Report: Facebook Let China Buy Ads to Spread Disinfo on Uyghur Concentration Camps

Facebook allegedly allowed the communist government of China to purchase paid ads casting doubt on reports of abuses committed against the country’s Uyghur minority, according to a report from the British media trade publication Press Gazette. 

Via Press Gazette:

China’s treatment of Uyghur people in the western province of Xinjiang has been widely condemned in the West, with the US government figures and others accusing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of “genocide”.

US social media giant Facebook has not only allowed state-run outlets like China Daily and CGTN to publish posts that dismiss these concerns as Western “disinformation” – it has accepted advertising payments to help promote this content to millions of people.

…

In one case, by paying Facebook less than $400, China Daily was able to target more than one million users with a video that rubbishes independent press reports from Xinjiang.

…

Another China Daily sponsored post promoted a video claiming that a report on Uyghur camps in Xinjiang was “completely false” and “straight from the manual of Western media tricks”.

At the urging of Democrats, pressure groups, and the mainstream media, Facebook has made the fight against “misinformation” and “foreign interference” a core goal over the past four years.

Yet the targets of its policies have reflected the priorities of progressives. Enforcement of its policies on foreign interference has been focused on Russia, and even liberal academic studies admit that American conservatives are disproportionately affected by policies targeting “misinformation.”

In January, Facebook became one of the first Silicon Valley tech giants to say it would indefinitely blacklist Donald Trump. Just a few weeks later, China’s propaganda arm was allowed to run more ads on the platform, according to Press Gazette.