Twitter to ban political advertising • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#71

Post by Icathian » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #47

jdkee wrote: post #5

Here is Jack Dorsey's commentary thread: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952

Off topic, but who the hell decided we need live updates of retweet and like counts on the page? That is distracting af.

It's a gamification choice. Watching those numbers tick up is proven to be addictive and keep people on the site.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#72

Post by eertami » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

ElijahLynn wrote: post #53

jdkee wrote: post #5

Here is Jack Dorsey's commentary thread: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952

Thanks! Just gonna put it all inline here: Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO 1:05 PM · Oct 30, 2019 https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1189634360472829952.html -------------------------------------------------------- We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reaso…

>While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics,

It's kind of horrifying that one can make such a statement, acknowledging the dangers of advertising, but still insinuating that commercial advertising somehow isn't dangerous and harmful, just the political ads...

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#73

Post by lukifer » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #7

Is this when we now start to wonder what will count as a political ad? Social movements that have a political connection / associated with a particular party or candidate?

I'm reminded of the dodge that religious institutions have achieved. In exchange for tax-exempt status, they are forbidden from explicit political stances and endorsements; yet in practice, many churches are highly influential in the political process, as they of course are allowed to take moral stances (abortion being the big one), and encouraging their congregations to "vote their consciences", etc.

Seems to me that Twitter advertisements would likely take the same path, where the bought political influence is instead abstracted away into generalized "awareness campaigns", push-polls, etc.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#74

Post by nlh » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

Bravo. That whole thread is smart, well-reasoned, and puts democracy above profits. Good for them.

I particularly like his last point:

> A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address.

Which I cannot read in any way but “f-you, Facebook.”

And honestly, he’s totally right. This issue is NOT about freedom of expression...it’s about freedom to pay for expression (and freedom to pay for having others see your expression), and I don’t think that’s inherently a good thing. It’s certainly not what the first amendment is about.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#75

Post by rexpop » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

What ads aren't political? At this point, when politicians are just reputation-laundering spokespersons for multinational financial interests, it makes no difference whether you advertise for the candidate or the product.

Perhaps this will disincentivize investment in electoral politics, but it won't rescue the public discourse from financiers' influence.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#76

Post by blotter_paper » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

I don't agree with every call Twitter makes, but I find Dorsey to be by far the most interesting public figure in the social media game. His two JRE interviews[0][1] and his Tales from the Crypto interview[2] are all worth checking out, IMO. He seems to think Twitter should use a blockchain in the future, and that small social circles should have a system for internally moderating content without needing it to be okay by Twitter's standards, but obviously they're still currently taking down content that breaches their policies in $CURRENT_YEAR. I'm really interested in seeing where Twitter goes, I think Dorsey plays realpolitik sometimes but I don't think he has the same goals as Zuckerberg. I could be wrong, and Dorsey could just be a next-level showman, but I'm hopeful that he might do something truly interesting with the platform. I've still never made a Twitter account.

[0]: https://youtu.be/_mP9OmOFxc4a

[1]: https://youtu.be/DZCBRHOg3PQ

[2]: https://talesfromthecrypt.libsyn.com/tales-from-the-crypt-61...

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#77

Post by tyre » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

psychometry wrote: post #12

jdkee wrote: post #5

Here is Jack Dorsey's commentary thread: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952

If only there was a way to communicate more than a couple sentences at the time over the internet. Someone should make that!

Realistically, people don't read longer-than-tweet-sized things. Best of both worlds is probably to tweet the gist then link to a longer explanation.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#78

Post by qnsi » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #42

psychometry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there was a way to communicate more than a couple sentences at the time over the internet. Someone should make that!

I find "tweet storms" insufferable

you can thank pmarca for that one

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#79

Post by walls » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #65

notatoad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really criticise twitter for this - last year they were all ready to launch a way to embed text posts in a tweet like images can currently be embedded in a tweet, until the userbase revolted and they had to cancel the plan.

Really? The twitter userbase actually prefers it this way? That's baffling to me. Did the revolting userbase provide any reasons or explanations for this preference?

The average Twitter user isn't interested in more than a tweets worth of information.

Re: Twitter to ban political advertising

#80

Post by notatoad » Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #65

notatoad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really criticise twitter for this - last year they were all ready to launch a way to embed text posts in a tweet like images can currently be embedded in a tweet, until the userbase revolted and they had to cancel the plan.

Really? The twitter userbase actually prefers it this way? That's baffling to me. Did the revolting userbase provide any reasons or explanations for this preference?

it was also baffling to me. I interpreted it as just the typical reactionary "we hate change" attitude that any online community has.