Facebook Rejects Biden Campaign's Request To Remove Trump Ads Containing False Information (cnbc.com) 314
In a letter to Joe Biden's presidential campaign, Facebook doubled down on its policy to allow speech from politicians to go unchecked regardless of the truthfulness of their claims. From a report: The letter was a response to the Biden campaign's request for Facebook to reject or demote ads from President Donald Trump's re-election campaign that contain false claims. The Biden campaign's original request to Facebook, addressed to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and global elections policy chief Katie Harbath, pointed to an ad by the Trump campaign that contains a statement that has not been proven by evidence that the former vice president "offered Ukraine $1 billion to fire the prosecutor investigating a company affiliated with his son." The Biden campaign wrote: "The allegation of corrupt motive has been demonstrated to be completely false." The campaign said the claim should be covered by Facebook's pledge to reject political ads with "previously debunked content."
Does anyone actually look at political ads? (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone actually look at political ads? (Score:5, Interesting)
At least when you are done watching grass grow you have a nice place for a picnic.
I cannot see the silver lining of political ads.
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They give families something to fight about during holiday get-togethers.
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You may not have noticed but I didn't say political ads should be banned or gave any kind of opinion on TFA.
I like picnics and do not watch political ads.
Blow it out your ass.
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I think you're parsing that wrong. Read it as
Facebook Rejects Biden Campaign's Request To Remove Trump Ads, on the basis that: Biden's campaign claims they contain false Information
That makes the situation far more clear in my opinion. It's also why the recent Cali law just doesn't work. Politicians always claim they other guy is lying - and they're usually right, as politicians lie constantly! No authority other than the voters should rule on the truth of election-time claims.
After all, what is an election in the first place other than voting on the credibility of the candidates? Each always claims the other is terrible, and the job o
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The Mueller report did publicly prove the obstruction part. Be careful with your antecedents.
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The Mueller report did publicly prove the obstruction part. Be careful with your antecedents.
Then impeach him for that obstruction and forego all this made up stuff.. If obstruction was proven, then it should be easy.
But we all know why the democrats are on this duplicitous path, they know they really don't have anything that the voting public is willing to impeach over.
Re:Ms. Mash is Satan's little helper.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then impeach him for that obstruction and forego all this made up stuff.. If obstruction was proven, then it should be easy.
Why should it be easy when half of the Senate is made up by Trump cronies and a two-third majority is required for conviction?
Proof or truth does not have a large place in that process.
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Because most of the public didn't bother to read the report (and a good chunk don't know enough about civics to understand it anyway), and a good portion of the Dems looked at what happened when the Republicans impeached Clinton without public support and made a political decision rather than standing up for the rule of law. For that matter, there have been numerous impeachable offenses prior to those detailed in the Mueller report that should have brought proceedings even sooner, but with the Republicans
Re:Ms. Mash is Satan's little helper.. (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't that say more about the democrats and their tactics than what Trump didn't do according to the report?
False dichotomy.
The simple answer is that Mueller found nothing criminal
He said he wouldn't indict a sitting president due to Justice department policy. Or in other words, "criminal" doesn't apply to the president because the only remedy is impeachment which is a political, not a criminal, process.
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Doesn't that say more about the democrats and their tactics than what Trump didn't do according to the report?
False dichotomy.
The simple answer is that Mueller found nothing criminal
He said he wouldn't indict a sitting president due to Justice department policy. Or in other words, "criminal" doesn't apply to the president because the only remedy is impeachment which is a political, not a criminal, process.
Kudos, skids. Mr. Mueller is nothing if not excruciatingly deliberate with his words. He said that according to Justice Dept. policy, a sitting President couldn't be indicted for a criminal offense. Short of a criminal indictment, the only remedy left is the impeachment process.
Re:Ms. Mash is Satan's little helper.. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, deliberate in his words, rejecting yours and skids claim that it was only DOJ policy that prevented indictment. In reality Mueller made it clear in his report and in congressional testimony that there was no indictment because there was no determination as to whether a crime was committed.
That's not precisely what he said, either. You can't claim to be correcting the record and then use your own misleading statements. What he actually said (explicitly) was that he did not make such a determination specifically because of the DOJ policy on not trying a sitting president for a crime. Therefore he left the determination of guilt up to congress. Many of us feel that's a bit limp, but it's not really the most relevant fact in this conversation.
What is? Mueller literally and explicitly said that there was substantial evidence of obstruction [washingtonpost.com]. That does not prove that obstruction occurred only because that's a court's job, and the DOJ declined to prosecute the president for that. Equally, anyone claiming that the report exonerated Trump, or doesn't contain evidence of wrongdoing, is either a shill or a tool. There's no third way, except for being both.
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The report said there was no determination as to whether the President committed a crime.
You should read the report. It does discuss the OLC justice department policy. Mueller went into detail about how why he thought his hands were tied to prevent him from saying anything like "if not for the OLC policy we'd indict" so it is no surprise he didn't say it.
You can't indict if there is no such determination.
I don't know how many times it has to be said, but impeachment is not a criminal indictment, not a criminal proceeding, and whether or not Mueller made a determination of whether Trump should be indicted only plays a role in the politics of t
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What you are either ignorant of, or willfully omitting, is that Mueller also explained that justice department policy (not the OLC memo, different policy) not to make any such determination unless the accused has a judicial recourse, which, given the immunity the president enjoys, he does not.
In other words, Mueller explained why they made no determination, and you don't care to be intellectually honest about that.
Volume 2 page 2.
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Instead of proving to the public through the courts the democrats wanted to rely on the court of public opinion?
The Democrats have no way to get the courts to handle what Trump did. Their only tool is impeachment, and that does not go through the courts.
To succeed with impeachment they need a two-thirds majority in the Senate, which was not going to happen over the Mueller report. Too many Republicans believe lies similar to those that you are peddling, or find it expedient to pretend to believe them at least.
Re:Ms. Mash is Satan's little helper.. (Score:4, Interesting)
You only want that process because the Senate will not vote in favour of impeachment. This will then be spun by you and the other liars as Trump being exonerated. Why should Democrats help you?
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Maybe you live in alternate universe but when someone goes to trial for a perceived crime and are not convicted. They are innocent of the crime. If you cannot prove a crime was committed then that is your problem. Innocent until proven guilty.
Impeachment is not a trial. It is a political process. It does not prove or disprove anything.
Re:Ms. Mash is Satan's little helper.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems odd that Pelosi is still refusing to have any vote on even beginning the impeachment process if he's so guilty.
Perhaps she was waiting for something that could get Pence, too. Getting rid of Trump and winding up with Pence would be a real Pyrrhic victory.
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That's your theory and you think Trump is bad???
I don't particularly want Pelosi to be president, but I'd prefer her to Trump or Pence. So yes, that's my theory, and I think Trump is bad. Pence might actually be worse for America than Trump, and if he truly was complicit in this Ukraine clusterfuckery, then he deserves to be removed from office as well.
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I'll disagree. I don't think Pelosi wants this to happen, because her priority seems to be the party, and it would not go well for the party...
Then perhaps she shouldn't have waited so long. The Mueller report provided ample evidence for impeachment based on obstruction of justice. Now impeachment inquiries are being held on a matter which is sure to sweep up the VP.
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Seems odd that Pelosi is still refusing to have any vote on even beginning the impeachment process if he's so guilty. Almost like this was just theater that's backfired spectacularly in the past week.
There is no requirement to vote to start the impeachment process in the House. All the constitution says is that the House determines its own impeachment process and then holds a vote to determine the result. If a committee wants to start on impeachment, under current House rules they can.
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I never really did till I lived in LA.
Good Lord, down here they still sling the mud the old fashioned way.
It is only about 1 step back from them talking about the opponents "momma".....it can get very entertaining down here during elections.
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They're very effective with the geriatric and non-informed population. You know, voters.
Re:Does anyone actually look at political ads? (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously yes, some people do watch the political ads or the politicians would stop paying for them. More importantly, thanks to Facebook's abuse of our personal information, it is much easier to make sure the "right" ad gets to each voter. Best bang for the buck.
However I don't think that Facebook is actually trying to steal Twitter's crown as the best channel to spread the most BS. I think it's more of a greed thing. Too many lies and it would be much too expensive to check the truth. The supply of fresh lies in infinite.
I think the secret mottoes of today's corporations have been become funny jokes, but I can't laugh anymore. With apologies to The Four ?
(Just a whim to include Wikipedia, but most "successful" corporations these days, even the NPOs, are supposed to have a key focus.)
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> They know Warren stands no chance whatsoever.
Is that the new "Trump has no chance" that was going around 6 months before the election? Because we all know how that turned out...
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> They know Warren stands no chance whatsoever.
Is that the new "Trump has no chance" that was going around 6 months before the election? Because we all know how that turned out...
To be fair, as an independent and a centrist... the only reason I would vote for Warren is if she were running against Donald Trump. She is unlikable and from the fringe of the party. The only thing she has going for her is she isn't Trump.
Warren may appeal to the left of the party, but for independents and swing voters she is the least appealing major primary candidate from the democrats.
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I don't even think I could vote for her then. She's a hard pass. Coming out with shitloads of (bad) policies doesn't make her the genius "wonk" that the far left thinks she is.
On a superficial level, deep down a lot of people just won't vote for her because of her wavery, shrill old lady voice. On a policy level, good luck defending medicare for all (at the expense of the quality of care of about 60% of voters) and the idea of effectively open borders with M4A for even illegals. That'll go over great in the
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If you really want to see some changes it's congress that you need to be looking at because in the end congress is where bill goes to be passed or die and without the support of congress a president really can't do much.
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It would be difficult to reduce the quality of care of 60% of voters. Medicare for all would effectively mean all doctors begin accepting it overnight or go out of business. Currently everyone has to pay for mandatory expensive insurance with such poor coverage and deductibles so high you might as well not even have it.
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Medicare for all would effectively mean all doctors begin accepting it overnight or go out of business.
They would go out of business if they had to begin accepting it (and only it) overnight. On average, Medicare pays about half of what private insurance pays to doctors. Basically the private insurance companies subsidize the government care (definitely when you're talking about Medicaid, which is basically done at a loss). Is M4A going to double payouts to doctors?
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You may be an independent but you definitely don't speak for all or most independents. Most independents swing either further left or libertarian. Based on comments you've made in the past though you'd want a candidate who will support keeping the wealthy, wealthy. That isn't going to represent the interests of anyone but a statistically insignificant group regardless of party affiliation.
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Most independents swing either further left or libertarian.
Do you have a citation for this? Independents lean every which way. And libertarians are a vanishingly small portion of the electorate.
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Fair enough. I don't recall the specific discussion, but I can understand where you're coming from and why you said that.
"Championing" sacking people in the US might be a bit extreme; but, I do believe that it benefits everyone if companies are efficient as possible. I'm more interested in making the US a more attractive place to do business by having a highly educated technical workforce than I am keeping hold of low-wage industrial jobs.
I do believe there is nothing inherently wrong in companies moving
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It strikes me as a highly premature judgement. rsilvergun [slashdot.org] makes a case based on personality and interaction style ... not entirely unlike the one made against Trump in 2016.
Trump certainly doesn't have it in the bag. A serious recession is very possible before the election, even without deliberate sabotage, and the Chinese Commun
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Between Trump and Warren the latter is obviously the only reasonable choice, like it's not even close.
Which is why I wouldn't trust Americans to necesserily make it of course.
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The DNC doesn't even want her, they'll put Clinton back in first.
Yeah, and that's why Trump is in and will be for another 4.
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Another 4? I'm curious if vegas has an over/under on him making a full 3 years at this point. I don't know if you've been paying attention, but Trump has been unraveling pretty rapidly the last couple of weeks. The dude can't take criticism and losing, and even some of his most staunch allies have started to come out against some of his destructive flailings.
No. (Score:2)
No because it wasn't a lie.
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What? She isn't even running
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I suspect there's a different reason she hasn't announced yet:
Right now she can hold get-togethers such as her upcoming $50k/head house party, and even collect a few millions dollar "gifts", without being under FEC rules. The other edge of that sword is Trump is free to try and dig up as much dirt on her as he can because she's not an opposing candidate.
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There is no way Hillary is taking a backseat to anyone.
Re:They don't think Warren's electable (Score:5, Interesting)
decades of polls show two things that kill Warren in the general (and I say this as somebody who has Warren as their second choice):
1. People won't vote for a Woman they don't like, even if they think she's qualified.
In the last election the majority of people voted for Hillary but she lost because of the Electoral College. It may or may not be harder for a woman, but Hillary proved that it is possible to get more votes than the opposition despite being unlikable. Where Clinton failed and Warren would hope to succeed, is, getting the votes in swing states instead of already safe democrat states.
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"Hey Swing States, I'm going to (try to, I realize Presidents don't make laws) force you to lose your very hard-earned Cadillac health care plans and get the same plan the bum down the street and the illegals get! Vote for me!"
That'll go over like a lead zeppelin, lol. Warren is General Election poison.
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Her support for reparations [reuters.com], decriminalizing illegal border crossings [go.com], and other policies that only play well to the far left part
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While everyone knows she doesn't really support those things
I'm not sure about reparations, but when it comes to decriminalizing border crossings and Medicare For All she seems pretty passionate about those. I think they're terrible, terrible ideas but I don't get the impression she's faking her support for them.
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I'm not sure I agree with you on point one. "Qualified" and "like" aren't the primary factors. The primary factor is based on her record of decisions or choices do I believe the candidate is likely to change and make choices I'd agree. Do they have integrity. Do they actually care about pursuing my interests? Hillary fails, she had no integrity (even actively colluded with the DNC to hijack the primary), she has a track record of just drifting in the political wind which is another strike against all the po
Re:They don't think Warren's electable (Score:4, Interesting)
It isn't. If we wanted a centrist woman we could have elected hillary. The "safe" candidate is how we wound up with Trump, because that's not what people want. They want change! And lots of it!
Hillary lost because of her personality and history, not because of her political stances. I don't know if Bernie would have done better or not, we will never know. His politics were perhaps a little left wing for 2/3rds or more of the country- but he is a much more likable person than either Trump or Hillary, almost no-one hates Bernie (even if they do disagree with him politically).
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Bernie would have wiped the floor with Trump in 2016, because he spoke to the same people that Trump won over Hillary - non-urban America. Both had different approaches but both paid attention to their plight. When Bernie lost the nomination these people went 3rd party or for Trump, not Hillary. They shared several key positions [theatlantic.com] at odds with Clinton.
Hillary is the textbook definition of a corrupt, crony, bought-and-paid for politician who says whatever is needed to get ahead. She defended Bill Clinton a
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"Hillary lost because of her personality and history, not because of her political stances."
Wrong. Obama didn't actually promise any kind of real change and just using the word got him a huge upset victory.
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Good (Score:3, Interesting)
I hate Biden with a passion (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that I think he had good intentions getting that prosecutor fired. Sure, the prosecutor was corrupt, but since when does America give a rats ass about corruption?
The goal here though is just to draw attention to Joe's actual corruption. And it's working. Worse, Biden's re
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The impeachment-a-day witchhunt already got Trump reelected. Have you seen the fundraising totals from the past two weeks?
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You didn't know that Hillary and the Dems outspent Trump and the GOP by a factor of 2 in 2016, 1 vs. 2 billion as I recall? "Enough" money gets you a hearing (not so much a factor in a Presidential election), and at something of the scale of an election in a big state or the entire nation the needed machinery. There's no chance either Trump or whomever the Democrats nominate won't have
That's just the ruling class backing him (Score:2)
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Yeah, everybody does this stuff, just most are smart enough not to brag about it on tape...
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Why anyone would want Facebook whitelisting certain positions in campaigns is beyond me.
I'm rather disturbed that Facebook has so much clout in the politics of our country that this is even an issue to be discussed.
That said, I think by now the country is divided into two camps:
1) Those that don't believe anything Trump says
2) Those that believe everything he says, or don't care if he's telling the truth or not, they'll back him anyway.
For group #2, they're not voting for Biden anyway, so this is a non issue. Group 1 is not going to pay attention to Trump ads.
Trump is pretty divisive, people
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Made up their mind if they're going to bother to vote for a man who's betrayed them on most of his most important campaign pledges? This is very up in the air for many groups who previously voted for him, and could be further go against him if the economy sours. After taking outsized credit for the overall significant improvements in the economy will be a millstone if it sours that comes to pass ... and he has very limited power to pr
Then sue them for defamation (Score:2)
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That's my point exactly. If one wouldn't win in court, it's entirely inappropriate to ask FB or anyone else to reject the content.
If it's demonstratably false, then lawsuit is the proper avenue.
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So? Of course he pushed to get him fired, this isn't a secret and nobody ever tried to hide it.
Many people, including Republicans and in the EU, wanted Poroshenko to get rid of that prosecutor, because he wasn't effectively fighting corruption.
This is exactly the problem - Trump spreads insane conspiracy theories trhough Twitter and Facebook, and people pick it up without any critical thought and regurgitate it on other platforms.
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There are two possibilities here:
1: The allegation is true, and therefore Biden wouldn't win a lawsuit. In this case, asking FB to decline the ad would be entirely inappropriate.
2: The allegation is false. Then a lawsuit is the proper channel in which to take this.
I'm not the biggest fan of the President either (although I will refer to the office, if not the officeholder, with respect), but one can't have it both ways. Either win in court, or don't ask FB or anyone else to circumvent the process.
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Where are your funny mod points?
Or maybe the moderators haven't noticed that the damage (and the election) is done long before the lawyers?
What I actually found most interesting about the 2016 campaign was the range of weird Hillary hatreds I encountered. All of the critical hate "issues" were absurd and false, but each hater believed what he wanted to believe. Most of the haters I encountered were fixated on one specific "super-crime" of Hillary, and none of the crimes made sense. If ANY of them had been e
On that note... (Score:5, Interesting)
Where's slashdot's "factually incorrect" moderation option?
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The best way to handle a "factually incorrect" comment it to reply to it with correct information and sources.
Re:On that note... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes, the old "a pound of cure is better than an ounce of prevention" theory.
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"a statement that has not been proven by evidence" (Score:2)
The best way to handle a "factually incorrect" comment it to reply to it with correct information
OK. Biden's claim that "the allegation of corrupt motive has been demonstrated to be completely false" matches Biden's complaint regarding "a statement that has not been proven by evidence". Motive has not been demonstrated by evidence, just by claims of Biden and his spokespeople, such claims are not evidence.
because it does not work (Score:2)
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I know giving factual information is not very effective, but it would be more effective then a "factually incorrect" moderation option.
Re:On that note... (Score:4, Funny)
Where's slashdot's "factually incorrect" moderation option?
Overrated
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Where's slashdot's "factually incorrect" moderation option?
Overrated
Practical advice? I'm not even understanding why your comment is showing a "Funny" mod now.
I actually think there should be a "true" dimension of moderation, but if you want to mod for negative "true", then you should be required to provide the evidence. If it's just a lying troll, there's unlikely to be any protest as the troll moves on, but if there is a legitimate disagreement, there should be a adjudication mechanism, and the loser should take a reputational hit.
Dreaming of pie in the sky, but I would j
Re:On that note... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Point out it's factually incorrect and provide citations and be modded up instead
2. If it seems deliberately false, mod down as troll
3. If it seems unintentionally false, use overrated but not down past 1 or 0. There's no reason to give a -1 just because someone made a mistake. Just correct them instead.
Then what would remain? (Score:2)
Anyone who wants to run for the highest office in the land not only deserves to be, but also should expect to be, fully subjected to both barrels of the first amendment.
Really though, Biden should just be happy that this has pretty much drawn the full attention of all of the people who were making memes of him looking creepy around children. If I were going to get slagged with something, I'd
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If you started banning political ads for containing false information, I don't think there'd be any left to run.
And that would be bad because?
I'm sure they would soon be replaced by ads that couldn't be proven or dis-proven, but that would be a step up.
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Yeah, I don't think this would make a very good add.
"Vote for me, I will talk about everything you want changed and then fail to get any bills related to those things passed or compromise so much to push them through that it doesn't make any difference."
False my ass (Score:2, Informative)
> "The allegation of corrupt motive has been demonstrated to be completely false."
It was "demonstrated" by an investigation by a government that had just had a billion in foreign aid threatened by the father of the person they were investigating. Sorry, Joe. That whole thing just smells way too bad for you to be innocent.
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Was Biden's comment made behind closed doors or was it made on behalf of a bi-partisan Congress?
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>r was it made on behalf of a bi-partisan Congress?
Congress said that the aide was conditional to the ouster of this one prosecutor? Or that the administration could decide the strings that were attached to the aide?
Source please or at least elaborate.
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The investigation had ended then the threat was made, and a new prosecutor would make reopening it more likely.
A pig plays in the mud with his fellows.... (Score:2)
his line of thinking is exactly like the child snitching on a sibling: "Mom, Billy hit me back!"
What kind of BULLSHIT headline is that? (Score:2, Insightful)
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There you go then. Did that turn on the light? Or are you still staggering around in the dark failing to understand?
If that's the case (Score:2)
Biden and others should put up political ads that contain false information about Trump.
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That would just play into his narrative of fake news, it's not like you have to make up horrific things about Trump, there are plenty to pick from already.
Fraud is fraud. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would they accept Trump's falsehoods (Score:2, Funny)
but reject those coming from Russia or their operatives?
Trump is a Russian operative...
Truth in Advertising (Score:2)
Biden ads would have the same issues. (Score:2)
Might Leave Facebook, as Well (Score:3)
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You've almost got it right. Rudy got to you...