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Facebook removed more than 100 ads paid for and posted by The Trump Organization after Facebook mistakenly classified them as political in nature and requiring payment disclosures. Advertisements for the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC,  the Trump National Doral golf course in Miami, and the Trump Turnberry Resort in Scotland were among the 117 ads removed from Facebook. Those ads have returned to Facebook after the network was notified by Scotland's national newspaper The Scotsman that some Trump property posts had been labeled as political.

Facebook has agreed to share more information about political advertising on its platform.

Department of Justice antitrust chief Makan Delrahim says that the DOJ will be holding a two-day workshop on the impact of online advertising on the local broadcast TV market, and whether it should adjust its merger reviews given the argument that the edge is now competing for the local car dealer ads and should be considered part of the relevant competitive market. Justice has been considering the issue in relation to a couple of recent merger reviews, Delrahim pointed out, specifically the aborted Sinclair-Tribune merger, and the follow-up Nexstar-Tribune merger.

Fifteen years ago, I realized you could find almost anything on the internet—music, books, information—except the thing that matters most: people. So I built a service people could use to connect and learn about each other. I’ve heard many questions about our business model, so I want to explain the principles of how we operate. I believe everyone should have a voice and be able to connect. If we’re committed to serving everyone, then we need a service that is affordable to everyone.

Open Markets Institute calls on Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to immediately investigate how to protect America’s independent news media from the power and predatory business models of Google and Facebook.

How well do Americans understand algorithm-driven classification systems, and how much do they think their lives line up with what gets reported about them?

Facebook said it is investigating whether an organization backed by Internet billionaire and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman violated the social media giant’s policies when it set up several misleading news pages in a bid to target US voters with left-leaning political messages. The probe focuses on News for Democracy, whose Facebook ads and affiliated pages about sports, religion, the American flag and other topics were viewed millions of times during the 2018 midterm elections, according to an analysis of the company ad archive conducted by New York University.

AT&T has updated three smartphones from Samsung and LG to make them show 5G connectivity logos, even though none of them are capable of connecting to 5G networks. Now, when the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, LG V30, or LG V40 are connected to portions of AT&T’s LTE network that have received some speed-boosting updates, they’ll show an icon that says “5G E” instead of “LTE.” That “E” in the “5G” logo is supposed to tip you off that this isn’t real 5G — just some marketing nonsense. But there’s no way of knowing that just from looking at the logo.

Facebook will stop displaying political campaign ads in Washington State in order to comply with campaign finance laws, and will pay more than $238,500 to settle a lawsuit alleging violations of those rules. Google was also alleged to have violated state laws by failing to maintain records of election ads on its platform, and ceased its political ads this summer, after Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit against the companies. The lawsuits will end without an admission of guilt from either Facebook or Google.

The Trump campaign funneled money to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA by routing funds through a secretive LLC that appears to be little more than a shell company. While the Trump campaign stopped reporting payments to ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA after the 2016 election cycle, Trump’s 2020 campaign has continued to deploy the same individuals working for the firms at the center of the contro