It’s a great example of taking too little action,
too late. Facebook and Google will now verify the identities of advertisers
buying political ads.
Mark Zukerberg said, “After we identified Russian
interference in the 2016 US elections, we successfully deployed new AI tools
leading up to the 2017 French, German, and Alabama Senate special elections
that removed tens of thousands of fake accounts. Earlier this week, we took down
a large network of Russian fake accounts that included a Russian news
organization.
He continued: “First, from now on, every advertiser
who wants to run political or issue ads will need to be verified. To get
verified, advertisers will need to confirm their identity and location. Any
advertiser who doesn't pass will be prohibited from running political or issue
ads. We will also label them and advertisers will have to show you who paid for
them. We're starting this in the US and expanding to the rest of the world in
the coming months.”
Will this
really impact the scope and impact of Russian and other malicious state actors’
information operations? Probably, not. Trolls will always be a reality of
social networks and as long as Facebook and Google are happy to take payments
in rubles – they will continue to facilitate the strategies of foreign
intelligence organizations.
If they were serious about curtailing these threats,
then they would ban all political advertising outright. But of course bottom
lines and shareholders will always come first.
As the Doomsday Clock ticks closer to midnight,
thanks to disinformation and the rise of authoritarian populism, one cannot
help but to embrace the gallows humor in all of this – that Facebook’s mission
is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer
together” when it has accomplished quite the opposite.
