{"id":19789,"date":"2019-10-28T17:29:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T00:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=19789"},"modified":"2019-10-28T17:29:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T00:29:00","slug":"facebook-workers-push-back-over-political-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=19789","title":{"rendered":"Facebook workers push back over political ads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of Facebook employees are raising sharp concerns over the company&#8217;s policy allowing misinformation in political ads, raising the stakes as the company simultaneously faces a firestorm of criticism from policymakers and 2020 Democrats externally.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/ayssrvbzlmmncvcmnyhllnsslbngmbmwwplzvtgtytspl_rrgcggnrnpcgtrnjjcgn.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/ayssrvbzlmmncvcmnyhllnsslbngmbmwwplzvtgtytspl_rrgcggnrnpcgtrnjjcgn.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572387210419000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE0yx9aAU7kev4W14YFUqMOtwNX_g\">obtained by The New York Times<\/a>, the employees wrote they &#8220;strongly object&#8221; to Facebook&#8217;s decision not to fact-check political ads paid for by elected officials or political candidates.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Misinformation affects us all,&#8221; they wrote, according to a copy published by the Times. &#8220;Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We strongly object to this policy as it stands,&#8221; the employees continued. &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The controversy:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Earlier this month, Facebook clarified that it does not fact-check or censor misinformation in political ads, drawing aggressive scrutiny from leading Democratic presidential candidates including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).<\/p>\n<p>Zuckerberg defended the policy at a congressional hearing last week during a fiery line of questioning from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who pressed the tech executive over whether she could place ads making false claims about Republican rivals.<\/p>\n<p>Ocasio-Cortez\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/lwzqsfzphmmrlflmrdjhhrqqhzrcmzmyynhpfwcwdwqwz_rrgcggnrnpcgtrnjjcgn.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/lwzqsfzphmmrlflmrdjhhrqqhzrcmzmyynhpfwcwdwqwz_rrgcggnrnpcgtrnjjcgn.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572387210419000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH2csRGlOWE75vDen59G9DEbsG52g\">on Monday praised<\/a>\u00a0the Facebook employees that signed on to the letter, calling them &#8220;courageous.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Facebook&#8217;s culture is built on openness so we appreciate our employees voicing their thoughts on this important topic,&#8221; Bertie Thomson, Facebook&#8217;s vice president of corporate communications, said in a statement to The Hill.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We remain committed to not censoring political speech, and will continue exploring additional steps we can take to bring increased transparency to political ads,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of Facebook employees are raising&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19790,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789\/revisions\/19790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}