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Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

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Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#151

Post by dragonwriter »

makomk wrote: post #143
oblio wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not xenophobic, it's at least hypocrisy: * the UK was one of the biggest proponents for Eastern EU expansion * the UK did not impose any restriction on labor from the new EU members, which every EU member could do, up to 10 years from the date of the new members joining * then, surprise-surprise!, when a lot of Poles, especially, moved to the major English speaking country in the EU, the UK decided all of a s…

The UK government was also one of the biggest proponents for the UK remaining in the EU, so it's... not exactly surprising that the Leave campaign didn't align with the government position

Yeah, it's easy forget that the referendum was designed to be a sop to euroskeptics within the majority party, because by separating out the question to its own referendum rather than the parliamentary elections, those euroskeptics would stay with the party leadership, who they agreed with on non-EU issues. Since the referendum was seen as a slam dunk for Remain when it was set, this was seen as a zero-cost way of protecting the government's parliamentary majority, with the possible side benefit of quieting the anti-EU faction down since their expected failure in the referendum would be something that could be pointed to in future discussions.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#152

Post by growlist »

untog wrote: post #132
growlist wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is, citing the overspending by Leave as some massive deal looks a bit rich when virtually the entire establishment, business and media conspired to sway the result towards Remain.

Always amuses me to see "the Establishment" cited as firmly in the Remain box. Who is Dulwich educated, commodities trader and decades-long politician Nigel Farage if he's not a part of the establishment? Or Jacob Rees bloody Mogg and Boris Johnson! Quite the anti-establishment rebels they are, eh? As for the media, the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph and the Express all pushed Leave viewpoints. Leave was always s…

You honestly think the Leave side was equivalently establishment backed as Remain? Leave had the BBC, PM, EU, banks, even the most powerful man in the world all lined up on its side.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#153

Post by poooogles »

growlist wrote: post #112
untog wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite the whataboutism. What rules did Obama's statement break?

Point is, citing the overspending by Leave as some massive deal looks a bit rich when virtually the entire establishment, business and media conspired to sway the result towards Remain.

>entire establishment, business and media conspired to sway the result towards Remain.

I don't remember that at all. Plenty of media was pro Brexit.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#154

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

laurentl wrote: post #120
HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #57

It's really interesting coming to HN and watching the indignant 'stabbed in the back' theories about why the establishment lost the Brexit referendum and 2016 US presidential election. 2 years on and it still stings that the people didn't vote the way they were supposed to. There is definitely a classist, privileged undertone to the discourse as well - ironic but not surprising coming from many self-described sociali…

With the hindsight of these 2 years, do you believe that this was a good thing? (Genuine question. I’m European so from my perspective those were two terrible election results, and events since then have amply confirmed this fact, but I’m wondering if this is so clear-cut for other sensibilities)

I don't know. It's really hard to imagine what a Hilary Clinton presidency would have been like. She might have been impeached at this point. Likewise, it's really hard to tell what the long term effects of Brexit will be. I think history will be in a better position to judge it 10 years down the line.

But I really think people need to get over both results. It's been two years now. The remoaners are much worse than their american equivalents. But on the other hand - how many variations on the same joke are Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah going to do? And - more to the point - how many post mortems is Hacker News going to have? No to mention the constant "I'm so woke gaiz" quips about it. Imagine if between 2008-2016 HN had been full of one liners about how Obama had no birth certificate. It would get so tiresome.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#156

Post by pjc50 »

tathougies wrote: post #82
RubenSandwich wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, quite a few of these are very xenophobic. Very much playing off of an anti Middle East sentiment. I'd specifically like to highlight these ads in this document: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu... . 2924.jpg 2966.jpg 2968.jpg

2966 and 2968 are about what the new borders of the UK would effectively be if Turkey is allowed to join the EU. Regardless of your thoughts on the Middle East, it is clear that there are dangerous people in Iraq. Given that the EU has open borders and markets (for the most part), isn't it a germaine discussion if that supranational entity wants to enlarge its borders to include ports of entry from a somewhat unstabl…

> Unless you claim that any kind of criticism of an outside country is xenophobia

Stereotype-based criticism of other countries is xenophobia.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#157

Post by tormeh »

rayiner wrote: post #104
bob_bob_bob wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting people to vote leave because they don't like some foreigners (Turkey or Syria) is quite literally the definition of xenophobia. This is especially true when Turkey is not even close to joining the EU.

But the ads are not about “not liking foreigners.” They are about a country with very different beliefs and attitudes joining a bloc where they will have voting rights in bodies that have legislative power over people in the UK. That is a completely different thing. And Turkey applied to the EU in 1987, has been a full candidate EU member since 1999, and since then has been in active negotiations to join.

That's a process the UK, as a member state, used to have veto over. Not sure if they have lost it yet, but now or in the near future they'll just have to live with whatever the rest decide. That is, unless they want to leave the single market, which doesn't look very likely.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#158

Post by pjc50 »

growlist wrote: post #98
derriz wrote: post #47

This isn't the only shenanigans surrounding the leave campaign. Here's another example of dodgy Leave Campaign funding - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-44624299 - where the DUP, a Northern Irish party, was given $600,000 to campaign for Leave by a shell company and spent most of it on advertisements in media that wasn't even available in Northern Ireland. But it's not surprising really. There has been a…

Why do you think these stories have traction in the UK? Do you think the UK has no legitimate grounds to question EU membership?

There are legitimate criticisms of the functioning of the EU, absolutely.

However, leaving the EU does not make the EU go away; even if other countries leave, relations still have to be negotiated with them. Bilateralism at that scale is probably unworkable, so it would end up being done through a different unaccountable international institution.

I'd take the EU over the WTO or TTIP any day of the week.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#159

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

to_bpr wrote: post #16

It's disappointing, but not surprising, that the focus seems to be entirely on the "wrong" side of the "desired" outcome. At this point it amounts to fighting very hard to find any reason to undo a democratically determined result.

It really does come down to sour grapes. The mental contortions people go to question a democratically determined result really is telling. A lot of people are only fans of democracy when it goes their way.

Re: Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads

#160

Post by pjc50 »

defertoreptar wrote: post #5

I'm trying to understand the article's premise. Is all political advertising immoral? Is it something about the way the ads were distributed that make them immoral? Is it just immoral because the politics itself was "wrong"?

There are strict rules on print-based political advertising in the UK - it's required to have an imprint detailing who it's by. Similarly it's banned from television outside of the "party political broadcast" system. There are also a number of laws on funding accountability that were broken here.

Distributing online political advertising without an imprint ought to be illegal, although I don't believe it is at the moment.

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