.
IIRC tradional lobbying/special interest groups didn't have groups of like minded and opposition minded users with phone numbers and email addresses. One could target supporters of one's opponent with discouraging news to suppress them getting out to vote and also target supporters with outrage inducing data to inspire turnout with pinpoint accuracy making very small ad buys effective at reaching the target audience - this is not possible with traditional media - only blanketing an area with full coverage which is a more costly proposition.
> IIRC tradional lobbying/special interest groups didn't have groups of like minded and opposition minded users with phone numbers and email addresses.
Like minded they frequently had, opposition minded was harder to come by though there were lots of methods of targeting by demographic correlates in many case (views often correlate with some combination of age, race, income, etc. which then correlates with the audience of various media outlets.)
Lobbying groups have always been on the cutting edge of media targetting.
At what level of accuracy is it acceptable? Cable outlets allow for a fairly targeted ad campaign (limited to one town, for example). Granted, perhaps not as well targeted as Facebook, Google, etc. But we should give a good justification of where we want to draw the line. It sounds like Facebook is getting criticism for merely being more efficient than traditional media.
As if we're saying "Yeah, we can tolerate the concept of ads, as long as they're fairly inefficient".
Ultimately, your comment sounds like the issue isn't about elections, but the dangers of extremely effective ad distribution networks (Google, Facebook, etc). As a tool, it can be used for all sorts of mass influence leading to outcomes some people do not like - that are not inherently tied to elections. Examples could be effective ads targeting a particular racial demographic regarding education. I don't see that being any more or less desirable than using it to affect an election.
I'm all for that conversation, as long as it is about the broader topic and not tied to the much narrower topic of influencing elections.
> Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by swaying public opinion.
I find this exceptionally hard to believe for a myriad of reasons.
- The MSM never gave Trump serious consideration. They thought he was a clown when he announced his candidacy. Even his own party thought he was a joke. Clinton never prepped for the possibility he might be the candidate. After he beat out 14 other candidates for the nomination, she still never took him seriously. She was so arrogant about winning, it was if she merely expected this to be her coronation after ceding to Obama in the previous race.
- The MSM was running nothing but glowing stories about Clinton the entire race. At one point MSNBC said she had a 98% chance of winning. At the same time, Trump was enduring a non stop wave of bad publicity and negative stories about him. The juxtaposition of the way the MSM covered the two campaigns is so obvious it felt at times the MSM was on the DNC payroll. All you heard was positive spin for every Clinton story, and negative spin on every Trump story.
- Clinton started to believe her own polling that showed her up in many of the battleground states. So much so, she started campaigning in traditional republican strongholds. The media were running stories that she didn't just want to beat Trump, she wanted to humiliate him like Reagan did to Mondale.
- Even on the day of the election The MSM was saying she was up 10 points in all the battleground states. They were basically saying her victory was all but assured.
- She was under an ongoing FBI investigation the majority of her campaign. In the history of the country, we've never had a presidential candidate who was running under the threat of possible FBI indictment and the possibility of going to jail.
All of these far outweigh the Facebook ads that were run. It can't even compare to Clinton's own arrogance and the MSM culpability in attempting to do anything to get her elected.
> There has to be consequences- sorry, but in my opinion not every voice deserves to be equal.
Every voice deserves to be equal, but unfortunately in our society, it will never be the case. We're so far removed from what "real journalism" is it's quite scary. There is no objectivity anymore. There is always a political angle to be had, pushed and manipulated so one side looks good and the other side bad. Hell, MSNBC and CNN, the Times and a multitude of other "news" outlets don't even pretend to be objective anymore. Real journalism is gone. What's replaced it is a political machine, bent on seizing power at all costs and pushing any other party that disagrees with them to the sidelines.
The days when journalists used to be the check on government are long gone. For the most part, they're all on the parties payroll now.
I recall quite a lot of headlines about Clinton's emails, I think you have to hand-wave that away to justify the more absolutist descriptions like "nothing but glowing stories" etc.
Besides that, this is just a list of things you think is unfair about the election or something but which doesn't actually address directly anything OP claimed
Speaking of echo chambers, your first source is an article about your second source. None of them support your conclusion that the ads were "universally pro-Clinton."
It's also irrelevant: nominally pro-Clinton ads can be used to generate net Trump support, and we'd have to have a way more involved discussion of PSYOPs to see if the two statements were in conflict.
Of course, green account with pro-Trump talking points of questionable content might very well be a propaganda account.
"I will furnish the pictures, you will furnish the war"
Let's not, in justly criticizing Facebook, excuse the crimes of the press. They were gatekeepers, and that was a role they loved, but they were not, in general, fair unbiased.
There's a reason the media were information gatekeepers: there's a responsibility to be accurate and unbiased.
Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by swaying public opinion. There has to be consequences- sorry, but in my opinion not every voice deserves to be equal.