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Not sure how many people are following the issue of how Facebook has refused to take down advertisements from US politicians that are demonstrably false lies.
Not sure how many people are following the issue of how Facebook has refused to take down advertisements from US politicians that are demonstrably false lies.
Recently, the Trump campaign put out multiple ads with false claims attacking the Democratic candidate Biden. Despite multiple media outlets showing how the content of these ads were false, Facebook refused to take down these ads.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…
"If the claim is made directly by a politician on their Page, in an ad or on their website, it is considered direct speech and ineligible for our third-party fact checking program" - FB's official stand vis-a-vis disinfo put out by politicians and their fact-checking program.
Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren who's been critical of the company targeted Facebook's policy by deliberately putting out a false ad claiming claiming that Mark Zuckerberg has endorsed Trump.
What does all of this mean for India? It means that the same policy about politicians being able to lie on Facebook will be applicable to India. They will be able to put out ads and pay Facebook to promote these lies.
While the US still has a vibrant media calling out the likes of Trump, with the state of Indian media as it is, there'll be hardly anybody who'd call out the ruling party when they will adopt the same tactics. India doesn't have anything close to free press at the moment. 
However, the issue is not limited to Facebook and both Twitter and YouTube (Google) also stated that the ads that Trump put on their platform do not violate their content policies.
in.reuters.com/article/us-usa…
in.reuters.com/article/us-usa…
With all these big tech companies increasing turning a blind eye to blatant disinformation because it affects their profit margins, expect democracy to erode some more across the globe.
