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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

#111

Post by tomcam »

TomMckenny wrote: post #89
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For varying definitions of best. We have the first amendment in America. It says the government can't make laws that limit a private citizen's ability to express themselves (among other things). That includes their political advertising. This is a really dangerous / slippery precedent to set, and the whole "we should change longstanding laws to deal with a problem that feels like a local maximum" is something that ma…

>...political advertising... This is a euphemism for quid pro quo bribery. The Europeans and other democracies recognize it as such. It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. For example, they do not have leaders who get sport figures professionally banned for what is conspicuously an instance of unpaid political speech.

Oddly, no. It is not a euphemism. It is a form of free speech, period.

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

#112

Post by andyv »

TomMckenny wrote: post #89
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For varying definitions of best. We have the first amendment in America. It says the government can't make laws that limit a private citizen's ability to express themselves (among other things). That includes their political advertising. This is a really dangerous / slippery precedent to set, and the whole "we should change longstanding laws to deal with a problem that feels like a local maximum" is something that ma…

>...political advertising... This is a euphemism for quid pro quo bribery. The Europeans and other democracies recognize it as such. It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. For example, they do not have leaders who get sport figures professionally banned for what is conspicuously an instance of unpaid political speech.

If you want to run for office, how else do you tell the voters what you want to do, and why they should vote for you?

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

#113

Post by dgudkov »

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…

I have a better idea -- every should contain (at least in metadata) public information about the organization who bought it. For political ads, there additionally should be the price paid for the ad.

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

#114

Post by cle »

andyv wrote: post #112
TomMckenny wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...political advertising... This is a euphemism for quid pro quo bribery. The Europeans and other democracies recognize it as such. It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. For example, they do not have leaders who get sport figures professionally banned for what is conspicuously an instance of unpaid political speech.

If you want to run for office, how else do you tell the voters what you want to do, and why they should vote for you?

Is this a serious comment? How do we communicate without advertisements?

This is depressing.

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

#115

Post by wyattpeak »

chrismanfrank wrote: post #100
hadrien01 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can have their own website, but only promoted through organic means. > Limiting speech like that sounds dystopian Europe, with its vastly different past, has a very different view on free speech compared to the US. We don't allow unlimited free speech, but we don't view that as censorship. Nazi symbols are banned in Germany. Hate speech is condemned through most of Europe (one of our far-right politicians in Fra…

> You see that as a dystopia. I see that as a better political and social environment. The question then is...should YOU be the one to decide what is "better"? Who should be given that kind of power? In an ideal world, a benevolent philosopher king would have that power. In the real world, maybe it's best no one has it. Maybe it's better to cast the ring into the fire.

This sort of argument is the ultimate dead end. Shall we have no legislation on anything which isn't universally considered beneficial?

Besides which, choosing no legislation is a choice in itself. Having no law on speech isn't a middle-ground, it's an extreme. It's an understandable extreme, and though I disagree with it in limited fashion I don't think it's an unreasonable case to make. But it is nevertheless not the balanced middle-ground choice you're presenting it as.

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

#116

Post by raoulj »

TomMckenny wrote: post #89
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For varying definitions of best. We have the first amendment in America. It says the government can't make laws that limit a private citizen's ability to express themselves (among other things). That includes their political advertising. This is a really dangerous / slippery precedent to set, and the whole "we should change longstanding laws to deal with a problem that feels like a local maximum" is something that ma…

>...political advertising... This is a euphemism for quid pro quo bribery. The Europeans and other democracies recognize it as such. It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. For example, they do not have leaders who get sport figures professionally banned for what is conspicuously an instance of unpaid political speech.

While well-intentioned, Germany certainly does not.

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

#117

Post by ceejayoz »

andyv wrote: post #112
TomMckenny wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...political advertising... This is a euphemism for quid pro quo bribery. The Europeans and other democracies recognize it as such. It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. For example, they do not have leaders who get sport figures professionally banned for what is conspicuously an instance of unpaid political speech.

If you want to run for office, how else do you tell the voters what you want to do, and why they should vote for you?

Debates, press interviews and conferences, town halls, canvassing...

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

#118

Post by ceejayoz »

i_am_nomad wrote: post #95
TomMckenny wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...political advertising... This is a euphemism for quid pro quo bribery. The Europeans and other democracies recognize it as such. It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. For example, they do not have leaders who get sport figures professionally banned for what is conspicuously an instance of unpaid political speech.

Though it may occasionally seem so, the NFL is not a government organization.

That makes it more of a free speech issue for the government to be meddling in its employer/employee interactions, not less.

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

#119

Post by ridgeguy »

Perhaps we could mandate a shutdown of Facebook and Twitter 1 week prior to elections. This wouldn't impede citizens' ability to exercise their first amendment right to speak, as there are many, many other outlets for citizens' speech.

This would temporarily remove two channels through which manipulators can scale damage instantly. That would help.

I think the benefit of doing something like this would be so useful that I'd be glad to give Facebook & Twitter a tax break on their lost revenue.

I mean, neither Facebook nor Twitter will adopt any effective measure that hits their revenues. We have to do it for them.

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

#120

Post by lolpython »

ceejayoz wrote: post #118
i_am_nomad wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it may occasionally seem so, the NFL is not a government organization.

That makes it more of a free speech issue for the government to be meddling in its employer/employee interactions, not less .

The government doesn't meddle in the NFL. The NFL issued the bans
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