The statement of ownership In the Now was forced to run to be allowed back on Facebook.
There’s a famous polling experiment that asked people in the Cold War–era US:
Do you think the United States should let Communist newspaper reporters from other countries come in here and send back to their papers the news as they see it?
When this question was posed on its own, only 36 percent of respondents said yes. But a separate sample was first asked:
Do you think a Communist country like Russia should let American newspaper reporters come in and send back to America the news as they see it?
When the questions were asked together—reminding people that restrictions on press freedom could be placed on their own country’s journalists, as well as on those of an official enemy—support for allowing access to Communist reporters doubled to 73 percent. (Ninety percent said that US reporters should be allowed to report freely from Russia—suggesting that only a relatively narrow slice of the population openly subscribed to the principle of free speech for me but not for thee.)
I thought of this experiment when Rania Khalek (who’s written for FAIR) told me that the viral video company she works for, In the Now, was taken off Facebook because of its indirect connection to the Russian government. (A majority stake in In the Now’s parent company, Maffick Media, is owned by a subsidiary of RT—a Moscow-based media group that, although organized as a private entity, is funded by the Russian government.)
CNN (2/28/19) reported on Maffick‘s Russian backing, noting “Maffick‘s videos are generally critical of US foreign policy and the mainstream American media.”
Facebook suspended the page of In the Now, along with three other pages run by Maffick—the current affairs channel Soapbox, the environment-oriented Waste-Ed and the history-focused BackThen—after the social media giant was asked about the RT-connected pages by CNN. CNN (2/18/19), in turn, reported it was tipped off to the In the Now/RT connection by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a group based at US government–funded German Marshall Fund.
In the Now is back on Facebook again—after a ten-day suspension—and returned with this rather user-unfriendly description:
In the Now is a brand of Maffick which is owned and operated by Anissa Naouai and Ruptly GmbH, a subsidiary of RT.
That’s not particularly helpful if you want to know what In the Now does, of course, but disclosure is good, right? For the goose but not the gander, apparently: Among the US-funded institutions with Facebook pages are, well, the German Marshall Fund. Its description just reads, “Strengthening Transatlantic Cooperation.” Will that page be taken down until the Fund acknowledges where its money comes from?
How about the PBS NewsHour, also funded by the US government? No mention of that on Facebook: Just, “On air and online, the PBS NewsHour provides in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to you.”
NPR’s Facebook page seems to go out of its way to conceal the fact that it’s US government–supported, calling itself “a privately supported, not-for-profit membership organization.” Maybe the P stands for “Private”?
Full-fledged propaganda services are not required by Facebook to reveal their government connections—if it’s a Facebook-approved government.
Even straightforward propaganda outlets of the US government don’t have to identify themselves as such on Facebook. Take Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, set up at the height of the Cold War to broadcast the US government’s version of reality behind the Iron Curtain—and still going strong almost 70 years later. Its “About” on Facebook reads:
Uncensored news. Responsible and open debate. Specialized coverage of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Caucasus, Iran, Balkans, South Asia, Eastern Europe.
For those who go the extra mile and click on “See More” under “Who We Are,” you do get this misleading semi-acknowledgement:
RFE/RL is registered with the IRS as a private, nonprofit Sec. 501(c)3 corporation, and is funded by a grant from the US Congress through the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) as a private grantee. RFE/RL‘s editorial independence is protected by US law.
Yes, RFE/RL is organized as a private entity—just like RT is. But just as the head of RT is also the head of the Russian state international news agency, the head of RFE/RL is appointed by the head of the USAGM—a government official picked by the president. That’s a funny kind of “independence.”
The Facebook page of Voice of America, the US government’s main broadcast outlet, is even squirrellier. There doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement at all that VoA is connected to the US government—just the slogan, “The news may be good or bad. We shall tell you the truth”; the claim that it has “the world’s most interesting stories”; and information on how you can “have the best of VoA News delivered directly to your inbox each day.”
If you’re thinking that Facebook—90 percent of whose customers are not in the United States—should treat Russian-backed outlets differently than US-backed outlets because the US supports peace and democracy, or doesn’t use social media to try to manipulate other nations…. Well, this is why it’s important to get your information from a variety of sources.
But it’s not just US outlets that get to conceal their government funding on Facebook. The BBC doesn’t mention that it’s controlled and funded by the British government—only that its “mission is to enrich your life. To inform, educate and entertain.”
At Al Jazeera English’s Facebook page, you learn, “We are the voice of the voiceless”—not that they are owned by the monarchy of Qatar.
Facebook needs to have one rule for whether government-funded outlets need to disclose their connections. And it needs to apply that rule consistently.
Featured image: Maffick’s Anissa Naouai and Rania Khalek respond to Facebook censorship (Soapbox, 2/27/19)
And is following In the Now a data bit Facebook might feel patriotically obliged to share with our “freedom defending” gummint?
Russia is no longer communist. Duh.
It was from a “Cold War era” poll.
Great story. Just what I expect from FAIR.
I don’t use facebook. After reading all of the horror stories—why would people continue using it? If Orwell hadn’t created the concept of the Memory Hole—- and BIG BROTHER, Zuckerberg would have—- because he’s doing Orwell now .
I would direct readers to https://www.polygraph.info/. This site does not first-level acknowledge that it is, in fact,
a “project” of Voice of America. You have to go to the About link for that. It’s a perfect example of U.S. government
deception — but of course, it’s all OK because it’s in the service of countering Russian disinformation.
Another, more pernicious problem, is their “Community Standards” which are exceedingly vague and over-broad and rife with abuse. Facebook routinely bans people for criticising Israel, claiming that it is “hate speech”. I know; that’s why I am currently banned. They also ban anyone who says that facebook should be regulated by governments.
It’s not just FB that is minded by the Federal Government (mostly via the C I A), pretty much all of MSM has that dubious distinction, as do many “independent” publications that report or analyze political events, many of which get federal funding one way or another. Name one news organization that supports Venezuela’s or Palestine’s right to self-determination, I challenge you. There aren’t very many that have substantial readership. “Acceptable opinion” has many limits, most of which federal agencies do their best to circumscribe. Don’t be taken in by the “liberal media.”
… it feels a bit like sloppy reporting. The standards and control mechanisms set for PBS/NPR and the BBC (btw licence–fee funded by British citizens and not government controlled) are different from standards set for RT. To lump this together with government funded media organisations like VOA or a think tank funded by government and other soutces like GMF compares apples and oranges. This article shows the need for a more differentiated approach in transparency and the relationship of funding, ownership and content. What are the goals of each of these organisations and do they leave room for actual freedom of the press and journalistic ethics and standards? Is the goal to deliver information from all sides to allow for open democratic discourse or is the goal to undermine that discourse? How can we find out the difference? I don’t think to speculate about FB’s motivations is a helpful strategy, for the reader or the social network. It needs better answers than just lump it all into one by demanding that type of disclosure from all – that is not helping to educate about the importance of what a free press in a democracy is about.
PBS, NPR, and the BBC have shown themselves time and again to be biased in terms of using a preponderance of pro-war pundits and defense correspondents that act like military spokespeople. They should disclose their government funding sources (and executive appointments) the same as any other news outlet, on Facebook and anywhere.
This article like others about Facebook’s and Twitter’s hypocrisy remind me of the “Plebis Fugium” — when the Roman Senate refused to publish the laws and the citizens fled the city-state . In our modern day, Facebook, Twitter et al, ban whomever they please — there is no objective standard regarding this civil contract between Social Media Platform and User. And the government refuses to enforce one.
Modern democracy is about Secret Laws.
good article and good on FAIR for standing up for Rania Khalek and In the Now, completely agree with the arguments here and I for one would love independent media not beholden to corporations, governments of any kind or insincere ‘liberal’ wealthy donors like George Soros or Patrick Lannon or Pierre Omyidiar in the end until such a model can be done and people try their best, its just disgusting the Neo-McCartythism and gross double/triple standards any RT or Russian related media is subjected to.