In this year’s student government elections, the rampant use of attack ads on Facebook has become insufferable, and the Elections Board for the Undergraduate Students Association Council needs to find a solution and stop this trend for future elections.
It is likely that UCLA students perusing Facebook in the last week have taken notice of the myriad Facebook Flyers attacking both undergraduate student government slates.
The statements are petty and absurd, such as accusations that Bruins United is part of a Zionist conspiracy which allegedly orchestrated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that Students First! supports the restoration of large tracts of the western United States to Mexico.
But there is nothing to stop these people from espousing their views, because there is no regulation coordinated between E-Board and Facebook.
Therefore, the onus is on the Elections Board to begin developing a more proactive means of controlling and preventing these sorts of negative expressions from clouding voters’ perceptions of the issues.
The Elections Board should begin a discourse with the management at Facebook in order to start forming ideas on how to achieve this goal.
Throughout the years, the Elections Board has been the regulator during the campaign process, and it sanctions groups for any improprieties in student campaigning.
The Elections Board already approves paper fliers that candidates distribute on campus and regulates online content such as campaign Web sites and e-mails sent out to students, so the board should extend their efforts to this facet of Facebook.
On Facebook, there are already some ways in which elections-related materials are regulated by the board, particularly in the requirement that campaign-specific postings must include a disclaimer stating the prohibition on printing and redistributing campaign materials.
But the board has no ability to regulate the Flyers, which can be completely anonymous, and therefore never officially associated with any slate.
Sanctioning is difficult to justify unless the board decides to sanction everyone in the entire election, which is exactly what happened for one hour on Tuesday afternoon, taking valuable campaign time from students and candidates.
Furthermore, the Flyers are completely under the supervision of Facebook management.
At the moment, Facebook has criteria addressing Flyer content. According to the Web site, Facebook filters Flyers for explicit language, and also reserves the right to remove Flyers deemed “threatening, offensive, obscene or inappropriate for any other reason.”
The policy also states that complaints from users are taken seriously, and violations can compel Facebook to revoke the poster’s account privileges.
But the problem is that this policy is reactive and therefore allows posters to upload their content and have it be available to the general public as long as no one submits a complaint to Facebook.
This is not enough. Facebook and the board need to begin consideration of new ways to actively prevent negative and sometimes libelous content from appearing on the Web site.
Not only can this hurt a candidate’s campaign, but it also can seriously damage anyone’s reputation.