Twitter to ban political advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#31

Post by malandrew » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

acollins1331 wrote: post #2

We don't let blatantly false ads run on TV. Why is it so hard for Facebook or Twitter to do the same thing?

One word: scale

A tv channel has like 6 to 9 slots per 30 minutes of content and most of those slots have the same ads playing multiple times in a day. I would guess that there’s at most 1-2 hours of unique ad content for one channel per week to review.

With user generated content and thousands of unique ad slots, using humans to verify is prohibitive.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#32

Post by rtkwe » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #7

Is this when we now start to wonder what will count as a political ad? Social movements that have a political connection / associated with a particular party or candidate?

There'll be a lot of feeling out that line because it's impossible to draw a distinction that will work in every case. It'll be especially hard in cases where particular issues become heavily associated with one party or another though I guess they could just say product ads only, that would probably be a little easier because the line between a political and non-political product is a bit easier to draw.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#33

Post by pacificleo12 » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

Kudos to Jack for this step. it will put pressure on FB to act responsibly. however Now the debate will shift to what is a political ad. its like superpac and political party symbiosis again

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#34

Post by busterarm » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #30

One of the key aspects of political content on social media is that you don't necessarily need to buy ads to get your message in front of people. You can instead pay for an army of bots to spread your message and make it appear as genuine user generated content rather than a prepackaged advertisement. So while this decision by Twitter is in my opinion good, what are they doing to cut down on inauthentic political eng…

You can also get an army of real actual people to spread your message and the company can just ban them and accuse them of being bots or having ties to some government without actual evidence.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#35

Post by anchpop » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

idoh wrote: post #28

Final policy 11/15, enforcement starts 11/22. This seems like a tricky line to walk. For example, could I promote a Tweet about the UBI without mentioning Andrew Yang?

I would hope not. They claim they're also banning issue ads

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#36

Post by cooljacob204 » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #7

Is this when we now start to wonder what will count as a political ad? Social movements that have a political connection / associated with a particular party or candidate?

An option they have is to just filter it by to only allow companies that are trying to sell a product.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#37

Post by jld » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #7

Is this when we now start to wonder what will count as a political ad? Social movements that have a political connection / associated with a particular party or candidate?

Major League Soccer is going through this problem now. They prohibit political displays in stadium but are now in the business of deciding whether signs that say things like "anti-racist" or "anti-fascist" or "end gun violence" are political or not, and all of the worms that come out of that can.

https://deadspin.com/by-banning-protest-signs-mls-is-trying-...

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#38

Post by notatoad » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:19 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #7

Is this when we now start to wonder what will count as a political ad? Social movements that have a political connection / associated with a particular party or candidate?

My first thought would be that any ad that isn't advertising a product or service for sale should be classed as a political ad.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#39

Post by partiallypro » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:20 PM UTC

brm wrote: post #22

"Bots" are such a boogeyman on Twitter, usually from older folks that just don't understand the nature of the internet. I've seen threads where completely legitimate people are accused of being "bots." If the problem were so extreme, it would be much more pronounced. It's incredibly hard to police, and it happens on every single platform.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#40

Post by proverbialbunny » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:20 PM UTC

Campaign finance is illegal in most of the first world. If political ads were banned in the US, politicians wouldn't need money to get reelected (Ads get the majority of votes.). When a politician needs money to get reelected they have to take money from lobbyists.

Banning political ads is crucial linchpin to getting money out of politics.