7 ms·

Why doesn't google/fb (other than money) just ban ads from non-political campaigns.. i.e. Pacs, etc.. if you're Bernie Sanders you can run an ad, if you're a su

Why doesn't google/fb (other than money) just ban ads from non-political campaigns.. i.e. Pacs, etc.. if you're Bernie Sanders you can run an ad, if you're a super pac or political agency you cannot run campaigns for a politician, only the verified politician and designated politician workers can access adwords/fb ads for that campaign. This would essentially help make citizens united null/void at least so far as social media/search engine ad buys are considered...

kingbirdy 8y ago
Because that would cost them money, and some competitor would show up who is willing to sell ads to pacs.
- devoply 8y ago
  > some competitor would show up fb and goog have a captive market. no competitor is going to sell ads to their customers. they would lose money and that's it.
  - hirsin 8y ago
    Or force the politician to put more of their money on Facebook and let the PACs backfill the TV and other spending where the rules don't exist.
- canadianwriter 8y ago
  Competitor will show up to take on... Google? People aren't switching away from Google any time soon.
  - ma2rten 8y ago
    People are going to switch away from Google search, but Google's ad networks (DoubleClick, GDN/AdSense, Admob, AdX) actually compete with other ad networks (like OpenX, Rubicon Project, Criteo, AppNexus). Many publishers use more than one ad network to maximize their income, so advertisers can just move to the other networks.
    - xstephen95x 8y ago
      AppNexus is now AT&T Advertising and Analytics as of today..
    - jonny_eh 8y ago
      But only Google ad networks appear on Google products. They can choose what advertising appears there with no competitive impact.
- drharby 8y ago
  Precisely. Besides, good luck justifying the loss of revenue to the board of directors with 'muh good will'
ISL 8y ago
That would be extremely expensive for the platform.
ubernostrum 8y ago
Because Google/FB/etc. also run their own PACs. Follow @pinboard on Twitter for nice juxtapositions of the "we want to be neutral" language of a lot of the platforms, versus where they're putting their money. Example: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1026992202952536064 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1026992202952536064
- ma2rten 8y ago
  This is interesting! I work at Google, but I didn't know that Google has a PAC. It's actually funded by employee contributions and it's aim is to support an open internet. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00428623 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00428623 They lobby for net neutrality, patent reform, immigration reform and similar issues. This page has more information about Google's political activities in general: https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency.html https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency.html I think Google is much more transparent about this than other companies.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    You may want to learn more about Google's PAC. They donate to some not-that-great people, and it's hard to say "open internet" justifies that. https://donationsfrom.tech/google https://donationsfrom.tech/google And if you dig into your own link you'll see that.
    - ma2rten 8y ago
      I saw that and I don't see an issue. Money (unfortunately) influences politics in the US and the best way to influence it is to give across the political spectrum.
      - ubernostrum 8y ago
        This is the problem with automated rule-based decision-making. Of course Google relies on it, because Google is existentially committed to the idea that this can solve any problem that ever has existed or ever will exist. But you have to ask yourself whether single-issue political action has a history of consistently producing good results (spoiler: it doesn't). If Google really wanted to, they could find plenty of candidates who support the single issue Google cares about and are also generally decent people; it's not like there's only been one such candidate in the entire history of the universe, as you seem to be implying. But Google doesn't want to, and as a result Google ends up directly supporting candidates who will go on to do awful things, and sweeping it under the rug -- as with so many other Google problems -- by saying "well, the automated system decided to support him". You don't get to dodge the responsibility for that.
chimeracoder 8y ago
> Why doesn't google/fb (other than money) just ban ads from non-political campaigns.. i.e. Pacs, etc.. if you're Bernie Sanders you can run an ad, if you're a super pac or political agency you cannot run campaigns for a politician, only the verified politician and designated politician workers can access adwords/fb ads for that campaign. Why doesn't google/fb (other than money) just ban ads from non-political campaigns.. i.e. Pacs, etc.. if you're Bernie Sanders you can run an ad, if you're a super pac or political agency you cannot run campaigns for a politician, only the verified politician and designated politician workers can access adwords/fb ads for that campaign. This would essentially help make citizens united null/void at least so far as social media/search engine ad buys are considered... So if you're a billionaire, you can run an ad campaign for yourself (either as a candidate or to promote issues you care about), but several thousand citizens can't come together to crowdfund an ad campaign to talk about the same thing? That is, in effect, what you are saying.
- gremlinsinc 8y ago
  Where do you think pac's get most their money? From corporations, billionaires, special interests..you think small donor's donate to most pacs? I think special interests and corporations and billionaires should NOT be allowed to run ads AT all, unless they're personally running for office themselves. Candidates should be able to take donations but only from real citizens, and only up to a certain limit. Ideally, politicians would have a limit on how much they can spend on ads per quarter, to make it more 'fair' for everyone running, or hell give everyone equal budgets. They can then take personal small donations from masses to build up their campaign coffers but cannot accept donations from lobbyists, corporations, etc... This would ensure more even-ness and that the person who wins will win because of their message/support instead of having more money to throw at it.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > special interests and corporations and billionaires should NOT be allowed to run ads AT all, unless they're personally running for office themselves So out with the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and every other advocacy group? There is a reason we have the First Amendment.
smudgymcscmudge 8y ago
This is how you get a lot of PACs lobbying to get you regulated or broken up.
ProAm 8y ago
That would literally take the voice away from people and place it soley in the governments hands. I dont want the only messages I hear be from the government or people wanting to be the government.
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  Google is not the government.
- burkaman 8y ago
  Do you not have any sources of information besides the government and ads?
mmanfrin 8y ago
At what point is something political vs not? Is something about climate change political? Is an ad saying 'please pollute less' political? Where does that line get drawn?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  > The continuum fallacy (also called the fallacy of the beard,[1] or line drawing fallacy) is an informal fallacy closely related to the sorites paradox, or paradox of the heap. Both fallacies cause one to erroneously reject a vague claim simply because it is not as precise as one would like it to be. Vagueness alone does not necessarily imply invalidity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy > Where does that line get drawn? In this case, at Google.
  - mmanfrin 8y ago
    This whole topic extends from the imprecision of policies at Google, quoting the wiki article of a fallacy doesn't contribute anything. Thanks.
- gremlinsinc 8y ago
  I never said a pac couldn't advertise political causes... BUT they just can't mention politicians... i.e. they can't be a 3rd arm 'unapproved' tentacle representing a political campaign...
  - tzs 8y ago
    Suppose the ad just talks about some issue (pollution, guns, abortion, immigration) and what the advertiser wants to happen, and includes a link to their site "for more information" or "how to help" or something like that. The ad does not mention any particular politician or party. The "for more information" or "how to help" page it links to, however, does explicitly name politicians and praises or condemns their positions on the issue and urges you to vote accordingly. Allowed under your rules?
cryptonector 8y ago
Why would you not want your voice heard? Why do you want your candidates to be limited to what their campaigns can afford? Some, recall, are independently wealthy, and many/most are not.
unimpressive 8y ago
I've run a small PAC before and am only replying so other people can see social proof that these are org-types that normal people at least occasionally use.

kingbirdy 8y ago

Because that would cost them money, and some competitor would show up who is willing to sell ads to pacs.

devoply 8y ago
> some competitor would show up fb and goog have a captive market. no competitor is going to sell ads to their customers. they would lose money and that's it.
- hirsin 8y ago
  Or force the politician to put more of their money on Facebook and let the PACs backfill the TV and other spending where the rules don't exist.
canadianwriter 8y ago
Competitor will show up to take on... Google? People aren't switching away from Google any time soon.
- ma2rten 8y ago
  People are going to switch away from Google search, but Google's ad networks (DoubleClick, GDN/AdSense, Admob, AdX) actually compete with other ad networks (like OpenX, Rubicon Project, Criteo, AppNexus). Many publishers use more than one ad network to maximize their income, so advertisers can just move to the other networks.
  - xstephen95x 8y ago
    AppNexus is now AT&T Advertising and Analytics as of today..
  - jonny_eh 8y ago
    But only Google ad networks appear on Google products. They can choose what advertising appears there with no competitive impact.
drharby 8y ago
Precisely. Besides, good luck justifying the loss of revenue to the board of directors with 'muh good will'

ISL 8y ago

That would be extremely expensive for the platform.

ubernostrum 8y ago

Because Google/FB/etc. also run their own PACs. Follow @pinboard on Twitter for nice juxtapositions of the "we want to be neutral" language of a lot of the platforms, versus where they're putting their money. Example: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1026992202952536064 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1026992202952536064

ma2rten 8y ago
This is interesting! I work at Google, but I didn't know that Google has a PAC. It's actually funded by employee contributions and it's aim is to support an open internet. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00428623 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00428623 They lobby for net neutrality, patent reform, immigration reform and similar issues. This page has more information about Google's political activities in general: https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency.html https://www.google.com/publicpolicy/transparency.html I think Google is much more transparent about this than other companies.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  You may want to learn more about Google's PAC. They donate to some not-that-great people, and it's hard to say "open internet" justifies that. https://donationsfrom.tech/google https://donationsfrom.tech/google And if you dig into your own link you'll see that.
  - ma2rten 8y ago
    I saw that and I don't see an issue. Money (unfortunately) influences politics in the US and the best way to influence it is to give across the political spectrum.
    - ubernostrum 8y ago
      This is the problem with automated rule-based decision-making. Of course Google relies on it, because Google is existentially committed to the idea that this can solve any problem that ever has existed or ever will exist. But you have to ask yourself whether single-issue political action has a history of consistently producing good results (spoiler: it doesn't). If Google really wanted to, they could find plenty of candidates who support the single issue Google cares about and are also generally decent people; it's not like there's only been one such candidate in the entire history of the universe, as you seem to be implying. But Google doesn't want to, and as a result Google ends up directly supporting candidates who will go on to do awful things, and sweeping it under the rug -- as with so many other Google problems -- by saying "well, the automated system decided to support him". You don't get to dodge the responsibility for that.

chimeracoder 8y ago

> Why doesn't google/fb (other than money) just ban ads from non-political campaigns.. i.e. Pacs, etc.. if you're Bernie Sanders you can run an ad, if you're a super pac or political agency you cannot run campaigns for a politician, only the verified politician and designated politician workers can access adwords/fb ads for that campaign. Why doesn't google/fb (other than money) just ban ads from non-political campaigns.. i.e. Pacs, etc.. if you're Bernie Sanders you can run an ad, if you're a super pac or political agency you cannot run campaigns for a politician, only the verified politician and designated politician workers can access adwords/fb ads for that campaign. This would essentially help make citizens united null/void at least so far as social media/search engine ad buys are considered... So if you're a billionaire, you can run an ad campaign for yourself (either as a candidate or to promote issues you care about), but several thousand citizens can't come together to crowdfund an ad campaign to talk about the same thing? That is, in effect, what you are saying.

gremlinsinc 8y ago
Where do you think pac's get most their money? From corporations, billionaires, special interests..you think small donor's donate to most pacs? I think special interests and corporations and billionaires should NOT be allowed to run ads AT all, unless they're personally running for office themselves. Candidates should be able to take donations but only from real citizens, and only up to a certain limit. Ideally, politicians would have a limit on how much they can spend on ads per quarter, to make it more 'fair' for everyone running, or hell give everyone equal budgets. They can then take personal small donations from masses to build up their campaign coffers but cannot accept donations from lobbyists, corporations, etc... This would ensure more even-ness and that the person who wins will win because of their message/support instead of having more money to throw at it.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > special interests and corporations and billionaires should NOT be allowed to run ads AT all, unless they're personally running for office themselves So out with the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and every other advocacy group? There is a reason we have the First Amendment.

smudgymcscmudge 8y ago

This is how you get a lot of PACs lobbying to get you regulated or broken up.

ProAm 8y ago

That would literally take the voice away from people and place it soley in the governments hands. I dont want the only messages I hear be from the government or people wanting to be the government.

jonny_eh 8y ago
Google is not the government.
burkaman 8y ago
Do you not have any sources of information besides the government and ads?

mmanfrin 8y ago

At what point is something political vs not? Is something about climate change political? Is an ad saying 'please pollute less' political? Where does that line get drawn?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jonny_eh 8y ago
> The continuum fallacy (also called the fallacy of the beard,[1] or line drawing fallacy) is an informal fallacy closely related to the sorites paradox, or paradox of the heap. Both fallacies cause one to erroneously reject a vague claim simply because it is not as precise as one would like it to be. Vagueness alone does not necessarily imply invalidity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy > Where does that line get drawn? In this case, at Google.
- mmanfrin 8y ago
  This whole topic extends from the imprecision of policies at Google, quoting the wiki article of a fallacy doesn't contribute anything. Thanks.
gremlinsinc 8y ago
I never said a pac couldn't advertise political causes... BUT they just can't mention politicians... i.e. they can't be a 3rd arm 'unapproved' tentacle representing a political campaign...
- tzs 8y ago
  Suppose the ad just talks about some issue (pollution, guns, abortion, immigration) and what the advertiser wants to happen, and includes a link to their site "for more information" or "how to help" or something like that. The ad does not mention any particular politician or party. The "for more information" or "how to help" page it links to, however, does explicitly name politicians and praises or condemns their positions on the issue and urges you to vote accordingly. Allowed under your rules?

cryptonector 8y ago

Why would you not want your voice heard? Why do you want your candidates to be limited to what their campaigns can afford? Some, recall, are independently wealthy, and many/most are not.

unimpressive 8y ago

I've run a small PAC before and am only replying so other people can see social proof that these are org-types that normal people at least occasionally use.