Facebook’s new “content transparency report” is full of intriguing tidbits but sheds little light on problems the social-media giant is causing for society and the news industry.
The release and Facebook’s pledge for more transparency reporting came just after the company was criticized for halting an academic research project providing insights into political advertising on Facebook.
It also coincides with the Federal Trade Commission refiling an antitrust lawsuit against the company, to clarify why the government believes the social-media giant is a monopoly.
Simultaneously, Congress is working on a bill that should get Facebook and Google to start fairly compensating publishers for news content that appears on their sites and adds value to the platforms.
This reflects the multipronged response needed to sustain America’s local free press system.
Immediate support is needed to stop widespread job losses and newspaper closures, especially in rural areas. One such lifeline is the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would let publishers collectively bargain with platforms. The goal is to get dominant platforms to finally pay for news content that’s earned them billions as publishers struggle to survive.
Another prong is regulatory reform and enforcement, to start leveling the playing field in digital advertising. That would help a range of industries but it’s a longer-term endeavor that may take years. By then much of America’s local news system may be extinct.
Meanwhile more transparency about Facebook is necessary. But the latest report — with a few top 20 lists — isn’t much progress.
One surprising nugget: The top link posted during the first quarter was to a regional newspaper story, about a doctor who died two weeks after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. Some characterized this as evidence of misinformation about the virus.
Not to defend Facebook, but maybe the problem is that millions of people saw a headline or snippet, apparently didn’t read the story and jumped to a wrong conclusion.
If people read the whole story, they’d know the cause of death was uncertain and vaccine risks are low. If they were regular readers of the newspapers, they’d get later updates and know the doctor had a clotting disorder and his death was determined to be from natural causes.
Facebook is stepping up its whack-a-mole response to harmful information, including its recent decision to ban a Russian operation seeding fake information to cast doubt on U.S. vaccines.
I’d argue that the only real remedy is increasing reporting and readership of legitimate, trusted local news. If Congress spent as much time working on solutions to save local news as it has on “fixing” Facebook, the problem may be solved.
Facebook and Google should also be watched closely in coming months, as the JCPA advances. It has bipartisan support and a stronger version is expected soon.
When similar legislation was proposed in Australia earlier this year and Facebook and Google were facing the prospect of having to pay for news content they’d been using for free, they went nuclear, blocking access and threatening to leave the country.
That makes me wonder if Facebook’s “transparency report” is partly a preemptive response.
The report states that even the largest publishers only account for a tiny share of content viewed on Facebook, with the top 20 accounting for .057 percent of all views. It does not discuss the influence or credibility that different types of content bring to the platform.
Spin or not, this positions the company to start low if it’s forced to negotiate payments for news in the U.S., as it’s now doing in Australia. Stay tuned — it looks like an interesting fall.
Brier Dudley is editor of The Seattle Times Save the Free Press Initiative.
