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Zuckerberg doubles down on Facebook political ads policy after Twitter ban

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

#231

Post by Bostonian »

ceejayoz wrote: post #185
Bostonian wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to determine what the lies are? I think the following frequently-made assertions are misleading: (1) Women are paid 72 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men. (2) Rich people pay less taxes than the poor. (3) Blacks are being wantonly killed by the police in large numbers. However, I think that in a free country, progressives can make ads with such messages, and conservatives are free to debunk t…

TV stations have been making these judgement calls for decades. It seems to work fairly well.

They usually don't:

In phony Facebook ad, Warren said most TV networks will refuse ads with a 'lie' but that’s wrong https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct...

'Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 states:

"If any licensee shall permit any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office in the use of such broadcasting station: Provided, That such licensee shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast under the provision of this section."

It also specifically says licensees can’t censor "material broadcast by any such candidate."

Broadcasters are bound by that act and therefore can’t reject a presidential candidate’s ad, even if contains false information. (The candidates do have to abide by disclosure rules to make it clear who paid for the ad.)'

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

#232

Post by AnthonyMouse »

landryraccoon wrote: post #169
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'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 pro…

> 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.

What you're missing is that all viewpoints you'll ever see are intrinsically those of someone with the money to promote their voice.

Suppose you have an idea in your head and you want to get it out there. The first thing you have to do is express that idea. Write it down or create a video etc. That takes time, which is an opportunity cost. If it takes you an hour, that's an hour you couldn't spend working for money, which means that somebody who has to spend that time working for money doesn't have the time to express their idea.

On top of that, the more time you spend polishing your expression, the more convincing you can make it, so right off the bat there is a direct relationship between time/money and speech.

Then you need to get people to look at it. If all you do is write a document that sits in a drawer in your house, nobody will ever see it. So you need to spend more time distributing your idea, or get other people who are willing to spend their time distributing it.

Political advertising is just paying a third party to do that for you. It costs less than hiring a staff of people to promote the idea "organically" (otherwise it would be poor value for money and nobody would pay for it), which means it enables people with less money to get their message in front of people.

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

#233

Post by AnthonyMouse »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #226
xwowsersx wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but ads with no reach effectively means you have no meaningful voice in the public discourse. So it's free speech, but without any teeth.

> Yes, but ads with no reach effectively means you have no meaningful voice in the public discourse. So it's free speech, but without any teeth. Zuck himself, ironically, has helped create that situation by deliberately reducing organic reach to force people to pay to be heard. This is a cynical ploy for money on Zuck's/Facebook's part. If they really cared about free speech, they wouldn't hobble the organic reach of…

It's possible for both of those things to be true at the same time -- that they should neither deliberately restrict organic reach nor refuse political advertising on the basis of content.

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

#234

Post by scottmf »

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 make more money from ads than they could charge users to remove ads

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

#235

Post by yedava »

Regarding advocacy groups, a few years ago, it was quite easy to setup a page on Facebook, build an audience and spread your message organically. But then Facebook severely limited the content from liked pages that was showing up in your feed. So the page admins had no choice but to buy ads in order for their content to show up in their subscribers feed.

So if Facebook cared more about free speech than increasing profits, they'd go back to the older model where someone with no money, but plenty of time to volunteer, could build a sizeable audience.

It's not bad to want a good return on your investment, but to couch that in a feel-good pitch for free speech just seems wrong.

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

#236

Post by resters »

The real issue with FB and Twitter is the news feed algorithms, not the paid content.

The inciting incident that gave rise to the concerns is simply that Trump won. Only a tiny fraction of the reach that Trump obtained via FB and Twitter was paid advertising.

Most of the reach that benefitted Trump was simply the algorithm amplifying journalistic stories (mostly negative) that allowed Trump to dog whistle effectively.

Imagine someone with 800 FB friends who shares an article from, the NYT or Huffpost that is harshly critical of Trump for saying something that comes across as racist. There are three broad categories to characterize those who see the shared content:

a) people who are in the target audience of the article, who dislike Trump, who expected him to be racist, and who consider the article further proof (and vindication) of their view

b) people who read the coverage and find it unfair to Trump, even if they agree with the gist.

c) people who actually agree with the racist view Trump is alleged to have expressed.

If the user sharing the article has 800 friends, most are probably in group a, but Trump benefits from any friends the user has who are in groups b or c. To them, the article reinforces their support for Trump or their view that the coverage was unfair.

For those who view the coverage as unfair, a steady stream of similarly unfair-seeming articles makes them effectively immune to negative press about Trump. In 2019 many of Trump's supporters are in this group. When Trump describes "fake news" he is appealing to this group. The reach that benefits Trump may be 100 of the 800 friends, and it cost Trump's campaign nothing. Trump triggered these kinds of signaling cascades many, many times during the 2016 campaign.

Sadly, the biggest problem is reporting that is not journalism but in-group focused entertainment writing. Many of the "most shared" articles from major papers are not thorough, in-depth stories, they are light on journalism and heavy on in-group signaling. It is this kind of article that helps Trump the most, for the aforementioned reasons.

These are also the kinds of articles that get the most clicks and generate the most revenue for the paper.

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

#237

Post by newen »

jackinloadup wrote: post #217
newen wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why people build movements, why activism is a thing. Money shortcuts all of that and gives undue voice to people with the most money.

By that definition people who want to voice their opinions shouldn't pay for any service which would amplify that voice. That could be a sign, megaphone, stage, internet, website, youtube channel (camera). If I'm able to have more signs or youtube channels people will pay more attention to me and thus I'm using an advantage the other party may not have the financial ability to respond to. I think this idea could go f…

But you are ignoring the difference in power that people have in this context. Especially in this age, when inequality is so high, it is naive to consider money to be an unbiased tool.

Especially when we already live in a massively unequal stage where a few coorporations have access to the most popular websites, magazines, newpapers, tv channels, allowing money into this equation as an unbiased tool will only increase this inequality in the ability to spread a message.

I think we as a society should make changes so that money has as little influence as possible. Of course, that battle will never end and there will be pushback from the small minority of people of have the overwhelming amount of wealth in this world, but changes such as banning political ads in twitter is a very good start.

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

#238

Post by burtonator »

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…

One problem is that we have two extremes:

- Twitter: no political ads - Facebook: any political ads, including lying.

It would be nice to at LEAST have an agreement that ads saying things that are objectively incorrect should not be run.

For example, if I ran an ad that said "Hacker News was owned by Rupert Murdock" (which is false) then this ad should be blocked.

There might need to be some penalty applied retroactively. Like if you're busted running a fake political ad your company is on timeout for 60 days.

To be fair, I realize this is a difficult problem this is why we might have to add a penalty period.

Surely we can live in a world where we have facts, right?

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

#239

Post by hinkley »

I’ve had several occasions where a coworker in a meeting said words to the effect of “if someone offers us money we’re gonna take it.”

Blurting out, “so you’re a whore then” in a staff meeting? Not okay. So I just stared.

If I could stand to look at Zuck I’d be staring right now.

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

#240

Post by bobcostas55 »

landryraccoon wrote: post #169
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'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 pro…

If a group wants to write an article, they can just write an article. Newspapers 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?
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