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Twitter to ban political advertising

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Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#311

Post by x2f10 »

tyre wrote: post #44

Good for them, and good for us. Without controlling bots and sockpuppets, it's not a total fix. Still, a step in the right direction. Given the larger overlap between Facebook users and people who vote, we'll need follow-up from Zuckerberg to really make this stick. Step in the right direction.

I don't follow politics nor do I follow these discussions, but I wonder how many people are influenced from a politic ad vs how many people are influenced from bots. I'd _guess_ bots are much much much much more influential.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#312

Post by EpicEng »

dmix wrote: post #266
EpicEng wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One other thing about the first amendment is that it doesn't apply to Twitter.

People make this point every single time this comes up like they've contributed something interesting or new, it's exhausting. No one has said the constitution applied to Twitter. Everyone knows the first amendment applies to governments only. Yet free speech still has a huge cultural role in western countries that goes well beyond government charters, for very good reasons. That's the reason why it's embedded in law…

>People make this point every single time this comes up like they've contributed something interesting or new, it's exhausting.

Almost as exhausting as people saying it's exhausting.

>No one has said the constitution applied to Twitter. Everyone knows the first amendment applies to governments only.

Odd way for the GP to open up an argument then.

>One 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.

If everyone knows that it doesn't apply, then everyone should just leave it out to begin with. Also, in implementation, it absolutely has conditions. 0/2.

>Yet free speech still has a huge cultural role in western countries that goes well beyond government charters, for very good reasons. That's the reason why it's embedded in law in the first place, not the other way around, we didn't start caring about free speech because the US constitution adopted it, nor should we dismiss it where government rule ends

Huh? It was added because the founders had first hand experience with government suppressing rebellious rabble rousers who threatened their power. It guaranteed freedom of religion, the press, and assembly. Of course that's what they were fighting for. In what way did it go "beyond government charters"?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#313

Post by buboard »

munk-a wrote: post #298
buboard wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I generally comprehend "grandstanding" in the common language to not only be seeking attention but to misrepresent false or unimportant information for the sake of gaining that attention. Does my definition mesh with yours or how would you find that quote to be misrepresenting a problem in society? While her question could seem to be reductive, I think it's accurately reducing the question to a point where the answer…

oh her questions were more reasonable than others, like for example the question about the sexual orientations of Libra association member boards. Still, her question about what constitutes a political lie is not representative of 99% of political lies , which are usually more subtle and subject to debate. Also, his response "we should let the people see for themselves the lies and judge politicians accordingly" was not really countered at all.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#314

Post by Vaslo »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #283
tonmoy wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? What if the government decides the earth is the center of the universe and imprisons the scientist who has observable proof that it isn’t? What’s if the government decides “encryption with backdoor is unsafe” is a false statement and suppresses all speech that says otherwise?

Slippery slope arguments like this are stupid because a government determined to be a bad actor isn't going to let a constitution stop them. Russia has a constitution, heck, Soviet Russia did. The reality of having laws against broadcasting lies is that they will be applied sensibly if the rest of the system is sensible - and if it is not, you have worse problems.

I’m not sure that comparing Russia to the US in this instance is any less “stupid”.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#315

Post by dmix »

EpicEng wrote: post #312
dmix wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People make this point every single time this comes up like they've contributed something interesting or new, it's exhausting. No one has said the constitution applied to Twitter. Everyone knows the first amendment applies to governments only. Yet free speech still has a huge cultural role in western countries that goes well beyond government charters, for very good reasons. That's the reason why it's embedded in law…

>People make this point every single time this comes up like they've contributed something interesting or new, it's exhausting. Almost as exhausting as people saying it's exhausting. >No one has said the constitution applied to Twitter. Everyone knows the first amendment applies to governments only. Odd way for the GP to open up an argument then. >One thing about the first amendment is that it doesn't have conditions…

> Odd way for the GP to open up an argument then.

I am the OP and I specifically referenced the first amendment as an analogy to highlight the dangers of grey areas, which are the things the constitution avoids by making them absolute. Which is where all the risk remains with this sort of policy, and the reason why it's relevant to Twitter.

Saying the first amendment doesn't apply to private companies is meaningless in that context.

Context matters. Pigeonholing a tired counter argument where it doesn't fit isn't contributing to this conversation. Although I suspect you didn't actually read the comment before replying, only the first sentence.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#316

Post by Aperocky »

asdf333 wrote: post #290
Aperocky wrote: post #269

Freedom 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.

Yes, and freedom of expression includes people who created account 3 months ago, who decided to amplify his message which are then read by you here. In order to do that, the person paid for internet, electronics, invested time and thought into this practice.

The right to pay for something using money is inherent as the right to spend another resource such as time or labor.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#317

Post by Barrin92 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #229
SirensOfTitan wrote: post #102

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…

"The Green New Deal. Who really supports it? Click here to find out more." Just move the propaganda two hops away.

would already greatly diminish the effect. Two hops away is a magnitude or two less of exposure.

When Spain changed organ donations from opt-in to opt-out the rate increased from 30% to 9x%. That's one tick of a box.

I see these comments a lot and I don't know if people purposefully try to downplay the role of smart design because they pursue an agenda or if people seriously don't recognise how significant small changes in design can be.

If we'd manage to hide false information behind two clicks we'd have done the world a great service.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#318

Post by afarrell »

product50 wrote: post #254

So why not use the same methodology on TV or print as well and ban political ads across? Why is social media singled out here? What about ads on YouTube? This is nothing but a copout solution. Twitter doesn't have the will nor the capital to be part of the debate here (and political ads are likely too small for them to care) - so they are trying to gain strategy credit by just saying this is a bad idea. NYTimes is ha…

> This is nothing but a copout solution.

Who's solution is a copout?

You're saying that it is inconsistent for Twitter to not accept payment for political ads, but a print newspaper to do so. This is correct. But that inconsistency reflects the fact that the decisions are being made by different people.

What would be a non-copout solution that twitter could implement?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#319

Post by zouhair »

buboard wrote: post #163
nlh wrote: post #74

Bravo. 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…

> Which I cannot read in any way but “f-you, Facebook.” He was even more explicit: > For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want! ”

It's easy to blame Facebook, it is well known Zucky needs the money, rent is not cheap in California.
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