Thread by @JuddLegum

1. Facebook is a $500 billion company with many talented communications professionals who are able to induce journalists to print things that ARE NOT TRUE

I'm going to go deep in the weeds to illustrate an example

Follow along if interested

2. One of the things Facebook is insistent on is that its policy to let politicians lie in political ads has been in place for over a year

They've told me this repeatedly

It's been printed in the Washington Post and CNN, among others.

IT IS ALSO NOT TRUE

3. Now lets dive in. Until Late-September 2019 Facebook's ad policies contained a BLANKET PROHIBITION on "deceptive, false, or misleading" content.

No mention of any exceptions. Not limited to things debunked by fact-checkers

False or misleading content was banned.

4. Then in late September, Facebook DELETED THIS PROHIBITION ON FALSE AND MISLEADING CONTENT.

Facebook made no announcement of this change but acknowledged it when I brought up

It replaced it with a new provision saying items debunked by its fact-checkers were banned

5. Facebook is now saying that politicians are exempt from its fact-checking program and therefore politicians can lie in ads.

Facebook says THAT EXEMPTION has been in place for a year.

But that is irrelevant.

Until late Sept, all false and misleading content was prohibited

6. In one sense, it doesn't matter. Whether Facebook has had this policy in place for 3 weeks or a year, it still has the same issues

But its Facebook's way of diminishing coverage of the issue by (falsely) claiming it is old news

And they are counting on people not to notice