Mark Faceberg went on FB Live to unveil his plan. Faceberg threw his company’s policies in reverse and agreed to give Congress more than 3,000 ads it sold to Kremlin-linked accounts during the 2016 Goat Rodeo. Thumbs-up!
Previously, Faceberg said that he couldn’t release the ads because: privacy. Thumbs-down!
FB might be making a change to its ad biz: “We’re going to make political advertising more transparent,” Faceberg said, by disclosing “which page paid for an ad.” (nice way to diffuse that a page=person) And allowing FB users to see which ads those buyers are showing to other groups of people. You know, who’s the rube being conned.
When announcing his flip-flop new position, Faceberg said: “I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy.” (“Except me,” he didn’t add, looking at 2020.)
OK, we know Faceberg is aware that people think that Facebook should be regulated like a public utility. He’s scrambling and here’s why, per Tiger Beat on the Potomac (meaning Politico, h/t Charlie Pierce):
“[Senators Mark Warner and Amy Klobucharare] are writing legislation that would require web platforms with more than one million users to publicly disclose the names of individuals and organizations that spend more than $10,000 on election-related advertisements. The sites would also have to provide a copy of the advertisement, and disclose details about the targeted audience, the number of people who view the ad, the time and date it was published, the amount of money charged and the buyer’s contract information.”
Antagonizing The Swamp by not giving it bribes, er, honorarium information it wants to investigate the Little Kremlin on the Potomac hacking would speed up the process of regulation, so Faceberg raised the white flag when he returned from a month of paternity leave.
Side issue: how many new dads get a month of paternity leave? I think new mothers have to return to work in something like 10 days.
Yes, there's War on Women, but it is also a Class War, as exemplified by a CEO bazillionaire. That detail of his paternity leave was in every news article I read about this development, usually with some sort of “what a mensch” aside. The worst was Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources email thingie "newsletter":
Why I have some sympathy for Zuck: “Technically speaking,” he’s “been on paternity leave” for the past month, as Bloomberg notes here… He’s officially back at work now…
Cry me a fckin’ river.
crossposted from Mock Paper Scissors
