Tuesday, January 08, 2019

Facebook is investigating the political pages and ads of another group backed by Reid Hoffman | Washington Post

I'm not condoning this activity, but where's the outrage over Brad Parscale's brazen use of voter suppression propaganda during the 2016 campaign?
"Some of News for Democracy’s pages inserted Democratic messages into the feeds of right-leaning voters, according to a review of Facebook’s ad archive. News for Democracy ran ads touting Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) on “The Holy Tribune,” a Facebook page targeted to evangelicals, the archive shows. Another page called “Sounds Like Tennessee” focused on local sports and news but also ran at least one ad attacking since-elected Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

“People start to trust the content emanating from the page, because it appeals to their interests, and once there is a certain degree of trust, you can start to pivot by slowly adding in kernels of disinformation or overly politicized information that lacks context,” said Benjamin T. Decker, research fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, who called such tactics an “intentional act of deception” that mimicked strategies of Russian operatives around the 2016 presidential election."
Facebook is investigating the political pages and ads of another group backed by Reid Hoffman | Washington Post

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