Thread by @markscott82

ICYMI — @Facebook banned all Spanish political parties from using @WhatsApp to share political messages ahead of national election on Sunday.

That’s a big deal: 36% of Spaniards use WhatsApp to read news, so blocking political parties is, in itself, a political act

Spain (and, to a degree) Italy are on the cutting edge in terms of European countries relying on @whatsapp to share political content. India, Brazil & other emerging economies are way ahead, and FB has taken steps to limit the amount of sharing that can be done on the platform

But encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp are future of info-sharing as ppl move away from public online spheres to more local/private ones (hence why Zuckerberg is prioritizing privacy-focused services)

In Spain, the banning of political parties hasn’t stopped misinformation from spreading. Fact-checkers are still getting hundreds of WhatsApp messages a day sent to them as part of adhoc effort to debunk such content

But amid the focus on if FB should, or should not, ban political ads — the company says it won’t because it doesn’t want to get involved in limiting political speech — remember this: whatever steps FB takes now are inherently political, no matter what execs say

And FB isn’t going to “win” with any steps it takes, as either political groups/freedom of expression campaigners or those who would prefer limits to online political/false speech aren’t going to be satisfied with any possible solution

FWIW, FB’s Nick Clegg told POLITICO that the company is mulling possible limits to political micro targeting, and I understand (from other source) that an announcement could come within weeks

But my point is this: yes, political ads/microtargeting is an important issue. But it’s a small part of a bigger problem.

So-called inauthentic organic content shared maliciously by who knows what, widespread use of encrypted messaging services like in Spain and quasi-online/offline yearlong campaigns to change the online debate are where it’s at right now.

Yes, that doesn’t make for an easy explanation of what’s going on (trust me, when I explain this to my editors, I often get legitimate blank stares). But it’s the reality of so-called ‘disinformation 2.0’ — tactics have changed, the problem has become more endemic...

… and policy/corporate solutions are merely working at the edges (looking at you, @Twitter with your political ad ban).

I struggle to see any successful approach right now in terms of combatting multi-headed monster of mis/disinformation & sophisticated online political tactics

So don’t be fooled by either politicians or companies (ahem, @Facebook) that tell you there’s a quick technical or legislative ‘fix’ for this.

As someone put it to me recently: “Mark, if we knew how to do this, we would have done it already."

@facebook Rant over. Thoughts appreciated.

Oh, final point: am told that FB invited all Spanish political parties to a meeting in Oct. The parties thought it was about helping them use the platform to reach voters. Instead, FB execs told them they were now banned from @whatsapp. #awks

Thanks for all of the responses, much appreciated. Just want to clarify a few points (after some justifiable confusion of my original tweet): what we’re@taking about here is the mass/bulk sending of political messages in Spain to voters

That (as we’ve seen elsewhere on @WhatsApp is prohibited, and in Spain, there’s been a long standing use of the platform by political groups to send automated/en masse WhatsApp messages — that practice is now barred (WA would say it always was, but I digress)

This isn’t a ban on one politician sending a WhatsApp message to a singular donor/small group of voters. It’s the mass use of the platform as a loudspeaker for politicized messages that, like in India & Brazil, has become a go-to mechanism for communicating with voters

I would say that is a politica decision taken by FB in terms of limiting (rightly or wrongly) “political speech” by legitimate political actors — something that Zuck said he wouldn’t do in terms of paid-for ads on the FB platform

WhatsApp would likely say it’s them following their existing rules about not allowing bulk messages to be sent on a platform that was not designed for that purpose

I leave it to you to decide. My original point remains this: all decisions that FB now takes must be viewed through political prism.