Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban • Hacker News Board

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#41

Post by Angostura » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

Lazare wrote: post #35

Traster wrote: post #4

>Ads can be an important part of voice - especially for candidates and advocacy groups the media might not otherwise cover so they can get their message into debates It's interesting how hard Zuck is working to try and conflate the idea of 'free speech' with paid advertisements. To put it another way, if advertising on Facebook is part of my free speech, surely Zuck must run my adverts despite the fact I have no mone…

I notice you don't address his actual point though. If, let's say, a group advocating for the abolishment of asset forfeiture wants to communicate their message, and the media is not covering it, it would be natural for them to try paying for ads, and the obvious place to put ads are on social media, since that's where the eyeballs are (cf, the collapse of the news media). If social media bans those ads then while th…

I humbly disagree

> it would be natural for them to try paying for ads, and the obvious place to put ads are on social media

It would be natural to them to post to their Facebook page because that's what social media is for and then for their committed network of supporters to repost etc.

Remember - that's the advantage of social media - you can quickly get the work out to your supporters without having to go through intermediaries, or having to pay for advertising.

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#42

Post by sjwright » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

Lazare wrote: post #35

Traster wrote: post #4

>Ads can be an important part of voice - especially for candidates and advocacy groups the media might not otherwise cover so they can get their message into debates It's interesting how hard Zuck is working to try and conflate the idea of 'free speech' with paid advertisements. To put it another way, if advertising on Facebook is part of my free speech, surely Zuck must run my adverts despite the fact I have no mone…

I notice you don't address his actual point though. If, let's say, a group advocating for the abolishment of asset forfeiture wants to communicate their message, and the media is not covering it, it would be natural for them to try paying for ads, and the obvious place to put ads are on social media, since that's where the eyeballs are (cf, the collapse of the news media). If social media bans those ads then while th…

Claiming that we must be reliant on private corporations for free speech is a corruption of the very concept. I don't agree with your argument, but to the extent that there's any truth to it the remedy can only be to fix the underlying problem—not submitting to it.

To be clear, my objection isn't to all online advertising but specifically to Zuckerberg defending Facebook's policy with an appeal to free speech. Obviously speech without funding is weak an ineffective, but if Facebook voluntarily chose to eliminate all political advertising, it is irrational to claim that your freedom of speech has been curtailed. Facebook's existence isn't promised to you.

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#43

Post by 52-6F-62 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

NullPrefix wrote: post #19

I wonder if it is okay to run ads about Zuck's presidential campaign. I know that he is not running, but still, somebody can put ads about it.

As an outside observer, it appears he hasn't donned the Caesar haircut for nothing.

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#44

Post by scottlocklin » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #6

Facebook, the platform, is in trouble. It doesn't matter what the outcome is of the 2020 election season, or what Facebook does during it. They will be blamed for it. Buying Instagram and Whatsapp was farsighted, Facebook the company can cruise for awhile on those properties. The main site is bound to fall out of fashion, and soon. Can't be soon enough for my taste.

It's a funny dynamic; the left is having an all hands freak out over FB (who I intensely dislike also) because right wing dorks like Ben Shapiro are the most frequently shared memes on their platform. Basically because FB is a bunch of old people, and old people like right wing memes and Ben Shapiro.

Zuck's a smart guy, and there are other smart people working there; I'm sure they realize this, but they can't actually say it to the AOCs of the world for fear of freaking out shareholders and advertisers.

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#45

Post by dtwest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

Most people saw what Twitter did and thought, Facebook is probably under some pressure to do the same.

Mark Zuckerburg saw it and thought, we now have a monopoly on social media based political advertising! $$$

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#46

Post by dominotw » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

ptah wrote: post #14

> "Ads can be an important part of voice - especially for candidates and advocacy groups the media might not otherwise cover so they can get their message into debates," he added. translation: I simply cannot say no to the amount of money made from political ads

wondering why is it only 0.5% for twitter while much higher for FB ?

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#47

Post by thosakwe » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #6

Facebook, the platform, is in trouble. It doesn't matter what the outcome is of the 2020 election season, or what Facebook does during it. They will be blamed for it. Buying Instagram and Whatsapp was farsighted, Facebook the company can cruise for awhile on those properties. The main site is bound to fall out of fashion, and soon. Can't be soon enough for my taste.

As far I can tell, this is only really the attitude in the Western world. Most of my relatives live in Nigeria, and all of them use Facebook a lot.

And at that, there are still many people in the US who mainly use Facebook, especially Gen X and older, so I always question if there are as many people on this train as it often seems like.

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#48

Post by Lazare » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #41

Lazare wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice you don't address his actual point though. If, let's say, a group advocating for the abolishment of asset forfeiture wants to communicate their message, and the media is not covering it, it would be natural for them to try paying for ads, and the obvious place to put ads are on social media, since that's where the eyeballs are (cf, the collapse of the news media). If social media bans those ads then while th…

I humbly disagree > it would be natural for them to try paying for ads, and the obvious place to put ads are on social media It would be natural to them to post to their Facebook page because that's what social media is for and then for their committed network of supporters to repost etc. Remember - that's the advantage of social media - you can quickly get the work out to your supporters without having to go through…

That's not how social media works. Feeds are highly curated.

> you can quickly get the work out to your supporters without having to go through intermediaries, or having to pay for advertising.

How do you think Facebook makes money? And as a followup, why do you think people pay money to run ads on Facebook?

Like, I 100% agree with you that this is how it should work, and it's how we all thought it would work 15 years ago, but it feels oddly disconnected from the world we live in.

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#49

Post by haolez » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

I think Zuck's statement makes more sense than Jack's, where Jack said that "democracy might break if we allow those ads" (not with these exact words). It's weird to see a CEO making a statement like that, like if it was his role to protect democracy. I think Zuck sounded more professional and centered in this case.

Re: Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

#50

Post by ben_w » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

wan23 wrote: post #24

Derek_MK wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither really, it's demonstrating that it's kind of dumb to consider a paid advertisement "speech" for the purposes of "free speech", considering there's inherently a restriction there on how much "speech" you get, because you have to pay for the ability to "speak".

Free speech isn't free in the same way that free beer is. The idea is to avoid restricting what messages are allowed as much as possible. It's not about giving any particular individual a platform so much as making sure that the platform is open to a variety of ideas.

There is always a restriction. The platform isn’t open to a variety of ideas but to the biggest spender.

Separately, while some politics revolves around untestable statements of preference (e.g. Purple team “freedom is more important than equality” vs. Teal team “equality is the best foundation upon which freedom can be built”), there are also statements of fact and it is dangerous to allow demonstrably false claims to spread (Antivaxxers are probably the least controversial example of a dangerously wrong meme on this forum, but others exist all the way back to ancient Greek democracy).

Democracy isn’t Magic: If Antivaxxers got 99.9% of the votes they would still be wrong, the only difference is they would cause more harm.