Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do we keep that in mind?
Controversy is addictive. By forbidding spending money to get reach, the ones with most reach will be those who are the most controversial.
Twitter to ban political advertising
291–300 of 1001 posts
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#292Bravo. That whole thread is smart, well-reasoned, and puts democracy above profits. Good for them. I particularly like his last point: > A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address. Whic…
In fairness Twitter has been public since 2013 and in that time only turned a profit in 1 year.
These ads wouldn't make or break them, and its far more valuable to get the PR while FB is in the media for the same issue.
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#293One thing about the first amendment is that it doesn't have conditions. This type of thing that Twitter is doing will be full of them, ie selectively defining what's political or not. The question is whether this is a lesser evil than allowing political ads but selectively blocking stuff with very broad and potentially inconsistent moderation rules. I personally think totally blocking is the easier of the two in term…
The first amendment does have conditions that arise through legal construction, since it alone is not the whole of the Constitution.
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#294Wow. That's gotta be a lot of money they're leaving on the table, no? I totally support it. But I've also got to be brutally honest: I wonder if this is a sincere moral stance on Dorsey's part, or more of a business calculation that, leading up to the lightning-rod 2020 election, accepting political ads ultimately has the potential to do more damage to Twitter's reputation than the money would make up for -- or have…
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#295From 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…
One of the better questions she asked was, "should a political party be allowed to run targeted ads at members of the opposing party, giving false information about the election date?" Zuck's response was, "well, I think it's BAD if you LIE. Telling lies is bad." but wouldn't say that Facebook would moderate that kind of content. I personally don't see a legitimate free speech claim saying that political parties shou…
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#296Beyond spineless of Jack and everyone at Twitter. Political ads seem to work just fine on TV, radio, print, and everywhere else on the web. Pathetic that Twitter decided to bow down to the most paranoid in our society. All he is doing is validating these stupid conspiracy theories and cementing how scary it is that he has so much control on freedom of expression in modern society. I will bet anything that Twitter all…
It's hard for me to interpret those other media as working "just fine":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton#Horton_in_the_19...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_Door_(advertisement)
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> You bought a ticket to see a game, not a billboard. Absolutely. So let's get rid of advertising at games. Not just political advertising; all advertising. No Democratic or Republican ads, but also no Toyota or Chrysler ads, no Coors or Bud Light ads. Unfortunately, there's too much money at stake for that to ever happen. But political ads are different. I don't think Coors drinkers get offended when they see a Bud…
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#298From 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…
Obviously such questions were manipulative grandstanding. The only way to win the political rhetoric game is not to play. That's what twitter is doing.
While her question could seem to be reductive, I think it's accurately reducing the question to a point where the answer is easily approachable to most people and, while often time the actual advertisements less obvious lies in practice, a lot of facebook advertisements are knowingly spreading falsehoods and that is hurting the political dialog.
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#299Bravo. That whole thread is smart, well-reasoned, and puts democracy above profits. Good for them. I particularly like his last point: > A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address. Whic…
Re: Twitter to ban political advertising
#300Freedom of expression inherently includes the freedom to pay for expression. What are your expression worth if you wouldn’t be able to pay a service, cellphone/internet connection/reddit gold to express that? How is paying ads different than paying a campaigner set up a loudspeaker in the middle of a city? But then again, since twitter is a private enterprise, I fully respect their right to act on their own platform.
freedom of expression is different from freedom to pay to amplify the expression.