Facebook to let users turn off political adverts • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#451

Post by CamperBob2 » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 10:39 PM UTC

r29vzg2 wrote: post #433

three_seagrass wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has ethical reprecussions on the news ecosystem because whichever keywords/mentions that Facebook dictates as political will be targeted by news organizations to avoid. These organizations will strip normal news of any political connotations which is frightening because the news, although mostly a pile of noise today, is supposed to have signals to keep democracies in line by design.

I would argue that stripping news of political connotations would be a plus. I wish all news was reported this way.

Honestly, if you live and work and pay taxes in the US, you kind of have an obligation to keep an eye on your government. It's just basic citizenship. The events you see on the news cannot be divorced from politics. Not even the sports or weather segments.

If politicians are doing things that stress you out or make you angry, would you really be better off staying uninformed? I'm not saying that Facebook is a good way to accomplish that, just that it's worth considering before you ask for technology to seal yourself off from political news altogether.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#452

Post by amelius » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #395

amelius wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple. Suspend the right to loud forms of free speech during political campaigns. Or have an independent panel measure the media exposure of each candidate. Then compensate them accordingly.

Easy, just revoke the most protected form of speech in the country during such times when that speech is most important. I don't think the Supreme Court is going to buy that one.

Why? Every candidate still gets some time-slots for stating their opinion. The point is that everybody gets the same amount of time.

And people who are not candidates and who want to express their opinion, they can: (1) vote, or (2) be a candidate. What they can't do is buy media time or advertisements, etc., which many wouldn't equate with "free speech" anyway.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#453

Post by paxys » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #412

mmanfrin wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is political content? Is news about the protests political? Is a statement by the president? Is a new law going in to effect political? Is someone commenting about wearing masks political? > Text classification is a thing, and there are many other techniques, so it seems possible to recognize political content with some reasonable level of accuracy and show me a lot less of that. I think you severely underestima…

> I think you severely underestimate what constitutes classifying something as political. You are over-thinking this. Just filtering obvious political stuff would be a massive help: - Mentions of politicians - Key words: Liberal, Conservative, Right-wing, etc etc - Material re-shared from political parties/ candidates/ movements. Just that would be a giant help. Allowing users to set their own filters would be a mass…

There are a ton of browser extensions that do all this already

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#454

Post by lliamander » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #431

lliamander wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just so...weak. I acknowledge the historical origins, but is anyone really bothered by this? "Democrat" is obviously a demonym for those in the Democratic Party, so shortening it to the "Democrat Party" (i.e. the party of the "Democrats") seems perfectly reasonable. I mean, it does lend itself to silly orthographic puns like "DemocRAT" etc., but by itself doesn't really seem particularly offensive.

Adopting a disparaging name for a group of people that you don't like is a means of dehumanizing them.

True, I just find it odd that this is seen as (or was ever intended to be) disparaging, rather than a mere grammatical variation.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#455

Post by elicash » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #450

elicash wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fair question. But it's because the news reporting about it has been incorrect and has often suggested that it only applies to campaigns. That's why. I'm using reporters as a proxy for the public. And also, much of the public will learn about the feature from these reports. As a political advertiser who jumps through huge hoops about what is and isn't allowed, what the definitions of different terms are, and h…

I understand your frustration and I wouldn’t want to be in your place right now. Still in my place I want a button to make the madness stop. So the two of us are fighting over that button. Something went wrong somewhere. Perhaps we need a better way of spreading the word - still possible to reach people, but hard to spam so as not to poison the stream (once again).

The madness I want to stop are ads for mobile puzzle games. If I get a button for those then I’ll love FB forever.

More seriously, I enjoyed this exchange.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#456

Post by Talanes » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

r29vzg2 wrote: post #433

three_seagrass wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has ethical reprecussions on the news ecosystem because whichever keywords/mentions that Facebook dictates as political will be targeted by news organizations to avoid. These organizations will strip normal news of any political connotations which is frightening because the news, although mostly a pile of noise today, is supposed to have signals to keep democracies in line by design.

I would argue that stripping news of political connotations would be a plus. I wish all news was reported this way.

News with no political connotations is fluff.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#457

Post by tanilama » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:25 PM UTC

adrianmonk wrote: post #373

I'd also love a feature that lets me block non-advertising political content. A lot of people like to use Facebook as a political soapbox. That's not what I want out of it. I want to stay connected to people, hear updates, socialize, etc. Some people push it so far that the solution of unfriending them is easy. But not everybody is so egregious that I want the nuclear option. (For example, relatives who are vocal abo…

What is political itself is political.

Is LGBT political? Is support for immigration political. Is climate change political? Is COVID-19 political?

Trying to be impartial here is a fool's game.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#458

Post by catalogia » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

Talanes wrote: post #456

r29vzg2 wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that stripping news of political connotations would be a plus. I wish all news was reported this way.

News with no political connotations is fluff.

That's myopic. There is all sorts of news, local news in particular, that has clear utility but tenuous political implications. Traffic and weather reports come to mind as clear examples.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#459

Post by pezezin » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #411

adrianmonk wrote: post #373

I'd also love a feature that lets me block non-advertising political content. A lot of people like to use Facebook as a political soapbox. That's not what I want out of it. I want to stay connected to people, hear updates, socialize, etc. Some people push it so far that the solution of unfriending them is easy. But not everybody is so egregious that I want the nuclear option. (For example, relatives who are vocal abo…

> I'd also love a feature that lets me block non-advertising political content. I would just prefer an option where I only saw content my friends actually took the time to post themselves. I don't want politics, memes, or other trendy bullshit, just their words, pictures, or even links they personally took the time to clip and paste. If I want news or entertainment, I can find that myself, but Facebook is currently t…

I totally agree with you. I think what's killing Facebook are the endless reposts, just show me original content, please.

I was working on a script to hide shared posts, but it broke after the last update. Maybe I need to fix it and publish it as a browser extension?

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#460

Post by modeless » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #412

mmanfrin wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is political content? Is news about the protests political? Is a statement by the president? Is a new law going in to effect political? Is someone commenting about wearing masks political? > Text classification is a thing, and there are many other techniques, so it seems possible to recognize political content with some reasonable level of accuracy and show me a lot less of that. I think you severely underestima…

> I think you severely underestimate what constitutes classifying something as political. You are over-thinking this. Just filtering obvious political stuff would be a massive help: - Mentions of politicians - Key words: Liberal, Conservative, Right-wing, etc etc - Material re-shared from political parties/ candidates/ movements. Just that would be a giant help. Allowing users to set their own filters would be a mass…

I have done exactly this with Twitter's "mute words" feature, and let me tell you it is incredibly great. I would have abandoned Twitter long ago without it.