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Twitter to ban political advertising

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Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#481

Post by rapind »

harryh wrote: post #248
octonion wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The issue is who gets to be the arbiter of what counts as "political propaganda and deliberate lies"? The founding fathers thought that if government was given such power it would be abused to stifle speech that fell outside of those categories so the only way to protect speech was to protect it all. I tend to think that if this is true for government, it's probably true for large corporations as well.

I think the issue is whether it still qualifies as free speech when it's paid advertisement. Inevitably the companies with the largest coffers and most to gain get a megaphone and you end up with tiers of free speech (pay to be heard).

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#482

Post by subsaharancoder »

Would a pro-life advert, which has obvious political ramifications depending on which side of the divide you are on, qualify as a political ad? I ask because Twitter has actively been blocking/stopping pro-life organizations from running ads with zero transparency on how the decision was arrived at or which policy it violates, but doesn't apply the same standard to pro-choice groups and in fact gives them carte blanche to continue running ads. Twitter has clearly shown its bias on multiple occasions and I don't expect this to change in the short or long term.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#483

Post by noelsusman »

ben509 wrote: post #394
Barrin92 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep, the whole "who decides on the truth?" thing is extremely irritating. Do we throw out every court case now because apparently it's impossible to determine what is fact and what is fiction, or to establish common rules or guidelines for conduct? We've been doing nothing else for thousands of years.

A basic legal doctrine is that "it's better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be unjustly imprisoned." If anything, prosecutors have been taking your attitude and gaming the system with plea deals, so you're not merely wrong, but horribly wrong.

Treating everything as if the consequence of getting it wrong is sending an innocent person to prison doesn't make any sense. Courts don't even do that. They use different standards when imprisonment isn't an option.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#484

Post by donw »

BurningFrog wrote: post #454
tasty_freeze wrote: post #289

Whenever these topics come up, the comment section is full of people advocating for no limits based solely on slipper slope arguments: who is going to determine what is politcal? Who is going to determine what is true? But we all life with boundaries and we cope just fine. Why should this street in front of my house have a 35 MPH speed limit? What is special about 35? Why not 36? Why not 34? Who is to say that one is…

I think you just made a slippery slope argument against slippery slope arguments !!!

But it's so... smooth!

(Yeah, I know, Reddit-style jokery, bring on the downvotes...)

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#485

Post by joshred »

lpolovets wrote: post #471

I'm still not sure what I think about the ban, but one potential downside is it will give people with lots of organic reach, like celebrities and incumbents, a big advantage. Before you could use organic reach to combat paid reach and vice versa, but now organic reach is the only thing that counts. For example, if The Rock runs for governor of California next year, it will be very hard for his opponents to compete (a…

Isn't organic reach a little more meritocratic than just throwing money into paid ads?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#486

Post by proverbialbunny »

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…

Campaign financing is illegal in most of the first world. In the US there have even been multiple supreme court rules on the subject.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#487

Post by randiantech »

zanny wrote: post #464
tasty_freeze wrote: post #289

Whenever these topics come up, the comment section is full of people advocating for no limits based solely on slipper slope arguments: who is going to determine what is politcal? Who is going to determine what is true? But we all life with boundaries and we cope just fine. Why should this street in front of my house have a 35 MPH speed limit? What is special about 35? Why not 36? Why not 34? Who is to say that one is…

Trying to make a slippery slope argument about a private corporations private, for-profit website is hilarious. Twitter will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders. If you don't want your communications to be under the total absolute control of a corporate entity you have no influence over, you might want to pack your bag…

Im scared of such arguments. And im telling you as a libertarian. No, private companies should be regulated and shareholders cant be the only voice to be heard. I mean, what if starbucks shareholders decide that, lets say, african americans are no longer allowed to buy coffe on their shops. Would it be ok to allow it?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#488

Post by aioprisan »

erichocean wrote: post #469
zanny wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to make a slippery slope argument about a private corporations private, for-profit website is hilarious. Twitter will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders. If you don't want your communications to be under the total absolute control of a corporate entity you have no influence over, you might want to pack your bag…

Evergreen: Twitter is a public company. And the grandparent just argued that we should easily be able to regulate companies. You're saying the opposite, now we can't regulate because they're quote-unquote "private"? Well, which is it? Can we regulate for-profit companies for the good of the nation or not? If not, why not?

We already regulate companies through laws. Pass the appropriate laws! The alternative is that we hope for companies to self-regulate, which may or may not align with what's good for society.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#489

Post by friendlybus »

birdyrooster wrote: post #465
friendlybus wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are places where there are no speed limits. The autobahn for one. Arguing against 'the optimal boundary is impossible argument' assumes you agree with his base axioms, that things like money are more important than the exploration of other principles. These are not slippery slope arguments, but the very base of politics itself. Why have any rule.

You are begging the question by assuming that the autobahn is valuable beyond a speed-regulated road. I will agree the autobahn has novelty value for the sake of it's own peculiarity, but that isn't something you can generalize as valuable for other roads. If going as fast as you would like was valuable for any reason beyond novelty and/or tourism, we would be doing it already.

>You are begging the question

I would like to think, using the autobahn as an argument to make the point that parent's post wasn't as self-evident as it could appear. I agree the autobahn has it's own value judgement to be discussed if one so wishes.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#490

Post by jdpigeon »

lpolovets wrote: post #471

I'm still not sure what I think about the ban, but one potential downside is it will give people with lots of organic reach, like celebrities and incumbents, a big advantage. Before you could use organic reach to combat paid reach and vice versa, but now organic reach is the only thing that counts. For example, if The Rock runs for governor of California next year, it will be very hard for his opponents to compete (a…

As much as I'm not a fan of celebrity politicians, the situation you describe sounds pretty democratic.
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