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This Week's Updates:
TTP Report Exposes Continued Political Advertising Failures at Meta
With U.S. elections just seven weeks away, Meta is still allowing users to buy and sell accounts approved to run political advertisements, according to a new report by CfA’s Tech Transparency Project (TTP). Meta’s own community standards prohibit users from buying and selling platform assets, which include accounts. This policy is particularly important for political advertisements, which can be used to spread disinformation, hate speech, or calls to violence. Instead of enforcing these rules, though, Meta has turned a blind eye to large Facebook groups that are used to sell accounts, a problem that TTP has documented since November of 2022.
In this latest report, researchers identified multiple Facebook users claiming to sell accounts that could run political ads in the United States. One public Facebook group, called “cloning Ids,” had over 21,000 members and was filled with posts seeking to sell Facebook accounts and stolen identity documents. TTP noticed similar account-selling activity during India’s election, which may have contributed to a flood of “shadow” advertisements that could not be traced back to a candidate or party. One study, published by the non-profit Ekō in collaboration with Indian civil society groups, estimated that over a fifth of political ads on Meta’s platforms had been placed by these shadow advertisers in the months leading up to the election.
CfA Research Highlighted in New York Times Op-Ed
On Wednesday, New York Times political columnist Thomas Edsall wrote an op-ed on Leonard Leo’s complicated network of non-profits and private businesses, which have allowed him to finance attacks on reproductive rights and remake the federal judiciary. Edsall points out that Leo currently controls more money than both parties have in their Congressional and Senatorial committees combined – fueled primarily by a $1.6 billion donation made in 2022 by conservative businessman Barre Seid.
Edsall’s op-ed goes on to cite a 2023 complaint filed by CfA, urging the IRS to investigate whether multiple tax-exempt organizations linked to Leo had improperly diverted funds to his private businesses. These non-profits included the Federalist Society, the Concord Fund, and the Marble Freedom trust, among others. Leo’s personal spending patterns began to shift after the payments began; he has since paid off a mortgage, purchased two multi-million-dollar vacation homes, and pledged $1 million to Vatican initiatives.
Sen. Ossoff Pushes Tech Executives on Deepfake Polices
This week, the Senate Intelligence committee held a hearing to discuss foreign threats to elections, including the proliferation of deepfake photos and videos on social media. While companies like Meta and Google have announced efforts to build “AI detection tools,” tech trade associations are pushing back on AI disclaimers and arguing that new deepfake regulations are unnecessary. During the hearing, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) questioned Meta Head of Global Affairs Nick Clegg about his company’s approach to deepfakes of political candidates; Clegg answered that the media would be “labeled” and that its circulation would be demoted by Meta’s algorithms. Google Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker added that his team would notify the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force if inauthentic media began to circulate on one of Google’s platforms – presumably YouTube.
While these procedures might seem adequate, technology companies have no obligation to follow or enforce them. There are also fewer independent organizations working to monitor political disinformation campaigns, as Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) noted in his opening testimony. This is due, in part, to a flood of attacks on academic researchers who have been targeted by lawsuits and Republican-led congressional investigations.
