[HN Gopher] Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises ...
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Facebook widens ban on political ads as alarm rises over election
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 44 points
Date : 2020-10-07 21:32 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| [deleted]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Political ads will be banned indefinitely _after polls close_
| on Nov. 3...
|
| Of course.
| hyldmo wrote:
| They were already going to be banned temporarily from 27th of
| October[0], this is just now a permanent ban.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.facebook.com/business/help/167836590566506?id=28...
| koolba wrote:
| I predict they walk that back when they realize the huge market
| for post election _day_ ads for steering the narrative of when
| to stop counting votes.
|
| See 2000 for a great example.
| sleavey wrote:
| What's the reason not to ban them immediately?
| dchi wrote:
| That would significantly advantage incumbents and unfairly
| change the rules of the game in the 9th inning.
| marcell wrote:
| It violates the principle of free speech (even if it does not
| violate the letter of the law in the first amendment). There
| is nothing inherently bad about paying $1000 (or $1M) for a
| political ad.
|
| For a mental image, someone paying for a political ad could
| be running for school board in a medium sized city. A ban on
| all political ads would restrict that person's ability to
| explain why they want to be on the school board, and would
| restrict that person's ability to advocate for new policies
| in their school district. Why do you want to impose a ban on
| this?
| Zak wrote:
| Facebook is not committed to the principle of free speech
| in advertising, and prohibits advertisements for a great
| many things that are legal to advertise.
| marcell wrote:
| Whether or not FB has this commitment right now, they
| _should_ have this commitment. A ban on political ads
| would go against a hypothetical commitment to the
| principle of free speech.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't buy that argument, which just rewards whoever has
| the most money to throw at the advertising market
| (Bloomberg's signal failure in this regard doesn't
| invalidate the general problem). I like the clearly labeled
| and non-sensationalistic statements in voter information
| booklets, myself.
|
| I am of course speaking in general terms about future
| elections rather than making drastic adjustments in the
| middle of this one.
| marcell wrote:
| If you ban advertisements on Facebook, you end up
| favoring people with pre-existing set of followers.
| Typically this will be an incumbent, or perhaps celebrity
| candidates.
|
| Moreover, FB banning political ads doesn't end the
| advantage of having more money. It just channels that
| money somewhere else (TV ads, hiring door-to-door
| campaigners).
| pb7 wrote:
| $$$
| sleavey wrote:
| Really? For a few last months of revenue versus potentially
| stopping an election result from being bought?
| ssss11 wrote:
| Do you think they favour a fair election over $$$? Do you
| think there is anything they favour over $$$ at this
| point?
| nicolas_ wrote:
| It's Facebook you're talking about. I'm not sure why
| you'd think they would make the right choice instead of
| chasing $.
| interestica wrote:
| I suspect the lead-up to an election is like the
| Christmas season for political advertisers. So, it's hard
| to look at it as "few months of revenue" when in fact it
| might count for the majority.
| pb7 wrote:
| Right. It's either already decided and no money left to
| be had or not yet decided and the majority of the money
| is yet to be captured.
| jsendros wrote:
| FWIW this misses the context that they'll already be banned 1
| week before Nov 3. This just extends that ban beyond the
| election.
| kyrra wrote:
| (googler, opinion is my own).
|
| Google did the same thing:
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/25/21456323/google-election-...
|
| As there is a good chance we won't know the result of this
| elect on election night (or possibly within the first week),
| the tech companies seem to be getting in-front of a potential
| problem to keep campaigns from drumming up any kind of fear
| about the election results after the polls are closed.
| erichocean wrote:
| > _there is a good chance we won 't know the result of this
| elect on election night (or possibly within the first week)_
|
| That's by design.[0]
|
| The goal is to have the "press" and "protests" decide who
| wins the election if Trump appears to win on Nov 3rd, using
| the same playbook currently being run in Belarus as we speak
| (and that was run successfully in 2014 in Ukraine).
|
| Why? It works: we can't have another 4 years of Donald Trump.
| If it looks like he might win, we can attack the legitimacy
| of the vote and install Biden instead.
|
| Of course, if _Biden_ wins in a landslide on Nov 3rd (which
| seems increasingly likely), then the media will announce him
| as the winner immediately, and none of this will be
| necessary. Better safe than sorry though...
|
| > _keep campaigns from drumming up any kind of fear about the
| election results_
|
| The goal is to keep Trump from doing this, while the media
| promotes Biden unopposed (regardless of the vote totals). I
| also will not be surprised if Trump is suspended from Twitter
| immediately after the election, and any "this election was
| rigged!" content from Trump's people on YouTube to also be
| banned.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution
| nl wrote:
| Saying "the media promotes Biden unopposed" when the most
| popular media source in the US (Fox) leans the opposite
| direction is obviously wrong and disappointing to see here.
| erichocean wrote:
| I don't think Fox News presents any particular difficulty
| to running the Color Revolution playbook in the US.
| They're so obviously biased that decent people can (and
| do) ignore them.
|
| What matters is boots on the ground (aka protests) and
| whatever the _legitimate_ media promotes to the public.
| That gives politicians (in both parties) the necessary
| cover to remove Trump from office by force.
| hnaccy wrote:
| >Why? It works: we can't have another 4 years of Donald
| Trump. If it looks like he might win, we can attack the
| legitimacy of the vote and install Biden instead.
|
| There's been one camp consistently attacking the legitimacy
| of the election and it's not Biden's.
| erichocean wrote:
| Absolutely agree, and it's essential that it remain that
| way if we hope to have any success with the Color
| Revolution playbook in November.
| sg47 wrote:
| Something about stable doors and horses.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| This just seems like too little, too late.
|
| Much of the problems I see aren't advertising in the traditional
| sense, but viral content from sketchy sources.
|
| If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent posts
| from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people without
| being vetted.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| A simple way would be to stop all content from propagating
| beyond few thousand people before a human vetting it.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'm sure they'd like to, but the line between "vetting" and
| "endorsing" is extremely challenging to draw, and it's not good
| for anyone if Facebook bans spreading information that they
| don't as a company endorse.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Information or Lies?
|
| Even Free speech protections in the constitution doesn't
| protect the right to yell fire in a theater.
| hnracer wrote:
| The problem with vetting is that it's unlikely to be done in an
| unbiased way. Facebook is a Silicon Valley company with a young
| staff that leans significantly to the left. As a right-leaning
| individual this makes me uncomfortable because I know that
| people aren't going to separate their politics from decision
| making surrounding vetting/choosing who gets to do the vetting.
|
| Would you feel comfortable if oil and gas workers who lean
| 80-90 percent Republican are "vetting" the information you're
| seeing (or are choosing who gets to do the vetting)?
|
| As Naval says, you have a good system if you can hand the keys
| over to your enemy and things don't go pear shaped.
| hogFeast wrote:
| Yes, it is so simple. News should only come from approved
| sources. Once the veracity has been checked by a Facebook
| employee, it is then empirically true or false. I don't know
| why people in the 21st century cannot understand that all
| statements are true or false, and that we can place authority
| for determining truth with companies with known, trusted
| political allegiances.
|
| For example, I have read a lot about healthcare-for-all not
| being free. The clue is in the name: "free" healthcare. I can't
| believe that misinformation, probably spread by insurance
| companies, has been allowed to spread. Facebook should put a
| stop to this.
| nl wrote:
| This is very true.
|
| > If they wanted to seriously affect this, they would prevent
| posts from spreading to tens of thousands/ millions of people
| without being vetted.
|
| And then you see the complaints (including on HN) about how
| Facebook is biased.
|
| I do note that they have recently banned all QAnon groups and
| posts, so that's a start.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > And then you see the complaints (including on HN) about how
| Facebook is biased.
|
| They can block lies and disinformation unilaterally, it
| shouldn't just apply to one political party or the other.
|
| "Don't let XXX News lie to you, I Just won the election!"
|
| This kind of nonsense shouldn't be tolerated either way.
|
| Personally... I think the whole model of "Viral" content is
| just absolutely broken. The kind of content it encourages is
| by nature inflammatory and often damaging.
| newacct583 wrote:
| > viral content from sketchy sources.
|
| Many of those sources are seeded with promoted links, though.
| It's true that a lot of conspiracy nonsense is genuinely
| organic, but a LOT of it is not.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| A lot of the "viral" content is started with a paid ad though.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| A fair amount of misinformation and outright lies comes
| directly from the mouths of Trump (or other politicians)
| themselves.
| kace91 wrote:
| You make an interesting point: what would a social network of
| limited range look like?
|
| Something where you couldn't have more than a set number of
| connections, things didn't spread more than two nodes in the
| graph, and resharing wasn't an option. I think it would be
| ideal to fill in the mainstream need for facebook ( keeping in
| touch with people)
| KiranRao0 wrote:
| I would love if Facebook could simply remove all political ads.
| The problem then becomes what classifies as political ad. This
| can be very obvious (vote for president = political, buy cereal =
| not political), but it can also be far less obvious.
|
| For example, would an ad for in support of an oil pipeline be
| considered a political ad? What if it's in support for an outcome
| of a referendum? Or an Ad for a charity? What if that charity is
| the EFF/ACLU in support of changing policies?
|
| It's an extremely difficult problem to differentiate what is
| considered a political ad and what is not and I don't exactly
| trust Facebook to do so.
| Upvoter33 wrote:
| I just wish they would get out of politics altogether.
| bretpiatt wrote:
| The challenge for all of the platforms to exit "political
| advertising" is the same as exiting "selling likes/follows", if
| they don't do it directly then 3rd party operators will enter
| midstream and broker it connecting people with political (or
| other content) to a network of bot/fake/paid posting accounts who
| then go promote and spread the content.
|
| By keeping advertising on the platform it actually allows better
| control and enforcement than pushing it to dark web markets.
|
| The tech players don't want to be regulated like broadcast
| networks are so they've created this mess by lobbying against
| regulation. Some level of "FCC" (I use quotes as maybe it should
| be a different agency online) regulation as we have with
| broadcast ads could make this all much better.
|
| FCC broadcast guidelines:
| https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/statutes-and-rules-candidat...
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