Yesterday, Facebook deleted, and then restored, Elizabeth Warren’s ads criticizing the platform. Was this caused by a mistake made by Facebook's automated system, or did a Facebook employee make the decision to pull the ads? Then ... was restoring the ad a reaction to being called out by an article on Politico, or was it a response to an inquiry by the people who placed the ads?

Details matter and I'm not going to pick sides or invent facts. What interests me is the debate.

On one hand, people are pressuring all social media platforms to censor hate speech, bullying, and even coded messages in comments. On the other hand, there is no tolerance for the "test, fail, learn" methodology followed by all tech companies.

It doesn't matter if Facebook had a lapse in judgement, if its policy algorithms need to be adjusted, or simply made a mistake. (Full disclosure, Facebook is a client of ours.) What matters is that we (all of us) need to have a civil, Socratic discussion about acceptable standards and practices for 21st-century social media platforms. Clearly, the old rules are not adequate. As always, your thoughts and comments are both welcome and strongly encouraged.
 

Facebook deletes, then restores, Elizabeth Warren’s ads criticizing the platform, drawing her rebuke

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks about her policy ideas at the South by Southwest conference March 9.
(Sergio Flores/Reuters)

By Isaac Stanley-Becker and Tony Romm
March 12 at 1:28 AM

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat vying for the presidency, didn’t have to search far and wide for ammunition in her salvo against Facebook and other technology giants.

Her own campaign, she said Monday, had become a case study in the need to curtail Facebook’s power, after the company temporarily removed her ads flaying the social networking service as anti-competitive. She used the flap to warn that it was dangerous for cyberspace to be “dominated by a single censor.”

Facebook confirmed that it had briefly removed three ads sponsored by Warren’s presidential campaign that “violated our policies against use of our corporate logo.” The material was nevertheless soon restored following a report in Politico.

"In the interest of allowing robust debate, we are restoring the ads,” the company said in a statement to The Washington Post. Facebook declined to say how Warren’s political ads had been targeted — whether it was human reviewers or the company’s artificial intelligence tools. The service’s advertising policies ban the use of “f” or the Facebook logo in place of the word “Facebook.”

The three ads in question featured an “f” in a text bubble, as well as symbols referring to Amazon and Google. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos also owns The Washington Post.)

“Three companies have vast power over our economy and our democracy,” read the ads, which were placed Friday. “Facebook, Amazon, and Google. We all use them. But in their rise to power, they’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field in their favor.”

Continue Reading on The Washington Post.