October 2017

Facebook is trying to make it easier to identify political ads in your News Feed. The company announced it will soon require advertisers — especially political candidates — to disclose more information about their advertising efforts on the platform as the company seeks to temper concerns from the US Congress about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Facebook’s new policies include labeling political ads so they’re easier to identify, and creating a catalogue of these and other ads so users can see how much advertisers are paying and who they are targeting. But many of the changes intended to create more transparency don’t appear to address the most problematic ads purchased in 2016 by Kremlin-backed, online trolls. These ads, referred to as "issue ads," sought to stir social and political unrest in the United States around issues like Black Lives Matter, not necessarily to promote candidates like Donald Trump. Still, the announcements come as Facebook prepares for what could be a brutal grilling before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The panels are investigating Russia’s suspected interference in the 2016 presidential election, and they’ll also hear from senior executives at Google and Twitter during back-to-back hearings on Nov. 1.

Facebook removed thousands of posts shared during the 2016 election by accounts linked to Russia after a Columbia University social-media researcher, Jonathan Albright, used the company's data-analytics tool to examine the reach of the Russian accounts. Albright, who discovered the content had reached a far broader audience than Facebook had initially acknowledged, said that the data had allowed him "to at least reconstruct some of the pieces of the puzzle" of Russia's election interference. "Not everything, but it allowed us to make sense of some of this thing," he said.

Facebook confirmed that the posts had been removed. But a spokesman said it was because the company had fixed a glitch in the analytics tool — called CrowdTangle — that Albright had used which provided "an unintended way to access information about deleted content." "Facebook is cooperating fully with federal investigations and are providing info to the relevant authorities," the spokesman said.

Not every long-standing Federal Communications Commission rule should be eliminated or modified just because of its age. But the broadcast ownership rules fail to reflect today’s digital media marketplace, and the FCC’s past failures to update its rules flew in the face of Congress’ directive that the Commission must every four years determine whether its rules remain “necessary in the public interest as the result of competition” and “repeal or modify” those that are not.

The action Oct 26 shows that the FCC finally not only recognizes the realities of the 21st century media marketplace, but also is willing to take the manufactured political heat that will undoubtedly accompany this update of the rules. While some opponents of any rule changes likely will pretend that the FCC’s action was undertaken for the benefit of one TV station company (which doesn’t even own any newspapers), reform of these restrictions are, in fact, essential for the broadcast industry to flourish.

The Federal Communications Commission’s newest commissioner, Brendan Carr, said that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed him to take the lead on the agency’s wireless infrastructure proceeding, including for small cells. And he boasted of progress: He said the agency will vote in Nov on rules aimed at eliminating the need for historic preservation review in cases where telecommunication providers swap out old equipment with new equipment.

“As a practical matter, this order could go a long way in speeding the regulatory review process as providers seek to update and densify their networks for 5G. The text of this proposed decision will be released publicly later today, so all stakeholders will have a chance to review it before we vote at the Commission,” Commissioner Carr said.