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Twitter to ban political advertising

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Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#191

Quote from Jack > We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Will they also ban politicians? Accounts buy followers to grow and look legit, including politicians. Just removing ads isn't removing power of money, as people are (and will be) spending a lot of money to get organic reach. Some of their most popular accounts are politicians accounts. That brings tons of traffic to Twitter and makes m…

So be it. At least from their business side, they are clearing themselves of responsibility. They are a company, they dont have a duty to arbitrate political discourse in general.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dorsey espouses some very libertarian views and yet he's generally leaning left of course. Still , he s the only one who dares give Trump a megaphone. I think he handles the whole situation exceptionally well.

However shouldn’t the president have a “megaphone?” In the old days, when a president spoke, the media would “interpret” what he said. Politicians being able to speak directly to the population is a good thing.

Of course. Like it or not, the transparency that Trump's twitter provides is unprecedented and a win for democracies.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#193
post #73
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?

I'm reminded of the dodge that religious institutions have achieved. In exchange for tax-exempt status, they are forbidden from explicit political stances and endorsements; yet in practice, many churches are highly influential in the political process, as they of course are allowed to take moral stances (abortion being the big one), and encouraging their congregations to "vote their consciences", etc. Seems to me tha…

The Sierra Club has a similar “dodge.” Most non-profits are tax exempt and many have separate PACs that aren’t tax exempt but are indirectly supported by their tax-exempt cohort if only by providing a mailing list from which to solicit donations.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#195

From what I recall Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez questioned Zuckerberg, she questioned along the anecdote of: If I purchase ads on Facebook saying Republicans support the Green New Deal (but they don't), will Facebook take the ads down? I often see these clean, easily provable anecdotes from those who support some kind of suppression of speech. I worry though: often the truthfulness of real world statements are difficu…

Someone tried to put up that ad and Facebook took it down. But wasn't it "just" deceptive clickbait advertising for a political position against Facebook? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-facebook/fac...

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#196
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but then they could be ordered to take it down. I think the idea is to be censorship resistant in such a way that the company itself cannot make exceptions when pressured by a court, but I'm forgetting if that's me reading between the lines or if Dorsey explicitly talks about censorship resistance.

We've learned that you can't get around the law (eg. court orders) "because blockchain". The government has shown us that the law prevails.

But it actually is being shown to work.

When was the last time that a court successfully reversed a transaction on the Bitcoin Blockchain? The answer is never.

Sure, they have sent court orders to companies, or whatever, but the blockchain itself has never been reversed by court order.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#197
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

I wouldn't have a problem with expanding that to include social issues. You bought a ticket to see a game, not a billboard. This is a problem I have with modern social movements, when they fail to get audiences in public spaces they seek out captive audiences or to be disruptive as possible to completely unrelated places. Hold your rally in a park or march down main street or a pedestrian way or in front of some plac…

"Please do not bother me with you trying to not get killed by the state anymore."

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#200

From what I recall Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez questioned Zuckerberg, she questioned along the anecdote of: If I purchase ads on Facebook saying Republicans support the Green New Deal (but they don't), will Facebook take the ads down? I often see these clean, easily provable anecdotes from those who support some kind of suppression of speech. I worry though: often the truthfulness of real world statements are difficu…

Are political propaganda and deliberate lies the type of speech the Founding Fathers were trying to protect?
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