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Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#281

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

vharuck wrote: post #253
cwhiz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can target Facebook ads with surgical precision to manipulate people exactly the way you want. This is exactly what Cambridge Analytica did. You cannot target people with such precision in traditional advertising. I don’t think it’s unfair to say social media advertising and data collection is the biggest risk to democracy that we have ever faced.

In my opinion, surgically precise targeting was not the problem with Cambridge Analytica. The problems were: 1. Disregard for privacy, by scraping data from people who had not agreed to their terms. And, honestly, from most of the people who "agreed" to their terms. 2. Doubling down on the idea "a candidate should get votes", instead of "a voter should choose the best candidate." It's the classic problem of a measure…

Surgical ads allow you to greatly reduce ad spend. If you know people who like A, B, C and are easily convinced of your worldview via data scrapping, and X, Y, Z are not, you can rile up a relatively small group of voters to shape the election outcome in battleground states.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#282

Post by [deleted] »

macspoofing wrote: post #109

It's a good feature from an individual perspective. It's not a good feature if you don't like cultural bubbles forming. Democrats will block Republican ads, Republicans will block Democrat ads - will that lead to a better world when Republicans can't reach Democrat voters or vice versa? I find this focus (attack?) on political advertising on social media platforms by traditional media companies to be self-serving and…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#283

Post by talentedcoin »

ncallaway wrote: post #240
macspoofing wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What I'm not okay with is the time commitment required. I understand your position but this is way overstated. Anything worth doing is going to cost you time and effort and streamlining it will make it lose some important intrinsic property of it. Approximately 50% of American households carry credit card debt. Do you know why? Because if you truly want something, you'll find a way to get it even if it means financi…

Do you find getting an ID to be a significant burden? Probably not. There exist people for whom this is a real barrier. Do you have a job that allows you to take a day off work if you need to? Probably. There exist people for whom this is a real barrier. Do you have a job that doesn't require you to work on weekends? Probably. There exist people for whom this is a real barrier. It's hard to ask someone to just CARE m…

So, OP points out that maybe a commitment of one night every few years isn’t so unreasonable, and your response is to berate them for their privilege?

What alternative do you suggest?

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#284

Post by AshleysBrain »

john___matrix wrote: post #4

I wonder if it'll be a obscurely named toggle hidden away in a settings sub page somewhere just so they can say they've offered the option. Unlikely of course but it would be nice if they were turned off by default and they offered users the option to turn them on with a disclaimer about how inaccurate and shady many of them are.

In my experience, if it's just an option on a settings page somewhere, virtually nobody will change it in practice. So if that's what they do and it's still enabled by default, this could be completely ineffective - but provide some political cover for them.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#285

Post by Vysero »

elicash wrote: post #168

I'm a political advertiser as part of my job and one thing most people don't get is that it's not just ELECTORAL ads that Facebook usually is referring to when they're talking about "political" ads. It's, as mentioned in the article, a shorthand for "Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics." So, a few points. First, the obvious, that these things all depend on the extent to which Facebook promotes this "featur…

I am alright with blocking everything you mentioned across the board. That being said, I have never payed ANY attention to Facebook ads so...

Most of the problems I have had revolve around my own friends, and family posting their thoughts, and ideas about politics tbh.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#286

Post by biscottigelato »

Justsignedup wrote: post #230
macspoofing wrote: post #109

It's a good feature from an individual perspective. It's not a good feature if you don't like cultural bubbles forming. Democrats will block Republican ads, Republicans will block Democrat ads - will that lead to a better world when Republicans can't reach Democrat voters or vice versa? I find this focus (attack?) on political advertising on social media platforms by traditional media companies to be self-serving and…

The problem is if you turn off all ads, you won't see any alternative points. I don't need Biden ads because I already will vote for Biden, so I turn off political ads. That's it I'm back in my bubble. This is a cop-out for actually having to verify/review political ads. Zuckerburg is really really good at the art of seeming like he is progressive but is empirically horrible for society.

Having of all people FB to be your arbiter of truth of what is a fact based political ad vs a non-fact based political ad sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

What we perceive as fact is actually something derived from a lot of open discourse based on a lot of evidence. Removing open discourse based on whether the discourse is fact based is circular reasoning and a chicken & egg problem. It's not fact check, it just becomes outright censorship.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#287

Post by avalys »

cwhiz wrote: post #161
macspoofing wrote: post #109

It's a good feature from an individual perspective. It's not a good feature if you don't like cultural bubbles forming. Democrats will block Republican ads, Republicans will block Democrat ads - will that lead to a better world when Republicans can't reach Democrat voters or vice versa? I find this focus (attack?) on political advertising on social media platforms by traditional media companies to be self-serving and…

You can target Facebook ads with surgical precision to manipulate people exactly the way you want. This is exactly what Cambridge Analytica did. You cannot target people with such precision in traditional advertising. I don’t think it’s unfair to say social media advertising and data collection is the biggest risk to democracy that we have ever faced.

Because voters are too stupid to tell fact from fiction, and need their betters to protect them from misinformation and make sure they are only exposed to approved viewpoints?

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#288

Post by smileysteve »

cosmodisk wrote: post #102
nradov wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you propose to fix that? Should candidates only be allowed to make "true" statements?

It's a complex issue but having some sort of mechanism where you can't just say:'Poland will attack the US next year,we need to prepare for it!!' and then move on as nothing happened, would help. In the the same way as CEOs can't just walk around talking whatever shit they want to just because they've got fiduciary responsibility,some good practices could be applied to candidates.

It is technically, politically possible, at least in the legislative branch; Congress is constitutionally afforded the right to censure and expel a member -- which presumably these ads are promoting.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#289

Post by dragonwriter »

macspoofing wrote: post #109

It's a good feature from an individual perspective. It's not a good feature if you don't like cultural bubbles forming. Democrats will block Republican ads, Republicans will block Democrat ads - will that lead to a better world when Republicans can't reach Democrat voters or vice versa? I find this focus (attack?) on political advertising on social media platforms by traditional media companies to be self-serving and…

> Republicans will block Democrat ads - will that lead to a better world when Republicans can't reach Democrat voters or vice versa?

The piece indicates that there will be an option off political ads entirely, not to block political ads by partisan affiliation. (The latter is both more complex to even superficially inplement and would be rather ineffective because SuperPAC ads are formally unaffiliated with either parties or candidates.)

Also FYI: The adjective for “Associated with the Democratic Party” is “Democratic”, just like the adjective in the party name. “Democrat” is the noun form.

EDIT: I'm going to quote and respond to a dead reply, because it makes a common point which deserves a response rather than downvoting to oblivion:

> Yes, but Republicans consistently use the term 'Democrat' instead of 'Democratic' because they don't want to imply that Democrats have a connection to the concept of Democracy.

> It's a shibboleth; folks who instinctively say "Democrat" are reliably far-right.

While this is correct as to the origin and the tactical employment of the usage, it is not a reliable indicator because lots of people who aren't far-right or Republican partisans are exposed to media in which far-right (or at least solidly Republican partisan) voices which embody this tactic are common and don't realize that is what it is, and adopt the pattern from that source.

The ones who persist after correction are doing it intentionally and tactically, though.

Re: Facebook to let users turn off political adverts

#290

Post by dave5104 »

avalys wrote: post #287
cwhiz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can target Facebook ads with surgical precision to manipulate people exactly the way you want. This is exactly what Cambridge Analytica did. You cannot target people with such precision in traditional advertising. I don’t think it’s unfair to say social media advertising and data collection is the biggest risk to democracy that we have ever faced.

Because voters are too stupid to tell fact from fiction, and need their betters to protect them from misinformation and make sure they are only exposed to approved viewpoints?

> Because voters are too stupid to tell fact from fiction

Education on critical thinking skills is a problem in the US, in my opinion. I don't think that needs to lead to 1984-esque "approved viewpoints", though.

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