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Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

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Re: Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google/Meta/Youtube want to be multi-trillion dollar monopolies that have invaded every aspect of our lives then there should be some very basic corporate responsibility that comes with that power, even if its difficult and maybe even costs them a little bit of money. Lately it seems like the phrase has been inverted to "with great power comes less responsibility". If your small local TV station ran ads for cocain…

Aside from YouTube, there’s an alternative for all of the services provided by Google and Meta. Fastmail, X (Twitter), a billion different messenger apps, Microsoft apps for office applications, etc etc.

Google and Facebook are ads companies. Everything they build, deploy, do, share, sell, and buy is about selling ads. Youtube is a platform to sell ads. Gmail is a platform to collect data to sell ads. Facebook is a platform to collect data to sell ads on Facebook. Both companies have "analytics" products that exist to collect more data for ads.

What competition is there in the Ad space for internet advertising?

Re: Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

#192
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, what about cops+feds civil asset forfeiture-ing their servers and offices? Meta's lawyers would have the forfeiture overturned by a judge before the cops have even finished their paperwork for the seizure. Civil asset forfeiture is only really a weapon against convicted criminals and people who can't afford to defend themselves.

They can prove in civil court standards their severs weren’t part of drug dealing? Because that’s the standard when a person gets pulled over and the cops->feds take their cash without any criminal charges.

They won’t have to prove anything. Cops pull people over and take their money assuming the person can’t or won’t defend themselves because it’s too expensive or time consuming.

I know someone who has had actual drug money seized in California and it took them less than a month to get it back by court order because they knew a lawyer specializing in those cases. There are a lot of judges that don’t take kindly to asset forfeiture without a conviction and a legit corporation like Meta with a big legal team would have their stuff back by the weekend.

Re: Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that link, regarding legality in the US: > it would be considered akin to a Schedule I Controlled Substance under the Federal Analogue Act if sold for human consumption. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act

You won't find any of them are conspicuously sold for human consumption, it's easier to stamp "not for human consumption" on the packaging.

>You won't find any of them are conspicuously sold for human consumption, it's easier to stamp "not for human consumption" on the packaging.

That's not the get out jail free defense that idiots think that it is. Gummies aren't made and packaged and distributed for any other purpose than human consumption, judges aren't stupid.

Re: Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

#194
post #129

World's easiest problem to solve if we just get the political will to do so: Pass a law requiring a human being to sign off in "writing" (can be eSigned through an internal moderation platform) on any ad that will be run that the platform will profit from and that will be pushed to users by choice of the platform as opposed to request by the user. This human serves as an agent who will be liable along with their firm…

I don't think it's actually that easy. In the US, we have Section 230[1], which says > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Seems to me, that says if you have a problem with the advertisement, you need to go to the source, not the ad network. You're proposing an exception for advertiseme…

Section 230, if it's even remotely applicable to companies doing their own advertising on their own platforms, requires a "Good faith effort" to moderate that platform.

If a court is willing to call the moderation google and facebook do currently in advertising "good faith", that court is flat out wrong.

Re: Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

#195
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's actually that easy. In the US, we have Section 230[1], which says > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Seems to me, that says if you have a problem with the advertisement, you need to go to the source, not the ad network. You're proposing an exception for advertiseme…

Section 230, if it's even remotely applicable to companies doing their own advertising on their own platforms, requires a "Good faith effort" to moderate that platform. If a court is willing to call the moderation google and facebook do currently in advertising "good faith", that court is flat out wrong.

230 (c)(2) says [1]:

> (2) Civil liability > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— > (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or > (B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

Good faith is only required to limit civil liability in case of taking actions to restrict access.

There's no good faith requirement for 230 (c) (1) which is where platforms get immunity for content from users. I don't believe the platforms are being accused of advertising their own drugs for sale; they're passing through drug advertisements from users (advertisers).

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

Re: Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

#196
post #129

World's easiest problem to solve if we just get the political will to do so: Pass a law requiring a human being to sign off in "writing" (can be eSigned through an internal moderation platform) on any ad that will be run that the platform will profit from and that will be pushed to users by choice of the platform as opposed to request by the user. This human serves as an agent who will be liable along with their firm…

I don't think it's actually that easy. In the US, we have Section 230[1], which says > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Seems to me, that says if you have a problem with the advertisement, you need to go to the source, not the ad network. You're proposing an exception for advertiseme…

Yeah, it's probably not going to be easy just because Section 230 is or at least was essential for the growth of the internet.

Is it as important now? I'm not sure, but I wonder how essential it is for big companies like Google or Meta to have this sort of protection when they don't have as much competition to incentivize moderation and may have enough money to do better research on what content they're hosting.

Re: Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to get more into self hosting and things like federation that can allow technical people to be admins of low-maintenance services for their friends and family. It's a slow push but it's gonna happen. Microtransactions are stuck in deployment hell, advertisements are a deal with the devil, and this is the only third option I know of

You might be interested in my AGPL federated social network, Jonline, which I've built specifically for this purpose. Source is at https://github.com/JonLatane/jonline , and I have a few instances up at https://jonline.io ("flagship"/demo server), https://bullcity.social (Durham, NC community), and https://oakcity.social (Raleigh, NC community). It's a pure Rust server so it's extremely lightweight to self-host compa…

hi Jon! We've worked together before! Fun to see you randomly on the internet. Love the name "Jon-line"

Re: Meta has run hundreds of ads for cocaine, opioids and other drugs

#200
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe GP was suggesting Facebook do it; rather just pointing out that the second option is extremely costly and difficult, which is a consequence of the scale and influence of Facebook

> the second option is extremely costly and difficult, which is a consequence of the scale and influence of Facebook Is it? Suppose that instead of Facebook we had a federated social media with ten thousand independent operators and ten thousand ad networks. Then there would be ten thousand ad agents (really automated websites) who compete on price and whose job it is to place your ad in the ten thousand ad networks.…

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