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Facebook backtracks after removing Warren ads calling for Facebook breakup

302 points by edward 8y ago

minimaxir 8y ago
> Facebook confirms it took down Elizabeth Warren's ads about Facebook, but is in the process of restoring them. > FB spox: "We removed the ads because they violated our policies against use of our corporate logo. In the interest of allowing robust debate, we are restoring the ads.” https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1105241057007087616 https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1105241057007087616
- gatherhunterer 8y ago
  The terms of service suggest that any ad that discusses Facebook is ripe for removal. Her point stands and is expanded by the selective enforcement of their ToS; is this the platform for public discourse that we want for ourselves and do we want any such platform to be this powerful?
  - dmix 8y ago
    I thought Warren’s demographic loves having top down moderation-heavy social networks?
    - gatherhunterer 8y ago
      Is what you think of Elizabeth Warren informed by what Elizabeth Warren says and does?
    - int_19h 8y ago
      It depends. There are specific things that FB has done that makes their censorship unwelcome in many leftie circles - e.g. the real name policy is seen as transphobic by many, and their "indecent content" standards as sexist. They have also removed comments such as "all white people are racist" as hate speech. But yes, I would say that most of her voters want different priorities in online censorship, not less of it. It will be interesting how she navigates that - "social media marketplace that isn't dominated by a single censor" is vague enough that Voat could put it on their front page as an endorsement (and they just might, if only for the sake of trolling).
    - Grue3 8y ago
      Only when they moderate people they don't like.
  - dillondoyle 8y ago
    To be fair, I have in the past had ads automatically 'removed' in approval process which use the logo that have nothing to do with FB, just happen to use the logo. Same with 'March Madness.' They have automated approvals which catch use of the logo.
    - gatherhunterer 8y ago
      That is a fair point. I assume that they have different rules for the likes of Warren than they have for you. It is feasible, though, that this was caught in an algorithm and Facebook declined to volunteer that fact.
      - dillondoyle 8y ago
        I work almost exclusively for politicians, specifically buying ads online (a lot on FB). It would be a new development to me if there is a tiered/segregated approval for political ads. Perhaps now that you have to sign affidavit, but it feels like the same outsourced process as normal where it's mostly automated process.
pmart123 8y ago
While she views Facebook as too powerful, it is ironic she is happy to provide as revenue to the company.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  Not sure about that minor premise...
- Larrikin 8y ago
  Facebook has the most Facebook users.
- dralley 8y ago
  Alternatively, she's clever enough to expect them to take them down, and thus prove her point.
- paxys 8y ago
  It's not ironic, this is the entire point she is trying to make. It is impossible to reach a meaningful chunk of the public today without going through Facebook, and they have the ability to filter content as they see fit.
  - sdinsn 8y ago
    > It is impossible to reach a meaningful chunk of the public today without going through Facebook One could argue that the point of advertising is not to reach a meaningful chunk of the public, instead a meaningful chunk of a specific demographic.
    - Barrin92 8y ago
      If that's the case Facebook's position is even more dominant, because of their unique strength at giving advertisers the possibility to target specific demographics.
      - pferde 8y ago
tsycho 8y ago
Clever strategy by Elizabeth Warren. The ads might be effective in promoting her platform by themselves. And if the media report on the apparent irony, or FB takes them down, that gives her more publicity. FB's actions may cause a Streisland-like effect as well.
- williamscales 8y ago
  > The ads were limited in size and reach, with each costing under $100, according to disclosure details listed online. Indeed, it's incredible how cheap it was.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  It's not clever when you consider most people aren't supportive of it. There's definitely a classist kind of fury right now, aimed a little bit at 'big corps' and 'the rich' - but I seriously doubt it extends to such moves. Most people that use Facebook probably like it, pretty much, and don't suffer any visible consequences of their ostensible loss of privacy. Similar for Google. I think a smarter approach would be some regulation that hit home, particularly on privacy etc..
  - int_19h 8y ago
    I can assure you that there are many working class people who have a problem with Facebook. In fact, every time I see a discussion on Facebook and privacy in non-techie FB communities, it's surprising how negative people feel, and how many say that they would stop using it altogether, if they didn't have some connections there they cared about. It's basically lock-in via social graph, and don't think people are stupid enough that they don't notice.
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      That large groups of Americans have some 'concerns about privacy' is nowhere near enough impetus to think that they want Facebook and Google to be 'broken up'. HN readers mostly live in bubbles, and 'breaking up Facebook' is definitely one of the things Republicans just hope the Dems will run on, because it's not going to fly. Consider for a moment how separating Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook is going to fundamentally change privacy anyhow? This is a political calculation by Warren: she needs to stake out her claim, make some noise, throw some red meat to the Dem primary voters, and take away the noise in the press about her registering as an Aboriginal while living in Texas. It'll do well for her now, but it's not a winning formula for the general election.
Simulacra 8y ago
Just curious, how many out there use some type of Facebook ad-blocking solution?
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  My Facbook ad-blocking solution has been to: 1 - quit Facebook 2 - use /etc/hosts to resolve any Facebook-related sites (and other advertising/spam/tracking/malware sites) to 255.255.255.255 3 - proxy my web requests through privoxy 4 - use the uMatrix and uBlock Origin addons in Firefox that block anything that gets through the rest But I mostly browse the web through emacs-w3m, which isn't even capable of running javascript so addons such as uMatrix are not necessary. Needless to say, I almost never see ads.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- newscracker 8y ago
  Can’t find canonical sources right now, but the percentage of users of Facebook on mobile is 90%+. Of that, most of them would be using the official app, where traditional ad blockers wouldn’t work. But ad blocking is enough of a money problem for Facebook that it keeps attempting to beat them through many tricks (spelling words with invisible characters, putting words split into characters and each one in a <span>, etc., to beat pattern matching). The rare times when I use Facebook, I always login through a browser with an ad blocker (and tracker blockers) on.
- ashelmire 8y ago
  Block it via /etc/hosts
AzzieElbab 8y ago
Pretty classic provocation and overreaction
- AzzieElbab 8y ago
  Amazon bans sales of Trump's "Break up Amazon to MAGA" hats
justboxing 8y ago
Serious question(s), not trolling. Why shouldn't Facebook take down the ad that's calling for a break up of their Company? How is this any different from a person walking into a store and asking to place an ad inside the store calling for breakup or shutting down of said store? What store owner would ever allow such a thing? Why would (or should) any business allow any sort of propaganda that strikes at the heart of it's operations? Why would Facebook be expected to restore the ads (which I don't think they should've done).
- sanxiyn 8y ago
  I think Facebook has every right to take down the ad calling for breakup of Facebook.
  - almost_usual 8y ago
    This would suggest Facebook supports censorship
    - malandrew 8y ago
      It's an ad, not organic content posted by users. If the latter were blocked, I could see it as censorship. Should <insert name of television or radio station> news be required to run ads that are critical of itself?
      - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
        Users aren't paying Facebook to host their content. FB have zero obligation to continue doing so. They are well within their rights to censor perniciously and arbitrarily.
    - cronix 8y ago
      Yeah, they probably censor child porn, and other things, too. Don't you support censorship?
      - 8y ago
buboard 8y ago
Thats overreach on her part too, however. do her voters realize what this means about her relationship with the press after she gets elected? or maybe she is rehashing trump's entire tirades about corrupt media etc.
- almost_usual 8y ago
  I’d imagine her relationship with the press would be positive. FB is actively at odds with mainstream media.
morningmoon 8y ago
Breakup Facebook rhetoric is so counterproductive. It achieves nothing. It solves no problem. The country has real problems. “I don’t like Facebook” isn’t even remotely one of them. I won’t be voting for her, that’s for sure.
- ktjfi 8y ago
  While real problems are largely ignored, stupid stuff like this takes up all the airtime and moves a sizable amount of votes. Democracy is just a way of keeping the masses docile.
- int_19h 8y ago
  Have you actually seen the proposal? It's not specifically about Facebook, they just happen to be a good example of market failure that she wants to prevent.
  - morningmoon 8y ago
    I read her blog post. I don't see anywhere in her post that gives one concrete example of a negative impact on consumers. She gives the example of Amazon.com forcing diapers.com to sell diapers at a lower price as a reason for why we need to prevent acquisitions. But getting products for cheaper prices benefits consumers... The small business founders got rich and consumers got cheaper diapers. I'm not seeing any problem with that. She claims Amazon is anti-competitive because they promote their own products on their own website. Websites aren't railroads. Consumers can choose any website by typing in the address in their web browser. Consumers can switch search engines and shopping websites. That was not the case with railroads or phone networks - because for reasons that should be very obvious you can't have a million different railroad lines and telephone wires. Unlike the web, they were physically mutually exclusive. If a company provided superior service and prices to Amazon consumers can easily choose to use them.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      You might find a problem with that arrangement when you need to buy something that Amazon doesn't or won't carry, and there's nobody else in town (because they can't survive on such products alone). Or as a manufacturer who makes a new and better product compared to something that they have, but who can't find a sales channel for it. Or as someone who is unhappy with some of Amazon's practices - say, how they treat their employees. And competition doesn't just show up out of thin air - you need a healthy free market for companies to get to the point where they can challenge the market leader. If you allow the monopolist to dominate the market, they will never get there, and there won't be anything for consumers to easily choose from. In general, concentration of power is dangerous. Few people dispute this with governments - it's not like we wait for them to become authoritarian, we write constitutions that have arrangements that deliberately cripple their ability to do so (separation of powers etc). Why should it be any different for large corporations, when we know from history that monopoly abuse is the most likely outcome?
cm2012 8y ago
This was done algorthmically. No doubt about it.
- almost_usual 8y ago
  Does it matter?
  - cm2012 8y ago
    Sure. That algorithmic rule is to prevent people from pretending to be FB or pretending to have FB's authority in ads (the you can't use the fb logo rule). It wasn't meant to target critics of FB.
zaroth 8y ago
From what I can tell, Facebook did not take down all the ads Warren posted calling for the breakup of Facebook, there were specific ads which got flagged for use of the Facebook logo. So it seems to me that Warren’s team when fishing for ads about breaking up Facebook which would flag in the automated system, and then ran to report about it. It smells like a setup.
- FakeComments 8y ago
  The whole thing is a set-up: Small businesses are just as likely to block you negatively advertising about them on their platform as large ones, so Warren showing she’s blocked doesn’t tell us anything about Facebook’s size or practices compared to businesses in general, and thus doesn’t tell us if they’re a problematic monopoly. How many businesses let you use their service to argue against them? Not even the news, collectively much less individually, accurately reports content on the news — and they’re the ones held forward as examples of a self-policing industry serving society. The only way to conclude that Facebook abused their position here is if you already believe that; otherwise, it really doesn’t seem like anything unusual happened. This seems like acting really aggressively, then whining when you get expected and normal pushback: a common bullying tactic from children.
potatofarmer45 8y ago
This is smart politics. Rather than simply telling people FB is a monopoly, she runs a limited experiment that had it been left alone, would have limited effect since the budget was so small ($100). Now this puts FB in a bind. If they really are a middleman for content, then these ads don't violate any laws and shouldn't be blocked. However, FB as a company with a product should block it just like coffee shop wouldn't allow a banner on the wall saying "better coffee down the street". This sort of overreaction to a small calculated provocation just proves the point that FB is a company first, platform second. This was obvious already to many people, but now there's a clear illustration that'll make it harder for FB to simply say they are a neutral platform.
- evolvedcleaning 8y ago
  Seems more like dropping pamphlets behind enemy lines about the deception, rather than promoting a competitor on company premises.
- crowdpleaser 8y ago
  Does Facebook claim to be a content-agnostic middleman? I know we accuse them of it, but they pulled some GOP / Trump ads for being sensational, that hardly sounds like a dispassionate middleman.
  - jerf 8y ago
    It's not about what they claim to be, it's about the legal provisions that may or may not protect them. I'm not sure of all the details, which wouldn't fit in an HN post anyhow, but the short version is that if they are picking and choosing what can appear on their platform, they're also liable for it. Facebook, among other companies, want to both be able to pick and choose what appears on their platform and to enjoy the legal protections that come from not picking and choosing, but the days of that arrangement working for them are clearly numbered. And in the case of Facebook, they're clearly going to go for choosing what can appear on their platform, so it's only a matter of time before they get sued about it.
    - 8y ago
rdxm 8y ago
FB gonna FB......how many times do people need to learn this lesson....
nopriorarrests 8y ago
Tangentially related -- according to Eric Weinstein, Facebook also banned Zero Hedge so you can't share ZH stories anymore. (https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1105291678422773760 https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/110529167842277376...)
jonathanjaeger 8y ago
What many fail to realize is that Facebook employees who approve/disapprove of ads are not high up and also do so at a very fast pace. They follow the guidelines and are humans, thus subject to some subjectivity. Any advertiser who has done a lot of advertising on Facebook knows that one day an ad can get approved and the next day a duplicate ad is not. The decision was overturned in Warren's case. This is just making FB out to be much more nefarious than they probably are (in this particular scenario).
- cm2012 8y ago
  Without a doubt. Plus, the rule of "You can't use FB's logo" is not to stop people criticizing FB. It's to stop fraudulent advertisers from pretending to BE Facebook.
alanlamm 8y ago
some of the things we have had censored by fb (even after appealing) 1. illustrations of cupid on valentines day, genitals covered, for nudity. 2. illustrations of a (non sexually provocative) mouth when the logo of our product was a mouth. 3. illustrations (not photos) of people of various body types and ethnicities, not sexually provocative, showing skin but no genitals, nipples or buttocks, with flowers and boxes of chocolates, as a 'love comes in all shapes and sizes' valentines campaign. 4. essentially any image that might insinuate that a woman is capable of feeling pleasure. 5. a friend's ig project intended to promote education & wellness about women's bodies, in a non-sexual way (e.g. did you know that a clitoris has x thousand nerve endings?), with no images. 6. pixelated images on red backgrounds with a 'censored' stamp on them (put up after others were censored) ... the list goes on and on, to the point where we have considered launching a website just to showcase the stuff fb (and other faangs) censor. ... meanwhile ig is filled with essentially soft porn (not to mention images of guns together with bags of money, which in my value system is much worse). ... so I, for one, am laughing my head off at all this. they more than had it coming.
- selimthegrim 8y ago
  At this rate they’d probably censor that song from Chicago (the musical) too if someone posted it.
URSpider94 8y ago
For everyone claiming that Facebook is a monopoly, I have two questions: 1. What do they have a monopoly on? 2. How would Warren’s plan (forcing FB to divest WhatsApp and Instagram) eliminate that monopoly?
- Marsymars 8y ago
  I expect that people making the "monopoly" claim are using imprecise language that may vary in precision based on jurisdictional definitions of monopolies, and fb's market share in any given jurisdiction. Laws about monopolies and antitrust exist to prevent or mitigate certain problems that arise when companies have disproportionate power and influence on society. Whether or not fb qualifies as "monopoly", there are many cogent arguments to be made that about its negative effects due to its disproportionate power.
didibus 8y ago
I think I'd rather see it regulated, then broken up. How are you even going to break it up? And how do we know it won't just be a matter of time before another single, central social network takes hold? Social Networks have this property where they are only useful when other people are also on the same one as you. To me, this property will just guarantee that we would end up back in the same situation. So it would seem smarter to me to just regulate it, so we can limit the bad, and enjoy the good.
speeq 8y ago
Facebook even blocks links to social-media startups like Minds.com for being "unsecure"..
sealthedeal 8y ago
Warren is ALOT
Halluxfboy009 8y ago
By removing her ad, Zuckerberger gave Warren's idea a couple of million dollars worth of publicity.
rjf72 8y ago
There seems to be such a simple solution here that would solve the problems without even needing to breakup companies: require companies offering user generated content for free, to host such content under 'copyleft' licenses, unless users explicitly opt out, and provide simple/API means of access and submission. Copyleft meaning that anybody could freely copy and use the user-generated content from these sites, so long as they themselves also enabled anybody to freely copy and use that content. Content (and other incentives) from users that are opted in would be treated identically to those that opted out. The opt out option is mainly for sites like YouTube where somebody might rely on the site for income and want to voluntarily allow YouTube to publish their video under a restrictive license. The idea is simple - get rid of the network effect. When content is provided under copyleft licenses, anybody could effectively create a social media system where users could see messages from e.g. Facebook and also post messages that would be cloned to Facebook, yet not on Facebook. The possibilities here are endless and it would pose a relatively small regulatory burden on companies. And most important of all - it would actually probably work. The network effect works like gravity. Even if you break something apart, it will sooner or later come together again even if under a different form. --- The biggest problem I see is a problem that any idea that could work, will never be considered. Big tech is driving big bucks to politicians. As recently as 2012 the FTC's bureau of competition submitted to the commissioners a lengthy analysis that recommended suing Google for conduct that had, and would continue to, cause "real harm to consumers and to innovation." The commissioners, majority Democratic appointees (not a partisan jab, but rather emphasizing that this is an institutional/establishment issue - not a partisan one), chose not to pursue the case. [1] [1] - https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/reich/article/Break-up-Facebook-13409062.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/reich/article/Break-up-F...
snazzycalynx 8y ago
well Warren now knows first hand what conservatives have been saying for years - FB has no problem censoring those that they disagree with -welcome to the Club
t0astbread 8y ago
That's some excellent bait and Facebook fell for it: 1. Put up a tiny anti-FB campaign that's not gonna reach anyone on FB 2. FB bans it because their reviewers have to adhere to the rules set by upper mgmt 3. Now you're the victim -> Backlash for FB 4. FB restores the ad 5. Now you're the victim AND the winner 6. The story spreads amongst anti-FB circles, where it was originally meant to hit, with a massive impact (for little money)
- loceng 8y ago
  Whether they planned for this outcome or not, I think it has merit to highlight whether you're able to criticize Facebook on Facebook, and whether using the Facebook logo int his case - associated directly with criticism/a review of Facebook should be considered fair use; and not just for someone in the political light but for average Janes and Joes, who has someone else in this thread pointed out most everyone couldn't get away with or have the rules 'bent' for them.
chj 8y ago
All those people laughing at her proposal, they have no clue that this lady understands tech perfectly well, and sees the problem of centralization in tech industry more clearly. In an interview at SXSW, she addressed to the people working for Big Tech companies, and said that break up will actually make their work more interesting. This is really not some ordinary politician.
chr1 8y ago
Would US be able to breakup non-US tech companies, and if no how would it prevent tech companies from moving outside the US? Some of them have enough money to buy a small country or build a huge seasteading city.
- michaelt 8y ago
  Tech companies haven't moved from San Francisco to Sacramento, in the face of multi-million-dollar house prices in the Bay Area. I find it hard to believe they're incapable of that, yet capable of what you propose :)
Proven 8y ago
Sad! Unfortunately for them they screwed up too many times and now have no guts and PR goodwill to stand up to the bullying socialist.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
josefresco 8y ago
Not sure if this is smart by Senator Warren, or just campaign bluster. The side of me that thinks it's smart, thinks that by asking for a lot (break up of tech giants) she may be able to notch a win that isn't so aggressive (data privacy regulations) It also "breaks the ice" for the argument for when she brings it up on the campaign, it won't be so shocking. The side of me that thinks it's dumb, thinks that she's misreading her audience, in that most people could give two shits about privacy, and in fact really like these platforms. She may be overplaying the "progressive" hand, and as a result may be perceived as "too radical" to be elected by purple states. Regardless, I think her presidential aspirations are doomed. She's a woman, smart, successful, outspoken, Harvard educated, progressive and from "the most liberal" state in the country. All these things are toxic to Republicans.

302 points by edward 8y ago

> Facebook confirms it took down Elizabeth Warren's ads about Facebook, but is in the process of restoring them. > FB spox: "We removed the ads because they violated our policies against use of our corporate logo. In the interest of allowing robust debate, we are restoring the ads.” https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1105241057007087616 https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1105241057007087616

gatherhunterer 8y ago
The terms of service suggest that any ad that discusses Facebook is ripe for removal. Her point stands and is expanded by the selective enforcement of their ToS; is this the platform for public discourse that we want for ourselves and do we want any such platform to be this powerful?
- dmix 8y ago
  I thought Warren’s demographic loves having top down moderation-heavy social networks?
  - gatherhunterer 8y ago
    Is what you think of Elizabeth Warren informed by what Elizabeth Warren says and does?
  - int_19h 8y ago
    It depends. There are specific things that FB has done that makes their censorship unwelcome in many leftie circles - e.g. the real name policy is seen as transphobic by many, and their "indecent content" standards as sexist. They have also removed comments such as "all white people are racist" as hate speech. But yes, I would say that most of her voters want different priorities in online censorship, not less of it. It will be interesting how she navigates that - "social media marketplace that isn't dominated by a single censor" is vague enough that Voat could put it on their front page as an endorsement (and they just might, if only for the sake of trolling).
  - Grue3 8y ago
    Only when they moderate people they don't like.
- dillondoyle 8y ago
  To be fair, I have in the past had ads automatically 'removed' in approval process which use the logo that have nothing to do with FB, just happen to use the logo. Same with 'March Madness.' They have automated approvals which catch use of the logo.
  - gatherhunterer 8y ago
    That is a fair point. I assume that they have different rules for the likes of Warren than they have for you. It is feasible, though, that this was caught in an algorithm and Facebook declined to volunteer that fact.
    - dillondoyle 8y ago
      I work almost exclusively for politicians, specifically buying ads online (a lot on FB). It would be a new development to me if there is a tiered/segregated approval for political ads. Perhaps now that you have to sign affidavit, but it feels like the same outsourced process as normal where it's mostly automated process.

pmart123 8y ago

While she views Facebook as too powerful, it is ironic she is happy to provide as revenue to the company.

anigbrowl 8y ago
Not sure about that minor premise...
Larrikin 8y ago
Facebook has the most Facebook users.
dralley 8y ago
Alternatively, she's clever enough to expect them to take them down, and thus prove her point.
paxys 8y ago
It's not ironic, this is the entire point she is trying to make. It is impossible to reach a meaningful chunk of the public today without going through Facebook, and they have the ability to filter content as they see fit.
- sdinsn 8y ago
  > It is impossible to reach a meaningful chunk of the public today without going through Facebook One could argue that the point of advertising is not to reach a meaningful chunk of the public, instead a meaningful chunk of a specific demographic.
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    If that's the case Facebook's position is even more dominant, because of their unique strength at giving advertisers the possibility to target specific demographics.
    - pferde 8y ago

tsycho 8y ago

Clever strategy by Elizabeth Warren. The ads might be effective in promoting her platform by themselves. And if the media report on the apparent irony, or FB takes them down, that gives her more publicity. FB's actions may cause a Streisland-like effect as well.

williamscales 8y ago
> The ads were limited in size and reach, with each costing under $100, according to disclosure details listed online. Indeed, it's incredible how cheap it was.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
It's not clever when you consider most people aren't supportive of it. There's definitely a classist kind of fury right now, aimed a little bit at 'big corps' and 'the rich' - but I seriously doubt it extends to such moves. Most people that use Facebook probably like it, pretty much, and don't suffer any visible consequences of their ostensible loss of privacy. Similar for Google. I think a smarter approach would be some regulation that hit home, particularly on privacy etc..
- int_19h 8y ago
  I can assure you that there are many working class people who have a problem with Facebook. In fact, every time I see a discussion on Facebook and privacy in non-techie FB communities, it's surprising how negative people feel, and how many say that they would stop using it altogether, if they didn't have some connections there they cared about. It's basically lock-in via social graph, and don't think people are stupid enough that they don't notice.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    That large groups of Americans have some 'concerns about privacy' is nowhere near enough impetus to think that they want Facebook and Google to be 'broken up'. HN readers mostly live in bubbles, and 'breaking up Facebook' is definitely one of the things Republicans just hope the Dems will run on, because it's not going to fly. Consider for a moment how separating Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook is going to fundamentally change privacy anyhow? This is a political calculation by Warren: she needs to stake out her claim, make some noise, throw some red meat to the Dem primary voters, and take away the noise in the press about her registering as an Aboriginal while living in Texas. It'll do well for her now, but it's not a winning formula for the general election.

Simulacra 8y ago

Just curious, how many out there use some type of Facebook ad-blocking solution?

pmoriarty 8y ago
My Facbook ad-blocking solution has been to: 1 - quit Facebook 2 - use /etc/hosts to resolve any Facebook-related sites (and other advertising/spam/tracking/malware sites) to 255.255.255.255 3 - proxy my web requests through privoxy 4 - use the uMatrix and uBlock Origin addons in Firefox that block anything that gets through the rest But I mostly browse the web through emacs-w3m, which isn't even capable of running javascript so addons such as uMatrix are not necessary. Needless to say, I almost never see ads.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
newscracker 8y ago
Can’t find canonical sources right now, but the percentage of users of Facebook on mobile is 90%+. Of that, most of them would be using the official app, where traditional ad blockers wouldn’t work. But ad blocking is enough of a money problem for Facebook that it keeps attempting to beat them through many tricks (spelling words with invisible characters, putting words split into characters and each one in a <span>, etc., to beat pattern matching). The rare times when I use Facebook, I always login through a browser with an ad blocker (and tracker blockers) on.
ashelmire 8y ago
Block it via /etc/hosts

AzzieElbab 8y ago

Pretty classic provocation and overreaction

AzzieElbab 8y ago
Amazon bans sales of Trump's "Break up Amazon to MAGA" hats

justboxing 8y ago

Serious question(s), not trolling. Why shouldn't Facebook take down the ad that's calling for a break up of their Company? How is this any different from a person walking into a store and asking to place an ad inside the store calling for breakup or shutting down of said store? What store owner would ever allow such a thing? Why would (or should) any business allow any sort of propaganda that strikes at the heart of it's operations? Why would Facebook be expected to restore the ads (which I don't think they should've done).

sanxiyn 8y ago
I think Facebook has every right to take down the ad calling for breakup of Facebook.
- almost_usual 8y ago
  This would suggest Facebook supports censorship
  - malandrew 8y ago
    It's an ad, not organic content posted by users. If the latter were blocked, I could see it as censorship. Should <insert name of television or radio station> news be required to run ads that are critical of itself?
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      Users aren't paying Facebook to host their content. FB have zero obligation to continue doing so. They are well within their rights to censor perniciously and arbitrarily.
  - cronix 8y ago
    Yeah, they probably censor child porn, and other things, too. Don't you support censorship?
    - 8y ago

buboard 8y ago

Thats overreach on her part too, however. do her voters realize what this means about her relationship with the press after she gets elected? or maybe she is rehashing trump's entire tirades about corrupt media etc.

almost_usual 8y ago
I’d imagine her relationship with the press would be positive. FB is actively at odds with mainstream media.

morningmoon 8y ago

Breakup Facebook rhetoric is so counterproductive. It achieves nothing. It solves no problem. The country has real problems. “I don’t like Facebook” isn’t even remotely one of them. I won’t be voting for her, that’s for sure.

ktjfi 8y ago
While real problems are largely ignored, stupid stuff like this takes up all the airtime and moves a sizable amount of votes. Democracy is just a way of keeping the masses docile.
int_19h 8y ago
Have you actually seen the proposal? It's not specifically about Facebook, they just happen to be a good example of market failure that she wants to prevent.
- morningmoon 8y ago
  I read her blog post. I don't see anywhere in her post that gives one concrete example of a negative impact on consumers. She gives the example of Amazon.com forcing diapers.com to sell diapers at a lower price as a reason for why we need to prevent acquisitions. But getting products for cheaper prices benefits consumers... The small business founders got rich and consumers got cheaper diapers. I'm not seeing any problem with that. She claims Amazon is anti-competitive because they promote their own products on their own website. Websites aren't railroads. Consumers can choose any website by typing in the address in their web browser. Consumers can switch search engines and shopping websites. That was not the case with railroads or phone networks - because for reasons that should be very obvious you can't have a million different railroad lines and telephone wires. Unlike the web, they were physically mutually exclusive. If a company provided superior service and prices to Amazon consumers can easily choose to use them.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    You might find a problem with that arrangement when you need to buy something that Amazon doesn't or won't carry, and there's nobody else in town (because they can't survive on such products alone). Or as a manufacturer who makes a new and better product compared to something that they have, but who can't find a sales channel for it. Or as someone who is unhappy with some of Amazon's practices - say, how they treat their employees. And competition doesn't just show up out of thin air - you need a healthy free market for companies to get to the point where they can challenge the market leader. If you allow the monopolist to dominate the market, they will never get there, and there won't be anything for consumers to easily choose from. In general, concentration of power is dangerous. Few people dispute this with governments - it's not like we wait for them to become authoritarian, we write constitutions that have arrangements that deliberately cripple their ability to do so (separation of powers etc). Why should it be any different for large corporations, when we know from history that monopoly abuse is the most likely outcome?

cm2012 8y ago

This was done algorthmically. No doubt about it.

almost_usual 8y ago
Does it matter?
- cm2012 8y ago
  Sure. That algorithmic rule is to prevent people from pretending to be FB or pretending to have FB's authority in ads (the you can't use the fb logo rule). It wasn't meant to target critics of FB.

zaroth 8y ago

From what I can tell, Facebook did not take down all the ads Warren posted calling for the breakup of Facebook, there were specific ads which got flagged for use of the Facebook logo. So it seems to me that Warren’s team when fishing for ads about breaking up Facebook which would flag in the automated system, and then ran to report about it. It smells like a setup.

FakeComments 8y ago
The whole thing is a set-up: Small businesses are just as likely to block you negatively advertising about them on their platform as large ones, so Warren showing she’s blocked doesn’t tell us anything about Facebook’s size or practices compared to businesses in general, and thus doesn’t tell us if they’re a problematic monopoly. How many businesses let you use their service to argue against them? Not even the news, collectively much less individually, accurately reports content on the news — and they’re the ones held forward as examples of a self-policing industry serving society. The only way to conclude that Facebook abused their position here is if you already believe that; otherwise, it really doesn’t seem like anything unusual happened. This seems like acting really aggressively, then whining when you get expected and normal pushback: a common bullying tactic from children.

potatofarmer45 8y ago

This is smart politics. Rather than simply telling people FB is a monopoly, she runs a limited experiment that had it been left alone, would have limited effect since the budget was so small ($100). Now this puts FB in a bind. If they really are a middleman for content, then these ads don't violate any laws and shouldn't be blocked. However, FB as a company with a product should block it just like coffee shop wouldn't allow a banner on the wall saying "better coffee down the street". This sort of overreaction to a small calculated provocation just proves the point that FB is a company first, platform second. This was obvious already to many people, but now there's a clear illustration that'll make it harder for FB to simply say they are a neutral platform.

evolvedcleaning 8y ago
Seems more like dropping pamphlets behind enemy lines about the deception, rather than promoting a competitor on company premises.
crowdpleaser 8y ago
Does Facebook claim to be a content-agnostic middleman? I know we accuse them of it, but they pulled some GOP / Trump ads for being sensational, that hardly sounds like a dispassionate middleman.
- jerf 8y ago
  It's not about what they claim to be, it's about the legal provisions that may or may not protect them. I'm not sure of all the details, which wouldn't fit in an HN post anyhow, but the short version is that if they are picking and choosing what can appear on their platform, they're also liable for it. Facebook, among other companies, want to both be able to pick and choose what appears on their platform and to enjoy the legal protections that come from not picking and choosing, but the days of that arrangement working for them are clearly numbered. And in the case of Facebook, they're clearly going to go for choosing what can appear on their platform, so it's only a matter of time before they get sued about it.
  - 8y ago

rdxm 8y ago

FB gonna FB......how many times do people need to learn this lesson....

nopriorarrests 8y ago

Tangentially related -- according to Eric Weinstein, Facebook also banned Zero Hedge so you can't share ZH stories anymore. (https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1105291678422773760 https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/110529167842277376...)

jonathanjaeger 8y ago

What many fail to realize is that Facebook employees who approve/disapprove of ads are not high up and also do so at a very fast pace. They follow the guidelines and are humans, thus subject to some subjectivity. Any advertiser who has done a lot of advertising on Facebook knows that one day an ad can get approved and the next day a duplicate ad is not. The decision was overturned in Warren's case. This is just making FB out to be much more nefarious than they probably are (in this particular scenario).

cm2012 8y ago
Without a doubt. Plus, the rule of "You can't use FB's logo" is not to stop people criticizing FB. It's to stop fraudulent advertisers from pretending to BE Facebook.

alanlamm 8y ago

some of the things we have had censored by fb (even after appealing) 1. illustrations of cupid on valentines day, genitals covered, for nudity. 2. illustrations of a (non sexually provocative) mouth when the logo of our product was a mouth. 3. illustrations (not photos) of people of various body types and ethnicities, not sexually provocative, showing skin but no genitals, nipples or buttocks, with flowers and boxes of chocolates, as a 'love comes in all shapes and sizes' valentines campaign. 4. essentially any image that might insinuate that a woman is capable of feeling pleasure. 5. a friend's ig project intended to promote education & wellness about women's bodies, in a non-sexual way (e.g. did you know that a clitoris has x thousand nerve endings?), with no images. 6. pixelated images on red backgrounds with a 'censored' stamp on them (put up after others were censored) ... the list goes on and on, to the point where we have considered launching a website just to showcase the stuff fb (and other faangs) censor. ... meanwhile ig is filled with essentially soft porn (not to mention images of guns together with bags of money, which in my value system is much worse). ... so I, for one, am laughing my head off at all this. they more than had it coming.

selimthegrim 8y ago
At this rate they’d probably censor that song from Chicago (the musical) too if someone posted it.

URSpider94 8y ago

For everyone claiming that Facebook is a monopoly, I have two questions: 1. What do they have a monopoly on? 2. How would Warren’s plan (forcing FB to divest WhatsApp and Instagram) eliminate that monopoly?

Marsymars 8y ago
I expect that people making the "monopoly" claim are using imprecise language that may vary in precision based on jurisdictional definitions of monopolies, and fb's market share in any given jurisdiction. Laws about monopolies and antitrust exist to prevent or mitigate certain problems that arise when companies have disproportionate power and influence on society. Whether or not fb qualifies as "monopoly", there are many cogent arguments to be made that about its negative effects due to its disproportionate power.

didibus 8y ago

I think I'd rather see it regulated, then broken up. How are you even going to break it up? And how do we know it won't just be a matter of time before another single, central social network takes hold? Social Networks have this property where they are only useful when other people are also on the same one as you. To me, this property will just guarantee that we would end up back in the same situation. So it would seem smarter to me to just regulate it, so we can limit the bad, and enjoy the good.

speeq 8y ago

Facebook even blocks links to social-media startups like Minds.com for being "unsecure"..

sealthedeal 8y ago

Warren is ALOT

Halluxfboy009 8y ago

By removing her ad, Zuckerberger gave Warren's idea a couple of million dollars worth of publicity.

rjf72 8y ago

There seems to be such a simple solution here that would solve the problems without even needing to breakup companies: require companies offering user generated content for free, to host such content under 'copyleft' licenses, unless users explicitly opt out, and provide simple/API means of access and submission. Copyleft meaning that anybody could freely copy and use the user-generated content from these sites, so long as they themselves also enabled anybody to freely copy and use that content. Content (and other incentives) from users that are opted in would be treated identically to those that opted out. The opt out option is mainly for sites like YouTube where somebody might rely on the site for income and want to voluntarily allow YouTube to publish their video under a restrictive license. The idea is simple - get rid of the network effect. When content is provided under copyleft licenses, anybody could effectively create a social media system where users could see messages from e.g. Facebook and also post messages that would be cloned to Facebook, yet not on Facebook. The possibilities here are endless and it would pose a relatively small regulatory burden on companies. And most important of all - it would actually probably work. The network effect works like gravity. Even if you break something apart, it will sooner or later come together again even if under a different form. --- The biggest problem I see is a problem that any idea that could work, will never be considered. Big tech is driving big bucks to politicians. As recently as 2012 the FTC's bureau of competition submitted to the commissioners a lengthy analysis that recommended suing Google for conduct that had, and would continue to, cause "real harm to consumers and to innovation." The commissioners, majority Democratic appointees (not a partisan jab, but rather emphasizing that this is an institutional/establishment issue - not a partisan one), chose not to pursue the case. [1] [1] - https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/reich/article/Break-up-Facebook-13409062.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/reich/article/Break-up-F...

snazzycalynx 8y ago

well Warren now knows first hand what conservatives have been saying for years - FB has no problem censoring those that they disagree with -welcome to the Club

t0astbread 8y ago

That's some excellent bait and Facebook fell for it: 1. Put up a tiny anti-FB campaign that's not gonna reach anyone on FB 2. FB bans it because their reviewers have to adhere to the rules set by upper mgmt 3. Now you're the victim -> Backlash for FB 4. FB restores the ad 5. Now you're the victim AND the winner 6. The story spreads amongst anti-FB circles, where it was originally meant to hit, with a massive impact (for little money)

loceng 8y ago
Whether they planned for this outcome or not, I think it has merit to highlight whether you're able to criticize Facebook on Facebook, and whether using the Facebook logo int his case - associated directly with criticism/a review of Facebook should be considered fair use; and not just for someone in the political light but for average Janes and Joes, who has someone else in this thread pointed out most everyone couldn't get away with or have the rules 'bent' for them.

chj 8y ago

All those people laughing at her proposal, they have no clue that this lady understands tech perfectly well, and sees the problem of centralization in tech industry more clearly. In an interview at SXSW, she addressed to the people working for Big Tech companies, and said that break up will actually make their work more interesting. This is really not some ordinary politician.

chr1 8y ago

Would US be able to breakup non-US tech companies, and if no how would it prevent tech companies from moving outside the US? Some of them have enough money to buy a small country or build a huge seasteading city.

michaelt 8y ago
Tech companies haven't moved from San Francisco to Sacramento, in the face of multi-million-dollar house prices in the Bay Area. I find it hard to believe they're incapable of that, yet capable of what you propose :)

Proven 8y ago

Sad! Unfortunately for them they screwed up too many times and now have no guts and PR goodwill to stand up to the bullying socialist.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

josefresco 8y ago

Not sure if this is smart by Senator Warren, or just campaign bluster. The side of me that thinks it's smart, thinks that by asking for a lot (break up of tech giants) she may be able to notch a win that isn't so aggressive (data privacy regulations) It also "breaks the ice" for the argument for when she brings it up on the campaign, it won't be so shocking. The side of me that thinks it's dumb, thinks that she's misreading her audience, in that most people could give two shits about privacy, and in fact really like these platforms. She may be overplaying the "progressive" hand, and as a result may be perceived as "too radical" to be elected by purple states. Regardless, I think her presidential aspirations are doomed. She's a woman, smart, successful, outspoken, Harvard educated, progressive and from "the most liberal" state in the country. All these things are toxic to Republicans.