The Sunlight Foundation’s published an article titled, “Self-regulation isn’t enough for online political ads: Congress should pass the Honest Ads Act;” its title pretty much says it all. Social media platforms like twitter are standing for this act. What is it you may ask? The Honest Ads Act is targeted towards false political ads. The bill states that its purpose is “to enhance transparency and accountability for online political advertisements by requiring those who purchase and publish such ads to disclose information about the advertisement to the public, and for other purposes.” But, is this bill really going to help the people on social media?
If this bill gets passed, it’s just the beginning to extreme government intervention. That’s why, on this blog, we make it our mission to educate others on social media literacy. When it comes to passing this bill, it’s not going to educate people on how to communicate appropriately, responsibly, and to evaluate conversations critically within these social media platforms like twitter. Instead, it just protects them from being “victims” of fake news, but only in regards to these political ads, nothing else. It’s important that people test the ideas and information they see online and know how to do so, efficiently and effectively. It’s important that people do more research to be able to form an educated opinion instead of believing the first post they see. Social media literacy covers the big picture when it comes to fake news. This Act only reflects on political ads. That’s why this act shouldn’t be passed; it doesn’t look at the bigger picture.
Self-regulation is simply enough.The information found on these platforms are affiliated with the websites/apps. This means the platforms will want to be deemed credible and reliable sources for informative news ads. If the Honest Ads Act is passed in favor of politicians, who knows what they could try to enforce next? The bill is very broad and can be used to the advantage of the politicians when it states, “...and other purposes.” This allows too much wiggle room in regards to online news ads. This is why the Honest Ads Act should NOT be passed.
They may think self-regulation isn’t enough, but when you also enforce social media literacy, it can make a dramatic difference. It’s really up to the people to believe what they want, but we want to make sure it’s based on research and educated opinions. This is why it’s important to inform and educate people on self-regulation and social media literacy, because then we wouldn’t need things like the Honest Ads Act, which again, doesn’t address the bigger picture here.
Sources:
https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/the-honest-ads-act?page=1
https://sunlightfoundation.com/2018/04/10/self-regulation-isnt-enough-for-online-political-ads-congress-should-pass-the-honest-ads-act/
