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Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#61

Post by GuB-42 »

quijoteuniv wrote: post #20

It would be fine if they allow to turn ALL the adverts :) I barely use FB anymore is just adverts. It was nice when it started, just friends posts, now most of my good friends left or do not use it anymore.

And a lot of friends posts are also adverts.

There are:

- Official Facebook sponsored posts

- Viral ads, the most obvious being "share this and get a chance to win..."

- Friends or promoting their own, their friends or some other business they want to promote

- Friends trying to sell their stuff

Just because it comes from someone close doesn't make it less of an ad.

And for some reason Facebook algorithms seem to put the least interesting post forwards. Personal ads, pseudo-profound bullshit and viral "opinion" pieces, etc... My friends in real life are people I find interesting, I mean, why would I want them as friends otherwise? But looking at my Facebook feed, I don't recognize the people I enjoy spending time with.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#62

Post by skrebbel »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #41

This is a good move but could go further, really wish FB and moreso Twitter would include a big switch in their settings that was just "Politics On/Off" hide all political ads, and tweets and retweets for people who just don't want to see that for mental health reasons or just because they're not there for that (e.g brand customer support workers) but they'd never do that because I suspect they ideologically think it…

I'd love that too, but is it possible?

Would Susan Fowler's famous Uber sexism blog post be considered political? It clearly is a personal story about her year at Uber. It's about work, about tech, and, yes, about sexism. I think that a lot of actually relevant politically influential content is much more like that post than a Biden ad.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#63

Post by pjc50 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #41

This is a good move but could go further, really wish FB and moreso Twitter would include a big switch in their settings that was just "Politics On/Off" hide all political ads, and tweets and retweets for people who just don't want to see that for mental health reasons or just because they're not there for that (e.g brand customer support workers) but they'd never do that because I suspect they ideologically think it…

> ideologically think its more important to control the flow of political information that is broadcast to their users

Twitter don't so much "control" the flow of information as hand out firehoses and watch the spray. It's one of the more libertarian social networks left; they leave up known abusers and don't have an explicit ban on sex workers, to give two examples.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#64

Post by pjc50 »

adrianN wrote: post #49
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #41

This is a good move but could go further, really wish FB and moreso Twitter would include a big switch in their settings that was just "Politics On/Off" hide all political ads, and tweets and retweets for people who just don't want to see that for mental health reasons or just because they're not there for that (e.g brand customer support workers) but they'd never do that because I suspect they ideologically think it…

Maybe we should put some effort into making political discourse less damaging to your mental health instead of enabling large parts of a democratic country to just shut themselves off from politics.

That would be nice, but the number of toxic pundits that would need to be removed from major news organisations and political parties makes it infeasible.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#65

Post by justaguyhere »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #41

This is a good move but could go further, really wish FB and moreso Twitter would include a big switch in their settings that was just "Politics On/Off" hide all political ads, and tweets and retweets for people who just don't want to see that for mental health reasons or just because they're not there for that (e.g brand customer support workers) but they'd never do that because I suspect they ideologically think it…

What difference is letting users turn off political ads going to make? This is only going to help people who do not care about these in the first place - they will turn it off and FB would be slightly better off for them. These people are not the problem. The people who ignorantly argue, share unvetted stories, propaganda etc will not turn this off.

FB likely crunched some numbers and decided the PR they will get from this is worth the small loss of revenue. I bet they will also monetize the data on the list of users who turn off political ads somehow. If they really wanted to make a change, they should ban political ads like Twitter plans to. At minimum, make it opt-in instead of opt-out.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#66

Post by pjc50 »

arethuza wrote: post #51
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #41

This is a good move but could go further, really wish FB and moreso Twitter would include a big switch in their settings that was just "Politics On/Off" hide all political ads, and tweets and retweets for people who just don't want to see that for mental health reasons or just because they're not there for that (e.g brand customer support workers) but they'd never do that because I suspect they ideologically think it…

How do you define where the boundary is for what is and isn't politics? Ads paid for by overtly political organisations may be easy to identify, but what about content from individuals?

Indeed. We tried the "politics ban" at HN and the result was every story had a top comment explaining why it was political and you should flag it. Completely unworkable.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#67

Post by foldr »

ManlyBread wrote: post #24
simion314 wrote: post #16

I am not from US, I hate FB during electoral campagins not because of paid ads but because of people sharing tons of political crap, I would like to hide all political post and shares of my friends and ads.

Hopefully at some point someone notices that politics are a huge turn-off for many people. I live in Poland and EA decided they need me to see a statement for BLM in one of their games. What's the value of that? I have zero influence over the things happening in US and it's not like the topic is not all over the internet anyway. If it weren't for the fact that I play that game with friends I would just uninstall it c…

>What's the value of that? I have zero influence over the things happening in US

BLM isn't only relevant to the US. It's not as if Poland doesn't have any issues with racism.

I actually think this has been one of the positive effects of the high profile of BLM. Too many European countries have been content to tell themselves that racism is an American problem which they don't have.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#68

Post by dillonmckay »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #57
adrianN wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should put some effort into making political discourse less damaging to your mental health instead of enabling large parts of a democratic country to just shut themselves off from politics.

It's my feed should I not get a say what I see in it and what I don't? This is what mean by ideology, the idea that it's more important to make sure I see the right things so hopefully I think the right way takes precedent over how it makes me feel. This sort of thing seems to be all what modern journalism is too, it's all through the lens of editorial now. I don't want to be on Twitter, I'm on Twitter because Google…

Why do you think it is ‘your’ feed?

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#69

Post by toyg »

justaguyhere wrote: post #65
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #41

This is a good move but could go further, really wish FB and moreso Twitter would include a big switch in their settings that was just "Politics On/Off" hide all political ads, and tweets and retweets for people who just don't want to see that for mental health reasons or just because they're not there for that (e.g brand customer support workers) but they'd never do that because I suspect they ideologically think it…

What difference is letting users turn off political ads going to make? This is only going to help people who do not care about these in the first place - they will turn it off and FB would be slightly better off for them. These people are not the problem. The people who ignorantly argue, share unvetted stories, propaganda etc will not turn this off. FB likely crunched some numbers and decided the PR they will get fro…

People are not born “ignorantly arguing”, they get radicalized by repeated exposure to extreme viewpoints. This switch could help reduce that phenomenon a bit.

But I agree that it should be opt-in, rather than opt-out, and I say that as an extremely politically-aware individual. Politics is important but it doesn’t work well on Facebook and should be discouraged there.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#70

Post by arethuza »

pjc50 wrote: post #66
arethuza wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define where the boundary is for what is and isn't politics? Ads paid for by overtly political organisations may be easy to identify, but what about content from individuals?

Indeed. We tried the "politics ban" at HN and the result was every story had a top comment explaining why it was political and you should flag it. Completely unworkable.

I suspect that pretty much any discussion of politics is essentially political so under that ban this story probably shouldn't be discussed.
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