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Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

thehill.com

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

#161

Post by darkarmani »

sjwright wrote: post #38
wan23 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A system without restrictions favours the rich, it favours the dishonest, and it favours those who wield the best weaponized psychology. (And it favours most those with all three.) Your passing reference to platforms being open to a "variety of ideas" is—and I'm sorry in advance for the snark—but it's just adorable.

That's part of the point of being rich. Most systems favor people with more money and smarter messaging.

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

#162

Post by pengstrom »

qroshan wrote: post #147
WhompingWindows wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't FB charge a minimal subscription fee? For 2-3 bucks a year, wouldn't they keep the vast majority of users and simultaneously remove their dependence on shadowy advertisement dollars?

ha ha, classic arm-chair expert who has run ZERO business in their lives.

Now that's just rude and uncalled for. Why not write a few lines and explain why you think he's wrong?

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

#163

Post by ouid »

bhupy wrote: post #78
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…

How is paid speech not free speech? The paid aspect is just a means to an end. Money itself should not be seen as speech, but speech that costs money is still speech. On a basic level, any self publishing on any form of media has a nonzero cost and you buy some service from some third party eventually. If free speech applied to you but not the person who supplied you a platform, then that freedom only exists in theor…

You're starting with dumb axioms. Free speech is obviously not a self consistent principle in the way that you're talking about it. Unregulated speech with no protection for fair apportionment of the channels of speech is very obviously not free. A silly example, do I have the right to speak exactly out of phase with you so that you can't be heard from some directions? Do I have a right to buy every local news station and have them all report the same thing? Both of these are me restricting your speech with my speech.

Paid advertising is not fundamentally different from these.

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

#164

Post by boreas »

jonbronson wrote: post #11
readams wrote: post #2

We simultaneously fear the power of Facebook but then demand they become the final arbiter of the truth, censoring even the speech of our political leaders. Why did we think this was a good idea again? Ask China their opinion on the value of being the one to decide what is true.

Demanding even the slightest level of accountability for blatantly misleading or false information does not make them the final arbiter. It's not a binary choice of absolute determination vs completely hands off.

There are many choices in the policy space, but the decision about how to treat an individual advertisement is essentially binary. The line between truth and falsehood must lie somewhere, and I can guarantee you that different political factions will have very different ideas about what should lie on either side of that line.

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

#165

Post by wavefunction »

Bostonian wrote: post #157
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…

"It's interesting how hard Zuck is working to try and conflate the idea of 'free speech' with paid advertisements." My free speech rights include the right to pay for an advertisement to get across my message or to join with others to do so. Progressives dominate the media and academia and want to shut down other outlets.

>Progressives dominate the media

Don't y'all have Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting?

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

#166

Post by r00fus »

Traster wrote: post #98
bhupy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is paid speech not free speech? The paid aspect is just a means to an end. Money itself should not be seen as speech, but speech that costs money is still speech. On a basic level, any self publishing on any form of media has a nonzero cost and you buy some service from some third party eventually. If free speech applied to you but not the person who supplied you a platform, then that freedom only exists in theor…

We're talking here about free speech versus compelled speech. There are no restrictions on your right to speech, but we also don't compel anyone to sell you an advertising platform. Anyone is free to choose to sell you a megaphone or not. In this case Zuck gets criticism for choosing to sell megaphones to people he knows are going to use those megaphones to lie. The case Zuck wants to make is that he should be free f…

Maybe we can call it FaceSpeech. Where the platform owner can decide who gets to talk. It's even better when we don't know who paid or how much.

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

#167

Post by jmull »

Lying used to be wrong.

Now, apparently, many are convinced it is wrong to have any barriers to lying.

The con men have certainly gotten the upper hand. I suppose if we fall for this obvious and absurd BS we deserve the world we get (collectively).

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

#168

Post by yourself92 »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #136
cj wrote: post #77

Are political ads labeled / presented any differently than regular ads on Facebook? The main issue I have with this is how Facebook strategically blends advertisements (which is often political during election cycles) together with organic non-sponsored content. Anecdote: My 84 year old grandmother spends 1-2 hours per day scrolling through Facebook's news feed. When I watch her do it, she pays ZERO attention to why…

Why can't FB charge a minimal subscription fee? For 2-3 bucks a year, wouldn't they keep the vast majority of users and simultaneously remove their dependence on shadowy advertisement dollars?

Because they've determined they can make more money by not doing that

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

#169

Post by landryraccoon »

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'm sorry, I don't follow.

If a group wants to post on social media, they can just post on social media. Ads increase the reach of those with money. That is exactly what they do and nothing more. Why would we want to further amplify the voice of those who have money? The fact that the cause is the abolition of X or the support of Y is a non sequitur, in either case it is the viewpoint of someone with the money to promote their voice.

I have very little concern that the opinions of those with large quantities of money at their disposal are underrepresented in politics, or do not have the ability to make their voices heard.

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