Wie beeinflussen Dark Posts die politische Kommunikation auf Facebook?

Abstract

The following essay deals with the question of how so-called dark posts have shaped political communication on social media platforms such as Facebook and what interventions have been made by Facebook to mark and draw attention to these kinds of posts. Furthermore, it is examined why dark posts pose a threat to political discourse and what effects this form of political communication can have. At the beginning of this article, a modern method of psychological manipulation in the form of ‘nudging’ is pre­sented, which can induce recipients under the radar of factual presentation to take cer­tain actions or classify them. In combination with microtargeting, which allows for the precise targeting of individual recipients, advertisers have a powerful tool at their dis­posal for influencing voters. This ethically sometimes questionable method is taken to the extreme by the ‘Dark Posts’ that are possible on Facebook because they make it possible to hide the precisely tailored address from other users. We will take a closer look at what steps Facebook has already taken to ensure more transparency and tra­ceability. The mandatory disclaimer, which is only available to the advertiser with prior identification, and the labelling as advertised content make it easy to see when a con­tribution is financed political advertising. Facebook takes a middle course when it comes to sanctions for manipulative postings. Although content is only rarely deleted, it is pro­vided with contextual information and its reach is severely limited. Overall, it has been proven that Facebook takes numerous measures to combat manipulative political adver­tising.