ProPublica

Four Ways to Fix Facebook

For years, Congress and federal regulators have allowed the world’s largest social network to police itself — with disastrous results. Here are four promising reforms under discussion in Washington: 

  1. Impose Fines for Data Breaches
  2. Police Political Advertising
  3. Make Tech Companies Liable for Objectionable Content
  4. Install Ethics Review Boards

I Approved This Facebook Message — But You Don’t Know That

Hundreds of federal political ads — including those from major players such as the Democratic National Committee and the Donald Trump 2020 campaign — are running on Facebook without adequate disclaimer language, likely violating Federal Election Commission rules. An FEC opinion in December clarified that the requirement for political ads to say who paid for and approved them, which has long applied to print and broadcast outlets, extends to ads on Facebook.

Facebook’s Experiment in Ad Transparency Is Like Playing Hide And Seek

Facebook has said it plans to avoid a repeat of the Russia fiasco by improving transparency. An approach it’s rolling out in Canada now, and plans to expand to other countries this summer, enables Facebook users outside an advertiser’s targeted audience to see ads. The hope is that enhanced scrutiny will keep advertisers honest and make it easier to detect foreign interference in politics. So we used a remote connection, called a virtual private network, to log into Facebook from Canada and see how this experiment is working.

Governors and Federal Agencies Are Blocking Nearly 1,300 Accounts on Facebook and Twitter

In August, ProPublica filed public-records requests with every governor and 22 federal agencies, asking for lists of everyone blocked on their official Facebook and Twitter accounts. The responses we’ve received so far show that governors and agencies across the country are blocking at least 1,298 accounts. More than half of those — 652 accounts — are blocked by Gov Matt Bevin (R-KY). Four other Republican governors and four Democrats, as well as five federal agencies, block hundreds of others, according to their responses to our requests.