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We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

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Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#31

Post by andrewflnr »

People need to think very carefully about the consequences of any policy they propose to curb this sort of behavior. Do we really want Facebook making judgment calls about the content of political ads? Do they need to do thorough real-life identity verification of people buying any ads, or any ads that may be construed as political? Then the real kicker: does every ad provider need to do this, or just the ones that are too big to fail? Requiring that level of effort would quash small ad providers in the same way that onerous copyright verification laws would quash small content hosts. Not doing so has its own obvious problems.

I see no good solutions.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#32

Post by bigiain »

mrguyorama wrote: post #9
josefresco wrote: post #5

"In announcing new transparency efforts or tools to combat foreign influence, Facebook included a caveat. “These changes will not prevent abuse entirely. We’re up against smart, creative and well-funded adversaries who change their tactics as we spot abuse,” Leathern wrote. But we believe that they will help prevent future interference in elections on Facebook. And it is why they are so important.” But posing as 100…

I wonder how many times "Zuckerberg" is in the code verbatim

a:1:{s:4:"name";s:10:"Zuckerberg";}

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#33

Post by hadrien01 »

The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web.

No more "hey who is paying for that anti-XXX political ad?", they just wouldn't exist anymore. Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns.

Also, this article comes just one week after that one: "Facebook’s political ad tool let us buy ads “paid for” by Mike Pence and ISIS" [0]

[0] https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wj9mny/facebooks-politic...

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#34

Post by RosanaAnaDana »

andrewflnr wrote: post #31

People need to think very carefully about the consequences of any policy they propose to curb this sort of behavior. Do we really want Facebook making judgment calls about the content of political ads? Do they need to do thorough real-life identity verification of people buying any ads, or any ads that may be construed as political? Then the real kicker: does every ad provider need to do this, or just the ones that a…

People need to think very carefully

So let me stop you right there...

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#35

Post by andrewflnr »

SilasX wrote: post #28
andrewflnr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably one of the only people they could actually be sure wasn't buying Facebook ads. Whereas a senator buying Facebook ads is, in itself, quite likely. Not really a fair comparison.

Why wouldn't Zuckerberg ever buy Facebook ads? I doubt they'd let him run personal stuff for free, and I doubt they'd be sure he'd never want to run personal stuff.

The simplest way would be for him to say, "hey, I'm never going to buy ads on my own site, so don't let anyone impersonate me." If Zuck wants to tell us something on Facebook, he'll just put a banner at the top of our feed. Or if he does want to run ads as himself, he'll pull some other founder-fiat move. Keep in mind the engineering motto of the company we're talking about. They don't need to stick to the rules.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#36

Post by foolfoolz »

hadrien01 wrote: post #33

The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web. No more "hey who is paying for that anti-XXX political ad?", they just wouldn't exist anymore. Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns. Also, this article comes just one week after that one: "Facebook’s political ad tool let us buy ads “paid for” by Mike Pen…

+1. i know government TV channels have scary connotations, but i’d rather see a website or tv channel or radio set up where each candidate gets a bunch, but equal number, of campaign ads. play them on repeat all day for free. and remove paid political ads from all other sources

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#37

Post by lucio »

hadrien01 wrote: post #33

The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web. No more "hey who is paying for that anti-XXX political ad?", they just wouldn't exist anymore. Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns. Also, this article comes just one week after that one: "Facebook’s political ad tool let us buy ads “paid for” by Mike Pen…

Should we do the same with TV and billboards?

>Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#38

Post by evgen »

warent wrote: post #21
mrguyorama wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many times "Zuckerberg" is in the code verbatim

I imagine one time. Then everything else imports the `MZ_CONST` file which then references the `MK` or `ZBERG` variables.

Nah, things just refer to him as fbid 4.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#39

Post by SilasX »

andrewflnr wrote: post #35
SilasX wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't Zuckerberg ever buy Facebook ads? I doubt they'd let him run personal stuff for free, and I doubt they'd be sure he'd never want to run personal stuff.

The simplest way would be for him to say, "hey, I'm never going to buy ads on my own site, so don't let anyone impersonate me." If Zuck wants to tell us something on Facebook, he'll just put a banner at the top of our feed. Or if he does want to run ads as himself, he'll pull some other founder-fiat move. Keep in mind the engineering motto of the company we're talking about. They don't need to stick to the rules.

Corporate boards usually have controls against appropriating company resources for personal use.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#40

Post by hadrien01 »

lucio wrote: post #37
hadrien01 wrote: post #33

The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web. No more "hey who is paying for that anti-XXX political ad?", they just wouldn't exist anymore. Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns. Also, this article comes just one week after that one: "Facebook’s political ad tool let us buy ads “paid for” by Mike Pen…

Should we do the same with TV and billboards? >Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns.

That's how it's done in my country, France: candidates can't pay for political ads. They have equally-sized and free-to-use billboards in front of public buildings [0] and a free one-minute-and-a-half-per-day ad space on public television [1]. That's it.

[0] http://dspagnou.celeonet.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/degra...

[1] For fun, the 2017 ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__Il8Z7lrg

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