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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

#261

Post by michaelmior »

tlrobinson wrote: post #184
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.

Interestingly, it seems like if you have solidly made up your mind, you should block your own party's ads to save the unnecessary ad spend. Similarly, you should not block the other party's ads to cause them to waste ad dollars.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#262

Post by RadioEnForce »

Last election the majority of the so-called political stories that I saw my relatives sharing were a bunch of fly-by-night Macedonian sites. This does nothing to deal with that. It only deals with official, directly paid advertisements. And those are not anywhere near the most problematic political crap on Facebook.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#263

Post by bhupy »

ori_b wrote: post #247
bhupy wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> porn Sure, this is a fair exception. FB has decided that it does not want to be a porn site. We may all disagree with that decision, but it's theirs to make. > lies about non-political topics Can you elaborate on this? It is 100% possible to post non-political lies on FB. The only exception to this is libel/defamation and false advertising, but that's for legal reasons. And even there, you can only sue for material…

> Sure, this is a fair exception. FB has decided that it does not want to be a porn site. We may all disagree with that decision, but it's theirs to make. Yes, they've made a decision to restrict what the users can see, because facebook thinks it's bad. That's their right, but it highlights their double standard. I don't disagree with the decision, but it shows that this line of reasoning is bogus. > Can you elaborat…

> highlights their double standard

"I want to build a platform where people freely discuss ideas (factual or infactual) and can pay extra to disseminate ideas more broadly (factual or infactual), but I don't want to build a porn site" is not a double standard, it's just a very specific point of view.

The need for internal consistency is odd, because you could just as easily use that argument to make a strong case that Facebook ought to allow pornography on their platform. The whole point is that they can build whatever kind of site/platform they want, as long as they follow their own terms of service (which is a legal contract). Their ToS could literally carve out an exception "Pornography is not allowed, except if Donald Trump posts it", and that wouldn't be a "double standard", it would just be yet another modification of their documented rules.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#266

Post by MrMan »

I left FB not because of the things I could identify as ads, but fake stories and hate memes shared by other users. Then hateful / terroristic / reality denying comments were also a problem. "Time for a civil war" "soon we will start shooting anti-gun people" and these got at of likes.

FB is a genocide machine, and I don't think it is entirely because of ad content.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#268

Post by dx87 »

kuzimoto wrote: post #221
adventured wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think there is a case to be made that it has gotten worse. For example, before social media a lot of social interaction happened in public areas with a more diverse group of people. With social media you can pick and choose who you interact with, and what content you consume. To make things worse, companies use algorithms that are more likely to show you things you like and already agree with to increase engagement…

I've had older coworkers say the same thing. They said that when your social circle was usually your coworkers and neighbors, you had to make an effort to get along, and if you had any sort of extreme viewpoints, you had to remember that there were real life consequences to everything you said. Now you can hide your extreme viewpoints from people you interract with, and probably find groups online who share the same viewpoints and only interact with them, getting the false opinion that an extreme viewpoint is normal and socially acceptable.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#269

Post by abnry »

dimator wrote: post #209
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 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? Because politics, at least at the top levels, has been perverted by lobbying.…

In other words, politics is dirty because the people who play dirty get an advantage, which means only the people who play dirty can stay competitive.
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