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Twitter to ban political advertising

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Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#281

Post by mandevil »

criddell wrote: post #233
Frondo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the better questions she asked was, "should a political party be allowed to run targeted ads at members of the opposing party, giving false information about the election date?" Zuck's response was, "well, I think it's BAD if you LIE. Telling lies is bad." but wouldn't say that Facebook would moderate that kind of content. I personally don't see a legitimate free speech claim saying that political parties shou…

> "should a political party be allowed to run targeted ads at members of the opposing party, giving false information about the election date?" Would that actually be legal? Are you allowed to try to suppress the vote like that?

It is 100% legal to send mailers or put up billboards (which are not as regulated as shared spectrum for TV/radio) with the wrong election date to people, and this happens a couple of times every election cycle. Sometimes its government agencies, sometimes its a campaign (first example that popped up when googling: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/spin-cycle/zeld...). I don't think any of them has been investigated by the FEC.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#282

Post by [deleted] »

vonmoltke wrote: post #214
octonion wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Amendment is about government suppression of speech. Furthermore, deliberate lies are (legally) not legitimate speech.

> Furthermore, deliberate lies are (legally) not legitimate speech. That is not correct: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/does-th... > Under U.S. law, many falsehoods—even some deliberate lies—receive the full protection of the First Amendment. That is true even though “there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact,” as Justice Lewis Powell Jr. wrote for the Supreme Court in 1974. N…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#283

Post by JulianMorrison »

tonmoy wrote: post #260
JulianMorrison wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That needs amending, IMO.

Does it? What if the government decides the earth is the center of the universe and imprisons the scientist who has observable proof that it isn’t? What’s if the government decides “encryption with backdoor is unsafe” is a false statement and suppresses all speech that says otherwise?

Slippery slope arguments like this are stupid because a government determined to be a bad actor isn't going to let a constitution stop them. Russia has a constitution, heck, Soviet Russia did.

The reality of having laws against broadcasting lies is that they will be applied sensibly if the rest of the system is sensible - and if it is not, you have worse problems.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#284

Post by Sommer »

I'd love it if Dorsey did this for the right reasons (and applaud the effort regardless), but seems far more likely that this netted out as a bigger publicity win.

A policy of "there are no Twitter rules for politicians, just don't make us a direct accessory to it" is disingenuous at best.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#285

Post by buboard »

iikoolpp wrote: post #278
buboard wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dorsey espouses some very libertarian views and yet he's generally leaning left of course. Still , he s the only one who dares give Trump a megaphone. I think he handles the whole situation exceptionally well.

> and yet he's generally leaning left of course Words clearly do not have meanings anymore

clearly. But let's say "socially very left/progressive"

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#287

Post by andirk »

product50 wrote: post #254

So why not use the same methodology on TV or print as well and ban political ads across? Why is social media singled out here? What about ads on YouTube? This is nothing but a copout solution. Twitter doesn't have the will nor the capital to be part of the debate here (and political ads are likely too small for them to care) - so they are trying to gain strategy credit by just saying this is a bad idea. NYTimes is ha…

It's probably because Hillary Clinton and the DNC have blamed a small Facebook ad campaign for losing their campaign, so the hysteria has built from that.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#288

Post by munk-a »

tomp wrote: post #264
mrtksn wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we keep that in mind?

Controversy is addictive. By forbidding spending money to get reach, the ones with most reach will be those who are the most controversial.

Certainly with how media organizations are currently oriented and the assumption that those organizations will continue to be able to advertise or opine on candidates. But there is no definite reason that news network needs to be chasing stories 24/7 as they are now, that's a relatively new trend.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#289

Post by tasty_freeze »

Whenever these topics come up, the comment section is full of people advocating for no limits based solely on slipper slope arguments: who is going to determine what is politcal? Who is going to determine what is true?

But we all life with boundaries and we cope just fine. Why should this street in front of my house have a 35 MPH speed limit? What is special about 35? Why not 36? Why not 34? Who is to say that one is better than the other, so let's not try and all and let everyone pick their own speed.

Just as it would be possible, but stupid, to invoke slippery slopes to argue there should be no speed limits, invoking slippery slopes to argue against any regulation is a cop-out. Why not advance a real argument vs just arguing picking the optimal boundary is impossible?

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#290

Post by asdf333 »

Aperocky wrote: post #269

Freedom of expression inherently includes the freedom to pay for expression. What are your expression worth if you wouldn’t be able to pay a service, cellphone/internet connection/reddit gold to express that? How is paying ads different than paying a campaigner set up a loudspeaker in the middle of a city? But then again, since twitter is a private enterprise, I fully respect their right to act on their own platform.

freedom of expression is different from freedom to pay to amplify the expression.
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