Friday, March 06, 2020

Facebook pulls Trump campaign ads for fake census claims


I can see some reasons republicans want an under count of the census while a republican is president. It would make the GDP per person look bigger. It would make the percentage of people in the work force look bigger. It would decrease spending based on population, such as on education and health care grants to states, making the deficit smaller and making it look like they not cutting funding to these programs.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/facebook-pulls-trump-campaign-ads-for-fake-census-claims/

Kate Cox - 3/6/2020, 11:42 AM

Facebook infamously has a broadly laissez-faire policy for political candidates. If you're running for office, you can lie as much as you want in your paid and unpaid content—with one small catch. Anything that lies about voting or the census, such as sharing fake registration links or deliberately spreading incorrect polling dates, is prohibited. Even if it comes directly from the Trump campaign.

It just turns out that Facebook needs a lot of prodding—in the form of negative media attention—to follow through.

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Americans actually will be able to respond to the Census online this year, for the first time, but the correct links to do so will not be distributed by a Facebook ad. Instructions for how to complete your form will be distributed by postal mail, according to the Census Bureau, with mail going out in the coming weeks so households have it by the official Census date of April 1.

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