Another Facebook Exec Speaks Out Against Liberal Talking Points

Another Facebook executive has stepped forward to debunk a liberal talking point – this time directly taking issue with a theory pushed by Hillary Clinton.

Brad Parscale, who served as the digital media director for President Trump’s 2016 campaign and was recently announced as his 2020 campaign manager, tweeted recently about how much the campaign paid for Facebook ads. Parscale stated that some of President Trump’s CPM (Cost Per Impression) only cost pennies in some cases which is why President Trump was a great candidate to run on the Facebook platform.

I bet we were 100x to 200x her. We had CPMs that were pennies in some cases. This is why @realDonaldTrump was a perfect candidate for FaceBook.

— Brad Parscale (@parscale) February 24, 2018

TechCrunch contributor Kim-Mai Cutler then quoted Parscale’s tweet, pushing the theory that Facebook had charged the Clinton campaign much more for advertising than they charged the Trump campaign. Cutler didn’t outline Facebook’s motivation for doing this but seemed to believe that the Silicon Valley tech company would purposefully overcharge a Democrat candidate.

I can’t believe this tweet isn’t going viral. Do people not really care that Facebook may have systematically charged the Clinton campaign an order of magnitude or two more than it was charging Trump to reach American voters? (Which is not allowed in other mediums by law.) https://t.co/S2OgxfgcGq

— Kim-Mai Cutler (@kimmaicutler) February 25, 2018

Hillary Clinton herself then quoted Cutler’s tweet, stating that social media platforms “play a part in our democratic process,” and that the issue of advertising price must be addressed. “We owe it to our democracy to get this right, and fast,” stated Clinton.

We should all care about how social media platforms play a part in our democratic process. Because unless it’s addressed it will happen again. The midterms are in 8 months. We owe it to our democracy to get this right, and fast. https://t.co/aM3pRrZW4J

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 27, 2018

It was at that point that Facebook decided to get involved. Andrew Bosworth, a longtime member of the Facebook team who co-invented some of Facebook’s main features such as News Feed, Messenger, Groups, and was previously working as the VP of Ads, took to Twitter to correct both Clinton and Cutler. Bosworth — or Boz as he is popularly known — posted a chart comparing the CPM price of Clinton and Trump’s advertisements. What it showed is that on average, Trump paid more per CPM than Clinton.

https://twitter.com/boztank/status/968577962223136768

Boz then outlined the elements that define the price of Facebook’s CPM.

https://twitter.com/boztank/status/968578054153953281

Boz then said that the company wished to reach out to campaigns and share their data with them. He also stated that much of this information would be made available to the public soon.

https://twitter.com/boztank/status/968578174270373889

This is the second time in recent months that a Facebook executive has taken issue with liberal talking points. Earlier last month Rob Goldman, Facebook’s vice president of advertising, was forced to backtrack on comments he made relating to Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russian operatives for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election via social media. The Facebook VP stated that the goal of Russian ads on the social media platform was to sow discord not to elect President Trump.

Most of the coverage of Russian meddling involves their attempt to effect the outcome of the 2016 US election. I have seen all of the Russian ads and I can say very definitively that swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal.

— Rob Goldman (@robjective) February 17, 2018

A short while later, Goldman issued an official apology and stated that he did not have access to the information that Mueller’s Special Counsel did and that he should not have commented.

I wanted to apologize for having tweeted my own view about Russian interference without having it reviewed by anyone internally. The tweets were my own personal view and not Facebook’s. I conveyed my view poorly. The Special Counsel has far more information about what happened [than] I do—so seeming to contradict his statements was a serious mistake on my part.

To those of you who have reached out this weekend to offer your support, thank you. It means more than you know. And to all of you who have worked so hard over the last six months to demonstrate that we understand our responsibility to prevent abuse on Facebook — and are working hard to do better in the future — my deepest apologies.

Whether or not a similar backtrack will be seen from Boz is unknown.