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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

#181

Post by adventured »

throwawaygh wrote: post #172
cwhiz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can target Facebook ads with surgical precision to manipulate people exactly the way you want. This is exactly what Cambridge Analytica did. You cannot target people with such precision in traditional advertising. I don’t think it’s unfair to say social media advertising and data collection is the biggest risk to democracy that we have ever faced.

The targeted precision really is what's different. Your candidate can be N different single-issue candidates in a way that's just not possible without precise targeting. The "echo chambers" explanation, in particular, seems wrong. Echo chambers always existed.

> The "echo chambers" explanation, in particular, seems wrong. Echo chambers always existed.

The echo chambers haven't gotten worse at all. They've become easier to observe in action and quantify, because social media is leaving a giant digital trail that everyone can observe (whereas previously the average person didn't leave much of a partisan trail/record for observation or study or reporting). The perception that the echo chambers have gotten worse is merely the horror of seeing the already existing echo chambers in action so vividly now that everything is recorded and everyone has a bullhorn.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#182

Post by ncallaway »

macspoofing wrote: post #146
ses1984 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would you want it any other way? Democracy is messy. Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me. >Do you think activists stick to facts and data to prove their case? Almost never. There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies.

>Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me No! The opposite in fact! When Democracy is messy it means there's a lot of 'bumping' and 'turn' (to use some metaphors), unlike the sterile utopia that some push for, where everything is clean and specified and everyone follows a neat pattern (to use more metaphors). For example, I love how messy caucuses are, people are yelling and clamouring, convincing each other to join…

> But they are going away to just regular, boring voting because this chaos makes many people uncomfortable and it FEELS better to have a top-down, clean, organized, designed approach.

I am strongly opposed to caucuses, but not for the reasons mentioned. I'm actually fine with the disorder, the chaos, the shouting.

What I'm not okay with is the time commitment required. It seriously disenfranchises those who cannot afford to take an entire evening in order to vote.

It creates a significant discrepancy between those who are privileged enough not to see the time commitment as a significant burden, and those who do.

(Not to say regular voting is perfect. Look at the recent elections in GA for a counter-example, where voters had to wait in line for hours)

Anyway, none of this is really relevant to your main thesis, but I did want to run down the tangent and present the case for why I think caucuses are bad that doesn't focus on disorder.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#183

Post by bhupy »

cwhiz wrote: post #161
macspoofing wrote: post #109

It's a good feature from an individual perspective. It's not a good feature if you don't like cultural bubbles forming. Democrats will block Republican ads, Republicans will block Democrat ads - will that lead to a better world when Republicans can't reach Democrat voters or vice versa? I find this focus (attack?) on political advertising on social media platforms by traditional media companies to be self-serving and…

You can target Facebook ads with surgical precision to manipulate people exactly the way you want. This is exactly what Cambridge Analytica did. You cannot target people with such precision in traditional advertising. I don’t think it’s unfair to say social media advertising and data collection is the biggest risk to democracy that we have ever faced.

I think you might want to brush up on more recent news, because by now Cambridge Analytica’s data has been shown to have been mostly useless at meaningful targeting. Even the New York Times reported that Cambridge Analytica’s impact on the election of Donald Trump as president was overrated.

https://stratechery.com/2018/the-facebook-brand/

From the article:

“But a dozen Republican consultants and former Trump campaign aides, along with current and former Cambridge employees, say the company’s ability to exploit personality profiles — “our secret sauce,” Mr. Nix once called it — is exaggerated. Cambridge executives now concede that the company never used psychographics in the Trump campaign. The technology — prominently featured in the firm’s sales materials and in media reports that cast Cambridge as a master of the dark campaign arts — remains unproved, according to former employees and Republicans familiar with the firm’s work.”

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#184

Post by tlrobinson »

macspoofing wrote: post #109

It's a good feature from an individual perspective. It's not a good feature if you don't like cultural bubbles forming. Democrats will block Republican ads, Republicans will block Democrat ads - will that lead to a better world when Republicans can't reach Democrat voters or vice versa? I find this focus (attack?) on political advertising on social media platforms by traditional media companies to be self-serving and…

> Democrats will block Republican ads, Republicans will block Democrat ads

I could be wrong, but it sounds like you can just turn off all political ads, not those from specific parties.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#185

Post by bagacrap »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #153
fbelzile wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually took this a step further and un-followed all of my friends. It took me more than a few hundred clicks, but Facebook now shows me a completely empty news feed. There's no ads either, although I'm not sure if that's because of uBlock Origin or if it's because there's not enough posts to stick ads in-between. As soon as there's another service I can use as a modern Rolodex, I'll be using that instead. I think…

Why doesn't Google do it? They already have gmail and chrome, I could see Googledex heavily populated from their existing data.

isn't Google Contacts a digital Rolodex? What you're describing sounds like white pages.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#186

Post by bhupy »

rsynnott wrote: post #159
nradov wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you propose to fix that? Should candidates only be allowed to make "true" statements?

So, before social media, this wasn't regulated by law, but it was to a large extent regulated by the media. Politicians didn't have a good way to lie directly to the public; their main avenue for lying to the public was via the media, which would tend to fact check them. There's a big difference between "candidate X says that pigs can fly and this is why that's wrong", and "The flying pigs above your house are bigly…

I think you’re really overestimating the integrity of historic media. The sober tendency of media to “fact check” has only been the case in the last few decades.

https://www.wired.com/story/journalism-isnt-dying-its-return...

The history of the printing press was fraught with exactly the kinds of concerns people appear to have with social media. In those days, you had politicians routinely troll political opponents, publish partisan screeds under pseudonyms, and openly advertise their own biases.

They were never regulated by law because the Constitution makes such regulation essentially impossible.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#187

Post by captainmuon »

I see where they are coming from, but this seems backwards to me. I would like to block all commercial ads, but it seems really important to me that people see political ads. Granted, the current campaigns in the US are messed up and most ads look like propaganda, but this is a narrow view of what politics can be.

Because on the other hand, as a political activist I know how incredibly hard it is to get your message out there. I mean just the hard facts that people might not know about, and our suggested solutions.

The internet and social media provides a slightly leveled playing field: Sure a small social movement can never compete against a billion dollar campaign, but this is a pareto-law distribution where they quickly hit diminishing returns. With a few well timed Twitter posts I hand can reach thousands of people. In the pre-digital world, we would have had to print thousands of flyers, tried to get into newspapers etc..

I find it frustrating and damaging to democracy that politics is viewed as something dirty. Politics should be just a domain of problem solving and discussion like programming, home improvement, or cooking - except that everybody should have a say since it affects everybody. Why do we assume everybody in politics has sinister intentions?

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#188

Post by macspoofing »

ncallaway wrote: post #182
macspoofing wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me No! The opposite in fact! When Democracy is messy it means there's a lot of 'bumping' and 'turn' (to use some metaphors), unlike the sterile utopia that some push for, where everything is clean and specified and everyone follows a neat pattern (to use more metaphors). For example, I love how messy caucuses are, people are yelling and clamouring, convincing each other to join…

> But they are going away to just regular, boring voting because this chaos makes many people uncomfortable and it FEELS better to have a top-down, clean, organized, designed approach. I am strongly opposed to caucuses, but not for the reasons mentioned. I'm actually fine with the disorder, the chaos, the shouting. What I'm not okay with is the time commitment required. It seriously disenfranchises those who cannot a…

>What I'm not okay with is the time commitment required.

I understand your position but this is way overstated. Anything worth doing is going to cost you time and effort and streamlining it will make it lose some important intrinsic property of it.

Approximately 50% of American households carry credit card debt. Do you know why? Because if you truly want something, you'll find a way to get it even if it means financing it will cost you 3x-5x more than just saving up for it. I do not believe that the vast majority of people who care about caucuses would not find a way to attend a caucus.

>It creates a significant discrepancy between those who are privileged enough

I will never buy into this flawed notion of 'privilege' that misinforms more than it explains. Everyone is busy, especially when it comes to things they barely care about. If someone cares about caucuses and primaries they will get engaged and find a way to attend. Evangelicals that care about their faith will find a way to tithe 10% of their income, go to Church EVERY Sunday (not just once every 4 years), and get involved in Church activities. Practicing Orthodox Jews have very onerous stipulations on what they can and cannot do in their daily life, but they care about their faith and therefore they find a way to do those things - regardless of their income and wealth and privilege.

Going to a caucus once every 2 or 4 years on a Saturday isn't a reasonable barrier for those that care. Worrying about those that don't care enough to make time isn't improving things. Your time would be better spent advocating to those people to CARE enough to attend, not destroying the beautiful chaos in order to HOPE it attracts those people into coming out.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#189

Post by rsynnott »

bhupy wrote: post #186
rsynnott wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, before social media, this wasn't regulated by law, but it was to a large extent regulated by the media. Politicians didn't have a good way to lie directly to the public; their main avenue for lying to the public was via the media, which would tend to fact check them. There's a big difference between "candidate X says that pigs can fly and this is why that's wrong", and "The flying pigs above your house are bigly…

I think you’re really overestimating the integrity of historic media. The sober tendency of media to “fact check” has only been the case in the last few decades. https://www.wired.com/story/journalism-isnt-dying-its-return... The history of the printing press was fraught with exactly the kinds of concerns people appear to have with social media. In those days, you had politicians routinely troll political opponents,…

Well, yeah, I'm thinking mostly of mid to late 20th century media.

To be clear, I don't really see a problem with media being partisan as such. It always has been to some extent. The direct line from politicians to public is new, though (at least on this scale; there are prior examples of politicians using radio in this way, but it was somewhat more restrained).

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#190

Post by stronglikedan »

ses1984 wrote: post #136
macspoofing wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Politics in the US is a mess. Why would you want it any other way? Democracy is messy. >You are saying this as if those ads state facts and stick to the issues I'm not saying that at all, but I will say this, political discourse is never about facts and policy. Same with activism. Do you think activists stick to facts and data to prove their case? Almost never. Do you think any housing activists that push 'rent cont…

>Why would you want it any other way? Democracy is messy. Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me. >Do you think activists stick to facts and data to prove their case? Almost never. There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies.

> There's a difference between "appeal to emotion" and spewing outright lies.

The only difference is that spewing outright lies is a large subset of appealing to emotion when it comes to activism, which is itself a large subset of politics.

> Sounds an awful lot like giving up to me.

Democracy is compromise, and compromise at the level of government is messy. It's not giving up, it's jut not giving in to one idea without considering and weighing all opinions.

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