We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by sah2ed » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #203

valarauca1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dog it’s a PHP shop, nobody re-uses code

PHP's Packagist disagrees with over 1.4m packages and around a half billion package downloads a month. (More than NPM FYI) https://packagist.org/statistics

> (More than NPM FYI)

I found your claim hard to believe so I went digging but couldn't find any recent resource on the total number of downloads npmjs.org handles per month.

I could have sworn they used to publish aggregate stats prominently on their home page somewhere ... but can't seem to find it.

Anyway, aggregating* the download numbers of just 12 of the top npm packages comes to about ~504.4m, or half a billion package downloads a month.

*: using September 2018 numbers.

1: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=express - 21m/mo

2: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=body-parser - 24.4m/mo

3: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=lodash - 64m/mo

4: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=async - 64.7m/mo

5: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=debug - 87.6m/mo

6: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=request - 50.8m/mo

7: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=chalk - 64m/mo

8: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=commander - 61.8m/mo

9: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=underscore - 21.5m/mo

10: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=babel-core - 17.8m/mo

11: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=webpack - 16m/mo

12: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=react - 10.8m/mo

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

#282

Post by kodablah » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

jamesrcole wrote: post #252

kodablah wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I was talking about the primary consequence if you want put a banner after being given money, you don't necessarily have to be an advertising company. I think you are assuming everyone uses advertising companies to advertise, but that's not true even though this is how we'd get there.

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

#283

Post by jamesrcole » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:18 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #282

jamesrcole wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was talking about the primary consequence if you want put a banner after being given money, you don't necessarily have to be an advertising company. I think you are assuming everyone uses advertising companies to advertise, but that's not true even though this is how we'd get there.

What I said applies to that. I said "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 extent this can be lessened by such policies) or having an environment conducive to small advertising companies." Change 'companies' to 'provider' (or whatever word you want to use) and that choice still applies.

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

#284

Post by manigandham » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

cle wrote: post #199

manigandham wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you communicate to millions of people then? What is your strategy? Visit every single person's home?

Do you not recognize the irony of asking this question on Hacker News? And for an additional layer of irony, Hacker News doesn't advertise either (that I'm aware of).

No. Irony implies expectation.

Do you expect people are all going to come online, visit HN or other forums, and then discuss politics willingly with potential candidates?

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

#285

Post by softwaredoug » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

esturk wrote: post #150

softwaredoug wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is political speech a different category than other forms of speech? Think of the plausible scenario of a certain Presidents FEC deciding friendly speech isn’t “political” (it’s “patriotic”!) But critical speech is clearly political and should be regulated.

Thanks. Your above says advertisement, you said speech. Thats a big difference. Advertisement can be regulated which is the focus of this thread. No one is saying to regulate some speech in a rally but is said speech is reshape as some advertisment then they should be regulated.

That doesn’t change the fundamental problem. Regulating advertising for political content is a slippery slope that lets some people decide what is “political” and what is not.

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

#286

Post by C4stor » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #144

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.

Absolutely not. Advertising is not bribery and the European region is nowhere near the freedom of speech principles of the US. It may feel the same, either because you have never said anything or have never been heard by anyone who cares, but there are countless examples of prosecution that would be summarily dismissed here in the States. Professionally "banned" is not a free speech issue in the slightest. Athletes c…

> there are countless examples of prosecution that would be summarily dismissed here in the States.

Care to provide let's say 2 such examples ?

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

#287

Post by jklein11 » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

StreamBright wrote: post #226

dillondoyle wrote: post #209

I buy political ads as a big part of our business. This cycle, FB is FAR easier to work with than Google. I get the sense that FB simply wants to pass off the liability to ad buyer (who signed an affidavit to run those paid for ads... and Vice broke that contract but also probably the law). Whereas Google is giving huge problems for basically all our clients because they seem to be doing manual DD. Not focusing on wh…

>>> I get the sense that FB simply wants to pass off the liability to ad buyer Totally. It is Russia's responsibility not to accidentally or knowingly meddle with an election, not Facebook's. I guess there is one last question, what was Zuckerberg doing in a congressional hearing?

I'm assuming this is sarcasm but I can kind of see the case that Facebook is making here.

For example, if a drunk person behind the wheel of a Ford does a tremendous amount of damaage, no one goes after Ford for not preventing it.

Facebook is a tool. Is it Facebook's responsibility to make sure that everyone uses it ethically? I can understand putting in measures to make sure that everyone is using it legally and have a mechanism to help authorities stop bad actors but deciding what a "bad actor" is shouldn't Facebook's responsibility.

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

#288

Post by eftychis » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #279

eftychis wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the U.S. follows the Common Law system in contrast with the majority of other countries (most of E.U. follows Civil Law). In that system the justice system participates in the shaping of law as it acts as an interpreter of the law and establishes precedent (you might have heard the term case law also [0]). Thus, as you are well aware, law is developed by their decisions and interpretations of the Supreme Co…

What you describe is "legal precedents", not laws per se. Sure, that is also a power to make decisions, but it's quite different from enacting new laws altogether.

Legal precedents exist, because laws are interpreted / combined, deduced. Sure, it is not regulatory or statutory law (executive and legislative branches). Yet, courts (and police etc) are bound by the rule of stare decisis. Namely, a court has to abide and be consistent with rulings of higher courts. For instance, if a court says abortion is legal, lower courts, police, and the affected governments (e.g. states, municipalities) have to abide to that ruling/case law.

In other systems, if a law leads to contradiction, or is lacking clarity, the court applies specific 'procedures' to solve the issue (e.g. a law can be ruled unconstitutional or void). Here, the court decides on the details to produce a "reasonable" law.

Edit: But yes, you are right: unlike the legislative branch a court may not propose an arbitrary law (they can advise/make suggestions to the legislative branch).

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

#289

Post by manigandham » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #165

manigandham wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. Advertising is not bribery and the European region is nowhere near the freedom of speech principles of the US. It may feel the same, either because you have never said anything or have never been heard by anyone who cares, but there are countless examples of prosecution that would be summarily dismissed here in the States. Professionally "banned" is not a free speech issue in the slightest. Athletes c…

> Professionally "banned" is not a free speech issue in the slightest. This line of reasoning never made sense to me. Free speech is both a legal and a cultural issue. A modern society cannot credibly claim to be free on legal grounds alone. Yeah, the government won't put me in prison or fine me, but if I get fired for being a staunch liberal (or conservative) then I'm not really free, am I? This doesn't just apply t…

The government does not define or police culture.

People are people, and they're free to act however they want, including not liking you for what you say. As long as they are not harming you or infringing your rights, then they are within their rights to do so. This is the price for the freedom you have to also not associate with people you don't like.

We already have anti-discrimination laws and protections but what you seem to be asking for is government to limit other rights and freedoms to protect you "culturally"? Do you not see how that is dangerous and far worse?

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

#290

Post by manigandham » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #208

mmmBacon wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Constitution also codifies freedom of association so you can have free speech but you can’t force me to associate with you. In the US companies have freedom of association as long as they don’t violate a protected class ( race, religion, sex, age, national origin, etc...). Since you the government can’t force a company to associate with someone they disagree with, you can be fired for things you say.

GP explicitly called out that there is not just a legal issue of free speech, but also a cultural one. Your response, "but it's legal!" in short, does not address that at all. Lots of things are legal but maybe not what we want. I'd say a working culture where having the wrong political opinion can get you fired is definitely one of them.

Think that through then - what do you want the government do to in that situation? Start to police culture? How would that go? Are you sure that won't end in unintended consequences?