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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

#341

Post by hellllllllooo »

PAGAN_WIZARD wrote: post #246
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…

>At least when watching television, it's absolutely clear when you're watching paid-for commercials That is not true, product placement can be very subtle and even when it's not, it's not like the actors look at the camera and say "This show brought to you by X" even when it really is.

Political advertising is very clear on television. Isn't that the context of this discussion?

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

#342

Post by philipov »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #233
CharlesColeman wrote: post #226

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. 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.

Right, they should refuse all advertising, regardless of content. They have made themselves into the largest public platform and have no business taking bribes. If they want to be a profit-generating business, they should stop being the public forum.

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

#343

Post by roenxi »

Barrin92 wrote: post #328
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

>What you're missing is that all viewpoints you'll ever see are intrinsically those of someone with the money to promote their voice. If I may jump in here, I live in a country where political advertisement is strictly regulated and almost all political debate takes place on public television, available to everyone, and there's a commitment to neutrality in reporting and equal representation of all parties. Now this…

Is your country of a similar size and complexity as the United States? Or are you from one of the smaller countries that is more comparable to a US city?

I can see all sorts of things working for a small country that do not scale to a large country. Something that works well in, eg, Denmark might be appropriate if applied to somewhere of comparable size and complexity like the New York city centre but in appropriate if applied to a continent.

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

#344

Post by Barrin92 »

roenxi wrote: post #343
Barrin92 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What you're missing is that all viewpoints you'll ever see are intrinsically those of someone with the money to promote their voice. If I may jump in here, I live in a country where political advertisement is strictly regulated and almost all political debate takes place on public television, available to everyone, and there's a commitment to neutrality in reporting and equal representation of all parties. Now this…

Is your country of a similar size and complexity as the United States? Or are you from one of the smaller countries that is more comparable to a US city? I can see all sorts of things working for a small country that do not scale to a large country. Something that works well in, eg, Denmark might be appropriate if applied to somewhere of comparable size and complexity like the New York city centre but in appropriate…

I hail from Germany. Not exactly US sized, but not a small country either.

One thing that I think would actually be easier to do in the US to achieve the same thing is to cap and publicly finance campaign spending. Given the strong emphasis on free speech that the US has it might be simpler to go the reverse route. If 'money is speech', even out the playing field on a financial basis.

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

#345

Post by 205guy »

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?

Because that is what they advertize themselves as (connecting with people and seeing what they post), they should be held to the image they project.

The truth is they let you see most of your friends' and family's posts, but pretty much any commercial or non-profit's post is held for ransom. If you "like" a local band or want to hear from the local gardening club, they will be encouraged to pay to "boost" their posts to you.

If fb had to say "you will see the posts from your connections based on how much they pay us," up front when registering and in all their ads (like the fast-talking disclosures in US drug advertizing), then people would have a more accurate view of the service they are using. Of course, long privacy disclosures would be necessary too.

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

#347

Post by frankacter »

atonse wrote: post #256
orky56 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go on. How so?

The most obvious one to me is violations of FERPA rules and posting private information/pictures of my kids in a public forum.

1) OP stated they were "notifications and polls", neither of which would contain private information or pictures.

2) You make the assumption that the school does not have a private / protected group that is used for verifying group members and protecting content from non-members.

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

#348

Post by frankacter »

bluetidepro wrote: post #32
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.

> The main site is bound to fall out of fashion, and soon. Uhhh, that already happened many years ago. Talk to anyone under 30, and Facebook is VERY out of style/out-of-date. They will most likely laugh at you or think you're being ironic if you were to bring up "hanging out on Facebook" or anything like that.

While I've certainly heard that statement made, the publicly stated demographic statistics do not support it.

As of July 2019, 13 - 24 year olds make up 31.9% of Facebook's overall userbase. Another 32% make up the 25-34 age range.

Compare that to some of the other platform's 13-24 demographic:

Twitter 39%, Instagram 37.3%, Snap Chat 58.5%

While Snapchat has a slightly younger audience, they also only have 210 million active users, a 13% increase from previous year. Facebook on the other hand has 2.45 billion active users, a 9% increase from previous year.

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

#349

Post by [deleted] »

Bostonian wrote: post #231
ceejayoz wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ot…

[deleted]

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

#350

Post by newen »

matz1 wrote: post #323
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…

I don't think you can eliminate inequality. So you remove money, then it will simply be replaced by something else. Then there will be someone who has more of whatever it is that replaced money, thus you create different kind of inequality.

Why does there have to be some permanent solution to a problem? There is no permanent solution to crime, for example. You just have law enforcement because we as a society decided that crime is bad.

Similarly, if we decide that inequality in terms of being able to politically influence people is bad, and money exacerbates that inequality, then we can ban political ads. And if something else comes along that does the same thing, ban that too in a way that makes sense.

Having such a small number of people wield such huge political influence is a shame, but what is even worse is when people accept that as inevitable and perpetuates that myth.

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