What complete garbage. 2nd graph is what matters here. “The company also said it would not end so-called microtargeting for political ads, which lets campaigns home in on a sliver of Facebook’s users — a tactic that critics say is ideal for spreading divisive or misleading info.”
Had a sense this was coming after @MikeIsaac also had the “leaked memo” from Bosworth shaping the debate for this decision. Facebook is given three different statements in here to make this about free speech rather than microtargeting. 
Then @MikeIsaac himself makes Facebook’s argument. “For now, Facebook appears willing to risk disinformation in support of unfettered speech.” ignoring that keeping microtargeting serves disinformation instead of democratic sunlight. Why not put in @EllenLWeintraub opinion here?
“It is easy to single out susceptible groups and direct political misinformation to them with little accountability, because the public at large never sees the ad“ @EllenLWeintraub washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
If anyone believes sunlight is best disinfectant for disinfo ads from politicians then microtargeting by its very definition is the antithesis of sunlight. This is completely ignored as Facebook makes this entire @MikeIsaac report a partisan debate about speech and censorship.
This from @MikeIsaac is key where he wrongly defines the argument again ignoring @EllenLWeintraub “squeezed between liberal critics who want it to do a better job of policing its various social media platforms and conservatives who say their views are being unfairly muzzled.”
Microtargeting is key for those who traffic on disinformation and deceptive messaging. It kills our shared understanding of the politician’s messaging and the public debate around it. Yes it’s also critical to Trump campaign and why they threatened Facebook not to ban it.
Google did right thing by banning microtargeting. Twitter banned election ads altogether to avoid it. Facebook is by far making the wrong, selfish decision in deference to those who want to please certain political forces -and- fear of creep into its core surveillance biz model.
Facebook has positioned itself against healthy democracy once again. Do not let them make this about censorship, free speech or a difficult polarizing decision between two parties. It’s about microtargeting particularly of disinfo. That should be a bipartisan concern in 2020.
Adding in this @washingtonpost piece which I find to be much better context. the @GaryCoby quote as it is nonsensical (banning microtargeting is bad for free speech????) and made it blatantly obvious why Facebook is making this decision. Spineless. washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
Recode/Vox had it, too. Good @pkafka flag suspending microtargeting of pol ads isn’t entirely partisan. Yes, it can be useful even healthy. The problem is it needs to be paused (as bipartisan and UK regulator agreed after investigations) until it can be vox.com/recode/2020/1/…
This is also useful context from those who sat through hours of expert hearings. Listen, I’ve never argued political ads should be fact-checked. I’ve only argued when they’re not and combined with microtargeting then they avoid public scrutiny so toxic. irishtimes.com/news/politics/…
This context should be in all press reporting. If you’re not going to listen to @EllenLWeintraub, chair of the freaking Federal Election Commission, on the issue being microtargeting then listen to Facebook’s own employees relayed here by @davidcicilline
