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Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

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Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#131

Post by anigbrowl »

pvg wrote: post #129
anigbrowl wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish to read such posts. OP's comments are often tendentious but also generally substantive. Given a history of FB being criticized for the ethics of political advertising both domestically and internationally, the criticism seems on point to me.

There's nothing substantive about telling everyone how much better informed you are followed by unsubstantiated dark mutterings about how every time someone uses FB, a little squirrel in the Amazon loses its home. There are lots of better places to find an unlimited supply of this stuff than HN, if you're into it.

I'm sure you understand the meaning of 'generally', and I note you're only addressing one part of the post in question while ignoring the broader point - one which you may not agree with, but which view is as valid as your own.

Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#132

Post by jimmygrapes »

lozenge wrote: post #86
whimsicalism wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's hard to fathom how difficult it would be to literally run out of people to advertise to at facebooks scale.f Probably because they were doing hyperspecific targeting, not because FB literally didn't have any more users to serve ads. I doubt political ads are a major part of the mix - for one, there is little evidence that they are all that effective compared to TV ads.

We are talking about a campaign spending almost $20 billion a month, admittedly Facebook ads would only be a part of that, but why is it unrealistic that they ran out of ad spots to buy?

I could see $20 million a month, but billion doesn't work here since the Romney campaign didn't spend even one billion[0].

Is this one of those weird "billion means something different in my country" things? Because even then, the miscommunication is usually between billion (10^9 in most English) and trillion (10^12), in short scale[1].

[0]: https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P80003353/?tab=summary

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#133

Post by jimmygrapes »

lozenge wrote: post #87
TechBro8615 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if Meta ever ran its own political ads, without a specific candidate paying for them. That might be one reason to obscure the advertiser. (I mean, they _definitely_ did this with generic "get out and vote" advertising, but of course that's not overtly favoring one candidate or the other.)

Zuckerberg has so much money, it would be cheaper and less risky to just pay somebody to pay somebody to pay somebody to fund a PAC with offshore accounts with hidden ownership.

Just open a movie studio, money laundering problem solved!

Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#134

Post by pvg »

anigbrowl wrote: post #131
pvg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing substantive about telling everyone how much better informed you are followed by unsubstantiated dark mutterings about how every time someone uses FB, a little squirrel in the Amazon loses its home. There are lots of better places to find an unlimited supply of this stuff than HN, if you're into it.

I'm sure you understand the meaning of 'generally', and I note you're only addressing one part of the post in question while ignoring the broader point - one which you may not agree with, but which view is as valid as your own.

What part of the post am I not addressing? It's basically all generic bombast and invective. You can't really post generic bombast and invective on HN, even if some people like your generic bombast and invective because it's generic bombast and invective. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know about a forum we've both been on for about 83771 million years.

Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#135

Post by elliekelly »

endisneigh wrote: post #8

How much money does meta even make from political ads? Why would they even want to deal with this?

For a company whose bread & butter is “outrage” I would imagine political ads of the type you’re likely to see on Facebook in 2022 are like having someone else do your work for you. And they get paid for the privilege to boot!

Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#137

Post by freeAgent »

bombcar wrote: post #18

From that PR it seems partial compliance is what got them burned. They obviously knew what ads were political because they put some information about them up, but not all. If they had simply not complied at all and tried to blame their customers for not classifying the ads correctly, it might have gone a bit better in their favor. Related, it's still insane that companies can basically argue "this ad that thousands u…

Hard = cut into our profits.

If it can’t be automated, Facebook isn’t interested in complying.

Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#138

Post by fezfight »

whiteboardr wrote: post #49

Maybe time to rethink the way fines are determined. I’d be very much in favour of the “swiss model” for traffic fines - based on your income. You did X wrong, here’s the set price from our catalogue vs. you did X wrong and based on your earnings, here’s what you owe.

But not earnings, instead let's use wealth. Otherwise all the unemployed rich people will claim zero income and get off for nothing.

Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#139

Post by [deleted] »

sofixa wrote: post #120
tinktank wrote: post #6

This company really is a complete and utter dumpster fire.

Honestly I'm surprised how can they still find enough morally bankrupt people to work for them. The pay might be good, but it's not like anyone working there couldn't find a similarly well paid job at a similar company.

[deleted]

Re: Judge rules Facebook parent Meta intentionally violated campaign finance laws

#140

Post by anigbrowl »

pvg wrote: post #134
anigbrowl wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you understand the meaning of 'generally', and I note you're only addressing one part of the post in question while ignoring the broader point - one which you may not agree with, but which view is as valid as your own.

What part of the post am I not addressing? It's basically all generic bombast and invective. You can't really post generic bombast and invective on HN, even if some people like your generic bombast and invective because it's generic bombast and invective. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know about a forum we've both been on for about 83771 million years.

Arguing that FB's primary reason for being is as a political influence operation rather than providing network effects to its users. I don't agree with your characterization of the comment. No doubt our interpretations will continue to differ.
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