Facebook said that it would not moderate political advertisements posted to the site. Over the past several years, Facebook has come under fire repeatedly for its handling of fake news and privacy. Previously, Facebook suffered a severe data breach, and the site continues to allow anti-vaxxer advertisements despite the rules against them.
King’s public departure from Facebook follows Star Wars star and famous actor, Mark Hamill’s boycotting of the website. Earlier in January, Mark Hamill publicly criticized Facebook in a post that read, “I’ve decided to delete my Facebook account. I know this is a big ‘Who Cares’ for the world at large, but I’ll sleep better at night. #PatriotismOverProfits,” and linked a New York Times article reporting on Facebook's refusal to keep political ads from lying.
The recent addition of Facebook’s new privacy options is overshadowed by Facebook’s reluctance to police itself. The social media platform’s business is full of half-steps that look nice on paper, but don’t change the core issues critics have with the website. In January of 2020, Facebook took action against deepfakes and doctored footage of individuals, but only against the most egregious of them. The addition of allowing users to opt-out of Facebook’s off-site tracking doesn’t do much to assuage the fears of those wary of Facebook’s privacy policy. The site famously came under fire for sharing its users' data to outside groups.
The spread of fake news across social media platforms was a hot button issue leading up to, and out of the 2016 election cycle. Facebook’s competitors have taken hardline stances against the paid proliferation of political advertisements. It’s hard to see Facebook’s handling of the issue as anything but prioritization of the bottom lines. Facebook’s hiring third-party fact-checkers to help curtail the spread of fake news on both itself and Instagram doesn’t sound as important when it refuses to act against the most common sources of it. Advertisers being allowed to target sections of the user base with political ads ensures that inaccurate information gets to the people who are most likely to believe it.
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