On Friday, July 12, Meta came with an unexpected announcement about the ongoing presidential race in the U.S. The company lifted all the remaining restrictions on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram profiles which were reinstated two years after the infamous January 6th. The move is presented as an attempt to level the playing field before the nominations of the Republican and Democratic Party are made official.
“In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis,” Meta said, adding that it wants to ensure that people can hear from all political candidates.
I understand this approach; however, what disturbed me on this announcement was the presentation of political figures as everyday people: “All US Presidential candidates remain subject to the same Community Standards as all Facebook and Instagram users.” Why? Because as a journalist who spent years covering Meta’s misinformation policies, I can tell you, that this is such a blatant lie that it is borderline offensive.
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In reality, Meta has representatives specifically appointed to work with the governments, and politicians – or the staff managing their agenda including social media communication – can easily get in touch with “real people” when they need to resolve any issues.
Poor John Doe will most likely never come in touch with a living soul within Meta’s support channels, as long as he is not a paid customer of the Meta Verified program.
But benefits for politicians go far beyond what is happening behind the curtain. It’s about what you can and cannot publish, too. If I’m to oversimplify this – politicians can lie. And this applies not only to Trump and whoever will be his Democratic opponent, but to all politicians (current or former) and elected officials. There are virtually no limits.
Sure, you can’t incite violence, drive hatred, and stuff like that, but apart from it, the political battleground is a wild place full of baseless accusations and lies with little to no consequences imposed by Meta.
Calling out the liars
To be more specific – you have by now surely come across fact-checked content on Facebook or Instagram. A blurred status or picture with a warning that the following content is misleading or false, accompanied by a link redirecting you to a so-called debunk article.
Meta started its fact-checking program in 2016. Every day, the broad network of independent external partners verifies viral claims in an effort to limit the spread of misinformation in the current post-factual era of social media.
How many times have you seen these warnings on the content of politicians, though? Hardly ever, I suppose, because here is the catch: fact-checkers are essentially banned from verifying content published by politicians. (Note: the only exception is when they share somebody else"s content.)
Meta defends this approach with claims about freedom of expression, and respect for the democratic process. It says that political speech is already highly scrutinized by the media and other stakeholders, like the political opposition:
“Just as critically, by limiting political speech we would leave people less informed about what their elected officials are saying and leave politicians less accountable for their words.”
False argument
This is where things start to lack logic. Usually, the fact-checked content gets artificially lowered reach – a penalty of some sort. But Meta doesn’t like the idea of limiting the reach of a specific candidate (although rightfully), thus it came up with a solution – exclude political speech from its fact-checking program.
However, Meta completely ignores anything between absolute freedom of speech and deleting content. But first, let’s go back to scrutiny and accountability.
Why is fact-checking of political speech important at all? First of all, it allows people to make informed decisions. In an era of social media and information overhaul, you can’t expect people to absorb all the information – for example, reading a statement of their favorite politician, and then finding out through media that he was misleading or straight-up lying.
Displaying a warning over the piece of content, and linking to the article that provides facts opposing the presented statements, provides an important opportunity for the reader to get the full picture of the story, And to reconsider whether the politician in question deserves his trust, if he or she is often proven to be a liar.
Nobody is deleting the content, nobody is persuading you to read the debunk, and nobody is forcing you to believe the debunk. It simply provides you with valuable additional information that you might or might not take into account.
Furthermore, the argument of lowered reach is invalid. There is nothing that stops Meta from adjusting their fact-checking policies to fit their philosophy, and yet assist people in making informed decisions. For example, Meta could fact-check political speech; however, with the exception of not limiting the reach of such content.
It’s not rocket science. The playing field would remain equal for everyone. Everyone could hear all relevant voices. And everyone would have the necessary information. Then it is only up to people – not up to Big Tech – to make their own decisions best to their abilities and beliefs.
Political speech is arguably the most important debate because it ultimately affects all aspects of our lives through the crucial decisions made by elected officials. We should do everything possible to keep this conversation factual – on all sides of it. If somebody doesn’t want to, they better have a good argument for that.
Meta doesn’t have one…