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Twitter to ban political advertising

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Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#351

Post by swebs »

octonion wrote: post #200
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…

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

Yes.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#352

Post by WalterSear »

gameswithgo wrote: post #258
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…

the use of fake account swarms to spread political ideology seems the more powerful use of twitter than legitimate ads. will we see a correspondingly brave effort to delete fake accounts?

Already against the TOS, and they already do that.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#353

Post by twoodfin »

shadowgovt wrote: post #148

Their heart's in the right place, but mechanically, doesn't this shift the money from "pay for an ad on Twitter" to "pay for a bot farm / human clickfarm to like and reshare the tweet?" Twitter's engagement model (popularity ∝ importance) is still flawed in gameable ways, and political operations have the money to pay to play those games.

Agree, but at least now the “game” has viewpoint-neutral rules.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#354

Post by zamalek »

dmix wrote: post #162

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. 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…

Arguments about whether Twitter is subject to FoS aside; censorship would entail deleting tweets, not rejecting adverts.

Speech is not reach. Freedom of Speech is not the right to be heard, it is the right to speak your mind. If people decide to not listen to what you say (followers), you have no right to force them to (adverts).

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#355

Post by humanrebar »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #346
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…

Many trees constitute a forest. A single tree does not. At some point, a group of trees becomes large enough to be considered a forest. There is no way to provide any non-arbitrary rule where that point is. Does this render the concept of a "forest" meaningless?

If you promise to chop down all forests but are fine with trees, yes.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#356

Post by danso »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #343
buboard wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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! ”

I'm skeptical of this. Is a private charity promoting an LGBT fundraiser a political ad? What about Fox News pushing an ad about how other news is fake. Or MSNBC pushing an ad about Russia collusion? Was the now infamous Gillette woke ad political? It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

"Political advertising" may be limited to advertising that is bought for by political campaigns and PACs, which they have a previously defined policy for:

https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted...

> The policy varies across markets but generally applies to ads that advocate for or against a candidate or political party, or ads by candidates and/or entities registered with their respective electoral commission.

edit: as u/ben509 pointed out, the above link only refers to political campaigns. Here's the link that defines "political content" as both campaigns and issue advocacy (at least in the U.S.)

https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted...

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#357

Post by charliepark »

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…

I love it when people make the point you're responding to.

> Everyone knows the first amendment applies to governments only.

You say that, and yet …

"@jack .Something smell really"fishy here".I don't agree with. I don't get it.Hidden socialism in plain sight.Chaos & Anarchy .Blasting the first amendment .This declaration remind me of the Russia ,Cuban revolution .A cruel dictatorship Socialism/Communism . Extremely dangerous !" https://twitter.com/albertobmas/status/1189659185258147841

"It's a sad day for the First Amendment, but a long awaited confirmation of the stupidity of the masses!" https://twitter.com/DoogieFrasier/status/1189644420121055232

"Right. Sure. We all believe this one. Aside from being against the First Amendment, no one can possibly be stupid enough to believe Twitter will stop pushing the leftist agenda. Only those with an R or conservative leaning will be stopped. Yawn" https://twitter.com/SharonRaeL/status/1189641756947746819

"'We need more regulation of advertising.' @jack can I introduce you to the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States?" https://twitter.com/brianfrobbins/status/1189641373055668226

"And who decides that the political advertising is earned? and isn’t this a violation of the first amendment rights? And what is the process for earning said right which is enshrined in the Constitution to advertise their beliefs or interpretation of fact? @tedcruz @realDonaldTrump" https://twitter.com/TheMightyMacky/status/118963820772345446...

"@jack just took away our 1st amendment rights!" https://twitter.com/AbrahamHershfie/status/11896409454127841...

"Oh wow mr hi horse. Such a great platform. Ok for some ppl to call others pieces of shit but some get banned! 1st amendment jack" https://twitter.com/surfdadRED/status/1189656480062099457

If you mention the first amendment in the context of a private organization and you don't explicitly note that you understand that it doesn't technically apply in this situation, I'm going to associate your argument with the arguments of the people quoted above.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#358

Post by danso »

yters wrote: post #322

What defines a political ad? For example are prolife ads political, even if they mention no laws or politics? What about ads that do not mention politics but are targeted to influence policy? Seems like an ambiguous category except for outright promoting particular candidates and laws.

It's been defined here:

https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted...

edit: This is a better link, as it defines the more general term of "political content", which covers both campaigns and issue advocacy:

https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted...

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#359

Post by exergy »

yters wrote: post #322

What defines a political ad? For example are prolife ads political, even if they mention no laws or politics? What about ads that do not mention politics but are targeted to influence policy? Seems like an ambiguous category except for outright promoting particular candidates and laws.

This level of pedantry drives me up the wall. Not everything needs to be invented from first principles.

Profile ads are banned, yes, because they involve teh candidates. Policy ads are banned because they again involve politics.

We can start anywhere! Let's say 'nothing from any entity that receives money from a political party'. Or 'anything mentioning election candidates'. Or 'anything with certain keywords in it'.

What you're not stopping to ask yourself is 'who are the kinds of people that need to advertise about politics'? Yep, exactly the kinds of dickheads you don't want polluting our information streams with their bullshit. Out with all of them!

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#360

Post by danso »

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…

TV and print outlets already exercise discretion on what they allow. Are you under the impression that they do not?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/business/media/cnn-trump-...

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