News publishers protest Facebook’s new political ad rules
USA Today among those calling rules marking sponsorship too broad
Major news organizations, including USA TODAY, raised objections Friday with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in response to the social media giant’s plans to treat ads promoting political news coverage the same as political advocacy ads.
Under changes Facebook will roll out out Tuesday aimed at combating the spread of political misinformation, all Facebook ads featuring political content will get a “Paid for by” label and would carry a disclaimer.
Publishers say these new rules are overly broad. These political messaging labels would also appear on “sponsored” posts that news organizations buy to amplify the reach of an article or video on the political news of the day.
Lumping news publishers with political advocacy groups “dangerously blurs the lines between real reporting and propaganda,” said a letter sent to Zuckerberg Friday by David Chavern, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance, which represents 2,000 news organizations in the U.S. and around the world.
“It is a fundamental mischaracterization of journalism that threatens to undermine its ability to play its critical role in society,” said the letter, also sent to USA TODAY editor-in-chief Nicole Carroll, The Wall Street Journal editorin-chief Gerard Baker, The New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet and The Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, whose outlets supported the alliance’s position.
In response, Facebook’s head of news partnerships Campbell Brown issued a statement. “Preventing misinformation and interference in elections is one of our top priorities. In response, we’re making changes that impact political and issue ads, and that will include news stories on politics and issues,” Brown said. “We’ll soon require advertisers running issue ads or ads with political content to complete an authorization process. All ads on politics and issues will be in a searchable archive, including news content.”
Facebook is trying to tighten election security after being gamed by Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential election. As part of these efforts, it’s implementing new rules for paid ads, the main way Russians spread divisive messages to stir up voters.
New initiatives include disclosures people are accustomed to hearing on the radio or seeing in newspapers or on television. Political advertisers will also have to go through an authorization process in which they will confirm their identities, where they are located in the U.S. and what candidate, organization or business they represent before being able to place ads for political candidates on Facebook.
Election-related ads will be labeled in Facebook and Instagram feeds. And the public will be able to view an online archive of ads and get more information on them, such as how much money was spent, the number of impressions they received and the demographics of the audience they reached.
News publishers say they buy ads to promote news coverage and those ads should not be given the same treatment as political ads, even if these boosted posts involve politics.
“While we applaud Facebook’s efforts to introduce more transparency around the political ads that appear on its platform, we strenuously disagree with the notion that journalism on political issues should be equated with political ads,” Maribel Wadsworth, publisher of USA TODAY and president of the USA TODAY Network, said in a statement.