On Wednesday, Facebook, possibly struggling to get out from under the realisation that it is probably now the only thing standing between Joe Biden and the US presidency, launched a PR blitz about new measures it was taking to clean up its act on political advertising and related matters. To a sceptical observer, it looked rather like a diversionary tactic to distract media attention from a more embarrassing Facebook-related story of the week, namely the conviction of Maria Ressa, the Philippiness most prominent independent journalist, on trumped-up libel charges brought by the Facebook-exploiting Duterte regime, in whose side she has been a courageous thorn.
This cynical conjecture was boosted by the feeble content of the Facebook announcements. First of all, it is going to block ads from foreign state media during the US election in the run-up to the presidential election. Second, Facebook is going to mount a massive campaign to persuade people to go out and vote. And third, its going to give Facebook and Instagram users the option to turn off political adverts when they appear or to block them using app settings.
Ponder these for a moment. Banning foreign states from the election campaign: translated to a British context, its like Channel 4 News announcing that it will not run ads by Russia or China during a UK election. Whatever this is, it aint news. Then theres the dramatic announcement that a commercial company is going to encourage people to go out and vote. This sparks two thoughts: first, what distinguishes it from advocating motherhood and apple pie? The second is about power: we already know from an experiment during the midterm elections in the US that a Facebook get out the vote campaign had a tangible impact on voter turnout, in itself an interesting commentary on the power of a commercial company in a democracy. And finally theres the gracious concession to give users the option not to see political ads ie ones that have the paid for by political disclaimer on them that would otherwise be placed before them by the algorithms that curate their Facebook feeds. Wow!
To hear a liberal talk like this about a company whose ignorance enabled ethnic cleansing in Myanmar takes the biscuit
Next, let us consider some of the dogs that didnt bark, to borrow an idea from Sherlock Holmes. Ads from foreign states will be banned, but what about poisonous ads from a domestic political entity? Great play is made of Facebooks earnest desire to encourage people to vote, but one of the things we know from the 2016 election is that a critical power its targeted advertising system gives to political advertisers is the capacity to suppress turnout. The Trump campaign used the technology to target 13.5 million idealistic white liberals, young women and African Americans in 16 battleground states to try and dissuade them from voting for Hillary Clinton. And, finally, giving users the option to opt out of overtly political ads neatly places all the responsibility on them, conveniently enabling the platform to avoid it.
One general principle underpins all these fatuous concessions: none of them affects Facebooks advertising revenues in any significant way. Some users may not see political ads, but the campaigns still buy ads and Facebook still pockets the money.
For me, the most interesting thing about Wednesdays farrago was the prominent role assigned in it to Nick Clegg, formerly deputy prime minister of the UK and now a bagman for the Facebook supreme leader. Listening to him on the Today programme, one wondered how he could come to countenance giving Trump a clearer run at a second term.
One answer, suggested by Anne Applebaum in her study of the rationales offered by senior Republican politicians who have found ways of accommodating themselves to Trump, is the claim that they can do more good by being on the inside. Funnily enough, this was the rationale also used by Clegg when he went over to the dark side. Im joining Facebook, he declared, to build bridges between politics and tech. Its time that we harnessed big tech to the cause of progress and optimism. I believe that Facebook can lead the way.
To hear a former liberal talk like this about a company whose carelessness and ignorance enabled ethnic cleansing and genocide in Myanmar to take just one example from a long list of Facebook outrages really takes the biscuit. It would have been more credible if he had avoided the preposterous claptrap about building bridges and just cited the money and the stock options. As HL Mencken might have said: if youre going to sell your soul, make sure you get a good price. And Clegg did.
Foreign exchangeA sombre piece by Daron Acemoglu of MIT in Foreign Affairs. He argues that democracy heads towards collapse like people towards bankruptcy: first slowly, then overnight.
Fickle financiersThe menace of private equity. A terrific essay on openDemocracy on the most pernicious form of modern capitalism.
Alone againA lovely New Yorker piece by Peter Schjeldahl on Edward Hoppers studies of solitude in his painting.
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Nick Clegg is on the wrong side of history at Facebook - The Guardian
