Following months of criticism for its decision to allow candidates for political office to tell outright lies in advertising, Facebook is trying to correct course not by changing advertiser behavior but by telling users to opt out of being shown certain ads.

Facebook today announced a change to its political ad system that will “expand transparency.” Sometime during 2020, users in all countries where political ads feature “paid for by…” disclaimers, including the United States, will gain an account control for seeing “fewer political and social issue ads” on both Facebook and Instagram. US users are expected to get the feature sometime this summer—well into the depths of the 2020 US presidential campaign season.

Facebook said in October that all content posted by politicians and political candidates, including paid advertising, would be exempt from any of the company’s fact-checking processes and would not be held to company standards barring intentionally misleading content. That policy, or lack thereof, has continued to come under fire as other key Internet and social media players, including Google and Twitter, amended their policies to limit or ban political advertising on their platforms.

The only major exception to Facebook’s otherwise laissez-faire political advertising policy is a ban on content that promotes voter suppression (or tries to suppress responses to the 2020 US Census). Enforcement of the ban on voter suppression, however, appears to be haphazard at best, according to an October report.

“We recognize this is an issue that has provoked much public discussion—including much criticism of Facebook’s position,” the company said as part of its announcement today. “We are not deaf to that and will continue to work with regulators and policy makers in our ongoing efforts to help protect elections.”

One big fan

Facebook’s framing of misleading political ads and certain political ad targeting as a user problem generated immediate blowback from politicians, consumer advocates, and government officials.

Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub had particularly harsh words for the company. “Facebook’s weak plan suggests the company has no idea how seriously it is hurting democracy,” she wrote on Twitter. “Here, proposing ‘transparency’ solutions is window-dressing when Facebook needs to be putting out the housefire it has lit.”

She added, “These so-called ‘transparency’ solutions are neither transparent nor solutions… I am not willing to bet the 2020 elections on the proposition that Facebook has solved its problems with a solution whose chief feature appears to be that it doesn’t seriously impact the company’s profit margins.”

Several contenders running to be the Democratic nominee in the 2020 presidential race also lambasted Facebook over the move, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Vice President Joe Biden.

“Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with transparency and choice,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI)—chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, which is probing Facebook’s business practices. “This is about money. Specifically, the $6 billion that will be spent on political ads in 2020 that Facebook will use to continue increasing their profits at the expense of our democracy.”

Facebook did gain support from one powerful quarter for its plan, however. A spokesman for the Trump campaign applauded the maneuver, saying , “Our ads are always accurate, so it’s good that Facebook won’t limit political messages.”

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1641709