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from the dishonest-politicians?-say-it-ain't-so dept.
Facebook pulls Trump campaign ads for fake census claims:
Facebook infamously has a broadly laissez-faire policy for political candidates. If you're running for office, you can lie as much as you want in your paid and unpaid content—with one small catch. Anything that lies about voting or the census, such as sharing fake registration links or deliberately spreading incorrect polling dates, is prohibited. Even if it comes directly from the Trump campaign.
It just turns out that Facebook needs a lot of prodding—in the form of negative media attention—to follow through.
The site Popular Information first reported on the Trump campaign's ads early yesterday. The sponsored posts, which appeared on the accounts of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, were paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again committee, a joint fundraising effort by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
One ad Popular Information featured includes an image of a sheet of paper labeled "2020 census," next to a picture of Trump giving his characteristic thumbs up, and it exhorts readers, "President Trump needs you to take the Official 2020 Congressional District Census today." It continues, "The information we gather from this survey will help us craft our strategies for YOUR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT."
Clicking through the ad directed readers to a website labeled as the "Certified Website of President Donald J. Trump," Popular Information reported, billing itself as the "Official 2020 Congressional District Census."
Popular Information pointed out to Facebook that the ads seem to violate the company's bright-line policy prohibiting "misleading information about when and how to participate in the census," but a spokesperson for the company at first disagreed. According to Facebook, since the campaign ads also referenced the campaign, it was clear they were not official Census advertising.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/technology/facebook-trump-census-ads.html
WASHINGTON — Facebook said on Thursday that it had removed misleading ads run by President Trump’s re-election campaign about the 2020 census, in a stand against disinformation ahead of the decennial population count that begins next week.
Earlier this week, Trump Make America Great Again, a joint fund-raising arm of Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and the Republican National Committee, started running ads on the social media site that Facebook said could have caused confusion about the timing of the census.
“President Trump needs you to take the Official 2020 Congressional District Census today. We need to hear from you before the most important election in American history,” the ad said. The campaign asked followers to “respond NOW” to help our campaign messaging strategy, with an appeal to text “TRUMP to 8022.”
The Census Bureau will not begin to survey the public for its population survey until next week. The ad linked the census to the Trump campaign, a misrepresentation of the official government survey, said civil rights groups.
The census has become another disinformation test for social media companies. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have come under pressure for their handling of political speech and what has been a piecemeal approach to policing their platforms. Candidates in this year’s presidential election are expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on political ads, and the companies have already struggled to enforce consistent policies.
Facebook has taken the most permissive — and most criticized — approach to political speech, allowing candidates and their campaigns to post misleading information and target those messages to specific audiences.
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-removed-misleading-census-ads-from-trump-campaign-2020-3
- Facebook has removed a series of ads posted by the Trump campaign that gave the misleading impression respondents would be taking part in the official 2020 US census.
- One of the ads reportedly read: "President Trump needs you to take the Official 2020 Congressional District Census today," implying the survey it linked to – a survey on Republican talking points – was the official census.
- A Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider that "there are policies in place to prevent confusion around the official US Census and this is an example of those being enforced."
- Facebook has faced criticism for its general unwillingness to fact-check political ads published on its platform, though it seems to draw the line at interfering with the US census.
The story is also widely reported elsewhere.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @03:37AM (22 children)
It is amazing that you can't get it through your skull that most people know he is a corrupt asshole, they just thought Hillary was worse.
Evil Anointed One or Hobson's Asshole, when you give people so little to choose between why are you surprised that they said "fuck this, let's burn it all down and choose the Asshole"?
It looks like the next one is a choice between Hobson's Asshole and Creepy Demented Hair Sniffer. Don't cry when Asshole wins that one too.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @04:09AM (13 children)
There. FTFY.
The eminent philosopher [youtube.com] was right.
Which is why we need an informed electorate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @05:30AM (2 children)
When you say "we"... who do you mean?
Gerrymandering. Voter purging. Closing voting stations. Disenfranchising felons. Educating the electorate.
One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn't belong
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @06:47AM
All of us. Even you, you cynical prick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @06:49AM
AC who posted this here.
I'd add that "Gerrymandering. Voter purging. Closing voting stations. Disenfranchising felons."
Are also things we should address as well. Dealing with them would be much easier with an educated electorate.
Funny that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:00AM (3 children)
Your added section changes nothing at all. It doesn't matter why they thought it, they did.
The DNC said "you can have the unpopular candidate our corporate backers want, or you can have a shit sandwich".
The electorate said "Fuck you we'll take the shit sandwich."
Now the DNC is going to do it again with Biden, and you are all going to get Trump again.
Mod me troll all you like, you are arguing against reality because you don't like it. Reality just doesn't care about your feels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:09AM (1 child)
Which is why we need an informed electorate.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @01:54AM
It seems that those voting for Trump were informed -- they knew Trump was the "fuck you" vote and everything he said was bluster or false promises. What the DNC doesn't get is that it thinks this was about whether HRC was more qualified or had some higher morality or a pussy or whatever. It wasn't. It was about "fuck you!" and to make that message super fucking clear, we elected a slimeball comedian (which is better than a slimeball who takes him or herself oh so seriously and puts a melodramatic mask over her glee (pray for us all Nancy) while backstabbing everyone for personal gain).
Anyway, DNC failed to learn. Get yourself ready for a "fuck you more" election.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:45AM
The reality is people the fucking idiots and are completely complacent and are not bothered by Trump. They don't want someone like Sanders. They don't want health coverage. They don't even bother to do one fucking thing that would allow this - VOTE.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/mar/04/closer-look-turnout-young-voters-and-key-bernie-sa/ [politifact.com]
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday March 09 2020, @02:31PM
I'm in Oz so I don't vote in your elections, but we still get huge amounts of coverage in the media here. It was my opinion that Hillary, with the backing of the MIC, was aiming for a full-on hot-war invasion of Iran. As a long term ally we would have been dragged in. I considered the whole idea to be insane and evil.
If it had been up to me I would have taken a coprolite as US president in preference to her.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @03:12PM (4 children)
How old are you?
I ask because I was an adult during Bill Clinton's terms as President. I remember all the stuff Hillary was involved in just during his two terms... firing all the White House travel people to put in her own cronies... making insane money off supposed "cattle futures"... the Whitewater stuff back in Arkansas... taking White House furniture to their personal homes... and that's just off the top of my head, and not including the shit she pulled when she was Secretary.
She's a crook. Please consider that perhaps the electorate was informed, and that's why she lost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:11PM (2 children)
Yeah, it's quite a bit more complicated than that, bucko.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_travel_office_controversy [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_cattle_futures_controversy#Merc_and_Melamed_investigations [wikipedia.org]
"A tempest in a teapot."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater_controversy [wikipedia.org]
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-stole-white-house-furniture/ [snopes.com]
Except everything you mention is either complete bullshit and/or a misrepresentation of the facts.
Facts are so damn inconvenient, aren't they?
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:40PM
Wikipedia and Snopes are both known leftist sites who lie all the damn time. Neither place has anything to do with facts.
And that government crooks didn't prosecute other government crooks, ooh what a shocking surprise that is.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:35AM
FTFW
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @07:59AM
You don't have to go that far back. Ask anyone who actually holds a security clearance what would happen to them if they removed classified marks from documents so they could send them home to their private email servers, just because it was more convenient.
Snope's whitewashing be damned, that's 5 million people who knew she was corrupt, and everyone they could convince.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @04:33AM (7 children)
And you never asked, Why did anyone think Hillary was worse than Trump? You must have fallen for the con just like the poor saps in the states that voted for electors that pledged to vote for the devil.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:02AM (3 children)
I can predict that a leaky dam is going to break and flood a town without being in favor of dynamiting it. Why is an acknowlegement of a situation taken as an endorsement?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:27AM (2 children)
I can predict that your mom *and* your wife are diseased without having to pay them the $1.75 they charge to fuck them too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @03:43PM (1 child)
Did they get it from your dad?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:13PM
Maybe. Out of the thousands who "went there," who can say?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @06:31PM (2 children)
Hillary put al-Qaeda [catbox.moe] in charge of internet censorship and police training [archive.is]. She did this NATO-wide [wikileaks.org] by promoting al-Qaeda as a feminist movement because they would agree to get behind allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia if NATO would give them total control of its communications, police, and spy services. "Strong Cities", "Women in Public Service", "Institute for Strategic Dialogue", "Against Violent Extremism" are all the same network run by al-Qaeda and funded by the US State Department and the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office [ukmediawatch.org].
Obama had an al-Qaeda agent on the National Security Council serving as assistant chief of staff and gave him control of Palantir. There was not a peep of concern from the media, not even from the supposedly conservative media, but there is a lot of outrage that Peter Thiel has become one of Donald Trump's loudest supporters for reasons that he cannot explain. Some of us can see what is happening with our own eyes and don't need a corporate authority figure to tell us what to believe. And you want to call us "poor saps" who fell for a con? Fuck you.
(Score: 2) by CheesyMoo on Monday March 09 2020, @07:17PM
Can you spell it out for us poor saps please?
What is it that you are hinting at?
Hand-waving conspiracy theories are fun, but give me a conclusion
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @02:15AM
You're being treated by a whole team of psychiatrists aren't you.