I'm not American, I'm not in Facebook either. I've read TFA and still don't have a clue what is Facebook criticized for. What's that hate speech and who's doing it?
Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
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Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#22Keep politics out of business. Stop caving into activist pressure (whether internal or external) and online outrage. That isn't representative of what customers care about or want. Companies entering cultural/ideological wars (like Verizon) are doing so based on the voices of a small vocal minority of people.
By adopting such stances, these companies are doing the silent majority of their customers a huge disservice and alienating them. As an example, I don't think Facebook is wrong to operate neutrally (unlike Twitter), and I am not supportive of this campaign to get advertisers off Facebook. However, my opinion on the matter is invisible to Verizon. Verizon doesn't have any idea that numerous customers might be okay with them advertising on Facebook, because most customers are not willing to sacrifice their life to engage in activism. My opinion still should matter to Verizon. They should poll a large and diverse sample of their customers before committing to political actions like this.
Put another way, companies like Verizon are likely being misled by sophisticated organization, campaigning, and manufactured outrage. In the absence of knowing their entire customer base intimately, they should stay out of political issues, operate neutrally, and just do what maximizes their own value. Leave the rest to the public theater of politics (meaning elections, legislation, etc.).
Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#23Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#24Sigh, more politics intermingled with doing business. Just provide a service and leave it be.
Business is political. It’s only can appear apolitical if business activity is so in harmony with the political status-quo that political conflict and negotiation is almost wholly absent. Facebook is obviously involved politically, and has been well before 2016. Hell, how many millions do you think they spend on political lobbying? Why do they fill so many of their high-up executive positions with ex-politicians?
Or, why are so many of our current politicians ex-executives or ex-lobbyists?
Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#25Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair to Verizon, they have not laid off a single person since March. The retrained 95% of their retail workers to be at home support agents and the rest are still working in their stores for issues that have to be solved in person. So it makes sense that they would need to cut budget somewhere, since employees is not one of them.
I don't fault Verizon for cutting budget. It's absolutely the right thing to do. But if we weren't in the situation we're in they probably wouldn't be doing this. The nuance between "we're going to stop doing business with Facebook because Facebook is bad" and "we have to cut budget from advertising and we chose to cut it from Facebook because Facebook is bad" is important. It's convenient to do this now, but hard to…
Why is it impossible that Verizon is responding, at least in part, to public pressure against Facebook?
Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#27Sigh, more politics intermingled with doing business. Just provide a service and leave it be.
Business is political. It’s only can appear apolitical if business activity is so in harmony with the political status-quo that political conflict and negotiation is almost wholly absent. Facebook is obviously involved politically, and has been well before 2016. Hell, how many millions do you think they spend on political lobbying? Why do they fill so many of their high-up executive positions with ex-politicians?
> Business is political. It’s only can appear apolitical if business activity is so in harmony with the political status-quo that political conflict and negotiation is almost wholly absent.
100% agree.
It's amazing how techy-engineering-types are so unaware of how interdependent systems and institutions in the real world are. Especially given the nature of tech/engineering itself.
Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Either way, if it puts pressure on FB to structure their business in a way that doesn't push hate at a micro targeted level isn't that a good thing?
It's hard to phrase this in a way that doesn't sound snarky, but I mean it sincerely: Would you rather they become more like Twitter instead? Promoting virality is promoting outrage content, full-stop.
Honestly? I think all political advertising shouldn't be allowed, it gives those with a disproportionate amount of capital a lever of influence that runs counter to the democratic process. If you want to push an issue you should have to organize people who believe in your cause and have them involved. There's been plenty of examples of microtargeting's influence that makes me think it has no place in the political discourse.
No idea if we'll ever get there.
Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#29Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard to phrase this in a way that doesn't sound snarky, but I mean it sincerely: Would you rather they become more like Twitter instead? Promoting virality is promoting outrage content, full-stop.
Honestly? I think all political advertising shouldn't be allowed, it gives those with a disproportionate amount of capital a lever of influence that runs counter to the democratic process. If you want to push an issue you should have to organize people who believe in your cause and have them involved. There's been plenty of examples of microtargeting's influence that makes me think it has no place in the political di…
How would you organize people to your cause without doing anything that would be considered 'advertising'? Unless you narrowly define advertising in a way that is easily worked around..