The days-long feud between Facebook and Senator Elizabeth Warren intensified over the weekend as the latter openly accused the social media giant of taking money for promoting lies. A leading Democratic candidate for 2020, Warren has taken aim at the company concerning its role in spreading disinformation against herself and other candidates. This past week, an ad was run by her campaign on Facebook, which deliberately contained a lie for drawing more attention to this issue. This provocative move was made by Warren’s campaign after a leaked recording surfaced earlier this month. The recording showed CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaking to his employees and telling them that a Warren presidency wouldn’t be favorable for Facebook.
Over the weekend, Facebook also took a shot at Warren through another social media network, Twitter. In the tweet, the social media network compared itself to broadcast television stations, which are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, and were running the Trump ad. Facebook said that the FCC wasn’t asking these broadcast stations to censor the speech of candidates and so it was better to let voters make up their mind, rather than companies. However, this comparison paved way for additional scrutiny of the role Facebook had and does play in handling political speech.
The company did not comment in this regard. Warren, on the other hand, responded to the comparison and said that considering the broadcasters are heavily regulated, there should be questions about how Facebook should be managed. She tweeted that the company was essentially proving her point as it was up to them to decide whether to take money for promoting lies or not do it altogether. This episode highlights how the social media platform is attempting to maintain a neutral position, even as it is acquiring greater influence over public discourse and information.
Facebook is clearly trying to fix the weaknesses that made it a means of meddling in the 2016 presidential elections by the Russians. According to the current policy, ads by politicians are exempted from third-party fact-checking by Facebook. Warren has said that this is a loophole that allows Zuckerberg to rake in a lot of money from President Donald Trump’s campaign even though their ads are telling numerous untruths about former Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter, his son. The efforts of the existing president to pursue unfounded claims against the Bidens are at the center of the ongoing impeachment inquiry that Trump is facing right now.
Experts say that Warren’s fight with Facebook over ads highlights the collapsing distinction between the digital platforms of the 21st century and the traditional broadcast media. This has raised questions about how regulations pertaining to political speech, which is decades old, should apply to these giant online platforms that can have an impact on millions of voters. Some legal analysts have also said that it exposes the limit of Facebook’s stance that it is not a media company. For instance, the Radio Act of 1927 was introduced in which Congress mandated that radio and TV stations couldn’t choose which candidates’ campaign ads to run.
Broadcasters may decide not to run political ads at all, which would be extremely rare in today’s media environment. Apart from that, the law still requires them to run campaign ads of all federal candidates. But, if broadcasters decide to accept political ads, then they have to air ads from all political candidates, without taking into account their accuracy and truthfulness. It is still up to them to decline to run ads from non-candidates, like political action committees. However, none of these rules are applicable to cable networks, which is why CNN would be fully within its rights if it chooses not to run Trump’s ad.
According to experts, Facebook comparing itself to broadcasters’ raises complicated questions about whether it would be appropriate to apply the rules that are meant for radio and TV stations to the internet. The choice is not very different from what it was when radio and television used to be the big gatekeepers. It needs to be decided how much discretion these platforms have to be given because they have the power to shape public opinion and do so without ignoring the principles of the First Amendment, which involve letting the people make up their mind.
A bunch of other rules are also obeyed by broadcasters, which are not applicable to companies such as Facebook. Does this mean those rules should now apply to it? For instance, the government has restricted the number of stations that can be owned by a media company in a particular market for limiting anti-competitive behavior. The regulations by the FCC require broadcasters to air sensitive content only after certain hours and to also include children’s programming. But, experts have stated that this would be difficult to do for Facebook because this platform targets content to users depending on their interests and using detailed data. The rules are complex and reworking them would be inadvisable.
They can simply not be applied to online platforms effectively. Moreover, Facebook referring to broadcasters is somewhat a double standard. It wants to get the same benefit of doubt that’s granted to regulated broadcaster and yet, doesn’t want to be regulated. Even people who have represented the broadcast industry think it is a challenging and odd position for the social network to adopt because it has made it quite clear that it is not and never wants to be regulated.
Warren’s ad began running on Thursday and they begin with a bold yet obvious like; that Zuckerberg and Facebook were endorsing Trump’s reelection campaign. The ad reached out to tens of thousands of people worldwide. Warren stated on Saturday that the purpose of the ad was just to test Facebook’s policy to see how far it goes. She said that they had intentionally made an ad boasting false claims and had submitted it to see if it would receive approval or not. It didn’t take very long for the ad to be approved, which proved the point she was trying to make.
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