Facebook to show who buys political ads

[Kolesar]

Source: BBC News

Political advertisers will have to verify their identity and location and their posts will carry a disclosure saying "paid for by".
....
"When it comes to advertising on Facebook, people should be able to tell who the advertiser is and see the ads they're running, especially for political ads," Rob Goldman, Facebook's vice president of ads, said in a blog post. By clicking on the "paid for by" disclosure, users would be able to see more details about the advertiser, he added.

Facebook said it was expanding the transparency measures to all ads, and that they would all have to be linked to a page. Users would also be able to view the ads any page was running, it added.

Tests for the new tools would start in Canada, with a goal of having them in place in the US ahead of the midterm elections, in November 2018.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41785158

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Facebook has known about this problem for over one year. They need not wait to roll this out. Maybe they are "reaching out" to their funders for approval. /cynicism

The article discusses Congressional investigations and Twitter's gestures toward "not ruining the world".

[Lucky Luciano]

1. They can't just roll it out.

Technology takes time to get right. Believe me I know. I do a lot quant work for a hedge fund and people always bitch and moan about wanting everything yesterday. Doesn't work like that. They have to do the initial coding phase, the code reviews, the documentation, build a testing framework to make sure new code changes don't introduce bugs, do a beta release into the wild on a small scale for further testing, fix the bugs, make things more scalable, etc - then general release. All of this with many many coders coordinating simultaneously. These are not trivial things for which it just happens tomorrow!

Nevertheless, I constantly have to deal with the pains in the asses who expect it to all occur instantly with no appreciation for what needs to happen.

[Kolesar]

2. yeah, they need a requirements document and a specification

Every version of windows is a new starting point. Else they have patched software and that guarantees bugs.

Used to test embedded software. Training classes were like religion, and product development was like riding a bull. Our business dissolved and I moved to a hardware career.

[usaf-vet]

3. Yes maybe but Americans NEED a fair unimpeded election in 2018 and beyond.

The GOP has been on a long time plan to take the country away. First we do this, get control of the congress. Then we do this, stack the US SCOTUS so it leans right. Then we, plant right wingers in places of power to have long term control of national issues. Then we dismantle Constitutional rights (EXCEPT THE 2ND amendment). Then we transfer wealth to the top 2%. And so on and so on.

Americans can wait for another election to be swayed but unknown sources.

[Igel]

5. The outplay may not be what's desired.

A lot of the "political" ads were issue ads. At what point does campaigning for issues become political?

Oh. You want to make sure Congressfolk know that the People for Perfect Planets is against forced use of a pro-biotic diet for facilities serving juvenile simians? Well, that's political. Or not. Do you think it's common sense or not common sense.

One "political agent" of the Russians was a community activist who accepted money from a US-based group with no obvious ties to Russian money for a program he had long thought was a good idea. If he'd done the same thing with "clean" money he'd be a hero; as it was, turns out that progressive activist was, for many, a Russian dupe. That's what happens with guilt by association.

The guidelines may boil down to, "If you support a candidate, it's a political ad." That's easy to verify.

But what if you support an issue, nothing more? Does it matter that you supported the issue for the year before the election campaigns began and continued the support?

Even worse, what if you do something like highlight BLM's role in trying to secure equality before the law(-enforcers) and your ad is promoting a protest rally? Is that political and suddenly the group paying for the ad is subject to public scrutiny? Does that mean donors to the group should be public knowledge?

[sarcasmo]

4. Will Facebook show payments in Rubles?

[meow2u3]

6. A day late and a ruble short

[FakeNoose]

7. Paid ad space cannot be made to look like editorial content

If Facebook doesn't make a rule about how the ads are supposed distinguish themselves from editorial content, then all of this is nothing but blather.

Too many people lack the sophistication (intelligence) to figure it out for themselves. They see a clever ad that echoes their belief but it's disguised as a news story and they're fooled. They believe it and they send it to their friends, who also can't tell the difference. It's 2016 all over again.

If Facebook cannot control this then they have to start firing clients immediately.