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Twitter to ban political advertising

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Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#731

It will be very hard to draw the line between political messages and everything else. Many areas of the market are almost impossible to make non-political ads in (fossil fuels, health insurance, ...)

What are you talking about, most of the advertising in those industries has nothing to do with whatever their lobbyist are doing. It's just menial PR shit like "Save 20% at United Healthcare", or "Work on cutting-edge technology at BP", or "Monsanto now offers consulting services to help you optimize your crop gains". Maybe once in a while they flash some statistic about how diverse their workforce is or whatever but…

I should say for some parts of business it seeems impossible to entirely avoid political messaging. If BP, Monsanto etc. make 100 ads, 90 of them will not be political. 1 will be actually political, but 10 of them will definitely be accused of being political. It will create a problem for those trying to draw a line.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#732
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 t…

I don't disagree with most of what you say, but I do disagree with your implied conclusion.

Setting a baseline of limiting/banning provably false information is a good thing. Yes, it doesn't stop all forms manipulation of people towards any given agenda, but it certainly doesn't make it easier, and means things have to be at least slightly anchored to reality.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#733
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…

Denmark? You mean one of the least feminist countries in the developed world? Not to mention the openly racist narrative about immigrants in public media. Compared to other Scandinavian countries the Danish media is extremely toxic so not sure about portraiting it as a role model in "well informed and critical thinking".

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 believ…

You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them. Not giving them a voice in the public discourse. Not taking anti-vaxxers seriously and placing them at the same level as doctors because ''both sides'' and ''free speech''. What has been proven again and again is that bad information drives out good, because it's so, so much easier to w…

>You don't discredit anti-vaxxers with speech. Same with flat-earthers. Same with fascists. You know what works? De-platforming them.

I would like a source on that. Dont take it personal, but I dont see how this is anything but tanky signaling to feel better about yourself. Here in Germany people were rather active in making sure the new far right party AFD wasnt given a platform. By now they are very close to being the strongest party in multiple states. All that deplatforming did there was giving them a quicker rise. You cant deplatform a large sections of society, you are only creating a stronger echo chamber for them by trying. And i have to remind you, the echo chamber only exists because we didnt want to talk to these people. Deplatforming attacks the people not the ideas behind them. Nothing good can (or ever did) come of that. On the contrary, it only strengthens the community under attack and gives them an enemy to connect over. The only reason its attractive again as a tactic is because its easier. Convincing people through a discussion is hard work. I am very much afraid of the day when people are no longer capable to have a discussion because they have forgotten how due to living in echo chambers their hole life. I dont have high hopes that large parts of the left still know how to convince people with arguments, which in turn doesnt give me high hopes for the future. So yes, pls dont fuck us all over I am really not interested in another Reichstagsbrand because people liked how they viewed them self when working on deplatforming.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

You can frame facts in different ways, but you can also tell things that contradict known facts - ie, lies. It's the latter that shouldn't go without consequences.

Consider phrases like:

"Some people say [lie]." (Fox News favorite)

"According to some theories, [lie]"

"Doctor Ganz Rechts Rassenreinheit says [lie]"

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#736
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 recommendations algorithms have access to all our past interactions with these sites. They know exactly what we like and dislike. In order to keep us hooked they keep recommending content that we will continue to watch. There needs to be regulation of this both for news and mental health reasons. What happens when a recommendation algorithm in order to increase ad revenue keeps recommending depressing videos to a depressed person?

We also get politicians which the one who gets the most attention wins elections, because internet is an attention economy. It does not mean that getting as much attention as a possible for a politician means that you have good intentions. Never in our past have companies have had access to information which keeps us mentally hooked to their services. There need to be some kind of safety standards.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#738
post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not weird at all, it’s a power grab. The politicians want to use social media as an excuse to become arbiters of the truth. It’s repulsive and short-sighted, it appears to me they have forgotten or disregarded the old adage to not claim a new power you wouldn’t trust your opponents with.

They were asking Facebook to arbitrate the truth. That’s not a power grab.

Facebook is already arbitrating the truth. If you share a link or post an ad, it can be automatically annotated by an "independent third party fact checker", which they have a few of. But if it's an ad that is specifically from a political candidate, there is no fact checking done. Of course, these ads are mixed into your news feed with just a small "Sponsored" note.

If Facebook had not started its fact checking system nobody would be asking it to fact check political ads now.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#739
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 t…

> 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.

This is such blatant and obvious nonsense. You philosophize on basis of the assumption that central authorities ('government') by definition cannot be trusted, and we should therefore be wary of anything that reeks of centralized decision making.

That is a supremely American way of looking at the world.

Despite the good intentions behind the decentralization of power and the checks and balances that have been built into your system, you have ended up with a nation where the most powerful person has blatantly and publicly broken all the norms and all the rules, who regularly and repeatedly tells the most outrageous lies, and where a very large amount of people stand behind him nevertheless because of large scale & organized disinformation campaigns by the likes of (decentralized) propaganda entities like Fox News.

How does your system deal with that then? Not very well, it seems.

Wouldn't it be great if you would have a powerful centralized body that can say "Ehm, you guys keep on telling outrageous lies, we're going to forbid it and if you keep in doing it you'll be slapped with a fine that really hurts and your CEO might have to go to jail"?

What you don't seem to take into account in your comment is that centralized bodies can protect the weak from the powerful. If you only have decentralized entities, it's survival of the fittest – which is a nice way of saying that the weakest get eaten or die. I don't want to live in a society that has these values.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#740
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 t…

This is a strawman argument. You don't have to define truth absolutely to ban news from spouting outright lies. The US seems to have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And to be frank, the US should probably be more wary of that.
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