Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#161

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

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.

If we get the food riots that the government seems to be planning for, we're very quickly going to cease to be a democracy. We've already had the lunatic wing of the Conservative party calling for the execution of dissidents, and an MP shot dead during the campaign.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#162

Post by untog » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

growlist wrote: post #152

untog wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

You honestly think the Leave side was equivalently establishment backed as Remain? Leave had the BBC, PM, EU, banks, even the most powerful man in the world all lined up on its side.

I think the Leave side was considerably more backed than the conventional narrative portrays. And received additional illegal, undisclosed funding, hence the reason for this post in the first place.

And I still don't understand what you think should have happened. People across the world should have conferred to make sure that representation for both sides was exactly 50/50?

The United States had the view that the UK staying in the EU was in their favour, so their President expressed that view. What's actually wrong with that? Surely it's up to voters to decide whether they think America's opinion is important or not when deciding how they should vote? Business leaders were in favour of Remain because they knew that leaving the EU would be financially perilous. How is that not relevant information for voters?

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#163

Post by dane-pgp » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #124

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…

So you're saying that you believe that governments should begin imposing censorship laws on privately held companies (a foreign one in this case) because without censorship, people who were susceptible to being convinced to do something were convinced to do so? And you really don't see the problem with that?

I'm not suggesting that governments should decide what is and isn't misleading, or that they should restrict campaigns to only "approved" messages. Preventing foreign companies (and governments) from influencing British elections might be worth considering, though:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/theresa-may-russia-putin-fake-...

Ultimately it is the job of the British people to decide which claims (in political advertising bought transparently by British people) are misleading. To do this, I think it would be helpful if political campaigns had to also publish in a centralised register, up front, all the political messages they paid for.

There may even be a case for preventing political campaigns from targeting people based on individual psychological profiles, as opposed to geographically focused campaigns, or based on the demographics of a specific newspaper or television channel.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#164

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #154

laurentl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the hindsight of these 2 years, do you believe that this was a good thing? (Genuine question. I’m European so from my perspective those were two terrible election results, and events since then have amply confirmed this fact, but I’m wondering if this is so clear-cut for other sensibilities)

I don't know. It's really hard to imagine what a Hilary Clinton presidency would have been like. She might have been impeached at this point. Likewise, it's really hard to tell what the long term effects of Brexit will be. I think history will be in a better position to judge it 10 years down the line. But I really think people need to get over both results. It's been two years now. The remoaners are much worse than…

> She might have been impeached at this point

Why?

> need to get over both results

The results deliver real harm to real people. The separated immigrant children are probably never going to get over it, for example. And I'm not going to get over a result while I'm still worrying about stockpiling food. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/no-deal-brexi...

> Imagine if between 2008-2016 HN had been full of one liners about how Obama had no birth certificate

Those were obviously false and therefore often flagged to oblivion or deleted by the mods, but they did turn up when he was mentioned.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#165

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #55

maym86 wrote: post #32

Can someone please explain the argument against passing laws forcing all adverts on advertising platforms like Facebook and Google to be searchable and transparent so we can see who is purchasing them, the parameters used for targeting the advert and what they are publishing? I can't see a downside for the majority of people.

> explain the argument against passing laws forcing If laws protect people. more laws = better? What is the downside of passing any law? In this case I could face discrimination at work if they found out that I was buying ads for my anti abortion website.

Similar to what happened to Brendan Eich.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#166

Post by NeedMoreTea » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

growlist wrote: post #146

derriz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer your second question, of course it has. I don’t understand your first question? Those anti-EU stories were lies pure and simple - all the references are provided on the linked site. Are you in favour of the media publishing lies in order to advance a political viewpoint?

If the EU were not already loathed by some the stories would find no audience, is my belief. For example, I met a plasterer who said that immigrants were destroying his livelihood by working for peanuts. If I were him I'd probably blame the EU also. But I also think the result was seen as an opportunity to send a general two fingered FU to the establishment, both UK and EU - I don't think the coordinated FUD and Obam…

Outside of regular hit pieces in the Daily Mail and Telegraph there's little real awareness of the EU in the UK. The EU haven't been especially good at getting the message about their successes out. The little we do see is an occasional news piece about a joint venture or a little EU flag on some region's signage because they received development funding.

The irony that some of the most resounding leave votes were in regions heavily supported by EU funds was not lost on me. Clearly the UK governments hadn't been doing enough for the people in those regions or they'd not have have been eligible for that support. Clearly the message that the EU was trying to help didn't get to the people concerned.

Both sides lied, both sides ran terrible negative campaigns. No one anywhere seemed to promote the EU as being good in any respect - just it's least worst. Only leave chose to pander to xenophobics, closet racists and suggest a FU to the establishment at every opportunity.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#167

Post by makomk » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:04 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #80

lostlogin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think there's any precedent for requiring such a supermajority in this case. Actually joining the EU required the support of 0% of the population in a referendum - there was no referendum on joining, the 1975 referendum was merely on whether we should remain in. The same arguments against leaving were made back then too, and if leave had won there'd probably have been exactly the same kind of pressure against following through on it.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#168

Post by GW150914 » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

derriz wrote: post #47

This isn't the only shenanigans surrounding the leave campaign. Here's another example of dodgy Leave Campaign funding - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-44624299 - where the DUP, a Northern Irish party, was given $600,000 to campaign for Leave by a shell company and spent most of it on advertisements in media that wasn't even available in Northern Ireland. But it's not surprising really. There has been a…

Remember when The Daily Express said that 150 new EU laws were “Ruining Britain,” and these were their top 8 of those laws?

https://mobile.twitter.com/StuartWilksHeeg/status/4814529276...

Tag line of TDE article* The merciless grip of Brussels on the lives of millions of Britons is laid bare today by the Daily Express.

So merciless. It seems like a lot of the “anti-EU” sentiment expressed amounted to dog whistles for anti-immigrant sentiment. If it’s not that, then I guess Leavers just hate labeling juice. Or maybe cockneys simply can’t enjoy a laundry day that doesn’t positively reek of phosphorous? No, I think it was the immigration issues.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#169

Post by tptacek » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:06 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #104

bob_bob_bob wrote: post #76

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.

But the ads are not about “not liking foreigners.” They are about a country with very different beliefs and attitudes joining a bloc where they will have voting rights in bodies that have legislative power over people in the UK. That is a completely different thing. And Turkey applied to the EU in 1987, has been a full candidate EU member since 1999, and since then has been in active negotiations to join.

Most of those ads aren't about Turkey's beliefs, but rather it's mere proximity to another country with different beliefs.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#170

Post by Xylakant » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #118

Xylakant wrote: post #85

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 talks have been ongoing for a decade now. Few parts of the talks have been finished, many haven’t even started. And seriously, if Turkey ever comes around to fulfilling all of the requirements, it will have to become a very different country than it is today. Yes, talks are ongoing and some reason for that is politics - the talks are one of the ways the EU can influence turkish politics. Some of that is quite open, some of it may be hypocritical. But Vote Leave is peddling xenophobia, which is quite a different accusation.