Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election

Post by IanDrake » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

hogFeast wrote: post #41

ogre_codes wrote: post #18

This just seems like too little, too late. Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional sense, but viral content from sketchy sources. If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent posts from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people without being vetted.

Yes, it is so simple. News should only come from approved sources. Once the veracity has been checked by a Facebook employee, it is then empirically true or false. I don't know why people in the 21st century cannot understand that all statements are true or false, and that we can place authority for determining truth with companies with known, trusted political allegiances. For example, I have read a lot about health…

Post by Barrin92 » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 11:38 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #36

ogre_codes wrote: post #18

This just seems like too little, too late. Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional sense, but viral content from sketchy sources. If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent posts from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people without being vetted.

You make an interesting point: what would a social network of limited range look like? Something where you couldn't have more than a set number of connections, things didn't spread more than two nodes in the graph, and resharing wasn't an option. I think it would be ideal to fill in the mainstream need for facebook ( keeping in touch with people)

Post by jariel » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 12:18 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #24

ogre_codes wrote: post #18

This just seems like too little, too late. Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional sense, but viral content from sketchy sources. If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent posts from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people without being vetted.

A simple way would be to stop all content from propagating beyond few thousand people before a human vetting it.

Post by srtjstjsj » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 12:24 AM UTC

hnracer wrote: post #39

ogre_codes wrote: post #18

This just seems like too little, too late. Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional sense, but viral content from sketchy sources. If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent posts from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people without being vetted.

The problem with vetting is that it's unlikely to be done in an unbiased way. Facebook is a Silicon Valley company with a young staff that leans significantly to the left. As a right-leaning individual this makes me uncomfortable because I know that staff aren't going to separate their politics from decision making surrounding vetting/choosing who gets to do the vetting. Here's a concrete example: Facebook staff, bei…

Post by srtjstjsj » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 12:31 AM UTC

marcell wrote: post #31

anigbrowl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy that argument, which just rewards whoever has the most money to throw at the advertising market (Bloomberg's signal failure in this regard doesn't invalidate the general problem). I like the clearly labeled and non-sensationalistic statements in voter information booklets, myself. I am of course speaking in general terms about future elections rather than making drastic adjustments in the middle of this o…

If you ban advertisements on Facebook, you end up favoring people with pre-existing set of followers. Typically this will be an incumbent, or perhaps celebrity candidates. Moreover, FB banning political ads doesn't end the advantage of having more money. It just channels that money somewhere else (TV ads, hiring door-to-door campaigners).