Twitter to ban political advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#681

Post by cwp » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:45 AM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #678

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. Freedom of the Press has always been about expression and the ability to pay for reach. Printing presses were - and are - horrendously expensive.

Years ago I ran across a quote that went something like "Freedom of Speech gives you the right to own a printing press, not the right to use mine." I wish I could track down who said it.

That's basically what Jack is saying too. I don't see how "Freedom of the Press" could be construed to mean that publishers are obligated to run any ad that somebody is willing to pay for. That's never been the case.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#682

Post by beaner » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:46 AM UTC

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

It is very easy to print things that are true but still have a bias. For example, printing things that are true but good about one political party, while printing things that are true but bad about another, is a bias. Almost every news medium has some kind of bias this way, and I think it affects their impact more than if they simply tell lies or not.

(Counter to the current worry, it seems to me that outright lies in mainstream publications are actually somewhat rare. When they happen they are generally corrected. Though there is a recent trend of rushing to publication to appease an overly emotive audience, getting things wrong, and then having to correct days later, after everyone's already been influenced. NYT especially.)

This used to be somewhat addressed in the US television segment by taking it even a step further, and requiring news shows to not only be truthful, but represent both sides of controversial issues. It was called the Fairness Doctrine [1], but it was revoked in 1985.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#683

Post by uranusjr » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

How do you implement it though? I live in Taiwan and constantly see ads from People’s Daily, which usually contains text sneakily promoting CCP propaganda. Do those ads count as political? I hope so, otherwise China would most definitely exploit this. But then do you also ban, say, FOX? The NYT?

I really like Twitter’s decision and the idea behind it. But I also worry this would end up toothless toward bad actors, and restrictive for those who want to act morally.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#684

Post by sacrificedcapon » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

You do realize that saudi arabia, china, russia, etc all have laws in place to hold newspaper editors responsible for printing "truth" right?

> This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years.

What makes you think you are a well-informed and critical thinking society? Don't most danes think alike just like most saudis, chinese, russians, etc. Don't most danes think and believe whatever news/propaganda tell them to believe just like saudis, chinese, russians, etc?

> This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not.

And? Did the world end?

Do you realize that there was a time when it was "truth" that the earth was flat? Do you realize that there was a time when "pro-vaxxers" were ridiculed as much as anti-vaxxers are ridiculed now? If people like you were in power, we'd never have any progress.

I'm not an anti-vaxxer or a flat-earther. The easiest way to discredit them is with speech. More speech, not less. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And free speech is the best antidote to falsehoods.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#685

Post by ralusek » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:49 AM UTC

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative.

If I were to say:

"2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018."

This a true fact.

If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say

"A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police."

This is also a true fact.

So not only are facts capable of telling a narrative, but it gets much more complicated once you start introducing conclusions.

If you say "A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. American police are being racially discriminatory when killing civilians."

This is a fact and a conclusion, and most news consists of facts and conclusions. Both the fact and the conclusion serve a particular narrative, and that's an issue. The problem is that a news organization with a different set of objectives, or simply operating under a different framework, would be entirely capable of coming to an entirely different conclusion, or introduce entirely different facts alongside it.

"A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. However, despite making up only 13% of the population, black Americans committed 36% of homicides, with an overall much higher representation in violent crime across the board. Only 5% of police shootings are with an unarmed victim, with the rest resulting from an armed altercation."

Different narrative.

In America, we understand that there is absolutely nothing more dangerous than an entity that feels entitled to control what is true. It might make things easier, and it might actually produce better results so long as the entity doing so is competent and benevolent, but nearly every structure in America is meant to serve as a bulwark for the cases in which the entity in power is precisely the sort that you do not want to be making those decisions. And to be frank, Europe should probably be more wary of that.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#686

Post by red_trumpet » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

pojzon wrote: post #680

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

> and when they do fail they admit it and apologise We have those laws in Poland too. They lie on front page and apologise with small font on the last page.

I wonder what happened if the apology had to be as prominent as the false fact. Imagine a newspaper saying "WE LIED YESTERDAY" on the front-page :D

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#687

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

printing truth?

So they print blank pages?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#688

Post by Kalium » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:52 AM UTC

cwp wrote: post #681

Kalium wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s certainly not what the first amendment is about. Freedom of the Press has always been about expression and the ability to pay for reach. Printing presses were - and are - horrendously expensive.

Years ago I ran across a quote that went something like "Freedom of Speech gives you the right to own a printing press, not the right to use mine." I wish I could track down who said it. That's basically what Jack is saying too. I don't see how "Freedom of the Press" could be construed to mean that publishers are obligated to run any ad that somebody is willing to pay for. That's never been the case.

You're absolutely right. There's a fine and subtle distinction to be made here - Freedom of the Press preserve the right of someone to seek to pay for reach for their expression and the right of those with reach to sell it.

As you say, this does not oblige anyone with a press to use it for any given person's benefit.

It just means that the basic concept of paying for expression and to expose other people to it is something baked into the First Amendment. Just not the Speech Clause.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#689

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

pojzon wrote: post #680

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

> and when they do fail they admit it and apologise We have those laws in Poland too. They lie on front page and apologise with small font on the last page.

Sounds like insurance companies with fine prints.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#690

Post by endymi0n » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:54 AM UTC

pojzon wrote: post #680

moksly wrote: post #666

In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise. This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and wr…

> and when they do fail they admit it and apologise We have those laws in Poland too. They lie on front page and apologise with small font on the last page.

Interestingly enough, in Germany you are forced to use the same page and layout, leading to sometimes very visible retractions...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/9/9c/Bild_Gegendar...

If you ask me, that‘s a good thing. If the stakes of an ad campaign with fake news or hate speech would be having to run a disproval campaign of the same size, on the same audience (if you are proven wrong) — I‘d be fine with it. Political ads weren‘t the problem. A complete and utter lack of regulation for the medium was.