Video replay of the Binghamton mayoral debate between Mayor Richard David and candidate Tarik Abdelazim on Tuesday, September 26, 2017.
Binghamton Mayor Richard David’s campaign posted an altered Press & Sun-Bulletin headline to its Facebook page Tuesday night after the first mayoral debate, changing the headline from “Face Off in Mayor Race: Housing, Crime hot topics” to “Tarik Abdelazim backpedals on record in first mayoral debate.”
Facebook allows some users to change “link previews,” including the headline that shows up in people’s Facebook feeds, when they’re posting articles. The function is typically used by news organizations, which often post different headlines on different platforms for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes.
Asked who altered the headline and what process was in place for posting on Facebook, campaign spokesperson Jared Kraham said he was responsible for the campaign Facebook page.
“In an effort to share an objective report by the Press & Sun-Bulletin of last night’s debate, a Facebook ad was created with a link and some short text,” Kraham said in a statement. “Being a paid post, the format of that link was optimized for multiple social media platforms, including Instagram. The post has been removed as to not become a distraction.”
The statement did not address whether someone changed the headline on the Instagram post, or why the Facebook post did not appear as sponsored content.
The Press & Sun sent Kraham a text about clarification questions at 12:07 p.m.
The practice of changing link previews in political campaigns isn’t new. In the Virginia Governor’s race this year, a conservative nonprofit linked to Republican primary candidate Corey Stewart changed the link preview for a Washington Post article to misrepresent his primary opponent’s position on the removal of Confederate statutes.
The original link preview for the Post’s article read, “Protesters mob provocative Va. governor candidate as he defends Confederate statute.” The headline was changed to “Gillespie: I’m OK with Charlottesville Taking Down the General Lee Monument.”
In fact, Gillespie had said he didn’t support removing the statute and said local officials who did should be voted out of office.
In July 2017, Facebook said it would phase out the ability to alter link previews for all users except publishers who can show they own the linked page in question.
“As part of our continuing efforts to stop the spread of misinformation and false news on our platform, we’re removing the ability for any Page to edit how a link appears on Facebook,” Facebook said in a post. “By removing the ability to alter link metadata (i.e. headline, description, image)…we are eliminating a channel that has been abused to post false news.”
Facebook said that by Sep. 12, 2017, no user will be able to edit links from website domains they don’t own.
It’s unclear how David’s campaign page was able to edit the link preview under Facebook’s new policy.
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