Facebook’s plan to suspend political advertising for one week is pure tokenism
Facebook are suspending political advertising for one week
Marc Zuckerberg says he will block political ads a week before the US election. The reason? “An increased rick of civil unrest across the country,” says Zuckerberg.
Encouraged, it just be said, by hate mongering posts on… you guessed it, Facebook.
Facebook expect to earn $400m from ad revenue in 2020. Much of it from political ads. Meanwhile, the highest engaged posts on Facebook are all from far-right conservatives. During one recent 24 hour period, the top performing link posts were:
- Fox News
- Donald J Trump
- Ben Shapiro
- Dan Bongino
- Blue Lives Matter
- Fox News
- Ben Shapiro
- Sean Hannity
- Franklin Graham
- Dan Bongino
These right wing blowhards foster division to attract engagement which in turn leads to more advertising dollars for Facebook.
So it is hard not to conclude that a) Right wing extremism is not a Facebook bug, as Zuckerberg would have us believe, but what it does best and b) Zuckerberg’s plea to suspend ads for one week is designed to mollify criticism without harming Facebook’s bottom line in any significant way.
At the same time, Zuckerberg has donated $300m to promote safe and secure elections. This donation accounts for 0.3% of the $107b. Zuckerberg has made essentially using Facebook to undermine democracy.
The fact is, the right wing conspiracists and hate mongers are what Facebook is for.
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