TikTok explains its ban on political advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#21

Post by roenxi » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:15 PM UTC

DisruptiveDave wrote: post #18

kypro wrote: post #3

Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion. As a side note, I wish there was less exposure to political opinion in general. I think there's a problem in how a single celeb, or a close friend talking about their political views can be so influential. Not because they've made a particularly good argument, but because that person is trusted or looked up to. I often wonder how we would vote if we were…

I had a thought recently: What if we voted for policies instead of people? A bunch of policies are put forward, we vote on those, then we choose people to implement them/oversee their implementation. I'm sure this falls down under any level of analysis, but as someone who has avoided politics all his life, it seems soooooo ridiculously silly to hold this popularity contest / PR event we call elections.

The problem is when the voters see a government with expenses > revenues and send someone in to implement:

1) Increase government spending on services by 10%

2) Reduce taxes by 10%

3) Run a balanced budget. No borrowing or tricks.

The politicians need to have some level of freedom to deal with impossible voter demands and then you get back to voting for people who are most likely to make decisions the voter likes.

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#22

Post by loceng » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:19 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #16

kypro wrote: post #3

Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion. As a side note, I wish there was less exposure to political opinion in general. I think there's a problem in how a single celeb, or a close friend talking about their political views can be so influential. Not because they've made a particularly good argument, but because that person is trusted or looked up to. I often wonder how we would vote if we were…

> Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion. How can society change for the better if you can't communicate and try to convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your solution. There is a de-facto ban on political advertizing (or "worldview" advertizing) in Germany, and it is really frustrating.…

Advertising allows relatively cheap, very low effort, access to mass manipulation of a population.

If people had to actually effort to share knowledge - as we evolved to having to do, to excel at story telling to pass on knowledge through generations - then that cost would prevent the kind of rapid indoctrination and rallying people based on hate, emotional and irrational thinking - thought that hasn't been checked with critical thinking.

Process of indoctrination can only exist when fear is constantly present, suppressed-repressed reaction - emotional or otherwise - when ego mind guard is constantly active; Ekhart Tolle in The Power of Now references this and the insanity that this leads to.

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#23

Post by abfar » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

HunOL wrote: post #20

captainmuon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion. How can society change for the better if you can't communicate and try to convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your solution. There is a de-facto ban on political advertizing (or "worldview" advertizing) in Germany, and it is really frustrating.…

> How can society change for the better if you can't communicate and try to convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your solution. It increase impact of money. Who have more money more likely to win.

What if we require that every $1 spent by someone on a political ad must also be balanced by a $1 subsidy for the opponents' ads? Seems fair to me and would reduce the impact of money. (I'm sorry but I forgot who proposed this idea.)

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#24

Post by afiori » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

abfar wrote: post #23

HunOL wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can society change for the better if you can't communicate and try to convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your solution. It increase impact of money. Who have more money more likely to win.

What if we require that every $1 spent by someone on a political ad must also be balanced by a $1 subsidy for the opponents' ads? Seems fair to me and would reduce the impact of money. (I'm sorry but I forgot who proposed this idea.)

What about systems that are not strictly with two sides?

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#25

Post by gberger » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

abfar wrote: post #23

HunOL wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can society change for the better if you can't communicate and try to convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your solution. It increase impact of money. Who have more money more likely to win.

What if we require that every $1 spent by someone on a political ad must also be balanced by a $1 subsidy for the opponents' ads? Seems fair to me and would reduce the impact of money. (I'm sorry but I forgot who proposed this idea.)

Politicians have more than one opponent (except in USA I guess...)

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#26

Post by afiori » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #19

kypro wrote: post #3

Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion. As a side note, I wish there was less exposure to political opinion in general. I think there's a problem in how a single celeb, or a close friend talking about their political views can be so influential. Not because they've made a particularly good argument, but because that person is trusted or looked up to. I often wonder how we would vote if we were…

>Political advertising should be banned entirely This strikes way too close to throwing the 1A out the window, in all the ways that touch the everyday activities. That sci-fi book you wrote, with Lord Admiral character? It was a manifesto for a new governance system. That meme you shared online a month ago? It's now associated with a particular candidate. Your proposal voiced in parent's meeting at school? It's a pol…

But there is a difference between advertising and propaganda/activism.

Printing a book that brings you to an understanding of a political idea [1] is one thing. Passively sticking your posters on other people books (after paying) is another.

Propaganda gets a lot of well deserved criticism as it is often dishonest, we simply tolerate similar dishonesty in advertisements.

[1] Whether by truth or lies does not really matter in a sense here.

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#27

Post by corodra » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

abfar wrote: post #23

HunOL wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can society change for the better if you can't communicate and try to convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your solution. It increase impact of money. Who have more money more likely to win.

What if we require that every $1 spent by someone on a political ad must also be balanced by a $1 subsidy for the opponents' ads? Seems fair to me and would reduce the impact of money. (I'm sorry but I forgot who proposed this idea.)

Okay, but wouldn't you consider an ad campaign "political" if it was about voting that oil refineries can't dump run off into a water supply? Would that mean that the same folks running the anti-dumping, environmentally friendly campaign also have to donate money to the oil companies for their pro-dumping initiatives?

I'm not trying to be mean, just pointing out an unintended consequence of such a system.

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#28

Post by frosted-flakes » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

adolph wrote: post #12

tarjei wrote: post #2

As much as I fear the China with regard to censorship, I think this could be a wise move for all social media platforms. There are two reason why I think this: a) Political advertising on social media is very hard to police as you can create huge amount of versions of each ad and target very different audiences. b) Political advertising at volume favors the richest campaigns with the largest amount of knowledge about…

How is political defined? What happens in the US is that if certain financing is unavailable to be used in a certain way, like direct support of a candidate or party, then that money is shifted into “issue advertising” which presents a topic of political disagreement to favor one side over another. Within the information domain of a political debate, there may be human activities that are non-political but political…

Seems simple enough to me: if it's funded by a political party or candidate, it's a political advertisement, regardless of the content. There are always ways of illegally hiding candidates' expenses, but most of the time it should be obvious who funded an ad opposing or promoting a politician.

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#29

Post by celticmusic » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #3

Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion. As a side note, I wish there was less exposure to political opinion in general. I think there's a problem in how a single celeb, or a close friend talking about their political views can be so influential. Not because they've made a particularly good argument, but because that person is trusted or looked up to. I often wonder how we would vote if we were…

> How one generation can be almost universally opposed to something like gay marriage, then suddenly in just a generation the majority of the population is in almost religious support of it.

2 reasons.

1. That isn't actually what happened, DADT was in the 90's, for example, and

2. Each generation learns from the mistakes of the generation before it (and makes mistakes of their own).

DADT was the death knell of anti-gay sentiment. It was the military drawing a line in the sand, and when that line got stepped over, drawing another line in the sand. It was inevitable that line would be stepped over as well.

This is how life works.

Re: TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

#30

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #16

kypro wrote: post #3

Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion. As a side note, I wish there was less exposure to political opinion in general. I think there's a problem in how a single celeb, or a close friend talking about their political views can be so influential. Not because they've made a particularly good argument, but because that person is trusted or looked up to. I often wonder how we would vote if we were…

> Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion. How can society change for the better if you can't communicate and try to convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your solution. There is a de-facto ban on political advertizing (or "worldview" advertizing) in Germany, and it is really frustrating.…

Write articles, books, participate in debates, write letters to newspapers, columns, speak at Speakers’ Corner. But don’t buy advertising.