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Twitter to ban political advertising

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Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#411

Post by CharlesColeman »

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.

> 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?

Absolutes don't really work well in the real world: there are too many trade-offs to be balanced and too many positive goals that are at tension with each other. For instance, and absolute right to paying for free expression sounds nice in isolation, because we value free speech. But we also value democracy, and democracy doesn't work well when an oligarchy or foreign power can use its massive wealth overwhelm and confuse the expression of the common people.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#413

Post by exergy »

ben509 wrote: post #385
exergy wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People not thinking things through, which, yes, means working them out from first principles, are why we have so many stupid and broken laws, policies, regulations, etc. > Yep, exactly the kinds of dickheads you don't want polluting our information streams with their bullshit. Out with all of them! I'm sure you'll be shocked and outraged when a story lands in a few months because someone you like is protesting this p…

And you're going to tell me a bunch of anons on HN are bout to invent it from first principles?!

While 'we' (I'm not American) might have plenty of stupid laws, we also have some very good ones. We've gotten there by taking necessarily-flawed first steps. I have no doubt Twitter will overlook something. But I'm glad they're doing it anyway, and we will get somewhere better in steps. It's better than navel gazing about "What's a law anyway?"

Also, granted, GP didn't explicitly state that he's against the law, but this kind of smug, condescending slippery slope argument keeps getting brought up all over HN, hence my over the top reaction. So many thread seem to devolve into this kind of pointless "Yeah but define first" at the hands of Rationalists™ and are worse for it. They get nowhere and it makes for infuriating reading.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#414

Post by xkjkls »

basch wrote: post #326
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.

IF google and microsoft came to an agreement over what people where allowed to email, it would be pretty interesting to see if most people just accepted censorship on private communication. To an extent they already do so, in that they block spam at their discretion. Do you respect that same right for google and microsoft to ban the propagation of pro-political-opinion-you-dont-agree-with from their platforms?

A better example would be something like the NBA's situation in China currently. If a government has the market power to determine what those in a private enterprise should be able to say, is that a situation that we accept?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#415

Post by harry8 »

basch wrote: post #326
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.

IF google and microsoft came to an agreement over what people where allowed to email, it would be pretty interesting to see if most people just accepted censorship on private communication. To an extent they already do so, in that they block spam at their discretion. Do you respect that same right for google and microsoft to ban the propagation of pro-political-opinion-you-dont-agree-with from their platforms?

"IF google and microsoft came to an agreement over what people where allowed to spam email, ..."

And they have. This is not consenting communication. This is broadcast. Different game, different rules.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#416

Post by nicoburns »

pjc50 wrote: post #376
nicoburns wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard. The UK (and I believe most of Europe) has heavily regulated political advertising. Politicians can't advertise on billboards here, and TV slots are strictly regulated (and time-limited). I'm not entirely sure what criteria are used, but it seems to work reasonably well.

.. but not on the internet, which produced the current disaster.

Indeed, and newspapers are arguably problematic too. But I think it demonstrates that regulation can be done without the definition of what it covers being too controversial.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#418

Post by roadnottaken »

smileysteve wrote: post #272
roadnottaken wrote: post #242

Why hasn't this issue come-up with print advertisements? Seems like it should've been addressed eons ago...

Print advertisements have a history of being subject to editorial review.

And? do those editors have a history of allowing or blocking untruthful ads?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#420

Post by xkjkls »

ben509 wrote: post #386
nicoburns wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard. The UK (and I believe most of Europe) has heavily regulated political advertising. Politicians can't advertise on billboards here, and TV slots are strictly regulated (and time-limited). I'm not entirely sure what criteria are used, but it seems to work reasonably well.

That doesn't mean they're doing it fairly. It just means that people have accepted that certain voices are silenced.

It's much easier to adjudicate what is and isn't political than what is and isn't honest.
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