Facebook Won't Accept New Ads The Week Before The Election -- But Older Ads With Lies Are Still OK (buzzfeednews.com) 240
Facebook will stop accepting political advertising in the United States a week before Election Day on Nov. 3, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on Thursday. From a report: But the social network will continue showing users all political ads that candidates or political action committees buy before that day, and continue to let these groups adjust who they target. Candidates for political office will also still be able to run ads containing lies. In Thursday's announcement, Zuckerberg claimed he was putting in the one-week ban on new ads prior to the election because he was "concerned" about the challenges people could face while voting. "I'm also worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country," Zuckerberg said. Social networks are facing increasing pressure to police political advertising on their platforms ahead of the US elections, and some critics have urged tech companies to stop running political ads altogether. Last year, Twitter banned all political advertising from its platform, and Google restricted micro-targeting of political ads on certain products.
Sound Good (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds good. If they remove all the ads with lies then they could finally go ad free!
Re:Sound Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds good. If they remove all the ads with lies then they could finally go ad free!
Just curious... Who is the arborator of what is a lie and what's not? How's that going to be fair?
Re:Sound Good (Score:5, Funny)
Who is the arborator of what is a lie and what's not?
I would defer to Treebeard.
Re: (Score:2)
He wouldn't finish a day's worth of fact-checking until well into the subsequent administration.
Re: (Score:2)
Hooom-hooom. You are a hasty bunch.
Re:Sound Good (Score:5, Insightful)
To those of you reading at home, I want you to think about the implications of the above question. If you have to ask, "what is truth?" then there's been a lot more damage done than we can even imagine.
A goal of a certain segment of the ruling class has always been to make people disbelieve their own eyes and ears and sense of reason. The result was weaponized in 2016 and is going nuclear in 2020.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't want your sense of reality fucked with? Stay off 'social media' entirely. Read your news from multiple sources (NONE of them television news) and vigorously apply critical thinking skills to all of it. Do your own research if you're not sure about something. Consider sources when using the Internet for fact-finding and weed out the questionable ones. And so on.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a fact. Also, be careful about believing something because you really, really want it to be true.
Bull (Score:4, Interesting)
If you have to ask, "what is truth?" then there's been a lot more damage done than we can even imagine.
Bull. And historically illiterate.
You always have to ask "what is truth?" You have ALWAYS had to ask "what is truth?", for all of recorded history and no doubt before it. It's what thought is about. It's what religion is about. It's what the scientific method is about. It's what freedom of speech and of the press is about. It's what lobbying is about. It's what propaganda is about. It's what "yellow journalism" is about. It's what censorship is about.
It's especially true in politics, because the "economy of negative values" creates perverse incentive structures that encourage all sorts of bad behavior. Lying (and all the other mind-bending propaganda techniques) to decision-makers to get the decision to come out in the liar's favor right at the top of the list.
It takes many forms: Influencers lie to rulers and voters, to swing the power of the government to their benefit. Rulers lie to the ruled, to sucker them into peacefully going along with their edicts rather than evading them or fighting them. The press creates illusions, both to fool voters, but even more to fool the politicians, busy and surrounded by lies in their capitals, about what the voters want.
What you're griping about is just business as usual. What's different lately isn't some increase in the prevalence of lies, omissions, and shaded meaning. It's that the Internet has let hordes of little guys expose us to a view of the inside of the sausage factory.
Re: (Score:2)
You misunderstand me. It's OK to discern truth. We're supposed to discern truth. The problem is that now we are being convinced by the ownership class that there is no such thing as truth.
Re: (Score:2)
Well the face palms also come up when someone asks "What if the truth disagrees with what I want?" Witness people who refuse to evacuate when fires, floods, and hurricanes are rushing in their direction.
Now there's a whole lot in between truth and lies, stuff that can't really be quantified easily by mere mortals who don't have the benefit if seeing perfectly into the future. Such as which economic plan is better, candidate A's or candidate B's? There is no "truth" there that can be easily knowm, the mos
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook uses a variety of organizations for fact checking, as well as in-house staff who have a list of well-established bullshit they can quickly flag such as Qanon conspiracies.
It's highly imperfect and often makes mistakes, which is probably why they decided to just not even bother in the week before the election and ban all political ads.
Re: (Score:3)
'Social media' shouldn't accept ANY political ads at all. That would be the best policy. FFS it's 'social media' not 'political media'. I know they're shameless whores but FFS everything has to have limits.
Re: (Score:2)
They are mandated by law to maximize profits. Not accepting political ads would be an offense to investors. That's a nice little system you got there.
They are mandated by law to work in the interest of the investors, as expressed by the investors and by reasonable expectations of what the investors would want when they don't give direction. That's USUALLY maximize profits, but is often other things, financial or otherwise.
Corporations are often about missions other than just making money. Satisficing on p
Re: (Score:2)
Easy. If it's a political ad, then it it almost certainly contains a lie. The number of false positives world wide could be counted on one hand.
Re:Sound Good (Score:4, Interesting)
{Political Candidate} steals and eats babies! Don't vote for {pronoun}!
But it's not that monochromatic, now is it?
{Political Candidate} did {thing 20 years ago} {taken out of context} {insinuation that they lack character/reliability} Don't vote for {pronoun}!
That's rather more vague isn't it?
{Political Candidate} will {prediction of future actions based on nothing tangible, crafted to evoke fear}! Don't vote for {pronoun}!
You see my point? You and I can see things in those formats and think "Hmm, that sounds like baseless bullshit to me", but many people seemingly aren't capable of that and will give in to fear without even thinking it through.
Re: (Score:3)
Ok, from the game Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, on the background radio show Deb of Night commercials:
"Democratic candidate Michael Reubens recently sued senator Robert Thorn for accusing Rebens of being a murderous child pornographer. But Rebens has previously said that he was against clogging up courts with frivolous law suits. Wouldn't this make him a hypocrite? Would you want a hypocrite as your next congressman? Would you want your children become hypocrites? Vote republican senator Robert Thorn
Re: (Score:2)
I think that "The Arborator" is a tree-based robot from the future, that will liquefy our remains the feed the inevitable cellulose-based overlords
Or, the author just is not that familiar with English
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
History will show that - as a President - while colourful, and somewhat an outlier in his unique use of social media - his actual policies and behaviours during his two terms in office were very centric, rather middle of the road.
Right now, a very biased MSM paints a fanciful picture of him as some sort of extremist. If you look closer though, he's not.
I recall the border issue earlier, with the people caught crossing illegally. He was mere
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Interestingly, you're defending Trump's record without questioning the basic premise of the article - which is about Facebook and ads containing lies. So, you're fine with assuming that it's Trump supporting ads that are the ones containing the lion's share of the lies. You just think that the actual policies of the Trump Administration, which are basic Republican economic dishonesty + some more blatant xenophobic and homophobic stuff, are okay with you. Well, lah-dee-dah.
How do you feel about the self-d
Re: (Score:2)
It's hard to run for president when you're in prison.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not a protestor, by the way, *or* a rioter.
But I am sick and fucking well tired of racists, bigots, white supremacists, neo-conservatives, right-wing extremists, and the like. Not supporting these things isn't 'stirring things up', it's standing up for what you believe in, and I believe in a United States where those things are NOT ACCEPTABLE, and I will not be silenced because some people insist on being troglodytes who believe in those throwback ways.
So if you'
Re: (Score:2)
blah blah blah words
shut up idiot
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds good. If they remove all the ads with lies then they could finally go ad free!
Advertising is not the problem with social media. It's the damn humans. And Farcebook, won't even remove the fucking dead ones, so that tells you just how much they "care" about solving this problem. Farcebook will become more an online cemetary than anything else soon, and yet we still give this dead platform, THIS much weight? Damn, humans are fucking stupid.
Besides, on THIS point, I happen to agree with Zuck. IMHO, it's more important for the American public to understand which politicians would st
That's my quick rule of thumb - vote against liars (Score:2)
Sometimes I don't have the time and energy to analyze each candidate in a particular race, looking at both their stated positions and their record, and comparing the two. Also trying to determine if they actually understand the issues, if they understand why people take each position (especially understanding the concerns of people they disagree with).
When I don't have time to do all that, it's normally pretty quick and easy to identify the big liars. Most races have at least one clear liar. So I can just
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Videos mostly about Trump on the Late Night with Seth Meyers TV show: A Closer Look [youtube.com]. The jokes are often not funny. The videos of Trump are often far better than a written description.
Ah, Seth...A liberal late-night basement talk-show General in the Infotainment Wars. I'm certain he's got the not-unbiased answer Reality is looking for, right?
Shit-slinging decreed as entertainment has brought awareness to politics about as much as social media has shined a light on the problem of narcissism. We continue to allow "entertainers" to beat the drum in support of a political civil war that is quickly devolving into an actual civil war. News channels require ratings now, so Facts are irreleva
Re: (Score:2)
"Shit-slinging decreed as entertainment..." Videos of Trump are honest reporting of what he actually did.
As opposed to Democrats literally hiding their "leader" in the fucking basement, so you don't dare see what he's incapable of doing?
Like I said, shit-slinging as entertainment. And you're addicted to it just as much as the next shit-slinger.
The only thing "honest" about the gutteral sniping that is "reporting" today, is calling it out for how utterly pointless it has become, no matter what rival political gang is spewing it.
"Lies"? (Score:3, Insightful)
When did schools stop teaching the difference between objective and subjective?
People are capable of determining what's a "lie" or not, we don't need Mark Zuckerburg doing that for us. We should also be allowed to infer what we will about anyone lying to us, we don't need to be "protected" from it like infants.
Re:"Lies"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your second sentence is a lie. We have people who think the earth is flat with a giant ice wall around the edges. We have people who think 5G radio waves cause any number of ailments including covid. Before all the latest nonsense people were blaming windmills on their illnesses. The general public are morons who go about life barely aware of their own existence. There is a reason why the local news stations write their stories at a third grade level.
That said I don't agree with social media being the gatekeepers of truth but things have devolved to such a state where it's become necessary, because people are just that dumb. Like wearing a mask has now become a political issue and not a health issue.
Re: (Score:2)
In a democracy there are safeguards to prevent such idiocy from doing too much hard to other people. It's not the tyranny of the majority, it's a devolution of power with checks and balances.
The freedom to believe that vaccines give you autism only extends to the point where it's not hurting anyone else. The only real debate here is what level of harm to other people we find intolerable.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not democracy when you forbid ideas you disagree with from being heard so that only your approved candidates can be voted on.
I agree but we were discussing verifiable lies in paid Facebook ads. I don't think Facebook has the power to ban Trump from standing for election.
Re: (Score:2)
That's probably why they just did a blanket ban in the last week. Too hard to try to verify, too much criticism if they even attempt it, just shut the whole shit-show down.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is something you made up, not something I'm advocating. I want children to have a good all-round education and most importantly to learn how to think, to learn the basics of logic and rhetoric, and to understand how our democracy works (civics). History is quite important too, which is probably why certain states in the US are so keen to control the content of history textbooks.
Re: (Score:2)
No one is forbidding your ideas. Facebook is a private company and they can choose to allow what content they see fit. Feel free to use any competing social media networks that do not monitor content.
Re: (Score:2)
I've been waiting for the "Hah ha, we control the monopoly, peasant!" reply. Well done!
Re: (Score:2)
When your belief escalates to unwarranted destruction or violence your belief needs to be silenced.
Re: (Score:2)
People can believe whatever they want but the problem is their beliefs are now causing collateral damage to others.
Re: (Score:2)
People can believe whatever they want but the problem is their beliefs are now causing collateral damage to others.
Ah, perfect safety, the enemy of liberty.
"Cast them upon the pyre, to preserve the souls of the unwary!" Says ye olde Bishop.
"Think of the children!" says the prohibitionists.
"In order to enhance your online experience, we've updated our community guidelines to exclude some controversial topics" says $Big_globalist_corp
Did you go to school? (Score:3)
Folks keep railing against "useless" subjects like the Humanities. Thing is, the Humanities is where you teach critical thinking. Math & Science are way, way too complex a subject, and they're black & white. You're either right or wron
Re: (Score:2)
A big problem in schools is that far too many teachers want to impose a power fantasy of being a dictator or otherwise lash out at children because they're too cowardly to pick on someone their own size.
Re: (Score:2)
School administrations letting it happen is the problem, and guess where most of the school money goes....
Re: (Score:2)
When did schools stop teaching the difference between objective and subjective?
People are capable of determining what's a "lie" or not, we don't need Mark Zuckerburg doing that for us. We should also be allowed to infer what we will about anyone lying to us, we don't need to be "protected" from it like infants.
If you think "we" is actually that smart, then you've done nothing but define why you are clearly a part of "we".
If you're even half intelligent, you would realize the average person is a fucking idiot by comparison. This is exactly why idiots now look up to someone like Mark Zuckerberg as some kind of "educator" on defining truth and morality, as if Mr. "Dumb Fucks" is some kind of fucking savior for human ignorance. He literally got rich and famous off it.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they can't. That's why we have a president who paints his face orange every morning, and we have people running around with guns talking about "QAnon".
Re: (Score:2)
Are those the same people with guns running around burning things down based on the lie of systemic racism and the belief that the police can't wait to hunt down and kill black people?
Two sides, same coin.
It's always illuminating when folks like you preach to the rest of us about daring to question another people's appearance yet that's the first thing you criticize about Trump. Two sets of rules. That's what I oppose.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Statistics lie all the damn time. Correlation does not equal causation.
Re: (Score:2)
People are capable of determining what's a "lie" or not
Sadly, that is not true, and to claim such you're either fresh-out-of-the-womb naive or deliberately disingenuous.
Re: (Score:2)
They didn't say "the effectiveness of masks is debatable" but went straight to "they do nothing".
We can't get out of our own way here in the US. Our culture of "I know more than everyone else" is bringing us dow
Re: (Score:2)
There are plenty of doctors who will tell you the same thing. An opinion - even if wrong - is not a lie.
https://www.rcreader.com/comme... [rcreader.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Both are educated (one an Ind. Engineer, the other a IT professional). They didn't say "the effectiveness of masks is debatable" but went straight to "they do nothing".
Yeah, my old boss was an IE, went on and on about the JFK assassination conspiracy, not a real critical thinker. He was constantly amazed I could be another stooopid liberal, he thought in black and white exclusively and selfishly. Money is their god, the other side doesn't matter for they are unclean, being right in mind was the all, conflicting facts were to be held in contempt or disbelieved (WITHOUT RESEARCHING BOTH SIDES OF AN ISSUE.) Certainty is absurd.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Bullshit. We don't need the thought police deciding which opinions we're allowed to hear. "Qanon and other nonsense" running rampant is the price of freedom you slaver.
Re:"Lies"? (Score:4, Funny)
Education camps for those who show signs of wrong think!
Re: (Score:2)
"YOU dont get to misinform my children"
Only I get to do that!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It means high quality schools and colleges. Education is a human right.
I strongly suspect most people using the word "Marxism" don't even know what it means. Certainly nothing like the government depicted in 1984. Remember that Orwell actually went to fight the fascists in Spain, and named his poodle Marx.
Re: (Score:2)
You are so certain you know my mind, but you are wrong about everything. I'm not even a Marxist, the model I advocate is more like the Nordic one.
Come on, argue in good faith against what I'm telling you I mean, not some straw man.
Re: (Score:2)
worst gaslighting Evaaaaaaar!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You know I'm not American, right? Anyway, how can I have a discussion with you if you insist everything I say can't be taken at face value because somehow if I win this debate I become king of America and my true nefarious plans are put into action?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Good fucking luck and riddance.
Re: (Score:2)
End of freedom of movement rights for British people. It's very hard for us to get jobs in Europe now because of uncertainty about what happens next year. Most companies aren't interested in sponsoring a visa when they can get someone else.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you oppose education then?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you should read up on Pol Pot, he was a Nationalist and Luddite who promised his people Paradise if they killed all of the educated people and slaved for their great leader, seems a lot more like trump than anybody else up for election
Re: (Score:2)
I think that you do not know what a Marxist is, or just want to impress your friends, who do not know what it is either
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Until you have such a highly educated population you need to have some kind of filter, otherwise Qanon and such nonsense runs rampant. As we have seen from anti-vaxx and anti-COVID stuff there are serious consequences.
It's worse even than that. Even intelligent, educated people do not have enough hours in the day to fact-check the torrent of bullshit, so we will all need some kind of filter forever just to keep it down to manageable levels. Journalistic integrity is supposed to be that filter, but is sorely lacking these days.
Re: (Score:3)
The lies are what got Hitler elected. The lugenpresse (lying media), demonizing the Jewish race, falsehoods about genetic superiority.
Journalism is vital for democracy and freedom precisely because it exposes the truth, that's why fascists often start by attacking it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Some Jews did actually hope that the fascists might come to like them, incredible as that may seem in hindsight. For example many joined the army because they thought showing their loyalty and bravery might change people's minds about them.
The fascists claimed that Jews were supporting the Communists and other radical left movements in Germany. They couldn't go with the reality that they were popular movements mostly made up of ordinary Germans who were fed up of being screwed over, particularly by the last
Re: (Score:2)
That was the inevitable outcome of the "punch a nazi" campaign, to where eventually the execution of a man on the street would be celebrated by those who'd take a break from their vandalism and property damage and rioting long enough to congratulate themselves on being a force for good. By design, anyone who opposes these leftists get that label.
Unlike the original brownshirts though that were useful to attacking and suppressing the political opposition, Antifa/BLM and the other modern day Bolsheviks seem t
Re: (Score:2)
I see from your post history that you're a fan of video games. Some would argue that those are harmful to your health as well based on multiple studies. Lets ban all advertising for those before altogether banning the thing you like to do. It's just science! Why do hate science?
See how this works? Someone else always know what's best for you.
What no variety? (Score:2)
At this point, political ads are a source of entertainment so that's disappointing.
Buzzfeed? Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Buzzfeed? Seriously? (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot now reposts stuff from Buzzfeed? Jesus christ, what has happened to this place?
I can see you are rather new here.. Or have you been gone awhile?
Re: (Score:2)
Hypocrite (Score:2)
that's Zuck and his friends through and through.
That's make it easy then (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Political Facebook users are the best (Score:5, Insightful)
Arrest people that post lies on Facebook (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Could be worse. In the EU, it is illegal to offend someone's religious feelings [coe.int]. Enforced purely selectively, of course.
One person's lie is another person's truth (Score:2)
Because: who determines what is truthful? Especially in political ads, the subject matter is almost entirely subjective. Also: the courts already provide recourse in the case of a genuine, unmistakable, malicious untruth.
In fact, that's the problem with all of the "fact-checking" and general censorship on social media platforms. I follow two bloggers who regularly post things on Facebook, et al just to see what triggers censor
Re: (Score:2)
Because: who determines what is truthful? Especially in political ads, the subject matter is almost entirely subjective.
Not really that subjective... For example, Trump has stated at least 150 times that he passed "Veterans Choice" [cnn.com] (and other sources) which was actually passed by President Obama in 2014 and sponsored by Bernie Sanders and John McCain [ three of Trumps favorite people :-) ]:
In fact, former President Barack Obama signed the Choice program into law in 2014. The law, which allowed eligible veterans to be covered by the government for care provided by doctors outside the VA system, was a bipartisan initiative spearheaded by two senators Trump has repeatedly criticized, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the late John McCain of Arizona.
Now, Trump did sign the "Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act" in 2017, so maybe he's not lying, just confused and/or cognitively impaired. Either way, he walked out of the press conference when a reported called him on
Re: (Score:2)
Now, Trump did sign the "Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act" in 2017, so maybe he's not lying, just confused and/or cognitively impaired.
So maybe he isn't lying, because "Veterans Choice" sounds a hell of a lot like "Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act". But let's just have CNN jump all over him anyway. Do you guys not get it yet? Saying "Orange Man Bad" every 5 minutes does the exact opposite of what you think it does. Did you guys not read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" in Kindergarten? This is exactly why the term TDS was invented.
Re: (Score:2)
So maybe he isn't lying, because "Veterans Choice" sounds a hell of a lot like "Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act".
Ya, but actual words matter and those bills aren't the same thing. I suspect he knows that but (again) wants to take credit for something done by another President and/or push the agenda that President Obama did nothing good for anyone/veterans. Or he's senile.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's better for them if they simply use the media to do their dirty work. More publicity than doing it in the court room.
Lies? (Score:2)
I believe this Administration prefers the term Alternative Facts [wikipedia.org] ...
Waaaaaah (Score:2)
Facebook is selling ads! This is terrible. Someone save us!
I have another theory....
If your opponent can outspend you then a better strategy would be to attempt to limit the places they can use those resources.
Even the definition of "lies" is vague (Score:2)
That makes it easy (Score:2)
Simply post your most outrageous lies just before the deadline. Your opponent won't be able to respond.
Better is better. (Score:2)
Facebook is doing something better than they used to. It's not as good as many would prefer.
Net result is improvement. We should be... outraged?
Election-Silence, my country enjoys it (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Simply put, not allowed to do any last-minute campaigning.
'Social Media' shouldn't have ANY political ads (Score:2)
Alternate idea: Allow people to have settings for what flavor of ads they get served, 'political ads' being opt-in only.
All ads are lies! (Score:2)
All ads are lies. If they weren't, they would be news items. Also, all news items are lies, as anyone can attest who has witnessed the event being "reported."
New Knowledge advertising.. (Score:2)
Wonder if New Knowledge are going to try some dodgy advertising bullshit using Russian advertising companies to try and sell their social media monitoring software to the US Government - like they did with the last election. Maybe they'll try a Chinese one this time? ...and you have to wonder, will the mainstream media fail to do any due diligence and just accept New Knowledge's Bullshit claims. ...and you have to wonder, will the DNC accept New Knowledge's bullshit claims without any due diligence?
Then you
I guess... (Score:2)