Facebook took out full page advertisements in the New York Times and the Washington Post Wednesday defending its integrity as a company and promising to not let its platform be used as a tool for election interference in the future.
“We take the trust of the Facebook community seriously,” Facebook wrote in the ads, which were the same in both newspapers. “We will fight any attempt to interfere with elections or civic engagement on Facebook.”
The advertisement outlined “immediate actions” the company is taking to keep foreign adversaries from purchasing political ads on its platform, like making the advertising process more transparent and hiring more than 1,000 people to work on Facebook’s ad review teams. The company also promised it would invest in security, conduct an internal investigation and work on developing partnerships with election commissions to support elections and civic engagement around the world.
The newspaper ads come just after Facebook gave Congress more than 3,000 advertisements that appear to have been bought by a Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency. Congressional investigators are probing Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Facebook has a full page ad in today's Washington Post on its fight against election interference. A long way from Zuckerberg's "crazy idea" pic.twitter.com/CjNYdjlmjy
— Hamza Shaban (@hshaban) October 4, 2017
H/t: Fortune
Mark Zuckerberg says the notion that fake news influenced the U.S. presidential election is “a pretty crazy idea.”
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/11/501743684/zuckerberg-denies-fake-news-on-facebook-had-impact-on-the-election
With Zuckerberg’s history of denial (e.g., Ukraine-Russia flagging), I seriously doubt this guy is now serious.
What a waste of money.
Facebook could have just asked the Russians for help in micro-targeting that segment of the American populace concerned about their treachery. Of course, that would be all but the Trump base.
How nice you are only doing this cause you were finally forced to admit that you sold ad space to the Russians and is taking a serious hit in the publics eye.
Maybe I’ve missed this, but was this in any way illegal? I mean, I know it’s BAD, but was it actually illegal? Is it illegal for a foreign government to buy ads? A domestic business to sell them to the foreign government?
And there go Zuck’s chances of running for office