VICE reporters, pretending to be all 100 of our Senators, approached Faceberg about buying political ads. You’ll never guess what happened next!
Facebook approved every single request.
“We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them”: “[O]n the eve of the 2018 midterm elections, a VICE News investigation found the ‘Paid for by’ feature is easily manipulated and appears to allow anyone to lie about who is paying for a political ad, or to pose as someone paying for the ad.To test it, VICE News applied to buy fake ads on behalf of all 100 sitting U.S. senators, including ads ‘Paid for by’ by Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer.
“Facebook’s approvals were bipartisan: All 100 sailed through the system, indicating that just about anyone can buy an ad identified as ‘Paid for by’ by a major U.S. politician. What’s more, all of these approvals were granted to be shared from pages for fake political groups such as ‘Cookies for Political Transparency’ and ‘Ninja Turtles PAC.’”
So, as usual, internet power user Mark Faceberg, is willing to sell democracy to anyone, without checking to see anything more than if the check will clear the bank.
crossposted from Mock Paper Scissors
