A screenshot of the beginning of the article published on TeenVogue.com and later deleted. Photo / Supplied
A screenshot of the beginning of the article published on TeenVogue.com and later deleted. Photo / Supplied
On Wednesday, Teen Vogue published an article on Facebook's efforts to safeguard political speech. It had no byline and a glowing tone.
Not long after it was posted, a line appeared, in italics, at the top of the story to signal that it was a paid advertisement: "Editor's note: Thisis sponsored editorial content."
Soon after, the "sponsored editorial content" label disappeared. And then, the article itself vanished.
Under the headline "How Facebook Is Helping Ensure the Integrity of the 2020 Election," the lengthy Teen Vogue post included question-and-answer-style interviews with five female Facebook managers who said the platform was taking steps to avoid spreading misinformation and propaganda as another presidential election drew near. The article also included a portrait of the women.
"We're a different company than we were in 2016," Katie Harbath, Facebook's director of global elections, was quoted as saying. "Including when it comes to elections."
Condé Nast, which owns Teen Vogue, said in a statement, "We made a series of errors labelling this piece, and we apologise for any confusion this may have caused. We don't take our audience's trust for granted, and ultimately decided that the piece should be taken down entirely to avoid further confusion."
A screenshot of the beginning of the article published on TeenVogue.com and later deleted. Photo / Supplied
A Condé Nast employee with knowledge of the arrangement, who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly, said the article had indeed been commissioned as sponsored content, meaning it was an ad.
Facebook pitched the idea for the article last year, when the social media network and the online magazine were in talks about the Teen Vogue Summit, a three-day event that took place in Los Angeles in November, with speakers including YouTube star Liza Koshy and film director Greta Gerwig. Facebook was a sponsor of the gathering.
"We had a paid partnership with Teen Vogue related to their women's summit, which included sponsored content," Facebook said in a statement. "Our team understood this story was purely editorial, but there was a misunderstanding."
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, and other executives at the company shared the Teen Vogue story Wednesday morning, before it went into the digital ether.
"Great Teen Vogue piece about five incredible women protecting elections on Facebook," Sandberg wrote on her Facebook page. The post went on to plug the company's attempts to "stop the spread of misinformation" and "fight foreign interference and voter suppression."
Phillip Picardi, Teen Vogue's former chief content officer, was one of the article's critics. "I am so sorry to the @TeenVogue team for whatever irresponsible sales or marketing staff pushed this article into their feed, therefore discrediting all the GOOD work they've been doing to educate their audience about the REAL threats posed by @Facebook in our election," he wrote on Twitter.
As the debate about the article made Teen Vogue a trending topic on Twitter, another online critic linked to the article and posed the question, "What is this Teen Vogue?" To that, the verified Teen Vogue account replied in a tweet that was later deleted: "literally idk."
Facebook has struggled to shore up its reputation after a three-year string of debacles related to its handling of election interference and data privacy. Lawmakers and civil rights groups have warned that the company seems unprepared to counter the disinformation campaigns that clogged social media during the last presidential campaign.
This week, a 2,500-word internal post by a Facebook executive, Andrew Bosworth, set off discord at the company. In his post, which was obtained by The New York Times, he warned against the temptation to skew the platform against President Donald Trump's 2020 reelection campaign and stood by the company's stance on not censoring politicians' posts.
Teen Vogue started in 2003 as a pet project of Anna Wintour, the longtime editor-in-chief of Vogue and Condé Nast's artistic director. In 2017, as the magazine gained attention for adding articles on politics and social issues to its mix, Condé Nast shut down the print edition.
On Wednesday, the Teen Vogue home page included serious fare like "No to War With Iran" alongside lifestyle articles headlined "How to Tell Your Crush You Like Them" and "The Best Under $100 Bags to Shop From Coach's Major Winter Sale."
For now, anyone clicking on the link to Teen Vogue's Facebook article is met with this message: "Uh-Oh. Unfortunately this page does not exist."
