Misleading Ads on Facebook

It's okay, right?

Facebook allows misleading political advertising to be posted. 

Doesn't this make you in the least bit uneasy? 

"The language in Facebook's stated Advertising Policy has recently changed. While the guideline used to say that ads "must not contain deceptive, false, or misleading content," the rule now prohibits ads "that include claims debunked by third-party fact checkers" or, in some circumstances, by third-party organizations "with particular expertise" in the matter."


Facebook seems to be saying they will not allow false advertising if it was previously debunked. Does this mean new false and misleading material can be posted until it can be proved by fact checkers to be false? It seems so.


Take a look at these two stories. The first is from ars technica. Standards for paid advertising are different on Facebook. The second is from Politico. Elizabeth Warren's campaign deliberately posted false advertising to prove a point. “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,” she wrote. “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.”

By the time Facebook gets around to pulling a post, they've already left the barn door open. 

Political ads can lie if they want

Warren escalates war with Zuckerberg

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#socialmediaadvertising

Political Ads on Pandora

Based on musical tastes you might be asked to send your email information to a political candidate. That's what happened to Crystal Norris while listening to Garth Brooks on Pandora. She was outraged.

Seems like pretty nifty marketing. Eliot Van Buskirk has an interesting perspective on this in his Huffington Post posting.

Why Shouldn't Mitt Romney Advertise on Pandora?

There's nothing wrong with marketing on Pandora. Somebody has got to pay for this 'free' service.

I'm guessing Crystal Norris may have been outraged because the ad seemed to invade a personal moment. But then, it may be pretty hard to have anything that approaches a private moment on the web. Somebody is collecting all our clicks and comments in the name of marketing.