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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

#211

Post by rglover »

captainmuon wrote: post #187

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…

Instead of advertisements, then, it seems like they should do something like politics.facebook.com which includes interviews with candidates, breakdowns of candidate platforms and affiliations, and essays by candidates.

Ads are just an opportunity to sling more mud and incite rage. I want to see some content that I as a voter can actually inform my opinion with. Fair, even, and well-organized to support voters.

Not only that, but it moves people toward having an educated opinion, not getting all gassed up on rage-bait.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#212

Post by moron4hire »

prepend wrote: post #130
moron4hire wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Twitter lets you block advertiser accounts. I would say Twitter is better about it, because they just let me block the account. Facebook makes (or rather, used to make) me go through several steps of "are you sure? wouldn't you rather just hide this person? what if you asked them nicely first?" bullshit. And after doing it a few times (maybe two dozen?), suddenly the block feature was gone…

In Twitter, I can block or mute the account that promoted the ad, but that turns off all messaging. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but if I block an advertiser on Facebook, I can still see non-ads.

Yeah, but other messages from an advertiser are still ads, even if they aren't "ads" that they paid Facebook for, so I don't want to see those, either.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#213

Post by bhaavan »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #142
bhaavan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political ads are explicitly marked, and can be turned off. On the other hand, to classify user generated content as political or not is non-trivial. More so, there is no clear universal definition of this. One man's politics is other man's "important announcement". With such ambiguous definitions it is hard to train a ML model for this purpose explicitly. On the other hand, if you downvote and dismiss political post…

> classify user generated content as political or not is non-trivial. There's probably a set of 50 or so keyword combinations, plus the names of current and former politicians and common misspellings, that would cover 90% of cases.

- He was playing poker, with a pair on the table, but his trump card was an ace.

- I refuse to pay this "Bill".

- That looks like an Obama suit.

Are these political statements? It's naive to make such a claim that a whitelist of word is sufficient. The "facebook is censoring me" gang will eat you up in a jiffy.

Even extremely complex models will fail this test.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#215

Post by spaetzleesser »

captainmuon wrote: post #187

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…

“I would like to block all commercial ads, but it seems really important to me that people see political ads.“

At least in the US political ads are full of negativity, distortion and wrong “facts” so I don’t think they contribute at all to a healthy discussion. I think the country would be better off if it severely limited all political advertising. Won’t happen because of first amendment though.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#216

Post by plorg »

I no longer receive any Facebook ads. And it's not just my adblock on desktop - I get no ads in mobile either (although I don't watch much FB video). The recently seen ads section is empty. I went through a period where every time I saw an ad I clicked the X and marked it irrelevant, and every so often I go through the list of "businesses that have uploaded your contact information" and marked to hide ads from those entities.

On Instagram I've been following the same procedure and it doesn't seem to be changing anything.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#217

Post by cynusx »

bhupy wrote: post #120
cosmodisk wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a complex issue but having some sort of mechanism where you can't just say:'Poland will attack the US next year,we need to prepare for it!!' and then move on as nothing happened, would help. In the the same way as CEOs can't just walk around talking whatever shit they want to just because they've got fiduciary responsibility,some good practices could be applied to candidates.

NYT v Sullivan renders it impossible to legislate this (short of a Constitutional amendment)

This case is about public officials suing the press. In my humble opinion, it should be perfectly possible for citizens to sue their politicians for being lied to. Eventually they are supposed to act in our interest and without real information, the democratic process is undermined.

Civilians should be able to trust the elected leaders' words.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#218

Post by elicash »

wombat-man wrote: post #202
elicash wrote: post #168

I'm a political advertiser as part of my job and one thing most people don't get is that it's not just ELECTORAL ads that Facebook usually is referring to when they're talking about "political" ads. It's, as mentioned in the article, a shorthand for "Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics." So, a few points. First, the obvious, that these things all depend on the extent to which Facebook promotes this "featur…

I feel ya, but that's not why I use facebook. I unfollow friends who mostly post political stuff, even though I generally agree with them. I'm there for pictures, the shared calendar and the messaging. I'll check out memeorandum or NYT for news, and will sometimes read political stuff on reddit or twitter. To me, I prefer FB as a way to stay connected with friends. I have many other ways to learn about political topi…

I'm sensitive to this, which is why I added those questions to the end.

But let me make create a random example. Oil companies will be able to advertise on Facebook and reach everybody. Environmental organizations talking about oil will not. We don't call the oil companies a political or social issue advertiser, but this disparate treatment for what we consider "social issues" is going to have real-world implications.

You're not there for the ads at all -- you're there for "pictures, the shared calendar and the messaging."

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#219

Post by elicash »

schuyler2d wrote: post #197
elicash wrote: post #168

I'm a political advertiser as part of my job and one thing most people don't get is that it's not just ELECTORAL ads that Facebook usually is referring to when they're talking about "political" ads. It's, as mentioned in the article, a shorthand for "Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics." So, a few points. First, the obvious, that these things all depend on the extent to which Facebook promotes this "featur…

Indeed -- quite the timely response: Allow people to turn off ads advocating racial justice and equity.

This is a great point. Will a person who turns these ads off even UNDERSTAND that they're not allowing a Black Lives Matter organization to let them know about upcoming events? How will that be explained to the user? The advertiser might only even be sharing the ads with people set up on a recurring contribution to inform them how to stay involved.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#220

Post by mpalmer »

The problem is actual disinformation in political ads. Opt-out solves basically nothing, it just has the vague sheen of being a "positive step".

Also, this quote from Zuckerberg galls (emphasis mine):

“I believe Facebook has a responsibility not just to prevent voter suppression -- which disproportionately targets people of colour -- but to actively support well-informed voter engagement, registration, and turnout.”

What is it to "actively support" well-informed voter engagement while taking money from campaigns who make false ads?

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