Warren Attacks Facebook, Claims They're Supporting Trump
For failing to muzzle President Donald Trump in the fashion it was expected to, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is giving the social media giant a stern talking-to, using an ad with false claims to prove her point.
At issue is a political ad taken out by the Trump campaign.
The Trump campaign ad accuses Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden of corruption, an allegation that remains as of yet unproven.
As such, the Biden campaign clamored for the ad to be taken down.
Facebook refused.
In response, the Warren campaign has tweeted the text of a fake Facebook ad, which was approved.
We intentionally made a Facebook ad with false claims and submitted it to Facebook’s ad platform to see if it’d be approved. It got approved quickly and the ad is now running on Facebook. Take a look: pic.twitter.com/7NQyThWHgO
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 12, 2019
“Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election,” the mock Warren ad states. “You’re probably shocked, and you might be thinking, ‘how could this possibly be true?’ … “Well, it’s not. (Sorry.)”
“But what Zuckerberg *has* done is given Donald Trump free rein to lie on his platform — and then to pay Facebook gobs of money to push out their lies to American voters,” the ad said.
“If Trump tries to lie in a TV ad, most networks will refuse to air it. But Facebook just cashes Trump’s checks,” the ad continued.
“Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once. Now, they’re deliberately allowing a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people. It’s time to hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable.”
Warren also tweeted her condemnation of Facebook.
“Facebook holds incredible power to affect elections and our national debate. They’ve decided to let political figures lie to you—even about Facebook itself—while their executives and their investors get even richer off the ads containing these lies,” she tweeted.
Facebook holds incredible power to affect elections and our national debate. They’ve decided to let political figures lie to you—even about Facebook itself—while their executives and their investors get even richer off the ads containing these lies.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 12, 2019
Some on Twitter downplayed Warren’s claims.
If the “false claim” is retracted in the very next sentence, does Warren really think Facebook should have flagged/banned the ad for the part that was a parody?
Seems to me their screening system worked.
This post is not nearly as clever and Warren and her campaign think it is.
— Kedron Bardwell (@KedronBardwell) October 12, 2019
Elizabeth Warren chastises Facebook for running fake advertisements https://t.co/KG7k5p4O2E
Warren hey Warren listen up
You lost to TRUMP for 2020.
But thanks for wasting your supporters $$$— Dan (@Dan61530257) October 12, 2019
A Facebook spokesperson said the company “believes political speech should be protected.”
“If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should not be in the position of censoring that speech,” the spokesperson told The Hill.
Lee Goodman, a Republican who formerly chaired the Federal Election Commission, said Facebook is right to let the political process separate truth from fiction when it comes to allegations.
“Facebook, like all publishers, has to have reasonable editorial standards,” Goodman told CNBC.
“What we’re seeing here is an exercise of their editorial freedom to feature candidate ads without fact-checking and allow the political process to be the arbiter of truth and falsity in political advertising by the candidates themselves.”
Goodman said Facebook will be “condemned” no matter what it does, even though it “doesn’t want to be the arbiter and doesn’t want to take sides in these political debates.”
“Their stated policy, I think, is fair,” Goodman said.
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