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All political ads running on Google in the US

adstransparency.google.com

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Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#91

Post by pessimizer »

matsemann wrote: post #7

In Norway it's forbidden with political ads on TV . Reasoning being that live images can have a huge influence, while also possibly being inflammatory and dumb down the debate. But main reason mainly is that it would give those with enough money to afford these "expensive tv ads" a leg up. However, this law hasn't been updated in decades. So it's still only TV ads that's illegal. So it feels like a quite arbitrary re…

> But main reason mainly is that it would give those with enough money to afford these "expensive tv ads" a leg up.

I think the main reason for rules like this is because it's literally politicians and political parties shoveling huge amounts of cash to the media, and 1) one of the purposes of the media is to inform people about politicians and politics, and 2) the politicians who are elected will oversee the media and their mergers. An intimate relationship is created where democracy demands an adversarial one.

It's rotten. It's the same reason no media can criticize any drug in the US, since they were allowed to advertise to the public. I'm sure there's some value in having people ask for specific drugs from their doctors, but that's minimal; the main value is being immune to any criticism unless an e.g. television station wants to lose 20% of their income.

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#93

Post by avnfish »

rsynnott wrote: post #36
Macha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect the demographics of google ad viewers to be more or less "the internet at large, minus a few markets like China were Google is much less prevalent, and a few groups techy enough to disproportionately run adblockers"

You’d be amazed. A surprising number of people, particularly older people, do not use the internet as such all that much; they use Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, or YouTube.

I was completely shocked to find out how many people use search in those apps to query open questions rather than 'search the web' via something like Google

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#94

Post by amadeuspagel »

ggregoire wrote: post #53
fallingknife wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also media outlets are free to propagandize all day. You can't restrict that because we don't want to restrict freedom of the press. But then that begs the question, don't all companies and individuals have the same freedom of the press that media companies do?

This is the most shocking part from an outsider POV. In Europe* mainstream media must obviously be neutral about each candidate but also give the same amount of airing time to each candidate. So like if candidate 1 is invited for a 10 min interview, candidate 2 must be invited too and offered the same airing time. Meanwhile here Fox can just call Harris "stupid" (and CNN reciprocally call Trump whatever they want), l…

This is certainly not true for the mainstream media in all of europe. It might be true for public television stations in some countries.

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#95

Post by pawelmurias »

cedws wrote: post #67

Political advertising just makes democracy look like a total joke. If you can buy votes by shoving ads in peoples’ faces that’s not a democracy, that’s an oligarchy.

The alternative to buying ads is buying newspapers and other media outlets.

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#96

Post by Dilettante_ »

Loughla wrote: post #85
readyplayernull wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Circenses et panem

I'm confused how that applies to political ads.

There is a perspective from which all politics is just entertainment with audience participation, while The Powers That Be control the things that actually matter.

(I'm not saying I endorse this view, I'm just trying to explain)

t. Kooky conspiracy theory collector

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#97

Post by Biganon »

unclad5968 wrote: post #82
cedws wrote: post #67

Political advertising just makes democracy look like a total joke. If you can buy votes by shoving ads in peoples’ faces that’s not a democracy, that’s an oligarchy.

Well anyone can buy ads so it's not really an oligarchy. What alternative would you propose for candidates to get they're name out?

Equal time on national television, by law. Like they do in France for example.

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#98

Post by jodacola »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #90

Fascinating stuff. I went down a rabbit hole with this particlar ad: https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR132650406472... It links to a website called fultongrandjury.com, which I at first thought would be an official government website, and what initially made me curious was the idea of spending money to advertise a government website, getting this additional credibility. Like, if the facts are so strongl…

Small Town Truth says it's a registered 501(c)(3). I just found it by searching here: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/

It leads to further rabbit holes I don't have the time to dig into now, but I might later, because now I'm very curious where it leads.

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#99

Post by pawelmurias »

ggregoire wrote: post #53
fallingknife wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also media outlets are free to propagandize all day. You can't restrict that because we don't want to restrict freedom of the press. But then that begs the question, don't all companies and individuals have the same freedom of the press that media companies do?

This is the most shocking part from an outsider POV. In Europe* mainstream media must obviously be neutral about each candidate but also give the same amount of airing time to each candidate. So like if candidate 1 is invited for a 10 min interview, candidate 2 must be invited too and offered the same airing time. Meanwhile here Fox can just call Harris "stupid" (and CNN reciprocally call Trump whatever they want), l…

Not in Poland. Before the last election we had 100% partisan media with the public media campaigning for the ruling party and the opposition controling the private media. Both had the Fox News/CNN/Pravda levels of objectivity showing a strange propaganda version of reality.

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#100

Post by evantbyrne »

cedws wrote: post #67

Political advertising just makes democracy look like a total joke. If you can buy votes by shoving ads in peoples’ faces that’s not a democracy, that’s an oligarchy.

Well there is no way to ban political messaging in-practice, so we have to regulate it. Also, imo, making education accessible to the masses is important for combating the effectiveness of straight-up misinformation. Right now a good chunk of the population doesn't even seem to understand why they believe things generally, so there's plenty room to improve.
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