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Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

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Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#71

Post by matthewmacleod »

stale2002 wrote: post #54
matthewmacleod wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a wonderful idea, but unfortunately the UK now has both major political parties firmly and irrevocably commited to enforcing the referendum result (whatever that is).

Ok, so I guess that means that all of the democratically elected parties are currently in favor of brexit. That's democracy for you. If you don't like it then people should vote for someone else. The fact that these major parties are committed to enforcing brexit IS the democracy.

Mmmm, I think that’s unfortunately both technically correct and not that helpful.

Both major parties in the UK are commited to a policy that has around 50% support from the electorate. Because there are long-term issues that make the massive sudden support for an alternative party unlikely, this means that roughly half of the population is left without an effective democratic method of expressing opposition to that policy.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#72

Post by timthorn »

DanBC wrote: post #26
defertoreptar wrote: post #5

I'm trying to understand the article's premise. Is all political advertising immoral? Is it something about the way the ads were distributed that make them immoral? Is it just immoral because the politics itself was "wrong"?

People have received criminal convictions because of the way the campaigns were run. ICO, the UK data protection regulator, has fined groups of both sides for data protection violations. We have strict laws about the ways elections are run for a reason, and yes, lying about funding is immoral, and is incompatible with Nolan Principles for Public Office.

Careful - the Electoral Commission has made its judgement but as of now the files are with the police/CPS. At this point I don't believe there have been any criminal convictions?

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#73

Post by maym86 »

dominotw wrote: post #64
maym86 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If laws protect people. more laws = better? What is the downside of passing any law? No this is a question about a specific law. Making it a general point about all laws is disingenuous. Why do anything ever?

Did you read the second sentence starting with "In this case.."

You edited and added it after I had responded to your original post which didn't have the second sentence.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#74

Post by contrast »

rayiner wrote: post #62
RubenSandwich wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, quite a few of these are very xenophobic. Very much playing off of an anti Middle East sentiment. I'd specifically like to highlight these ads in this document: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu... . 2924.jpg 2966.jpg 2968.jpg

What is "xenophobic" about those three images? Turkey is currently undergoing a very public internal war between western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism. Why would a western country want to enter into democratic union with such a country at this stage? Not every judgment regarding other countries is "xenophobic." Imagine if Alabama or Mississippi were trying to join the U.S. today. Would it be "xenophobic" of C…

Because they are lies. Turkey is quite obviously not about to join the EU, so the advert is a lie intended to win the votes of people whose xenophobia leads them to strongly fear it is true.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#75

Post by contrast »

oh_sigh wrote: post #61
RubenSandwich wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, quite a few of these are very xenophobic. Very much playing off of an anti Middle East sentiment. I'd specifically like to highlight these ads in this document: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu... . 2924.jpg 2966.jpg 2968.jpg

How are any of those xenophobic? To me that sounds similar to labeling someone as antisocial if they don't want a stranger living in their house.

No, the equivalent here would be saying "vote for me or my opponent will force a stranger into your house". The ads are lies targeted at people whose xenophobia is stronger than their grip on the facts.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#76

Post by bob_bob_bob »

rayiner wrote: post #62
RubenSandwich wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, quite a few of these are very xenophobic. Very much playing off of an anti Middle East sentiment. I'd specifically like to highlight these ads in this document: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu... . 2924.jpg 2966.jpg 2968.jpg

What is "xenophobic" about those three images? Turkey is currently undergoing a very public internal war between western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism. Why would a western country want to enter into democratic union with such a country at this stage? Not every judgment regarding other countries is "xenophobic." Imagine if Alabama or Mississippi were trying to join the U.S. today. Would it be "xenophobic" of C…

Getting people to vote leave because they don't like some foreigners (Turkey or Syria) is quite literally the definition of xenophobia. This is especially true when Turkey is not even close to joining the EU.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#77

Post by brandonmenc »

untog wrote: post #12
defertoreptar wrote: post #5

I'm trying to understand the article's premise. Is all political advertising immoral? Is it something about the way the ads were distributed that make them immoral? Is it just immoral because the politics itself was "wrong"?

The leave campaigns were recently found to be in violation of election law, so no, this isn't just a "moral" issue: > the Electoral Commission found that the youth-focused campaign, BeLeave, had been joint-working with the official Vote Leave campaign — yet the pair had not jointly declared spending thereby enabling the official campaign to overspend by almost half a million pounds. And that overspend went straight t…

> It used to be that all of your advertising was public, so it was possible to see what promises are being made, what kind of terminology is being used, etc. etc. In the Facebook era you can hyper-target your ads to only show to a small subsection of people, without anyone knowing what you're saying.

If say, before the 1990s, a national candidate sent out targeted mailers to some little town in flyover country, no one would have ever seen them.

We're in a similar but imo potentially not much worse situation because if anything it's easier to publicize that it happens.

It seems strange to you because the person getting a targeted ad is in the next room over instead of next voting district, but it's the same principle.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#78

Post by fareesh »

These laws, though well intentioned, seem to sometimes struggle in the modern context.

In this case, President Obama flew over to London in April 2016 and advocated very publicly, that Britain should remain in the EU. This act by a foreign leader was converted into headlines, videos, tweets, etc. which were shared roughly a bajillion times.

President Obama is an extremely popular man. In any list of the world's most popular and influential leaders he ranks in the top 10, probably the top 5. His endorsement, if equated to USD or GBP, would equal roughly several bajillions.

As far as I am aware, existing campaign finance laws do not address this kind of "free media", and that is a problem. Sometimes you need to be able to muster the resources to advocate your position with equal reach to that of your opponent, and that costs money.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#79

Post by oh_sigh »

contrast wrote: post #75
oh_sigh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are any of those xenophobic? To me that sounds similar to labeling someone as antisocial if they don't want a stranger living in their house.

No, the equivalent here would be saying "vote for me or my opponent will force a stranger into your house". The ads are lies targeted at people whose xenophobia is stronger than their grip on the facts.

Wouldn't turkey joining the EU mean that Turkish citizens would have the right to freely emigrate to the UK?

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#80

Post by walshemj »

lostlogin wrote: post #36
dane-pgp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If just 1% of the population of the UK changed their voting intention (from Remain to Leave) because of illegally bought or misleading advertising, then undoing that effect would mean that Remain would have won. Invoking the "democratically determined result" is begging the question, since we don't really know whether the result would have been the same if the Leave campaign hadn't broken the rules: https://www.thegu…

I think the overriding point is that a simple majority is completely the wrong format for descisions like this. I’d have suggested a two thirds majority requires for change. There is also the argument about them stifling debate. There is an intersting criticism of the format in the below link from Chris Patten “I think referendums are awful. The late and great Julian Critchley used to say that, not very surprisingly,…

And there is a LOT of uk case law /precedent on this ie 2/3 or even 75% to make changes to the rules or organisation or to pass some types of motions at company AGM's is common.

Personally I think the CBI and Directors Institute lost the plot and let a few "bad apples" fuck the economy up - should have done what the TUC did in the 50's

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