81–90 of 371 posts
Well, Mr. Zuckerberg; I don't think this explains, let alone justifies your policy of allowing outright lies in political ads without any pushback.
Whenever you think this company cannot sink any lower you're always in for a massive surprise and disappointment.
For those that haven't seen it, here's some backstory on one piece about the Trinidad election: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/t...
But basically, a political campaign was started around NOT voting as a form of protest. And those were targeted to the opposing party etc..
It is one thing if political ads were just about informing the public about a candidate, but we are far past that. This is a question about the legitimacy of our democracy now.
Anybody have any bright ideas on how to apply pressure on Facebook to do the same as Twitter? This feels to me like one of the more important questions of our (immediate) time since it effects absolutely everything.
We could solve this with just a few simple requirements for online political advertising. Here's some I came up with in the past few minutes—rough ideas but let's see how they play out. • Require all advertisements to be published N days in advance on a public noticeboard with full details of every aspect of the advertisement—audience, budget, funding entity. • Do not allow targeting in any political advertising othe…
the second point still gives too much power to facebook
Just ban all political ads.
Every political movement in history has consisted of forming groups, contacting potential allies, soliciting donations from them, then spending that money on pamphlets, TV, radio ads, etc. That's freedom at work. The medium has now shifted away from pamphlets, TV, and radio, towards the Internet and social media.
If paid advertisements are not free speech, then the concept of free speech would cease to exist beyond street corner rants.
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.
I'd wager that it already is falling out of fashion, at least among young people (say 30 and under).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 year…
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…
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. Obviou…
If you aren't wielding the megaphone that is twitter/fb/youtube/whatever, then you are not going to be heard. That's just a fact at this point. Social media has in fact lowered the barrier to entry for expressing speech to large audiences, because before social media there were only newspapers and TV networks that cost significantly more and had significantly more preference towards specific agendas.
I understand the ideological desire for that not to be the case, and maybe society could stop and think how to fulfil that desire, but ignoring the facts of today is not constructive at all.
> "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. Another tool in the arsenal of the rich and powerful to give them more of a voice than the average person, is another way to look at it. Facebook are profiting from both sides. They’re a news site that’s simultaneously FOX News and MSNBC al…
Wouldn't all of this FB BS be solved if he just asks users to pay $3 a year (or .50 for developing nations), and then removing ads/sponsorship entirely? That'd be billions per year and they'd not face all these charges of political shenanigans, poisoning the democracy, etc. I doubt few of the FB users I know wouldn't part with $3 in exchange for their network/contacts that FB provides.
I just watched The Great Hack, which I can't say is fantastic as a whole, but does still raise some terrifying points of the power of targeted political ads and how they are being weaponized. I really don't see any other choice but to ban political ads entirely as Twitter is doing. For those that haven't seen it, here's some backstory on one piece about the Trinidad election: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-mon…
> Nix moved on to pitch his next case study – a youth mobilisation campaign. Again, all is not as it seems. “Trinidad is a very interesting case history of how we look at problems,” Nix said. “Trinidad's tiny – it's 1.3 million people – but almost exactly half the country are Indian and half the country are Black, Afro-Caribbean. And there are two main political parties, one for the Blacks and one for the Indians… when the Indians are in power the Blacks don't get anything, and vice-versa, you know – they screw each other. So we were working, I think for the third time in Trinidad, and we were working for the Indians, and we did a huge amount for research, and two really important things came out.
> “One was that all the youth, Indian and Afro-Caribbean, felt disenfranchised … And secondly, amongst the Indians the familial hierarchies were really strong. There was huge respect for their elders and their parents and their families, but not so for the Afro-Caribbeans. And that was enough information to inform the entire campaign.
> “We went to the client and said, we only want to do one thing, we want to run a campaign where we target the youth – all youth, all the Blacks and all the Indians – and we try and increase apathy. And they didn't really understand why… but they allowed us to do this campaign, and the campaign had to be non-political, because no one, the kids don’t care about politics. It had to be reactive, because they’re lazy; inclusive of all ethnicities; bottom-up. It had to be exciting, because kids want to do something fun.
> “We came up with this campaign which was all about ‘Be part of the gang, do something cool, be part of a movement.’ And it was called the ‘Do So’ campaign… A3 posters. And graffiti, yellow paint, you know, we cut stencils with the jigsaw… And we'd give these to kids, and they'd get in their cars at night, you know, just make a drawing, get in the car, and race around the country putting up these posters and getting chased by the police and all their friends were doing it, and it was fucking brilliant fun…
> “Do So. Don't vote. Don't be involved in politics. It's like a sign of resistance against – not government, against politics. And voting. And very soon they're making their own YouTube videos. This is the prime minister’s house that's being graffitied! … It was carnage.
> “And the reason why this was such a good strategy is because we knew, and we really really knew, that when it came to voting, all the Afro-Caribbean kids wouldn't vote, because they ‘Do So’. But all the Indian kids would do what their parents told them to do, which is go out and vote. And so all the Indians went out and voted, and the difference on the 18-35-year-old turnout is like 40%, and that swung the election by about 6% – which is all we needed!”