Conspiracy ads explaining Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is seeking to remove Joe Biden; others accusing the Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia of hating America … At least a hundred deceptive or false Facebook ads, supporting Republican candidates in Georgia, have been counted in recent weeks by the non-governmental organization Avaaz, specialist online disinformation, which forwarded its information to Washington post.
However, political ads had been largely disabled by Facebook on all of its services at the time of the US presidential election on November 3, in an attempt to limit the dissemination of false information. These new advertisements were authorized again from mid-December.
In practice, these political advertisements published since mainly concern the decisive battle of the State of Georgia, where two seats still in play will decide the majority in the Senate during the by-election to be held this January 5. In this traditionally republican state, the polls give candidates neck and neck, sometimes with a single point difference.
Ineffective moderation
The moderation of the advertisements disseminated on Facebook in this decisive election leaves much to be desired, notes the specialized site Popular information, which found that the same false advertisement has been validated three times by the social network. Internal Facebook exchanges consulted by the site reveal that “Tiny changes” already censored ads suffice to bypass Facebook’s auto-detection tools.
Several million dollars have been spent by candidates and their supporters in Georgia on targeted advertising since mid-December, according to transparency tools from Facebook and Google. In a press release sent to Washington post, Facebook does not dispute that people may have posted deceptive ads on its network, but points out that these same ads have “Also aired on television, radio, and mailed to voters; the difference is that Facebook’s tools are transparent, and make these ads [mensongères] more easily detectable ”.
