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Search for 'tax' finds one instance: > This allowed the platforms to centralize the internet, inserting themselves between users and content, effectively impos
by mlinksva 9y ago
Search for 'tax' finds one instance:
> This allowed the platforms to centralize the internet, inserting themselves between users and content, effectively imposing a tax on both sides.
Sadly this does not contain the obvious fix: tax ads.
- chrislloyd 9y agoI'd love you to go into more detail with this proposal. How would taxing ads be different than just taxing corporations?
- maxxxxx 9y agoI like the idea. Ads could be treated as pollution.
- tzahola 9y agoAds are pollution. Information pollution.
- wutbrodo 9y ago> How would taxing ads be different than just taxing corporations? Without commenting on the wisdom or relevance of the proposal, this seems really simple. Taxing activities disincentivizes them, so you could expect a tax on a specific activity to have the first order effect of reducing that activity. Tldr: lower advertising budgets
- exDM69 9y agoThe corporations in question pay very little taxes in the first place, getting them to pay their fair share would be nice. But I don't think that would change their negative influence on the society.
- mlinksva 9y agoTwo basic approaches, not mutually exclusive: 1) make advertising expenditure non-deductible or weaker version treat as investment, make deduction multi-year reducing NPV 2) directly tax ad revenue, strength depends on rate. My motivation is treating ads as mental pollution and force for centralization and monopoly, not preventing election manipulation. Complaints abut the latter are nothing but extreme hypocrisy coming from the US.
- kennywinker 9y agoBy some accounts the Russian fb spend was under $100k (https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-ad-spend/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-ad-spend/) Assuming election meddling is the thing you want to avoid, even a 50% tax wouldn't take this out of the price range of even the thriftiest of governments.
- lsc 9y ago>By some accounts the Russian fb spend was under $100k If true, that would indicate that these ads are dramatically under priced. If it was simply a matter of spending money on facebook, things will balance next election, as the price of those ads will go up dramatically Of course, the fact that Clinton spent so much more on facebook and still lost the electoral college would indicate that if the facebook ad campaign was decisive, that it's more about how you use it than about what you pay Facebook; I would bet rather a lot that Facebook is spending a lot of effort right now to reverse engineer what the Russians did so they can sell it to their more wealthy clients.
- kennywinker 9y agoYou're comparing apples to apples when this is an oranges and apples situation. Regular campaign advertising (like the stuff done by Clinton in the last election) is at least partly constrained by things like the truth and the semblance of accountability. I.e. if I run an ad saying "vote for me I went to harvard" there would likely be a major scandal because I did not in fact go to harvard. The words came from me, and they were lies. A 3rd party, dumping thousands of fake news stories on to facebook, disguised as real news and using a little ad spends to pump them up - is not constrained by the truth, and because they are not easily linked to the candidate there is no accountability. If you're allowed to hide your identity, lie, and disguise your lies as valid information, yes of course you can be more with your ad dollars than if you have to be accountable for what you are saying.
- chronic193 9y agoAh, yes. The age old comment: "It's wrong if someone else does it. But if it is for me, or I agree with the person doing it, it's okay."