Wherein Facebook Messes Up Elections By Trying Not To Mess Up Elections
from the early-bird-gets-the-political-ad-buy dept
A few months ago I suggested that calling Facebook a bull in a china shop might not be fair to bulls. I fear the suggestion remains apt, as Facebook throws its considerable weight around in ways that, while potentially well-meaning, leaves all sorts of chaos in its wake. The latest evidence of this tendency relates to its recent announcement of policies designed to limit who can place political ads on Facebook.
The problem is, that's what it's done: limit who can place ads on Facebook. But according to the Verge, all it's done is limit the ability for SOME people to post political ads. As in, only SOME of the candidates in any particular race.
The Verge article notes that the Mississippi primary is set for June 5. But in one particular race for Congress, only the incumbent's authentication paperwork is in order, so only he is able to buy ads. As the day of the election draws near, his challenger finds himself locked out of being able to advertise through the medium.
E. Brian Rose is a Republican candidate for Congress in Mississippi, and is a primary challenger to the incumbent Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS). Up until yesterday, Rose said, Facebook had been a critical part of his campaign strategy. He amassed more than 6,000 followers on his official page, using Facebook ads to target voters in hundreds of narrowly defined demographic targets.
Yesterday, Rose’s campaign planned to buy 500 different Facebook ads. The first batch were approved shortly before the new rules took effect. But when Rose went to buy the remainder, he received a message from Facebook saying his ads had not been authorized. Rose filled out the required online forms attesting to his identity. At the end, Facebook said it would send Rose an authorization code in the mail. He was told it would arrive in 12 to 15 days — by which point the election would be over.
It's a fair read of the story that the challenger screwed up: if the incumbent was able to register, then so should have the challenger. But even so, it still looks like Facebook handled the rule change poorly, both in its timing (mid-race in the critical days leading up to an election), and with too drastic a change too dependent on its successful promotion that left too much to chance despite the serious stakes.
Facebook began allowing political advertisers to start the verification process on April 23rd. The company promoted the new process with a blog post and messages inside Facebook directed at administrators of political pages. In May, it also sent emails to page administrators advising them of the changes.
The challenger says he didn't get the notices about the change. It's a contention that seems plausible: even assuming there were no issues with the messages actually being sent out, or ending up caught in a spam filter, they would have arrived in campaign inboxes in the midst of what surely were busy days full of priorities more important than keeping up with Facebook notifications. Even assuming that authentication is the key to addressing political ad-buy abuse, an effective authentication solution should not have risked locking out live candidates in pending elections. The implementation of any solution should produce greater benefit than cost, which does not seem to be the case here. Because while it may be commendable that Facebook is trying to reduce the manipulation by outsiders on America's political campaigns, it accomplishes little if in the process of trying to reduce one candidate's unfair advantage, it ends up creating another. It appears Facebook should have done more to anticipate what might go wrong with its new system before switching over to it, but the lesson here is not just for Facebook but for those fond of pressuring Facebook to do something, anything, to change its existing policies because it turns out that sometimes doing just anything may be worse than doing nothing.
Filed Under: ads, brian rose, elections, mississippi, social media, steven palazzo
Companies: facebook
