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posted by janrinok on Sunday March 08 2020, @11:42PM   Printer-friendly
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.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Troll) by tangomargarine on Monday March 09 2020, @04:42PM (7 children)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Monday March 09 2020, @04:42PM (#968541)

    The "founding fathers" didn't want a democracy. What they were afraid is tyranny of the majority. That is when some idiot, like Trump (or Hitler-like figure) manages to rile up the idiots that vote to vote in enough numbers to get majority of the votes.

    Except that in this example, the opposite actually happened, because Trump lost the popular vote but got in on the electoral college.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   0  
       Troll=1, Informative=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Troll' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @07:54PM (#968635)

    Except that is EXACTLY what happened. The President of the United States is not just the President of the west coast, the northeast, and Chicago. Everybody else knew Hillary gave precisely zero shits about them. She publicly admitted as much.

  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 10 2020, @01:43AM (5 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @01:43AM (#968827) Journal

    Calling Trump Hitler is flat out moronic. He isn't. He may be a slimy bastard, but that's just par of presidential politics.

    What really strikes me as ridiculous, is that the most literally fascistic and most un-American policy we have (due process free execution where the justification is rooted in secret legal memos, where the Executive serves as cop, judge, prosecutor, defense and executioner in secret using secret laws) was put into practice by who? Trump? No, if he had done that, Democrats would have flipped out in the same way the excoriated GWB for due process free detention based on secret legal memos. I'll give you one fucking guess. Lastname starts with a vowel.

    This is a major reason why I quit being a Democrat. I realized that Democrats don't care whether a policy is evil or fascistic, they ONLY care that THEY get to be the ones doing that policy. That's not what I signed up for.

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday March 10 2020, @02:43PM (4 children)

      by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @02:43PM (#969061)

      Calling Trump Hitler is flat out moronic.

      I didn't? Were you the one who modded me Troll for quoting somebody and not even addressing that point, instead adding factual data to the conversation?

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 10 2020, @10:13PM (3 children)

        by hemocyanin (186) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @10:13PM (#969320) Journal

        No I didn't mod you -- but taking your comment in context you said Trump was Hitler. The part you quoted said the EC was designed to prevent a Hitler such as Trump, to which you responded that it failed to do that this time because it gave us Trump. In that context, it is 100% fair to chastise you about the Trump==Hitler thing, either because you were careless and sloppy because of how easily and commonly this epithet is thrown around, or because you meant it.

        • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:45PM (2 children)

          by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:45PM (#969633)

          but taking your comment in context you said Trump was Hitler. The part you quoted said the EC was designed to prevent a Hitler such as Trump,

          Bullshit.

          A) Quoting somebody is not the same as agreeing with them. Do you think every reporter who writes an article about somebody they interviewed, who uses quotes, agrees with their source?

          B) No, that's not what the quote is saying, either.

          That is when some idiot, like Trump (or Hitler-like figure)

          If OP was saying "Trump is a Hitler-like figure" wouldn't it have been

          That is when some idiot, like Trump (or other Hitler-like figure)

          ? "Trump" and "Hitler-like figure" are two separate classifications. If you still want to argue "well that's what they really meant", that's on you for your interpretation.

          Thirdly, there's also the argument whether Hitler was an idiot. He obviously held a bunch of idiotic beliefs, but he was very good at giving speeches and swaying public opinion when the Nazis were on the rise. As a military commander he was an idiot, but as a politician, one can't deny he was pretty effective.

          If it gets your panties untwisted, feel free to substitute any other president who lost the popular vote but won the electoral college: Benjamin Harrison (1888), or George W. Bush (2000).

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
          • (Score: 1, Redundant) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 12 2020, @02:49AM (1 child)

            by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday March 12 2020, @02:49AM (#970042) Journal

            The quote and your comment, taken together, made it look like you considered Trump a Hitler. If you don't hold that view, it was merely sloppy wording. If you do hold that view (which I doubt given objection), you were factually incorrect. Just be more careful in the future.

            • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:04PM

              by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:04PM (#970242)

              Nice response to any of my points.

              --
              "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"