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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

#351

Post by cj »

nbanks wrote: post #223
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…

This isn't a new phenomenon. I've also read magazines with advertisements disguised as articles, except for the small "advertisement" label at the top.

I agree it’s not a new phenomenon that people in advertising have tried to sneak in advertisements without people noticing.

The reason it’s different with Facebook (even though it’s been going on in Magazines forever) is the scale of it. Magazines are ubiquitous but the average American does not spend 1-3 hours per day on reading magazines (minutes at most). But Facebook... it’s at a whole other level in terms of the magnitude of people reached and the magnitude of attention being captured.

What might not matter in Magazines May very well matter for Facebook based on the scale of the impact.

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

#352

Post by AnthonyMouse »

pm90 wrote: post #271
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…

I don't really get your point. What you're saying is that a good message takes a lot of resources to communicate effectively. That is true regardless of whether you can use social media to promote those messages. Conversely, targeted advertisement lets you bombard people with certain inclinations with ads that nudge them to behave in a certain way. That isn't free speech, its targeted manipulation. The targeting is w…

> I don't really get your point. What you're saying is that a good message takes a lot of resources to communicate effectively. That is true regardless of whether you can use social media to promote those messages.

The point is that it costs more to promote if you can't buy advertising, which increases the advantage of those with a boatload of money. The people who own Fox News or Facebook would still get to decide what everybody sees but then someone who disagrees with them couldn't even buy advertising to air their competing ideas.

The person with zero dollars has zero voice either way. The question is whether someone with thousands of dollars should be able to get their message in front of the relevant people, or only someone with billions of dollars.

> Conversely, targeted advertisement lets you bombard people with certain inclinations with ads that nudge them to behave in a certain way. That isn't free speech, its targeted manipulation. The targeting is whats important here. For selling goods and services, its fine. For selling leaders or tarnishing leaders, its evil.

Suppose Big Oil wants to build a pipeline in your back yard. They're going to have your neighbor's house seized through eminent domain (or maybe yours), then install a big ugly pipe that will reduce your property value and forevermore be carrying flammable poisonous carcinogenic petroleum that could at any time leak out into your groundwater. You have no idea that this is in the works and won't know until it's too late unless somebody tells you about it right now.

I live a hundred miles from you along the same planned pipeline and I don't want it, so I get together all the people I can find and pool our money to buy issue ads to notify everyone in the path of the pipeline that it's going to happen if we don't get together and oppose it. We can't afford to buy nation-wide untargeted ads, but we can afford to target the people who live right near the planned pipeline and have views that make it likely they'll help us oppose it.

Is this to be prohibited in your opinion? What do you suggest those people do instead in that case?

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

#353

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Barrin92 wrote: post #344
roenxi wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think you even need to cap it. Political spending has diminishing returns. Give candidates enough money to allow them to make their constituents aware of their positions and the competing candidate can't undo that just by outspending them.

The problem is when candidates have to take money from special interests just in order to buy enough advertising to cause anyone to have even heard of them. Provide enough public money so that candidates don't have to do that, and then candidates won't have to do that.

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

#354

Post by notSupplied »

lonelappde wrote: post #218
landryraccoon wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why do people with extra time get to be heard more than people with extra money? I don't have the ability to take 20% time off my work to promote my message, but I have saved up some money.

One can have 1000x more money than a middle class person, but there are no "time billionaires"

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

#355

Post by gandutraveler »

I'm not a fan of facebook but lately I'm seeing a lot of attacks on fb. Some are valid and some are outrageous. The problem of misinformation has existed for ages and if fb stops then something else will replace it. I don't use fb anymore but still see fake news/ads all over the internet.

If we seriously need to fix this then it should be enforced by a law which applies to every media/news organization.

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

#356

Post by gandutraveler »

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.

The question is how do you define false information. Do we rely on consensus ? For e.g. let's say majority of the world population believe that earth is flat. In that case, will that still be false information?

Even if we go with consensus, it's such a difficult problem to solve in this age of internet where new content is created at such a rapid pace.

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

#357

Post by sobani »

gandutraveler wrote: post #355

I'm not a fan of facebook but lately I'm seeing a lot of attacks on fb. Some are valid and some are outrageous. The problem of misinformation has existed for ages and if fb stops then something else will replace it. I don't use fb anymore but still see fake news/ads all over the internet. If we seriously need to fix this then it should be enforced by a law which applies to every media/news organization.

Doesn't mean Facebook should actively try to make the problem worse.

Luckily Twitter didn't follow the reasoning that as long as it's not illegal, it's OK.

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

#358

Post by notSupplied »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #61
chrischen wrote: post #5

> "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.

Network effects are the reason. If they charged for it, a chunk of users will leave, causing network to be less useful for the remaining users who were willing to pay, which then causes more users to leave, etc etc.

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

#359

Post by thefounder »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #353
Barrin92 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think you even need to cap it. Political spending has diminishing returns. Give candidates enough money to allow them to make their constituents aware of their positions and the competing candidate can't undo that just by outspending them. The problem is when candidates have to take money from special interests just in order to buy enough advertising to cause anyone to have even heard of them. Provide enough…

>> The problem is when candidates have to take money from special interests just in order to buy enough advertising to cause anyone to have even heard of them. Provide enough public money so that candidates don't have to do that, and then candidates won't have to do that.

You forget that there is never enough money or enough advertising. All the money comes from "special interest groups" except if is provided by the government. Of course people "hear" the candidates...it's just that the candidates want a 24/7 audience, lately they have whole media corporations delivering the message for them. As we know most of the media organisations are now partisan (either by choice or by obligation). Maybe little regulation wouldn't hurt to give a chance to the little guy who can't afford to buy a media corporation?

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

#360

Post by matz1 »

newen wrote: post #350
matz1 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In regards to crime, i think you are talking about reducing crime, not eliminating it.

My post was just talking about eliminating inequality. I make no claim about reducing inequality.

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