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Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

reuters.com

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Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#321

Post by apostacy »

scarface74 wrote: post #200
Thorentis wrote: post #144

> Private company tells other private company which speech they should be censoring Welcome to the new era of information folks. You thought private companies were too powerful before, well, guess what? You've now given them the power to control almost all forms of communication. "But, but, private companies should be able to decide who they want on their platform! What about the free market?" Wake the hell up. Read…

A private company is deciding that it doesn’t want its brand to be associated with certain subjects. What do you propose? A law saying that Verizon can’t choose where to spend its ad dollars? You have the right to say what you want. You don’t have the right to get a platform to publish it. People were getting their voices heard nationwide before the internet existed. During the Civil Rights Movement, leaders went to…

For people defending Verizon censoring things, would you still defend Verizon so vigorously if they were bowing to Conservative groups and blocking text messages related to women's health? Because they actually did that. [1]

It's really amazing how attitudes have changed. This is what the ACLU had to say about Verizon back then:

> Verizon and AT&T, among others, are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress for the right to discriminate against content on the Internet it deems controversial, unsavory, or even just contrary to its own business interests.

I think now, the ACLU is pressuring Congress and Verizon to crack down more on content.

Of course, the idea that Facebook, a $70 billion dollar company that dwarfs any phone company in customers, should somehow be less regulated than Verizon is ludicrous. Facebook should be required to consult congress before any major policy changes. Amtrak, The US Postal Service, and Verizon are all "private" companies, but they provide such an essential service that they are heavily regulated. So should Facebook.

[1]: https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/verizon-reverses...

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#322

Post by apostacy »

root_axis wrote: post #185

The outrage in this thread doesn't make sense to me. This is how advertising works, it's a business decision based on business interests, Verizon doesn't care about any of this one way or another, they are simply taking a stance based on pressure from their customers. What so many of you flippantly dismiss as an outrage mob is a coalition of concerned citizens who believe Facebook is wrong for allowing dishonest poli…

At what point would you say Facebook is big enough that they need to be regulated?

In The Philippines, Facebook has a de-facto monopoly on communication.

There are only two major cellphone companies (Globe and Smart), and they essentially just act as last-mile providers for Facebook. Both networks are unreliable, so everyone just has two sim cards. Nobody texts, everyone just uses Facebook messenger and voice chat. Facebook even subsidizes free cellphone plans with access just to Facebook services.

City municipal services were all available primarily via Facebook in the city I stayed in. Cellphone numbers are seen as disposable, especially because the networks are so unreliable. Because nobody else can afford to subsidize the phone companies, nobody can compete with Facebook.

Facebook has an incredible amount of power. They can interfere in elections, and put people out of business with the push of a button. They could hold the entire country hostage.

Is it ok to regulate them then? Or should these leviathan corporations be treated like scrappy startups still?

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#323

Post by apostacy »

scarface74 wrote: post #200
Thorentis wrote: post #144

> Private company tells other private company which speech they should be censoring Welcome to the new era of information folks. You thought private companies were too powerful before, well, guess what? You've now given them the power to control almost all forms of communication. "But, but, private companies should be able to decide who they want on their platform! What about the free market?" Wake the hell up. Read…

A private company is deciding that it doesn’t want its brand to be associated with certain subjects. What do you propose? A law saying that Verizon can’t choose where to spend its ad dollars? You have the right to say what you want. You don’t have the right to get a platform to publish it. People were getting their voices heard nationwide before the internet existed. During the Civil Rights Movement, leaders went to…

Actually, a case might be made that Facebook be required to carry political advertisements. One thing that springs to mind is how the NYC Subway system was forced to carry Zionist ads.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/nyregion/mta-violated-rig...

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#324

Post by commandlinefan »

Munky-Necan wrote: post #121
crazygringo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech is widely viewed as a legitimate exception to free expression, along with other classic examples of things like yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Not by every country to be sure, but by many democracies. You're portraying this as some kind of whim that changes with people's moods, but that's a complete, total, 100% straw man. There are decades of legislation and jurisprudence, particularly in Europ…

Freedom of speech does not equal to freedom of consequence. What I've listened to people lately say is that when they engage in personal attacks they should be allowed to because "Freedom of Speech". Yet, the type of speech that is protected is speech that is against the government. Being mean, hurtful, and disrespectful against an individual is not protected speech, it's called being a jerk.

> Freedom of speech does not equal to freedom of consequence

Yes, it literally does. That is, in fact, the definition.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#325

Post by scarface74 »

apostacy wrote: post #321
scarface74 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A private company is deciding that it doesn’t want its brand to be associated with certain subjects. What do you propose? A law saying that Verizon can’t choose where to spend its ad dollars? You have the right to say what you want. You don’t have the right to get a platform to publish it. People were getting their voices heard nationwide before the internet existed. During the Civil Rights Movement, leaders went to…

For people defending Verizon censoring things, would you still defend Verizon so vigorously if they were bowing to Conservative groups and blocking text messages related to women's health? Because they actually did that. [1] It's really amazing how attitudes have changed. This is what the ACLU had to say about Verizon back then: > Verizon and AT&T, among others, are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress for…

For people defending Verizon censoring things, would you still defend Verizon so vigorously if they were bowing to Conservative groups and blocking text messages related to women's health? Because they actually did that. [1]

They didn’t want to let someone use a short code. They didn’t stop them from sending text messages. Would Verizon be out of line if they didn’t let the KKK have a short code of HangTheN$%%#^s? (Before I get downvoted to oblivion for being a racist - that’s just an example - the person I see when I look in the mirror everyday is Black).

There are forbidden custom license plates too. Almost every platform that lets you customize anything have standards.

Verizon in this case isn’t censoring anything. They have every right to choose what other companies to do business with.

Of course, the idea that Facebook, a $70 billion dollar company that dwarfs any phone company in customers, should somehow be less regulated than Verizon is ludicrous. Facebook should be required to consult congress before any major policy changes

I cannot for the life of me understand why people have this undying trust in the government. The same government where the President wants to “shut down Twitter” because he didn’t like one of their policies. This is also the same government that wants to outlaw e2e encryption and consistently tried to pass laws to make it harder for private citizens to record police misconduct.

Amtrak, The US Postal Service, and Verizon are all "private" companies, but they provide such an essential service that they are heavily regulated.

Amtrak is not a private corporation, it is a “quasi-public” corporation that is partially funded and subsidized by the government. The US Post Office is also not only a government run department, it’s actually mandated in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7).

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#326

Post by scarface74 »

apostacy wrote: post #323
scarface74 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A private company is deciding that it doesn’t want its brand to be associated with certain subjects. What do you propose? A law saying that Verizon can’t choose where to spend its ad dollars? You have the right to say what you want. You don’t have the right to get a platform to publish it. People were getting their voices heard nationwide before the internet existed. During the Civil Rights Movement, leaders went to…

Actually, a case might be made that Facebook be required to carry political advertisements. One thing that springs to mind is how the NYC Subway system was forced to carry Zionist ads. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/nyregion/mta-violated-rig...

By definition, a private corporation can’t be accused of illegally “censoring free speech”. The constitution says that the government can’t censor speech. The MTA is a government run organization.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#327

Post by lern_too_spel »

ajzinsbwbs wrote: post #248
lern_too_spel wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That they pay little doesn't matter. What matters is that it's above zero, which is what the clicks would cost without the ad, making them unprofitable. The competitor argument for running the ad has two problems. The first is that no competitors are bidding for that keyword, and the second is that a competitor would already have to pay a lot to get top of page placement for a keyword they can't put in their ad copy.

Not sure why you think an ad wouldn’t work here. Sometimes customers are willing to switch to a competing product. If you can offer something better or cheaper they might want it. I’ve worked at a company where we at times bought Google ads for both our own product name and competitor’s names and made money.

> Not sure why you think an ad wouldn’t work here.

"no competitors are bidding for that keyword"

That itself is enough to make Verizon's ads unprofitable.

If you think that competitors would bid for the keyword without Verizon's presence, you'll have to explain why because with Verizon's presence, if nobody clicks on it, the cost is zero. There appears to be a gentleman's agreement between the consumer communication companies not to bid on each other's name, and if that's the case, bidding on your own name is flushing money down the toilet.

I've seen the food delivery case, where Blue Apron bids on "Hello Fresh" and offers a better coupon than for people searching for "Blue Apron." That isn't happening here.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#328

Post by ogre_codes »

iamstupidsimple wrote: post #317
ogre_codes wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite as ironic as a President complaining about his right to free speech in a private forum (not a violation of the 1st amendment) even as he is threatening threatening to use the military to suppress peaceful protests (an actual violation of the 1st amendment).

> threatening threatening to use the military to suppress peaceful protests (an actual violation of the 1st amendment). The 1st amendment only covers peaceful protesters who aren't burning buildings down and having gunfights in the street.

There have been thousands of protestors out on the streets for nearly a month now. If there were burning buildings and having gunfights in the streets this whole time, there wouldn't be any cities left.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#329

Post by ogre_codes »

throwaway_jobs wrote: post #313
ogre_codes wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Covid-19 to me Advertising is one of the first things companies cut during a downturn. Their revenues are down and they need to shave some costs. Where do they make that budget cut? It's a pretty easy call right now. They can shave some money and garner some easy positive press at the same time. They are getting advertising for cutting spending. When their revenue start…

> Advertising is one of the first things companies cut during a downturn. Their revenues are down and they need to shave some costs. Ok but did they cut advertising across the board or just Facebook? You can’t have you’re cake and eat it too, either Facebook advertising was effective and they are harming their own business by cutting Facebook advertising (Suggesting there is more than money involved in the decision),…

It's likely they reduced advertising spend across the board, while cutting Facebook entirely.

> You can’t have you’re cake and eat it too, either Facebook advertising was effective and they are harming their own business by cutting Facebook advertising (Suggesting there is more than money involved in the decision), or Facebook advertising is a waste of money in which case they won’t just quietly turn it back on as you claim.

Of course there is real money involved. But the current political/ economic situation has made Facebook advertising less valuable than it was previously.

Things changed which made this an easy call.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#330

Post by ianleeclark »

tlear wrote: post #316
ianleeclark wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are asking for "experts", who will likely come from the extremely left leaning Social Science departments. It's peak anti-intellectualism to question someone's credentials and an entire grouping of fields of study just because their educated opinions don't coincide with your own. > On most platforms racism is only defined using the systematic defintion and not the traditional definition [1]. Why are these two…

Truth of the matter is if you hire from soc-sciences experts on racial whatever, you might as well just ban everything right of Mao from the platform. You can like or not like or hate trump but a very large portion of the citizens of the republic voted for him. Those requests will basically lead to FB loosing control to a bunch of sjw crusaders(more then they already have). It will all be weaponized, current climate…

> Truth of the matter is if you hire from soc-sciences experts on racial whatever, you might as well just ban everything right of Mao from the platform.

No wonder you people feel so terrified all the time if you actually believe this.

> You can like or not like or hate trump but a very large portion of the citizens of the republic voted for him.

Why are you bringing this up? It's irrelevant.

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