611–620 of 1001 posts
You can argue that any other advertising is still political (e.g. retail ads promoting a ‘capitalist agenda’).
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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.
We have rules against slander, defamation, libel, blackmail and leaking secrets, technically they are speech. Yet we usually manage to distinguish them. I don't think this is an intractable problem.
slander/defamation/libel aren't criminal laws. It's civil law.
That's why the Covington Catholic School kid has to sue "trusted" liberal outlets which allegedly defamed him in a civil court for instant.
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The contrarian view is that banning political advertising favors incumbents in elections. The incumbents are already known. Challengers have to make themselves known, and paid advertising is one of the main ways that is possible.
I have a hard time buying into that contrarian view in a post-Cambridge Analytica world. If anything, it feels like whataboutism to me. While Twitter is trying to deal with the mass corruption of democracy around the world from micro-targeted lies, they want to talk about some kid's high school student president campaign.
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Active user totals and engagement numbers are still a big driver in valuations so the incentives still align with not cracking down too hard (as long as legitimate users aren't pushed away by the inauthentic content).
This aspect has puzzled me deeply. I imagine the following scenario: I'm the CEO of a social network trying to raise a new round of funding. I go to investors and say that we have 100M users on the platform and growing by 10M users per month. The investors like these numbers and decide to invest. A few years later, the investors find out that when I said 100M users, I actually meant 50M real human users and 50M bot u…
It’s not hard to ask.
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> 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.
> Only one country has the first amendment Do you think other countries don't have freedom of speech or freedom of the press?
I am not an American, and to me this comes across as either absurdity or corruption.
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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?
And given the studies showing how little the will of the people influences the conduct of congress in the US I'd strongly consider petitioning the government barely a step beyond an equal waste of time.
Which isn't just rolling over and taking it - but actually fixing it goes way beyond a moment of outrage enshrined in text on the Internet.
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…
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?
It is therefore possible for a concept to grow to include contradictory examples, at which point people will typically split the basket into two distinct concepts, like a forest vs a grove. The point at which that happens is somewhat arbitrary, but it also doesn't exist a priori. Someone has to try to use the word ambiguously. Words don't have meanings until they are used by people to mean.
It is even possible for a distinction to not be made, and for someone to experience cognitive dissonance when two contradictory examples remain in the same basket.
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 concept of fraud and libel are related too. It is fraudulent to claim you are someone that you are not.
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…