Facebook just redoubled its attacks on transparency, terminating the accounts of the NYU researchers behind #AdObserver, an independent project that monitors paid disinformation on the platform.
If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
This is inexcusable, but that doesn't stop Facebook from trying to excuse it. That defense has two prongs. The first is a false claim that Ad Observer compromises Facebook user privacy.
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The Big Tech platforms can be horrible places. Harassers, abusers and griefers have figured out how to use them to meet one another, form vicious assault squads, and drive their targets off the service and make life miserable for those who stay.
What's more, the platforms have so little competition - and are so siloed from one another - that leaving a platform comes with a heavy price, separating those who depart from their families, communities and customers.
With such high stakes and so many terrible actors, it's natural that the platforms all have account suspension and account termination policies so they can kick the worst offenders off their services.
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Inside: Meet the new generation of pro-abortion activists; Anti-vaxers cool the mark; Drone delivery crashes; Facebook escalates war on accountability; and more!
Facebook just escalated its war on NYU's #AdObserver project, a project that monitors and discloses Facebook's failure to live up to its promise to block paid disinformation.
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Here's how that works. Facebook users volunteer to download and install Ad Observer, a browser plugin. This plugin scrapes the ads Facebook shows that user. They are cleaned of any personally identifying information and uploaded to the #AdObservatory.
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The Observatory is an archive that accountability journalists and researchers can mine to see whether FB is keeping its promises to label political ads and block paid disinformation. It's proof that FB does NOT live up to these promises.