Politics has always been a dirty business. On both sides of the political aisle, morality has been blurred to gain the upper hand. Defamation, slander and attack politics have been around since the inception of government. However, social media has taken these dirty tactics to a new level.
Facebook, the leader of all social media (2.32 billion monthly users as of December 31, 2018), has crossed the line of morality from time to time. Recently, it has been criticized for allowing third parties to politically sway its users during election time. Politicians hire outside parties to infiltrate Facebook and other social media platforms while they release negative political ads and share "fake news" against each other.
In 2016 Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, was hired by President Trump's election campaign and gained access to private information on more than 50 million Facebook users. The information gathered gained specific personality traits from the users to help influence their behavior. By extracting this information, the Trump campaign was able to (cheaply) buy ad space and gaining an advantage by using specific words and tools to gain users' trust. Facebook, though claiming they never knew about the specifics of the content being extracted, was negligent during this ordeal.
Now, Facebook now is implementing political ad safeguards to try and stop these attack ads from spreading during every election cycle. This step by Facebook shows that the company, at the very least, is aware of their malfeasance and are doing everything they can to gain their users' trust once again. However, Facebook is no longer just a social media tool. It's become one of the most profitable companies in the world. In the cut-throat world of business, morality will continue to be blurred, and expect Facebook to continue to listen not to its users, but to the highest bidder.