Facebook threatens to take away news posts in Illinois. Really? Hasn't it messed with our democracy enough?

Meta’s got me mad with its BS response to the proposed Illinois Journalism Preservation Act: If enacted, “We will be forced to make the same business decision that we made in Canada to end the availability of news in Illinois.”

This would be a grave disservice to our Illinois community — not that Meta cares.

As the senior director of audience engagement for the Chicago Sun-Times, I’m used to the whims of mega-platforms disrupting how we reach our community with the news they need.

As many outlets have seen, including this one, traffic to news articles from platforms like Facebook, owned by Meta, has slowed to a trickle. We have more than 412,000 followers, who are surely following us because they want local news. Yet, March 19 is the Illinois primary, and our election-related posts have reached a fraction of our followers, compared with past years.

This throttling of news is an intentional move by Facebook. One example: The platform said last month it would remove a dedicated tab for news for users in the U.S. and Australia, after previously promising to do the same in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Making it harder for people to access news is bad for democracy, and now Facebook is threatening to make it especially hard for people in Illinois to get news and information.

I do this job, a career that did not exist before Facebook, because I’ve seen the good that can come from building a community online and providing people with reliable information they want and need. And, unfortunately, many of us have seen the bad: sharing of blatant misinformation.

I became aware of Russian propaganda shared on Facebook in 2015, oddly enough, when my mom was suddenly interested in organic food.

I was surprised, having spent years trying to convince my parents to care about where our food comes from. Then, out of nowhere, my mom started talking about Monsanto, saying some things that were true and some that were a bit puzzling.

I didn’t connect the dots until I heard a story on NPR about Russia wanting to export more organic produce. Their tactics included using targeted ads on Facebook to spread a pro-organic message that looked like news articles.

You might think well, that’s not too bad; organic food is good for you — until you realize that my mom saw those posts because she was also more likely to click and share dubious claims on issues she cared about including abortion, religious freedom and free speech. Based on her clicks, she was targeted by the algorithm, which then spoon-feed her more posts from websites masquerading as news organizations.

Fast-forward to 2016, when the same tactic that convinced my mom she needed to buy more organic produce, was used to sell voters a president.

To be fair to my mom, Russia targeted conservative and liberal leaning Facebook users with divisive ads during the 2016 election in an effort to sow distrust in our electoral process. And while I can’t prove that my mom was targeted by Russian organic food ads on Facebook, I know enough about how Facebook advertising worked in 2015 to understand exactly how it could be done. The Cambridge Analytica reports on misuse of Facebook user data by consultants to Donald Trump’s campaign, and Russian election interference probes, also point to the harm done by the algorithm in an effort for Facebook to make a buck.

Meta has since changed some of their advertising practices and introduced advertising standards in an effort to curb paid-for disinformation. Yet, I’m still struck by the irony of their mission statement, “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” While my mom and I may disagree at times, she’s always supported me. That’s the type of world I want to live in, where a difference of opinion doesn’t result in excommunication, belittling ideologies, or public shaming. This can only be done if we listen to real people talk about their real issues and beliefs outside of our own echo chambers. We also need a shared set of facts to create a baseline for productive conversations to happen, this is where reliable local news is especially important.

Why is Meta threatening to “end the availability of news in Illinois?”

The Journalism Preservation Act would require Meta to give news organizations like the Sun-Times a cut of advertising revenue. This isn’t unprecedented. When platforms like Apple News share our stories, we get a small portion of revenue from the ads.

But Meta’s response is clear: The company was happy to take money from Russian entities to sow distrust in our democracy but isn’t willing to support local news to counteract the propaganda and misinformation they helped amplify.

Cool, cool, cool — cue Jennifer Lawrence gif.

You can still find us on Facebook, Instagram (also owned by Meta) and X (formerly Twitter, owned by Elon Musk.)

Why? We are on the platforms for the people. Sometimes, being a voice of reason in a space that is unreasonable is the only half-good option.

Until there is a better option — and there will be; I’ve been doing this long enough to know the only constant in digital is change — we’ll be here doing what we do best: serving the needs of our community with the tools and resources available to us. Local news is scrappy, independent and feisty when poked.

So just try us, Meta.

If you’d like to stick it to Facebook and support the Sun-Times you can always drop us a donation at suntimes.com/donate.

And if this post was shared with you on Facebook, go ahead and reshare. The more who know how the platform really functions, the better. It will take a lot of people sharing the truth to combat the algorithms trying to silence us.

Final notes:

I recommend reading the full bill. There is great context in there about the state of local news, its importance to our democracy and the legacy of Black journalists holding power to account. Very interesting stuff!

If you’re interested in learning more, The Facebook Dilemma and Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover are great PBS Frontline documentaries to better understand how these platforms operate.

Angela Massino is senior director of audience engagement at the Chicago Sun-Times. This column is part of our occasional “Meet the Sun-Times’” series introducing readers to editors and other staff.