1/ Remember this?
@Facebook this week reversed its controversial position that news publishers should be scrutinized as purveyors of “political content” alongside advocacy organizations and politicians themselves.
It's a big deal.
@Facebook this week reversed its controversial position that news publishers should be scrutinized as purveyors of “political content” alongside advocacy organizations and politicians themselves.
It's a big deal.
2/ The catch: The change is effective immediately in the UK and won't be implemented in the US until next year.
When it takes effect here, newsrooms will be fully exempted from FB's searchable public archive, which logs ads that contain so-called “issues of national importance.”
When it takes effect here, newsrooms will be fully exempted from FB's searchable public archive, which logs ads that contain so-called “issues of national importance.”
3/ Those issues, by the way, comprise ... uh ... just about everything national newsrooms cover. More here: facebook.com/business/help/… 
4/ Facebook announced in late May that it would begin classifying some news stories as political – and logging them in its searchable public archive – in an effort to combat disinformation ahead of 2018’s midterm elections. newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/05/a…
5/ An admirable goal. But the change immediately rankled many in the world of journalism, who challenged the classification. digiday.com/media/facebook…
6/ These folks also bristled at requirements to get "authorized," which included handing over personal information to Facebook – a company with a well-documented record of mishandling users' info. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
7/ Nevertheless, many felt pressure to take these steps anyway, thanks to a change in Facebook’s proprietary Newsfeed algorithm that drastically reduced the reach of news-related posts.
@Slate's @WillOremus called this dynamic “The Great Facebook Crash.” slate.com/technology/201…
@Slate's @WillOremus called this dynamic “The Great Facebook Crash.” slate.com/technology/201…
8/ Meanwhile: The archive itself got off to a rocky start.
Almost immediately, Facebook’s combination of human moderators and artificial intelligence mislabeled as political ads from hair salons, vegetarian restaurants and day care centers. @NYTimes: nytimes.com/2018/06/21/bus…
Almost immediately, Facebook’s combination of human moderators and artificial intelligence mislabeled as political ads from hair salons, vegetarian restaurants and day care centers. @NYTimes: nytimes.com/2018/06/21/bus…
9/ It improperly flagged promotions for baked beans and lawn-mowing that contained the word “bush” (it linked them to previous presidents). @business: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
11/ And, as recently as Oct. 25, @ViceNews successfully ran ads supposedly “paid for” by Vice President Mike Pence, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and the terrorist group ISIS. news.vice.com/en_us/article/…
12/ All the while, news organizations that refused to hand over personal information (ahem ... us) were routinely denied the ability to run ads that placed their non-partisan stories in front of a wider audience.
Here are some @reveal stories whose ads Facebook blocked ...
Here are some @reveal stories whose ads Facebook blocked ...
13/ There was, of course, the one about shocking allegations of forcible druggings, abuse and deception at the Shiloh Treatment Center in Manvel, Texas. revealnews.org/blog/immigrant…
14/ A follow-up story, also rejected by Facebook, showed that the doctor prescribing drugs at Shiloh practiced without board certification to treat children and adolescents for nearly a decade. revealnews.org/blog/exclusive…
15/ Shortly after that, the company blocked an ad for yet another investigation, this one about how Trump era policy shifts created an inhospitable climate for children seeking asylum. revealnews.org/article/before…
16/ Since then, Facebook has blocked four more Reveal ads, for stories about a censored climate report, migrant children housed in a Phoenix office building, rape arrests across the U.S. and the regulatory failures that may have prevented a recent E. coli outbreak.
17/ News organizations will no longer encounter these obstacles once they’ve been exempted from the ad archive in 2019, according Facebook.
But that could take months.
But that could take months.
18/ And a Facebook rep didn't have an answer when asked what will happen to all those "political" news ads the company logged in its archive since May. Will they get pulled down? Stay up forever?
In the meantime, you can search them here: facebook.com/ads/archive/
In the meantime, you can search them here: facebook.com/ads/archive/
19/ In the U.K., Facebook developed an “index” of news organizations it has deemed reputable enough to warrant exemption from its archive outright, and it plans to do the same in the U.S., according to a spokesman.
20/ Once exempted, American publishers will still have to meet the social network’s community standards and advertising policies when creating ads for stories (also known as "boosting").
21/ But for now, U.S. newsrooms like ours are now in a weird position: We're subject to rules Facebook has basically admitted were misguided – and removed from an entire country.
We'll continue to get ads for our stories blocked until the rules change here.
We'll continue to get ads for our stories blocked until the rules change here.
