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

#261

Post by wan23 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

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.

While I am in fact adorable, you've misunderstood my comment. It's difficult to talk about Zuckerberg's defense of Facebook's policy without having an accurate definition of the principle of free speech. That isn't to say that unlimited free speech is necessarily good or bad. For example, while many people on HN lean towards holding that principle as an ideal, the community also discourages excessively snarky comments.

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

#262

Post by semiotagonal » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

fermenflo wrote: post #260

semiotagonal wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their right to prioritize (based on money) what stuff goes on your feed It's not your feed, it's their feed; you're just the person eating it.

Thank you... Everyone seems to be forgetting that this is a 100% opt-in service. Why do we get to say what FB is obligated to do and to what standards they have to keep their website at?

Well, when it establishes a dominant position in the market using tactics that are no longer allowed, we do get a right to say that they should be broken up, or forced to start from scratch without their user data.

My own two cents is that Facebook should be dismantled to restore competition, then be allowed to do whatever it wants.

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

#263

Post by mszkoda » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

dominostars wrote: post #195

knzhou wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. In both Facebook and in newspapers there are a few words at the top. Sure, this can be misunderstood or go unnoticed, but it does in both cases.

Can you give examples of newspaper ads that are made to look like just another article on the same page?

I work in the publishing industry; we publish several industry trade magazines.

We often get sponsored articles that are labeled specifically as ads and are created to look exactly like any other article in our magazines. Most of the time they are extremely clear to the reader based simply on the content compared to other articles, but they are also marked directly as advertisements on the page... though not in a super obvious way.

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

#264

Post by harryh » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #242

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…

While Facebook is obviously not bound by the first amendment, the fact that something is paid doesn’t undermine its nature as free speech. Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” which sparked the American Revolution, was published and sold for profit. https://www.printmag.com/editors-picks/power-of-print-common... . (Though Paine donated his share to the Continental Army.) Paine got his message out by contracting with for-pr…

I think there is a pretty clear difference between publishers which sell speech to people that want to buy it and advertisers that take money in return for putting speech in front of people automatically.

Maybe both forms of money entangled speech are worthy of the same protections. But they are two different things.

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

#265

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

nidificate wrote: post #252

cabaalis wrote: post #224

The primary problem is that it's not illegal for politicians to lie to the electorate. Without solving that problem, we will always have sub-par leadership and questions about what is or is not a valid advertisement. In official capacity (under oath) it's illegal for us to lie to them. In their official capacity (under oath of office) they get to lie all day long, straight through their teeth. CEOs can't defraud thei…

Often times in politics, what is a "lie" is more a matter of opinion rather than fact. Who gets to be the arbiter of truth?

In theory, the electorate. They vote out politicians who lie. In practice, people don’t seem to care.

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

#266

Post by chillacy » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #259

newen wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 increas…

Money is our best proxy for work/effect. Removing money has been tried in places like Russia. People stop working and if they are forced will not try as hard. Money has been part since the beginning. To vote you needed to own property which made sense because land owners paid the government in the form of taxes. Personal income taxes came after the war to pay for the war debts.

I don't see the parent's post advocating for removing money entirely, rather flattening the curve or reducing the winner-take-all effect. I think most of us would be happy with not a flat curve but a more gentle gradient, instead of a hyper exponential curve.

By the way every time there's an unrestrained hyper exponential curve, it leads to civil unrest pretty quickly. A lot of terrible things come in the wake of economic hardship.

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

#267

Post by sp332 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

haolez wrote: post #258

sp332 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between arrogance and actually having a lot of power. Zuckerberg is dodging accountability and pretending FB isn't responsible for the ads it's running. And it doesn't have to be a majority - the last election was decided by a margin of 0.09% of all votes cast, and ad platforms let advertisers target people pretty finely.

What's your proposed solution?

My ideal would be for some external regulator to police political ads, like the FEC already does to some extent. The policies would be made in public. The regulator would work with advertising platforms to set and enforce guidelines.

Another option which would avoid some of the problems is to limit how tightly a political ad could be targeted. If misinformation is included in an ad, everyone should be able to see it and make a judgement. Targeting the most vulnerable people would not be an option.

I think if a platform doesn't know whether an ad is true or not - any kind of ad - they should be very hesitant to run the ad. I think Twitter's decision to just not run political ads makes sense because it's hard for a private company to make policies in public. Even if they are really careful, there will always be some suspicion that they are favoring the highest bidder or Jack's favorite.

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

#268

Post by mwsfc » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

My take? This is really a pretty simple equation for FB. Politcal ads = good business opportunity ....perhaps essential.

Since FB tends to be a self-reinforcing echo chamber on both ends of the political spectrum, political ads will keep users engaged with the platform. For a variety of reasons interest in the 2020 campaign is likely to be sky high so allowing the ads should keeps FB's DAU's & MAU's in the preferred direction. Not allowing the ads could in-turn adversely affect those metrics and subsequently pull down ALL of their advertising rates. Freedom of Speech rational of allowing adds? (scoff, scoff, snort, outburst of laughter.....)

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

#269

Post by kyboren » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #97

v4dok wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed this is the way it works but I think you restrict your view by taking social media as some society constant. If there is no way for the public to find the information it looks for in a meaningful way in facebook or twitter, it will migrate to something else or push it to change. It might push the platforms to feed people with an equal share of all sides instead of feeding them what the "want" and anyone else h…

Paid advertising to get ideas out has existed for at least as long as we've had newspapers and probably a lot longer. Take this case, for example. URL says it all: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/muslims-take-out-full-page-n... It sounds nice to say that we are going to keep some communication channels free of political speech. It is an option. But it is possible (I claim: likely) that more communication leads to bet…

> But it is possible [...] that more communication leads to better political outcomes

I believe this is true and also that this is basically the hypothesis motivating freedom of speech under law. However, I believe that modern digital political advertising is a very different kind of communication than the open, genuine discussion in a free marketplace of ideas that free speech advocates often envision.

I think one big problem is information fragmentation taken to the extreme: Each person is now subjected to his or her own individually-targeted propaganda. It is a non-genuine, abusive form of individualized communication that in my opinion tends to erode opportunity for political consensus.

In my view, some forms of political advertising are perfectly acceptable. Attending a political debate and arguing well for your candidacy is perfectly acceptable. Enlisting Cambridge Analytica or foreign intelligence services to employ individual psychometric profiles to serve up the most effectively manipulative propaganda is not acceptable.

Advertising that is more generally broadcast as opposed to narrowly targeted is perfectly acceptable, and potentially even desirable for political discourse. Advertising that is "too" targeted is potentially corrosive to political discourse. I would love to see proposals on how to draw the line, legislatively, that would address these concerns and also pass strict scrutiny.

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

#270

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

readams wrote: post #212

CharlesColeman wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. They won't be any kind of "arbiter of truth" if they just decide to refuse to carry all political ads, like Twitter has decided to do. I think that it's quite possible that a total laissez faire attitude towards quantity of paid speech may be incompatible with…

You believe that all political advertising of all kinds should be simply banned?

I personally do, but I also recognize that that may be at odds with the First Amendment.

However, political ads aren’t usually just any kind of ad; They are almost always using scare tactics, or sometimes, just flat out lying. Stuff that would be illegal for a regular ad to do can sometimes be done simply because it’s a political ad.

Besides, who’s going to enforce the accuracy of the ads? We’ve seen many times that the government cannot hold itself accountable, so why would they do it for political ads.