Twitter to ban political advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#431

Post by wpietri » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

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.

No, not at all. Freedom of expression is the right to say your piece to willing listeners. It's a guarantee the state won't interfere in most speech, not a guarantee that rich people can buy an audience.

Cellphones and internet connections are content-neutral pipes that convey content between a willing listener/reader and a speaker they select. So paying for those is a very different case than buying ads, and especially buying false ads.

Especially now that we're 25+ years into the web era, I don't think there's a strong argument for the legal necessity of paid political advertising at all. If I'm curious about candidate or an issue, I can find out anything I want from anybody who can use two thumbs to type something into a box on Facebook or Twitter. I can also get vetted content from a variety of aggregators, from commercial media to non-profit election guides to Wikipedia-style references to my friends sharing things on social media.

Given that, a law saying, "Nobody can pay for reach," certainly wouldn't harm democracy any. And it might help. So I think this is a great step forward on Twitter's part.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#432

Post by heretoo » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

I'm seeing a lot of discussion relating to US laws, but this tweet says the decision is globally applicable. How are the US laws relevant to the decision?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#433

Post by xkjkls » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

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…

There will never be a successful community without some level of moderation. It is better for us to define the levels of moderation than have a organization start adjudicating truth.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#434

Post by skybrian » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 10:58 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #409

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.

Not to mention the fact that "politics" winds up being a very wide swath. I will be interested to see how Twitter classifies this. 1. Suppose you advertise for an donations to an adoption charity? Finding good homes for children is surely universally recognized as a wonderful, noble cause. Advertise on Twitter. 2. Now suppose the adoption charity partners with and funds pregnancy centers needing adoption services. 3.…

There is politics in everything, but when we say "political ad" we really mean ads primarily intended to influence voters in elections.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#435

Post by wpietri » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 10:59 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #362

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…

> Everyone knows the first amendment applies to governments only. Not true in the slightest.

Would you care to give case law demonstrating otherwise? Because as best I can tell, it only applies to use of government power.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#436

Post by pm90 » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #399

Call me a Scrooge but my read is rather that whoever wins will piss off the opposite side, who will blame social media like they did in 2016, and there is no scenario where twitter doesn't ends up the target of more regulations unless they stay away from the elections as far as they can. This will not help with trolls and viral campaigns though.

This is a great point, but ducking out of politics is exactly the right move here to avoid that kind of charge.

Regulation will come with any functioning democracy. If an entity other than the State has too much power, Democracies will eventually dismantle or defang it, as they should.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#437

Post by mattrp » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 11:03 PM UTC

heretoo wrote: post #430

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…

> It’s certainly not what the first amendment is about. Only one country has the first amendment, and this decision from twitter is globally applicable, so it shouldn't factor into the decision.

Those pesky Americans with their free speech... doesn’t anyone here see what this really is about? The elites have lost control of the narrative so they are doing what all elites do in a time of crisis: ban it all. Shut up you mere mortals and go back to doing what you’re told and thinking what we want you to think.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#438

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #377

dmix wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Tangentially invoking a hot-button issue like the first amendment is at best a tactical error in that it distracts from your actual point. In this case, your analogy is flat wrong because the first amendment actually does have lots of grey area (I mean, you can choose not to recognize the USSC's interpretation as valid, but it won't help). In response to your underlying argument about special cases being bad: tough.…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#439

Post by dang » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

zouhair wrote: post #319

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! ”

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

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#440

Post by tyfon » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 11:06 PM UTC

In Norway political TV adds are banned, I wish it would apply to all media. The democracy works much better when you have to make a proper argument instead of just having the best ad.

I'd also like to ban political polling, it is used to push a narrative far too often instead of discussing the actual issue. Another issue is that parties will shape their positions according to polls and not what they actually think. Lastly, some people want to be on the "winning team" and will pick party based on who is in the lead.

I fully support this move by twitter.