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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

#331

Post by PopsiclePete »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #43
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…

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…

This "papers written by people 300 years ago and their interpretations are infallible" thing is a really common POV in America. People make mistakes. It's ok to correct them.

As brilliant as the Founding Fathers are, they did not, and could not, foresee a future where corporations have more money than entire governments, where they've been given personhood, and given carte blanche to just "buy" legislation. All in the name of free speech? How far does free speech actually extend - because we might as well cut the red tape and just auction Senators off the to highest bidder on an open market at this point.

I bet you $50 that if you were to resurrect the Founding Fathers and showed them the present situation and were ask "so - is this what you had in mind?" - they'd be absolutely horrified.

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

#332

Post by manigandham »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #328
manigandham wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. What is being discussed are the applicable rules to citizens today, and the cumulative legislation states that there are exceptions. We do not follow only the constitution and bill of rights, otherwise what do you think the thousands of other laws are doing exactly? Real exceptions exist, regardless of whether they are written in the original amendment text or in rulings afterward.

The exceptions are 'real', but they're fuzzy, they change over time, and they're not in the constitution itself. They're the opposite of 'specific'.

The amendments themselves are not in the constitution itself, so do they not apply?

Amendments were added to the body of laws after the constitution, and congress and the supreme court have since added more to the body of laws after the amendments. The cumulative result is what governs citizens today.

Those laws are in fact very specific about their exceptions, as shown very clearly in the wikipedia link. What exactly do you find fuzzy or confusing about them?

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

#333

Post by PopsiclePete »

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?

Institute a special tax. Election Tax. 0.001% of all corporate/personal income. No exceptions, no write-offs.

Once every X years, a web-site, a tv station, and a radio station come online.

The money collection from the tax is then used to give 25, not more than 2 per registered political party, enough air-time to express their views. Money is distributed evenly and the entire process is overseen by 25 randomly-chosen people of which at least 13 have no party affiliation.

A federal 3-day holiday is in effect during which you, as a citizen, have no other job but to vote for a candidate after learning about their positions on various policies.

The whole circus ends after 3 days and we go back to living our lives.

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

#334

Post by manigandham »

skrebbel wrote: post #313
manigandham wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Who says I (or @coffeemug) is arguing for government action?

Do you have another way to police and enforce culture? What are you actually arguing then, since you claim the comments don't address your issue?

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

#335

Post by Dylan16807 »

manigandham wrote: post #332
Dylan16807 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exceptions are 'real', but they're fuzzy, they change over time, and they're not in the constitution itself. They're the opposite of 'specific'.

The amendments themselves are not in the constitution itself, so do they not apply? Amendments were added to the body of laws after the constitution, and congress and the supreme court have since added more to the body of laws after the amendments. The cumulative result is what governs citizens today. Those laws are in fact very specific about their exceptions, as shown very clearly in the wikipedia link. What exactl…

The amendments are part of the constitution.

Case law, as you linked, is not. It also keeps changing without the underlying documents changing. I don't know how you can look at all those dates marking times high courts had to get involved and still say it's clear.

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

#336

Post by bluecalm »

ddingus wrote: post #278
bluecalm wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things are very expensive and someone without significant backing won't be able to afford them. Ads are cheaper and more effective, especially when you're just starting and don't know if you should invest more of your time and money.

Buying votes is way more expensive than asking for them is. About 30 people are in these mid term general elections doing exactly what I put there. None of them have significant means. Most of them beat the people doing it "the very expensive way." You are not wrong, buying an office is not cheap. People lacking significant backing, or personal means cannot afford to do that. That is not the only way to do politickin…

It's not about buying the office. It's about getting your message to be seen without investing huge resources. No one with a job can afford organizing rallies and laying significant groundwork unless they are already rich, backed by major party or otherwise having most of their time free to do political activity. Ads are cheap way to try to get people to look at your message. It challenges monopoly of the media and gives platform to new players.

I am not sure why you talk about buying votes. Getting people to look at your message is not buying votes. Making crazy promises like free cash for everyone or flats for everyone as human right is.

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

#337

Post by eridius »

narzu wrote: post #235
eridius wrote: post #148

Earlier 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(); }`

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

No. "Iron manning" is stupid, it's just an excuse to dismiss a response because they weren't charitable enough towards your flawed argument.

Strawmanning is bad too of course. But responding to a reasonable interpretation (which is distinct from "iron manning"'s demand of responding to the strongest possible interpretation) is how discourse normally works. If someone's reasonable interpretation of your argument doesn't match what you were trying to convey, then that means you fucked up your argument.

In this particular case, the parent's argument is literally that Facebook is justified in not rejecting the political ads because senators are likely to buy ads. So that's what I responded to.

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

#338

Post by eridius »

andrewflnr wrote: post #256
eridius wrote: post #148

Earlier 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(); }`

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.

Getting the super easy case right doesn't justify completely failing at the entire fundamental premise of the feature, which is to inform viewers that an ad was paid for by a particular political entity. When anyone can buy an ad that claims to be paid for by a senator, this alleged feature in fact becomes misinformation, and quite dangerous misinformation at that as it's got Facebook's seal of approval.

If Facebook cannot get this feature right 99.9999% of the time, they shouldn't be doing it. And it seems they're getting it right literally 0% of the time (barring Zuckerberg of course, but he's not on the ballot this election so that's irrelevant). This is so bad it should be a huge scandal; has Facebook gone back and vetted all of their political ads yet to make sure nobody's been taking advantage of this?

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

#339

Post by tinkerteller »

jklein11 wrote: post #287
StreamBright wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> 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 hav…

That is a wrong analogy. FB does recommendations prominently luring in you to things that you didn't knew existed. It also filters and sorts to decide for you what information you get to see.

The correct analogy is having a secretory that reads all your emails and only selectively lets you know what you got as well as inserting recommendations based on her belief system. So if this secretory tells you that your brother only sends you bad emails and here's the great model of gun you should buy if you are going to meet him - then your secretory is not merely a tool to manage your emails.

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

#340

Post by ddingus »

bluecalm wrote: post #336
ddingus wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying votes is way more expensive than asking for them is. About 30 people are in these mid term general elections doing exactly what I put there. None of them have significant means. Most of them beat the people doing it "the very expensive way." You are not wrong, buying an office is not cheap. People lacking significant backing, or personal means cannot afford to do that. That is not the only way to do politickin…

It's not about buying the office. It's about getting your message to be seen without investing huge resources. No one with a job can afford organizing rallies and laying significant groundwork unless they are already rich, backed by major party or otherwise having most of their time free to do political activity. Ads are cheap way to try to get people to look at your message. It challenges monopoly of the media and g…

Untrue.

Again, there are people in general elections who did exactly what I put here.

There are mutiple ways of politicking out there.

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