Al Jazeera’s non-exposé on Facebook + Google’s billing shift

Why read this story?

Editor's note: Last week, Al Jazeera published a four-part series, investigated and written by The Reporters’ Collective, an Indian non-profit media organization, and ad.watch, which researches political ads. The broader theme of the series was to assess the influence of Facebook on Indian elections by investigating hundreds of thousands of political advertisements on Facebook and Instagram.  We have read and re-read the series and talked to people in and around the tech ecosystem. And the consensus is that while the year-long investigation touches upon a number of important points, several of the conclusions drawn belie an understanding of how Facebook advertising and sponsored posts work.  The investigation does uncover a news site called NEWJ, which is funded by Reliance Industries-owned Jio Platforms; NEWJ appears to mix in pro-Bharatiya Janata Party news along with what looks like deliberate misinformation. That there is a web of such organizations or companies that act as a front for political propaganda is known, but the details are important and investigations such as the one by The Reporters’ Collective for Al Jazeera are needed.  The nexus of direct …