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I'm trying to understand the article's premise. Is all political advertising immoral? Is it something about the way the ads were distributed that make them immo

I'm trying to understand the article's premise. Is all political advertising immoral? Is it something about the way the ads were distributed that make them immoral? Is it just immoral because the politics itself was "wrong"?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
throwaway426079 8y ago
The UK has a regulator and rules about commercial advertising, but last I checked neither apply to political advertising. In normal elections there's often a row about some advert or other (eg the Tony Blair demon eyes poster) but nothing much comes of it. In this case there is a widespread view that the referendum was decided by misinformed voters and activists are trying to intervene on that basis to halt Brexit.
- B1FF_PSUVM 8y ago
  > misinformed voters I have this notion that EU votes are repeated the number of times necessary to have the 'informed' result win.
  - chubasco 8y ago
    As an American, this is definitely what it looks like to me.
    - derriz 8y ago
      Really? I suspect you have very little knowledge of the EU or how it works or its history. Here for example is an EU treaty, which took years to prepare and agree by the governments of all the countries but was abandoned after failing narrowly to pass referenda in France and the Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu...
      - acheron 8y ago
        ...and then was modified a tiny bit and passed anyway. That’s one of the most obvious examples of what they’re talking about.
    - laurentl 8y ago
      Whereas in the US, the result of an election is decided by informed voters who don’t have to take into account what the majority of electors voted for. Much more efficient :D
    - ionised 8y ago
      Still sour about that Google fine then?
- lostlogin 8y ago
  There are very specific rules around political advertising. https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/roles-and-responsibilities/our-role-as-regulator-of-political-party-finances/making-an-allegation/what-we-regulate https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/roles-and-re...
untog 8y ago
The leave campaigns were recently found to be in violation of election law, so no, this isn't just a "moral" issue: > the Electoral Commission found that the youth-focused campaign, BeLeave, had been joint-working with the official Vote Leave campaign — yet the pair had not jointly declared spending thereby enabling the official campaign to overspend by almost half a million pounds. And that overspend went straight to Aggregate IQ to run targeted Facebook ads. More broadly, we're in a new era of political advertising that we haven't fully grappled with yet. It used to be that all of your advertising was public, so it was possible to see what promises are being made, what kind of terminology is being used, etc. etc. In the Facebook era you can hyper-target your ads to only show to a small subsection of people, without anyone knowing what you're saying. Facebook's recent moves have meant that advertisers have to publicly disclose all the ads they are showing to avoid this issue, but it wasn't retroactive. This data is from before Facebook disclosed that information.
- meowface 8y ago
  >yet the pair had not jointly declared spending thereby enabling the official campaign to overspend by almost half a million pounds. And that overspend went straight to Aggregate IQ to run targeted Facebook ads. Sadly this kind of "overspending" is effectively legal in the US due to PACs. Good to hear it's illegal in the UK, but seems that isn't stopping people.
- brandonmenc 8y ago
  > It used to be that all of your advertising was public, so it was possible to see what promises are being made, what kind of terminology is being used, etc. etc. In the Facebook era you can hyper-target your ads to only show to a small subsection of people, without anyone knowing what you're saying. If say, before the 1990s, a national candidate sent out targeted mailers to some little town in flyover country, no one would have ever seen them. We're in a similar but imo potentially not much worse situation because if anything it's easier to publicize that it happens. It seems strange to you because the person getting a targeted ad is in the next room over instead of next voting district, but it's the same principle.
  - 8y ago
onyva 8y ago
It’s time to stop being silly and look at the wider picture. All of these activities are connected and are related to Russian money essentially. The USA and the UK at least seem to be related, and very likely Israel is involved as well (targeting Iran). Add to this the Arron Banks and the diamond deal attempt with a Russian company, and pieces start falling into place. Corruption around Russian money in excahnge for political influence in the west, to get Russia off the sanctions which are killing its economy (what ever is left of it). I’m sure there’s more and we will find out more as the instituations involved will start kicking back. Hopefully not too late.
- sctb 8y ago
  > Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
DanBC 8y ago
People have received criminal convictions because of the way the campaigns were run. ICO, the UK data protection regulator, has fined groups of both sides for data protection violations. We have strict laws about the ways elections are run for a reason, and yes, lying about funding is immoral, and is incompatible with Nolan Principles for Public Office.
- timthorn 8y ago
  Careful - the Electoral Commission has made its judgement but as of now the files are with the police/CPS. At this point I don't believe there have been any criminal convictions?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
clort 8y ago
Its immoral when its targeted secretly in this way. If lies are posted publicly on a billboard (or a bus) then everybody can see it, somebody can point out that it is a lie, and the posters can be held responsible for their misinformation
- tomp 8y ago
  Which of their statements was a lie (I know of only one, the "450m / week for NHS")?
lumberjack 8y ago
Targeted political advertisement is immoral. It is nothing more than a way to deceive the electorate by hiding from them part of the truth. That is the problem here. Online ads are targeted and that is problematic when it comes to politics.
pjc50 8y ago
There are strict rules on print-based political advertising in the UK - it's required to have an imprint detailing who it's by. Similarly it's banned from television outside of the "party political broadcast" system. There are also a number of laws on funding accountability that were broken here. Distributing online political advertising without an imprint ought to be illegal, although I don't believe it is at the moment.
billysielu 8y ago
The article itself is political advertising.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

throwaway426079 8y ago

The UK has a regulator and rules about commercial advertising, but last I checked neither apply to political advertising. In normal elections there's often a row about some advert or other (eg the Tony Blair demon eyes poster) but nothing much comes of it. In this case there is a widespread view that the referendum was decided by misinformed voters and activists are trying to intervene on that basis to halt Brexit.

B1FF_PSUVM 8y ago
> misinformed voters I have this notion that EU votes are repeated the number of times necessary to have the 'informed' result win.
- chubasco 8y ago
  As an American, this is definitely what it looks like to me.
  - derriz 8y ago
    Really? I suspect you have very little knowledge of the EU or how it works or its history. Here for example is an EU treaty, which took years to prepare and agree by the governments of all the countries but was abandoned after failing narrowly to pass referenda in France and the Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu...
    - acheron 8y ago
      ...and then was modified a tiny bit and passed anyway. That’s one of the most obvious examples of what they’re talking about.
  - laurentl 8y ago
    Whereas in the US, the result of an election is decided by informed voters who don’t have to take into account what the majority of electors voted for. Much more efficient :D
  - ionised 8y ago
    Still sour about that Google fine then?
lostlogin 8y ago
There are very specific rules around political advertising. https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/roles-and-responsibilities/our-role-as-regulator-of-political-party-finances/making-an-allegation/what-we-regulate https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/roles-and-re...

untog 8y ago

The leave campaigns were recently found to be in violation of election law, so no, this isn't just a "moral" issue: > the Electoral Commission found that the youth-focused campaign, BeLeave, had been joint-working with the official Vote Leave campaign — yet the pair had not jointly declared spending thereby enabling the official campaign to overspend by almost half a million pounds. And that overspend went straight to Aggregate IQ to run targeted Facebook ads. More broadly, we're in a new era of political advertising that we haven't fully grappled with yet. It used to be that all of your advertising was public, so it was possible to see what promises are being made, what kind of terminology is being used, etc. etc. In the Facebook era you can hyper-target your ads to only show to a small subsection of people, without anyone knowing what you're saying. Facebook's recent moves have meant that advertisers have to publicly disclose all the ads they are showing to avoid this issue, but it wasn't retroactive. This data is from before Facebook disclosed that information.

meowface 8y ago
>yet the pair had not jointly declared spending thereby enabling the official campaign to overspend by almost half a million pounds. And that overspend went straight to Aggregate IQ to run targeted Facebook ads. Sadly this kind of "overspending" is effectively legal in the US due to PACs. Good to hear it's illegal in the UK, but seems that isn't stopping people.
brandonmenc 8y ago
> It used to be that all of your advertising was public, so it was possible to see what promises are being made, what kind of terminology is being used, etc. etc. In the Facebook era you can hyper-target your ads to only show to a small subsection of people, without anyone knowing what you're saying. If say, before the 1990s, a national candidate sent out targeted mailers to some little town in flyover country, no one would have ever seen them. We're in a similar but imo potentially not much worse situation because if anything it's easier to publicize that it happens. It seems strange to you because the person getting a targeted ad is in the next room over instead of next voting district, but it's the same principle.
- 8y ago

onyva 8y ago

It’s time to stop being silly and look at the wider picture. All of these activities are connected and are related to Russian money essentially. The USA and the UK at least seem to be related, and very likely Israel is involved as well (targeting Iran). Add to this the Arron Banks and the diamond deal attempt with a Russian company, and pieces start falling into place. Corruption around Russian money in excahnge for political influence in the west, to get Russia off the sanctions which are killing its economy (what ever is left of it). I’m sure there’s more and we will find out more as the instituations involved will start kicking back. Hopefully not too late.

sctb 8y ago
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

DanBC 8y ago

People have received criminal convictions because of the way the campaigns were run. ICO, the UK data protection regulator, has fined groups of both sides for data protection violations. We have strict laws about the ways elections are run for a reason, and yes, lying about funding is immoral, and is incompatible with Nolan Principles for Public Office.

timthorn 8y ago
Careful - the Electoral Commission has made its judgement but as of now the files are with the police/CPS. At this point I don't believe there have been any criminal convictions?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

clort 8y ago

Its immoral when its targeted secretly in this way. If lies are posted publicly on a billboard (or a bus) then everybody can see it, somebody can point out that it is a lie, and the posters can be held responsible for their misinformation

tomp 8y ago
Which of their statements was a lie (I know of only one, the "450m / week for NHS")?

lumberjack 8y ago

Targeted political advertisement is immoral. It is nothing more than a way to deceive the electorate by hiding from them part of the truth. That is the problem here. Online ads are targeted and that is problematic when it comes to politics.

pjc50 8y ago

There are strict rules on print-based political advertising in the UK - it's required to have an imprint detailing who it's by. Similarly it's banned from television outside of the "party political broadcast" system. There are also a number of laws on funding accountability that were broken here. Distributing online political advertising without an imprint ought to be illegal, although I don't believe it is at the moment.

billysielu 8y ago

The article itself is political advertising.