CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised to ensure the campaign’s integrity, but the company didn’t take down anti-Green party posts of unknown origin.
by Stefanie Dodt, special to ProPublica, Jeff Larson and Julia Angwin, ProPublica
On Sept. 15, nine days before the elections in Germany, the Green
party complained to Facebook about a popular series of attack ads
deriding its stances on gender-neutral bathrooms, electric cars and
other topics. The party accused the advertiser, Greenwatch, of providing
false contact information on its Facebook page and blog, which would
violate a German Media Authority regulation requiring accurate contact information.
But Facebook didn’t take down the ads or trace their origins. And
after the election, Greenwatch disappeared. Its website and Facebook
page were deleted, leaving behind only the nine Greenwatch ads that were
captured by ProPublica’s Political Ad Collector, a tool that enables Facebook users to collect political ads that target them.
The Greenwatch episode illustrates that ads of dubious provenance
aren’t just aimed at Facebook users in the U.S., but in Europe as well.
Facebook’s failure to confront the advertiser — despite repeated
complaints — raises questions about whether and how the world’s largest
social network will deliver on its promise to monitor political
advertising aggressively on its platform.
Facebook vowed to step up enforcement of political ads in the wake of news that it allowed Russian advertisers to buy politically divisive ads during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and other advertisers to direct ads to “Jew haters” and similar anti-Semitic groups.
“I expect from a company that makes a lot of money from advertisement
that they control who is placing those ads,“ said Emily Büning, the
Green party’s executive secretary. “Whoever spreads propaganda with
substantial funding has to be identifiable. Whose opinion it is should
be transparent.”
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Source: ProPublica
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