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The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web. No more "hey w

The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web. No more "hey who is paying for that anti-XXX political ad?", they just wouldn't exist anymore. Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns. Also, this article comes just one week after that one: "Facebook’s political ad tool let us buy ads “paid for” by Mike Pence and ISIS" [0] [0] https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wj9mny/facebooks-political-ad-tool-let-us-buy-ads-paid-for-by-mike-pence-and-isis https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wj9mny/facebooks-politic...

thejerz 8y ago
America has a 1st amendment which protects free speech. Implicit in that covenant is the responsibility on the recipient, not the transmitter, to determine truthfulness. If you care whether Mike Pence actually paid for that ad, go research it -- and if you can't, don't rely on it being true.
- JabavuAdams 8y ago
  This covenant is based on an outdated and incorrect model of how the brain works. You are largely not in control of your responses. You do things because you want to do them but why do you want what you want? Advertising works. Propaganda works. If they cause social ills, it's valid to discuss how to avoid those ills.
foolfoolz 8y ago
+1. i know government TV channels have scary connotations, but i’d rather see a website or tv channel or radio set up where each candidate gets a bunch, but equal number, of campaign ads. play them on repeat all day for free. and remove paid political ads from all other sources
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  Who decides who gets to be a candidate?
lucio 8y ago
Should we do the same with TV and billboards? >Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns.
- hadrien01 8y ago
  That's how it's done in my country, France: candidates can't pay for political ads. They have equally-sized and free-to-use billboards in front of public buildings [0] and a free one-minute-and-a-half-per-day ad space on public television [1]. That's it. [0] http://dspagnou.celeonet.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/degradation-panneau-electoral-004.JPG http://dspagnou.celeonet.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/degra... [1] For fun, the 2017 ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__Il8Z7lrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__Il8Z7lrg
  - taurath 8y ago
    How much campaigning happens on Facebook, or through Facebook groups I wonder?
    - hadrien01 8y ago
      As ads or promoted posts, zero. Through Facebook pages, well, quite much, with varying degrees of success. Extreme presidential candidates last year (Mélenchon for the far-left and Le Pen for the far-right) had I think the best participation numbers online, and a pretty good YouTube strategy (almost daily explanatory videos). Fringe candidates (Asselineau, Dupont-Aignan) are also quite good online. Our current president, Macron (liberal in the non-American sense of the term), also had a good online strategy, but the other candidates were forgettable at best. You're not limited on what you can do on a political Facebook page, as long as you don't pay for promotion, respect expression rules (no defamation or hate speech), and stop campaigning two days before election day. edit: replaced discrimination by defamation; still not sure about the translation but I think it fits more
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    Can they pay for their own website? What about a website about their ideas? What about linking to that website? Limiting speech like that sounds dystopian. It's sure great for established players though as they are already known and get a lot of air time anyway while the competition can't even pay to try to convince others to their ideas.
ed_balls 8y ago
- won't work as a free speech violation. - how would you define political?
- tracker1 8y ago
  In the end, I think that those companies that finance advertising as a non-profit or political organization should be required to have open books on who donated to that org. At least more openness can curb some of it. As it stands, nobody knows a lot of the time.
hoorayimhelping 8y ago
For varying definitions of best. We have the first amendment in America. It says the government can't make laws that limit a private citizen's ability to express themselves (among other things). That includes their political advertising. This is a really dangerous / slippery precedent to set, and the whole "we should change longstanding laws to deal with a problem that feels like a local maximum" is something that many people throughout history have warned us not to do. I think (and I don't think this is an uncommon position in America) that some political ads on facebook is way less of an evil than letting our government dictate what is allowed to be said by whom and when. No thanks.
- taurath 8y ago
  If Facebook is to be the public square, then it needs all the protections and consequences that come with it. You can’t say you’re a senator on a TV ad - that’s impersonating an elected official which is a plenty reasonable curb on free speech - just as you can’t walk around with a police officers uniform. There is SOME limit to speech in terms of fraud.
  - jdminhbg 8y ago
    That's fine, but it depends on the value of you in "You can't say you're a senator." Is Vice liable for fraud here? Facebook? And don't forget, the OP is responding to GP proposing simply banning political ads on Facebook altogether, not simply fraudulent ones.
    - taurath 8y ago
      That you need to ask the question sort of implies that there is 0 value to Facebook in catching that they were defrauded - if thats right, then there's nothing wrong with regulation. If Facebook doesn't have the ability to determine who is running ads, then I agree with the GP that political ads should be banned on Facebook altogether. I'm sorry, we make people show ID to buy cigarettes and beer - mass political advertising needs SOME sort of regulation.
    - tracker1 8y ago
evo_9 8y ago
I think it should go further - ban all political ads, period. They do more harm than good, are mostly designed to confuse and obscure the topics and/or candidate(s). Instead of ads have the politicians debate on live TV to express their political views. Post the debates online for everyone to watch at their leisure. Leave the measures/proposals to us to research; in Colorado we get an excellent voter guide that clearly explains the measures, including pros/cons. That's all I use.
- buboard 8y ago
  and how do you plan to advocate your proposal?
- specialist 8y ago
  I believe, but cannot prove, that we (society) could largely achieve the same ends without violating the First Amendment: 1) Switch from winner-takes-all to approval voting. Largely eliminates negative campaigning. Counteracts drive to partisanship. 2) Restore Fairness Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine 3) Publicly financed campaigns Greatly reduce effectiveness of pay to play strategy.
  - avar 8y ago
    There's no way to restore the fairness doctrine in any meaningful way. It only ever applied to broadcast licenses. The way it was justified was that there's a natural limitation on the amount of spectrum, so the government has an interest in ensuring that not all channels on that spectrum are Fox News. The spectrum gets more irrelevant by the day as more TV moves to cable/Internet, and people in general get their news from the likes of Facebook instead of TV. There's no natural limitation on the number of channels on cable or Internet, so the government trying to police speech there would be ruled unconstitutional. Your #1 suggestion is doable, but would require something just short of a successful revolution to pull off. #3 likewise, you'd need a constitutional amendment due to Citizens United.
    - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
qubax 8y ago
> The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web. I disagree. Not only is that against the first amendment and it is discriminatory. Why should political ads be allowed on other platforms, but not on social media or the web? And why should non-political ads allowed on social media or the web? Maybe tightening up ad selection, but banning ads or speech isn't the answer.
dgudkov 8y ago
I have a better idea -- every should contain (at least in metadata) public information about the organization who bought it. For political ads, there additionally should be the price paid for the ad.
- phd514 8y ago
  The former of your suggestions is already required for most political advertising: https://transition.fec.gov/pages/brochures/spec_notice_brochure.pdf https://transition.fec.gov/pages/brochures/spec_notice_broch...
- IncRnd 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure there is an even better idea -- don't expect Facebook news and ads to be legitimate. News from a social media site is false at the worst and unreliable at the best.
shard972 8y ago
The best solution is to pass an amendment to the constitution to adjust free speech exceptions? If thats the best solution, I don't think i want to know what the worse one is...
- rickycook 8y ago
  yeah! because changing a document that was written hundreds of years ago to suit the highly changing landscape that is human society is a terrible idea........
  - shard972 8y ago
    It's 2018 and somehow we all believe that humans have changed over a few hundred years but the idea that groups of humans that lived oceans apart for thousands of years had 0 divergence from each other. Amazing how we can change so much but still be the same.
olalonde 8y ago
Aren't there already laws against false advertising? That's the real issue here...
tokyodude 8y ago
what's a political ad? Is an ad for a Michael Moore movie a poltical ad given his movies are poltical?
- hadrien01 8y ago
  Wouldn't they be classified as documentaries?
  - tokyodude 8y ago
    if it's lobbying for one idea over another how is it not political? Moore is known to be left leaning and his movies are known to strongly push for leftist policies directly or indirectly for candidates. If he releases his "documentary" a month before an election it's pretty clear he means to influence the voters so how is that not really a political ad for the candidates for his favored party?
BurningFrog 8y ago
Banning political ads is not some neutral rule. It primarily favors incumbents and the status quo.
lr4444lr 8y ago
Which puts a severe damper on grassroots campaigns that don't have huge budgets to meet the minimum needed for print, radio, and TV. Glad it works for you in Europe... or does it?

thejerz 8y ago

America has a 1st amendment which protects free speech. Implicit in that covenant is the responsibility on the recipient, not the transmitter, to determine truthfulness. If you care whether Mike Pence actually paid for that ad, go research it -- and if you can't, don't rely on it being true.

JabavuAdams 8y ago
This covenant is based on an outdated and incorrect model of how the brain works. You are largely not in control of your responses. You do things because you want to do them but why do you want what you want? Advertising works. Propaganda works. If they cause social ills, it's valid to discuss how to avoid those ills.

foolfoolz 8y ago

+1. i know government TV channels have scary connotations, but i’d rather see a website or tv channel or radio set up where each candidate gets a bunch, but equal number, of campaign ads. play them on repeat all day for free. and remove paid political ads from all other sources

skookumchuck 8y ago
Who decides who gets to be a candidate?

lucio 8y ago

Should we do the same with TV and billboards? >Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns.

hadrien01 8y ago
That's how it's done in my country, France: candidates can't pay for political ads. They have equally-sized and free-to-use billboards in front of public buildings [0] and a free one-minute-and-a-half-per-day ad space on public television [1]. That's it. [0] http://dspagnou.celeonet.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/degradation-panneau-electoral-004.JPG http://dspagnou.celeonet.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/degra... [1] For fun, the 2017 ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__Il8Z7lrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__Il8Z7lrg
- taurath 8y ago
  How much campaigning happens on Facebook, or through Facebook groups I wonder?
  - hadrien01 8y ago
    As ads or promoted posts, zero. Through Facebook pages, well, quite much, with varying degrees of success. Extreme presidential candidates last year (Mélenchon for the far-left and Le Pen for the far-right) had I think the best participation numbers online, and a pretty good YouTube strategy (almost daily explanatory videos). Fringe candidates (Asselineau, Dupont-Aignan) are also quite good online. Our current president, Macron (liberal in the non-American sense of the term), also had a good online strategy, but the other candidates were forgettable at best. You're not limited on what you can do on a political Facebook page, as long as you don't pay for promotion, respect expression rules (no defamation or hate speech), and stop campaigning two days before election day. edit: replaced discrimination by defamation; still not sure about the translation but I think it fits more
- bluecalm 8y ago
  Can they pay for their own website? What about a website about their ideas? What about linking to that website? Limiting speech like that sounds dystopian. It's sure great for established players though as they are already known and get a lot of air time anyway while the competition can't even pay to try to convince others to their ideas.

ed_balls 8y ago

- won't work as a free speech violation. - how would you define political?

tracker1 8y ago
In the end, I think that those companies that finance advertising as a non-profit or political organization should be required to have open books on who donated to that org. At least more openness can curb some of it. As it stands, nobody knows a lot of the time.

hoorayimhelping 8y ago

For varying definitions of best. We have the first amendment in America. It says the government can't make laws that limit a private citizen's ability to express themselves (among other things). That includes their political advertising. This is a really dangerous / slippery precedent to set, and the whole "we should change longstanding laws to deal with a problem that feels like a local maximum" is something that many people throughout history have warned us not to do. I think (and I don't think this is an uncommon position in America) that some political ads on facebook is way less of an evil than letting our government dictate what is allowed to be said by whom and when. No thanks.

taurath 8y ago
If Facebook is to be the public square, then it needs all the protections and consequences that come with it. You can’t say you’re a senator on a TV ad - that’s impersonating an elected official which is a plenty reasonable curb on free speech - just as you can’t walk around with a police officers uniform. There is SOME limit to speech in terms of fraud.
- jdminhbg 8y ago
  That's fine, but it depends on the value of you in "You can't say you're a senator." Is Vice liable for fraud here? Facebook? And don't forget, the OP is responding to GP proposing simply banning political ads on Facebook altogether, not simply fraudulent ones.
  - taurath 8y ago
    That you need to ask the question sort of implies that there is 0 value to Facebook in catching that they were defrauded - if thats right, then there's nothing wrong with regulation. If Facebook doesn't have the ability to determine who is running ads, then I agree with the GP that political ads should be banned on Facebook altogether. I'm sorry, we make people show ID to buy cigarettes and beer - mass political advertising needs SOME sort of regulation.
  - tracker1 8y ago

evo_9 8y ago

I think it should go further - ban all political ads, period. They do more harm than good, are mostly designed to confuse and obscure the topics and/or candidate(s). Instead of ads have the politicians debate on live TV to express their political views. Post the debates online for everyone to watch at their leisure. Leave the measures/proposals to us to research; in Colorado we get an excellent voter guide that clearly explains the measures, including pros/cons. That's all I use.

buboard 8y ago
and how do you plan to advocate your proposal?
specialist 8y ago
I believe, but cannot prove, that we (society) could largely achieve the same ends without violating the First Amendment: 1) Switch from winner-takes-all to approval voting. Largely eliminates negative campaigning. Counteracts drive to partisanship. 2) Restore Fairness Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine 3) Publicly financed campaigns Greatly reduce effectiveness of pay to play strategy.
- avar 8y ago
  There's no way to restore the fairness doctrine in any meaningful way. It only ever applied to broadcast licenses. The way it was justified was that there's a natural limitation on the amount of spectrum, so the government has an interest in ensuring that not all channels on that spectrum are Fox News. The spectrum gets more irrelevant by the day as more TV moves to cable/Internet, and people in general get their news from the likes of Facebook instead of TV. There's no natural limitation on the number of channels on cable or Internet, so the government trying to police speech there would be ruled unconstitutional. Your #1 suggestion is doable, but would require something just short of a successful revolution to pull off. #3 likewise, you'd need a constitutional amendment due to Citizens United.
  - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

qubax 8y ago

> The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web. I disagree. Not only is that against the first amendment and it is discriminatory. Why should political ads be allowed on other platforms, but not on social media or the web? And why should non-political ads allowed on social media or the web? Maybe tightening up ad selection, but banning ads or speech isn't the answer.

dgudkov 8y ago

I have a better idea -- every should contain (at least in metadata) public information about the organization who bought it. For political ads, there additionally should be the price paid for the ad.

phd514 8y ago
The former of your suggestions is already required for most political advertising: https://transition.fec.gov/pages/brochures/spec_notice_brochure.pdf https://transition.fec.gov/pages/brochures/spec_notice_broch...
IncRnd 8y ago
I'm pretty sure there is an even better idea -- don't expect Facebook news and ads to be legitimate. News from a social media site is false at the worst and unreliable at the best.

shard972 8y ago

The best solution is to pass an amendment to the constitution to adjust free speech exceptions? If thats the best solution, I don't think i want to know what the worse one is...

rickycook 8y ago
yeah! because changing a document that was written hundreds of years ago to suit the highly changing landscape that is human society is a terrible idea........
- shard972 8y ago
  It's 2018 and somehow we all believe that humans have changed over a few hundred years but the idea that groups of humans that lived oceans apart for thousands of years had 0 divergence from each other. Amazing how we can change so much but still be the same.

olalonde 8y ago

Aren't there already laws against false advertising? That's the real issue here...

tokyodude 8y ago

what's a political ad? Is an ad for a Michael Moore movie a poltical ad given his movies are poltical?

hadrien01 8y ago
Wouldn't they be classified as documentaries?
- tokyodude 8y ago
  if it's lobbying for one idea over another how is it not political? Moore is known to be left leaning and his movies are known to strongly push for leftist policies directly or indirectly for candidates. If he releases his "documentary" a month before an election it's pretty clear he means to influence the voters so how is that not really a political ad for the candidates for his favored party?

BurningFrog 8y ago

Banning political ads is not some neutral rule. It primarily favors incumbents and the status quo.

lr4444lr 8y ago

Which puts a severe damper on grassroots campaigns that don't have huge budgets to meet the minimum needed for print, radio, and TV. Glad it works for you in Europe... or does it?