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Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

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131–140 of 218 posts

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#131
post #38

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"?

Its immoral when its targeted secretly in this way. If lies are posted publicly on a billboard (or a bus) then everybody can see it, somebody can point out that it is a lie, and the posters can be held responsible for their misinformation

Which of their statements was a lie (I know of only one, the "450m / week for NHS")?

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#132
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite the whataboutism. What rules did Obama's statement break?

Point is, citing the overspending by Leave as some massive deal looks a bit rich when virtually the entire establishment, business and media conspired to sway the result towards Remain.

Always amuses me to see "the Establishment" cited as firmly in the Remain box. Who is Dulwich educated, commodities trader and decades-long politician Nigel Farage if he's not a part of the establishment? Or Jacob Rees bloody Mogg and Boris Johnson! Quite the anti-establishment rebels they are, eh? As for the media, the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph and the Express all pushed Leave viewpoints. Leave was always strongly supported by the establishment because they're going to make out like thieves once it happens, it was just sold as "the people's revolt" to a willing audience.

Besides, what would you have happen? All of the people who are actually knowledgable about the topic should exempt themselves from debate? It's a silly argument.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#133
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do know that UK could have vetoed the entrance of Turkey, Macedonia, etc in EU...

That’s irrelevant. UK is split 50/50 on the issue. It depends which government is in leadership it the time of decision. There’s is no security in knowing that it could be vetoed, until the next election. Brexit was the only long term answer for those who were worried about it.

If the UK is split, how are you sure that Brexit is the only long-term answer? Surely the other camp can get the upper hand and rejoin the EU at some point :)

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#134
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be one of the consequences, yes. However, Turkey isn’t even remotely close to joining the EU and given the current political situation in Turkey I would not expect talks to move forward any time soon. So pretending there’s even a remote chance is disingenuous. It uses fears of foreigner not founded in reality. That’s pretty much the definition of xenophobic.

EU promised Turkey that the talks would continue, in exchange Turkey would keep immigrants at bay. So either the fear is more justified than you portray it to be, or EU is at least as hypocritical as you portray Vote Leave to be.

The UK can just block them. Any EU member can block accession. Indefinitely.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The subtext May be xenophobic, but the ads are specifically about the wage gap between the UK and Turkey/Albania, and the explicit message is that you will lose your job, or wages will drop. That’s not xenophobic.

> you will lose your job, or wages will drop

Which didn’t happen in any country so far nor in UK with the “invasion of the Polish”

Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro population is negligible. Turkey will never get in EU.

I respect the choice of the English people but the ads were pure scaremongering

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#136
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Justice is about equality before the law. It is unjust for one party to do something and be punished, while another party does something that is principly the same, and is not punished. Citing "whataboutism" does not make this go away, it is the essence of the argument. If Joe is disqualified from his hockey tournament for throwing his stick, but Mike receives an eye-roll from the same referee, it should not be criti…

[flagged]

IME the people who gripe about whataboutism being a meme are the ones who tend to think whataboutism is a legitimate argument.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#137
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2966 and 2968 are about what the new borders of the UK would effectively be if Turkey is allowed to join the EU. Regardless of your thoughts on the Middle East, it is clear that there are dangerous people in Iraq. Given that the EU has open borders and markets (for the most part), isn't it a germaine discussion if that supranational entity wants to enlarge its borders to include ports of entry from a somewhat unstabl…

“Yet, those crossing the border would have some rights to enter and work in Britain, right?” Absolutely wrong. Where did you get that idea?

I'm not an EU or UK citizen, so I don't really know, but my initial assumption seems right:

http://www.aboutimmigration.co.uk/eu-citizens-working-uk.htm...

> Despite the vote to exit the EU, the UK will still remain a member of the EU until Article 50 negotiations have concluded. This means most citizens of countries in the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland have the right to live and work in the UK under European law. European nationals may also bring their family with them to live in the UK. However, to exercise the right to live in the UK nationals of these countries must be able to support themselves and their families without having to rely on public funds.

> European nationals with the right to live in the UK are, with certain exceptions, are still entitled to work in the UK and do not need to obtain a visa or work permit in order to do so. European nationals have the same rights as UK citizens in this respect, and employers must treat them equally. An employer who treats an EEA or Swiss worker differently purely because he is not from the UK is guilty of discrimination.

It sounds like if turkey were to enter the EU, Turkish nationals would have some kind of right to enter the United Kingdom.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#138
post #121
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm saying that whether or not you "broke the law" isn't a very interesting argument to me because some truly horrific things are legal and some perfectly mundane ones aren't. Simply being a law isn't a compelling argument in my mind as to whether something is right or wrong. At the same time you can undermine the spirit of something while being perfectly legal. The original argument was about people attempting t…

But no-one is discussing whether it is right or wrong. The original question was "what about Obama's statement?" in the context of the legal investigations against the Leave campaign. The "what about" answer is "there is no criminal investigation because nothing illegal happened". I get what you're saying but it doesn't really have any relevance here. If you're disregarding legality then any questions about why a cri…

The top-most commenter actually said

> At this point it amounts to fighting very hard to find any reason to undo a democratically determined result.

which is almost entirely a moral point. The "Obama statement" was just a reply to someone suggesting that "ad spending" might have swung the vote.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Our electoral system makes it damned near impossible to elect someone else. At the 1983 general election, the SDP won 25.4% of the popular vote, giving them 23 seats in parliament. Labour won 27.6% of the popular vote, giving them 209 seats. We are a de-facto two-party state, because the design of our electoral system is drastically biased in favour of the established major parties. We did consider switching to a fai…

> We did consider switching to a fairer electoral system in 2011, but ironically enough we decided against it by referendum.

On the other hand, the countries with the most stable democracies (measured in centuries) (US and UK) have two-party systems. So maybe the choice was less obvious than you allude to.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#140
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Yet, those crossing the border would have some rights to enter and work in Britain, right?” Absolutely wrong. Where did you get that idea?

I'm not an EU or UK citizen, so I don't really know, but my initial assumption seems right: http://www.aboutimmigration.co.uk/eu-citizens-working-uk.htm... > Despite the vote to exit the EU, the UK will still remain a member of the EU until Article 50 negotiations have concluded. This means most citizens of countries in the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland have the right to live a…

> I mean... britain wouldn't be the ones policing the border, it would be turkey.

You were clearly talking about the Turkish border in your previous comment. Entering Turkey doesn't make you an EU citizen, and the UK, not being part of Schengen and having no land border to the mainland, has lots of freedom to police it's own borders against non-EU nationals trying to enter from other EU countries.

Turkish (then EU) citizens would have the right to enter and work in the UK, yes.

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