Please ask the US government, why they have not used their own data and algorithms to inform us of “fake news” and provide $ for accurate speech, instead of criticizing a corporation for adhering to standard business practices and within your constitutional rights?
As a statist believing in the supremacy of the rule of law, Citizens United created legal precedent or a legal expectation of a corporate right that $s equal more speech and as such, any $ paid into the forum is considered beneficial. As Facebook is a forum and not directly speaking for or in any consideration for the campaign of any party, it is not a PAC. Also, Facebook, is not asking what is your purpose for the ad. It is merely providing a forum to discuss politics, cats, and plans with friends. So, any criticism of Facebook for failing to regulate its ads is like criticizing the newspapers for placing ads for coke and getting diabetes, causation triage statistically insignificant from the newspaper, while coke likely does. The paid ad is 3 or four links away from Facebook monitoring speech's intended effect of 3rd parties. Just think, thought police.
Naturally, many nationalists will claim that foreign corporations with ties to foreign bank accounts and eventually foreign governments are un-democractic (calling America a democracy is misinformation and has never existed at all in the US.) and anti-American. Courts need to determine the extent of corporation's rights, as discrimination on speech based on national origin is per se a violation of the equal protection. So, any legal entity or corporation, would likely obtain full protection (naturally the argument of corporations being merely denizens without equal rights is not completely established yet), unless the strict scrutiny of a clear and present danger of inciting violence or terrorist attacks, such as sending money to pay for an automized drone to kill individuals. This would be a clear violation, as the grounds are because of the foreign national corporation paying for the speech. Any suit would need to be against that individual, not Facebook, which is a jurisdictional question of course.
The government must have a compelling state interest that is narrowly tailored to the least restrictive means. Sure, the government can claim that election manipulation is within its national security interests. Yet, the least restrictive means would require the government to use its own money to voice its concerns and not restrict speech. Also, the government agencies can merely track the payments, organizations, and individuals with its extensive intelligence apparatus and arrest spies or freeze their bank accounts without prohibiting speech because of its content's specific communication. As the government monitors all money transactions over 10k and nearly all online communications, it can narrowly tailor this tracking to counter “fake news” with the real news. Unfortunately, the US government has little trust within its own population, so this is hardly possible. So, tell the US government to improve its own “fake news” campaigns to gain trust; and no, we don't restrict speech's content.
Instead of limiting speech, the government must accept responsibility for a free market of speech, as the Justice Scalia stated was part of a free society. While the US has “influenced” elections in Russia, Latin America, and countless other countries as a policy, the world will now do to the US. This is a natural state of the information age, not something to be fear. The real question the US faces, is what does it feel happens when you realize that an undereducated, semi-literate mass lacks free will to make its own decisions and trusts the oracle or a trusted source of power, information, and generally a community leader.
In the 1950s, we trusted the government as our protector from the evils of communism, fascism, and disorder. We trusted that the government would provide jobs, retirement, and work even when companies would not during the great depression. This lasted until the government, largely manipulated us to send our sons to war in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan with repeated “fake news” propagated by our misinformation bureaus to support corporations with cheap guards to protect their investments globally, not our freedom or the soldier's families. As with the UK, the empire was successful for some time making our corporations some of the largest and most influential capitalists, rivaling the old state monopolies like the East Indies company.
The current trust level of the US government is not at an all time low. Meanwhile, the system does not execute traitors, like the CIA and NSA directors for misinforming the public on permanent and total collection of all data of US citizens, as China does. So, citizens largely view the US government as a rent seeking mafia or regime, not a republic for the people or by the people. Who do you blame for this trust or misinformation, a foreign power or your own attempt to control data like your did in the 20th century with state controlled data and capital controls?
Humanists believe that humans have the ability to decide what is best for them by processing their desires based on analysis of their needs, desires, and past events and decisions taken. While I question this entire assumption and most modern economists would, the premise is playing out in politics now. Scalia had trust that Americans had the capacity to process data and information to make the best decision for them, the nation, and their communities. As such, we face Trumpism and the repeated US legislation written by corporations and or the highest bidder. The republican election process is an option, not the final state of human society, as Fukuyama used to preach. Will we continue to support a government that hides the truth from us and blames our dataists for the governance's trust/legitimacy problem, as it tries to gather all our data to exploit our labor, ingenuity, and capital? I doubt that our humanists will find this a freedom of choice, so long as there is no absolute transparency between the government and its citizens, absent current (within a month) military operations. Until we have complete freedom to know what is our best interest and that our choices are free and not manipulated by misinformation by those in the intelligence communities, we will not be able to have free will or a humanist ideal of freedom or liberty. While I think this is an ideal, I doubt that humans can currently process the data to make informed decisions with our current education deficit and states won't join the 21st century voluntarily. So, an illiquid democratic model would require experts and or AI to determine their decision for them, instead of the current illogical manipulative leaders.
As our government cannot currently protect our data (equifax), monitor our data (NSA fails to “protect” us due to data overload etc.), or actually manage the current data for the greater good (pro human freedom), we will face continued mis governance and distrust. While Facebook lacks legitimate governance rights of the US, I would suspect that efficiencies and trust would lead citizens to favor Facebook's leadership due to its sole purpose of making money and providing speech at any price and individually. As such, we likely will face a “Snow Crash” future of corporate states monitoring their own economies and employees as citizens, while the state may print passports and retains intelligence communities to give the masses a belief of security and belonging to those orders without any efficient dataist AI leader.
What will Facebook do with us the humans within its dataist ambitions? Will we the humans go the way of the cat clicks, Homo animalis, or will there be a push towards egalitarian dataism within governance by corporations for a free society with more homo AI that improves lives, not just misinformation to manipulate the masses to create a worse human society and world?
I feel humans will become either, homo animalis, like animists, nationalists, religious, humanists are now or Homo Deus dataists amortal AI cyborgs processing data to make freer decisions within a logical parameter mixed human synapsis using less of our old reptilian or mammalian brain and more our AI data processor. Hopefully, these Ubermenschen will solve our disparity dilemma and not merely resurrect only belief in subhumans and superhumans distopias, which are so vividly and accurately described in Daniel Suarez's many distopian novels.
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