What percentage of ad revenue for Facebook is 'political' ads?
We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
251–260 of 353 posts
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. It comes down to what you think is more important. Lessening false advertising that manipulates the democratic process (and of course the big question is to what…
> or having an environment conducive to small advertising companies. Should change to "or having an environment conducive to businesses that might want to advertise." A big difference in terms of scope of the affected.
You're talking about secondary consequences, and if you want to keep the comparison fair then you also need to talk about the secondary consequences of the manipulation of the democratic process.
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what you're saying is, because a senator could conceivably be running ads, then any ad that claims to be by a senator should be approved without scrutiny? Besides being preposterous, that same argument applies to literally anybody in the world except, I guess, Mark Zuckerberg. So it sounds like Facebook's algorithm for detecting abuse is `if submitter == "Mark Zuckerberg" { reject(); }`
> So what you're saying is, because a senator could conceivably be running ads, then any ad that claims to be by a senator should be approved without scrutiny? That was not said in the message you replied to.
They were using the Cathy Newman method.
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#254"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…
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.
Treating names as unique identifiers? Quadruple ouch.
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what you're saying is, because a senator could conceivably be running ads, then any ad that claims to be by a senator should be approved without scrutiny? Besides being preposterous, that same argument applies to literally anybody in the world except, I guess, Mark Zuckerberg. So it sounds like Facebook's algorithm for detecting abuse is `if submitter == "Mark Zuckerberg" { reject(); }`
> So what you're saying is, because a senator could conceivably be running ads, then any ad that claims to be by a senator should be approved without scrutiny? That was not said in the message you replied to.
Its not entirely clear what the message was saying, in my opinion
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#256Earlier 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.
So what you're saying is, because a senator could conceivably be running ads, then any ad that claims to be by a senator should be approved without scrutiny? Besides being preposterous, that same argument applies to literally anybody in the world except, I guess, Mark Zuckerberg. So it sounds like Facebook's algorithm for detecting abuse is `if submitter == "Mark Zuckerberg" { reject(); }`
More like "abuse is hard, but let's at least get this super easy case right". Also, yeah, don't put words in my mouth.
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it should go further - ban all political ads, period. They do more harm than good, are mostly designed to confuse and obscure the topics and/or candidate(s). Instead of ads have the politicians debate on live TV to express their political views. Post the debates online for everyone to watch at their leisure. Leave the measures/proposals to us to research; in Colorado we get an excellent voter guide that clear…
I believe, but cannot prove, that we (society) could largely achieve the same ends without violating the First Amendment: 1) Switch from winner-takes-all to approval voting. Largely eliminates negative campaigning. Counteracts drive to partisanship. 2) Restore Fairness Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine 3) Publicly financed campaigns Greatly reduce effectiveness of pay to play strategy.
There's no way to restore the fairness doctrine in any meaningful way. It only ever applied to broadcast licenses.
The way it was justified was that there's a natural limitation on the amount of spectrum, so the government has an interest in ensuring that not all channels on that spectrum are Fox News.
The spectrum gets more irrelevant by the day as more TV moves to cable/Internet, and people in general get their news from the likes of Facebook instead of TV. There's no natural limitation on the number of channels on cable or Internet, so the government trying to police speech there would be ruled unconstitutional.
Your #1 suggestion is doable, but would require something just short of a successful revolution to pull off. #3 likewise, you'd need a constitutional amendment due to Citizens United.
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to hear your thoughts as a person whose work requires to interface with the political-ad-vetting process of web giants. If you were a representative of the public (with interests in safeguarding the authenticity of information promoted to individuals of the public), would you endorse a difficult google like vetting process or a superficial, lenient vetting process adopted by Facebook?
I can understand the public interest. I wouldn't mind a vetting process that works; google's just doesn't at least for us. The time not up with ads === censoring political speech IMHO and to me political speech is sacrosanct. The tradeoff isn't worth it. But also I have probably an extreme view out of the norm for most here. I view politics as almost capitalistic (not just in that I make money doing it) but that it's…
Thanks for this perspective, I think it's a shame you were down-voted for providing it.
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#259I don't understand. What is expected from Facebook concerning political ads? Should Facebook do the work of fact checking on behalf of viewers, instead of users fact checking on their own? Why is it that actual fact checking is being outsourced to social media companies (due to fear of foreign influence)? Should we also outsource voting too then?
Well, if FB is not interested in doing any actual verification, they should not have introduced a "Paid for by" feature.
These tests made it clear that the whole thing was just paying lip service to appease the public without any real intent to do the actual work.
Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. This is a laughable claim once one considers blasphemy laws that still exist in many western democracies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39830447 - Stephen Fry faces blasphemy probe after God comments [2017]
There are plenty of anti free speech laws and precedent in the US as well, you just have to look for them. Only if you accept the exact American definition of free speech, then of course other countries look bad by that standard.
And there's starving/malnourished kids in the US too. That doesn't mean the US is on par with some parts of Africa in that regard.
Generally speaking anti free speech laws in the US get struck down as soon as they start getting used to prosecute people.