6 ms·

Facebook employees speak out on political ads

31 points by otterley 7y ago

otterley 7y ago
There's simply no reason why Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media company needs to be involved in the business of political campaigns. They're completely free to decline such business and refuse to run political advertisements. It's not like they'd lose much: the income they earn from political ads is a drop in the bucket, proportionally speaking. Given the intense amount of scrutiny they're under, and their apparent inability to make clear, consistent, and sensible rules regarding their content, perhaps it would be better for them to just get out of the business altogether.
- ColinWright 7y ago
  > They're completely free to decline such business and refuse to run political advertisements. Except that if politicians want to run ads on Facebook, and Facebook declines, then politicians will, with impunity, have the power to enact laws that will damage Facebook. People who end up in a position of power can be vindictive.
  - otterley 7y ago
    I comment about this below, but the same applies: In this scenario, politicians and their backers would still be free to post whatever they want. But they wouldn't be able to use a paid advertisement to force their (potentially false) messages into people's News Feeds.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    Refusing to take all political money would be a no-brainer. Candidates would then just need to use the non-paid approach and organic shares.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      You say this as if it were something simple or even possible to achieve. How do you tell the difference between political and non-political money? Not taking money directly from campaigns is easy enough, but that’s not where most of the ‘political money’ comes from. What about every dollar that’s spent to promote a political idea that doesn’t come directly from a campaign? How do you even discern between a political idea and a non-political one? There’s no way to do any of that from a neutral position, because all of that is highly subjective.
      - otterley 7y ago
        We’re taking about paid advertisements, not mere posts. The volume of paid ads is infinitesimally small compared to user-generated content. It should be very straightforward to review ad submissions to determine whether they are selling a product or service, as opposed to an idea, promotion or complaint about a person or group of people, and deny by default if there’s any doubt.
        AmericanChopper 7y ago
        I just opened Facebook and checked all of the orgs who have targeted me with ads. About 15% of them were companies that don’t sell any sort of product, and were just promoting some sort of idea. Of that, only one of them was an actual political party. That doesn’t even include ads for products that include some sort of political messaging (something that’s pretty commonplace now). What’s more, that assessment of which orgs were delivering a political message is entirely based on my own opinions. You might look at the same list and draw different conclusions. What you’re talking about simply doesn’t seem possible, and I can’t even see any reason why it would be a good idea to begin with.
        otterley 7y ago
        You just said you yourself were able to identify them. Why couldn’t someone else? And, suppose they were missing from your News Feed. How much would you miss them? And why would you need them back? Finally, I’d love to hear about some of these “ads for products that have political messaging” (assuming they’re not the obvious case of T-shirts, stickers, etc. promoting a candidate or cause).
- bluGill 7y ago
  Are they? In the US radio and TV cannot refuse such ads. I'm not sure how/if this regulation applies to Facebook (radio/tv get there because as a limited space part of their license says that have to support them), but Facebook is too big to try to thumb its nose at politicians like that. There are many ways politics can make life hard for Facebook while staying in the letter of the constitution. Facebook when it was 100 friends from Harvard could ignore politics. Facebook with millions of users cannot.
  - otterley 7y ago
    > I'm not sure how/if this regulation applies to Facebook It doesn't. > Facebook is too big to try to thumb its nose at politicians like that. I don't really see it as "thumbing its nose." Politicians and their backers would still be free to post whatever they want. But they wouldn't be able to use a paid advertisement to force their (potentially false) messages into people's News Feeds.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    FB ads and TV/Radio ads are not the same. FB has organic content that politicians and their campaigns can get involved with already to the tune of millions of followers. FB declining all political money doesn't sound like a discrimination issue.
- mc32 7y ago
  I think they are working in new territories. Their options now are allow all candidate for public office ads or refuse all of such ads. The tendency, given our 1A context would be to allow all. But I think the Congress should step in and set the rules for how companies should govern this new territory. Not doing so leaves an important aspect of democracy in the hands of companies to make decisions for politicians.
- reroute1 7y ago
  Why should they? People can make up their own minds we don't need to restrict online advertisements. False messages appear in all other forms of advertisement, facebook or twitter is no different.
  - otterley 7y ago
    Because the potential for societal harm is arguably greater when politicians manipulate the population through falsehoods than it is by purchasing a good or service based on false advertising. And consumers have direct recourse to the law (i.e., damages) for fraud, whereas no such recourse is available to the public until re-election if they elect a politician based on falsehoods.
    - reroute1 7y ago
      But how is this different than political ads on the radio or tv or a billboard? Sounds like you are against political advertisements of any kind. I don't disagree there could be damage done by misinformation, but I don't think that's a compelling reason to ban political ads. I still think people should look at the ads and decide for themselves what is true.
      - otterley 7y ago
        This is a tricky question. Traditionally, communication with the public was mainly two-way; the public could directly question candidates and hold them accountable there if the candidate lied. I’m very much for traditional free speech here as there is direct accountability. With the rise of broadcast media (TV, radio, newspapers) came a new era of marketing-driven candidacies. Candidates became much further removed from the process of attracting voters, and they figured out ways (helped by Madison Avenue ad men) to manipulate the public using those ads. By the 1990s we reached peak crazy with negative ads, innuendo, third party ads, and the elimination of “equal time” rules on broadcast TV that required at least an attempt to level the playing field. Now with social media, we have the most challenging combination of marketing savvy, cheap and automated provisioning of ads, and precise targeting - and even worse accountability. We’ve even heard possibilities that politicians might target ads to non-aligned voters misdirecting them as to voting instructions or locations. So: am I against free speech? No. I’m definitely a believer in it. But am I against delivering political advertisements through certain channels? Yes.
fiftyacorn 7y ago
I wish there was a way to opt out of political ads on social media
- mythrwy 7y ago
  There is a really good way! Opt out of social media that shows stuff you don't want to see.
  - marktucker 7y ago
    Facebook has major platform lock-in for me, though, since that's where all my friends are. The proper solution is to vote with your ad-blocker.
    - izzydata 7y ago
      How is Facebooks ad pricing structured? Do people pay Facebook on the amount of users Facebook claims it will reach or by actually views counted by whether or not it loaded or was clicked? It seems possible that Facebook could charge people claiming it will reach 10 million users even if every single one of those people ends up blocking it.
    - AlexandrB 7y ago
      > The proper solution is to vote with your ad-blocker. That's just engaging Facebook in an arms race that they will eventually probably win. The only real solution is not to use Facebook.
    - driverdan 7y ago
      If FB is required for friendship then they're not really friends.
debt 7y ago
They don't want to exercise editorial control of their ads because "fact checking" crosses the chasm of media company vs not-a-media company. They super duper don't want to be called a media company. They're simply a publisher. ;)
- otterley 7y ago
  As far as I’m aware, no such legal distinction exists. I’m not sure where you got this idea from.
gwbas1c 7y ago
Anyone have a link to the letter that isn't behind a paywall?
eej71 7y ago
It's not clear to me that one could always decide what constitutes a political ad in the first place. Sure, there is the obvious, vote for candidate X. But what about issue advocacy ads? Are ads from an industry advocate group political? Say it was funded by the Koch brothers defending fossil fuels? Or what about an ad from the Southern Poverty Law Center to fight for disenfranchised voters? Or what about an anti-vax group looking to mobilize their base? I don't see how its that clear cut.
- otterley 7y ago
  Why does it have to be clear cut? Why not bias on the side of denial? Facebook doesn’t have to be a platform for paid political speech.
  - eej71 7y ago
    So if planned parenthood runs an ad inviting people to join their network of supporters to protest in support of a right to abortion - would that be paid political speech in your eyes? How about if the Catholic Church runs an ad for a pro-life YouTube channel? It's easy to say things like "not be a platform for paid political speech". I'm sure you have a clear cut line in your head and it makes sense to you. But to expect a large corporation - or some thoughtful government committee - to draw that line with any consistency or articulable principle seems incredibly naive.
    - otterley 7y ago
      (Yes to both examples.) As I've said elsewhere, we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The decision matrix doesn't need to be perfectly consistent or articulable. (As Justice Stewart once said of pornography, "I know it when I see it.") Biasing towards denial will help make Facebook a much more peaceful place. Besides, as I've said elsewhere, this is about paid distribution, not banning from Facebook. People and organizations should remain free to do and say whatever they like in their own groups and pages, and members or individuals should remain free to share these messages if they like. But that's a different thing from forcing a message into someone's feed.
gremlinsinc 7y ago
Maybe the government needs to A. bring back the fairness doctrine. B. Update it for ads/propaganda/social media. Say for instance they created an agency that basically monitors/fact checks news and advertisements. Or it could just be political ads. I think the government should enforce honesty in political ads, I mean allowing lying in political ads seems to say corruption is allowed. As lying = corruption. Or no agency and just severe consequences/litigation for publishing/republishing 'fake news' without some sort of byline saying 'this is fake news', and dishonest political ads could also be sued against. I mean as litigious as we are there's a gold mine for the legal industry here.
sk84life 7y ago
Why Facebook employees are not worried of they customers privacy..? This fake worry talk is weird to me.

31 points by otterley 7y ago

There's simply no reason why Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media company needs to be involved in the business of political campaigns. They're completely free to decline such business and refuse to run political advertisements. It's not like they'd lose much: the income they earn from political ads is a drop in the bucket, proportionally speaking. Given the intense amount of scrutiny they're under, and their apparent inability to make clear, consistent, and sensible rules regarding their content, perhaps it would be better for them to just get out of the business altogether.

ColinWright 7y ago
> They're completely free to decline such business and refuse to run political advertisements. Except that if politicians want to run ads on Facebook, and Facebook declines, then politicians will, with impunity, have the power to enact laws that will damage Facebook. People who end up in a position of power can be vindictive.
- otterley 7y ago
  I comment about this below, but the same applies: In this scenario, politicians and their backers would still be free to post whatever they want. But they wouldn't be able to use a paid advertisement to force their (potentially false) messages into people's News Feeds.
- r00fus 7y ago
  Refusing to take all political money would be a no-brainer. Candidates would then just need to use the non-paid approach and organic shares.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    You say this as if it were something simple or even possible to achieve. How do you tell the difference between political and non-political money? Not taking money directly from campaigns is easy enough, but that’s not where most of the ‘political money’ comes from. What about every dollar that’s spent to promote a political idea that doesn’t come directly from a campaign? How do you even discern between a political idea and a non-political one? There’s no way to do any of that from a neutral position, because all of that is highly subjective.
    - otterley 7y ago
      We’re taking about paid advertisements, not mere posts. The volume of paid ads is infinitesimally small compared to user-generated content. It should be very straightforward to review ad submissions to determine whether they are selling a product or service, as opposed to an idea, promotion or complaint about a person or group of people, and deny by default if there’s any doubt.
      - AmericanChopper 7y ago
        I just opened Facebook and checked all of the orgs who have targeted me with ads. About 15% of them were companies that don’t sell any sort of product, and were just promoting some sort of idea. Of that, only one of them was an actual political party. That doesn’t even include ads for products that include some sort of political messaging (something that’s pretty commonplace now). What’s more, that assessment of which orgs were delivering a political message is entirely based on my own opinions. You might look at the same list and draw different conclusions. What you’re talking about simply doesn’t seem possible, and I can’t even see any reason why it would be a good idea to begin with.
        otterley 7y ago
        You just said you yourself were able to identify them. Why couldn’t someone else? And, suppose they were missing from your News Feed. How much would you miss them? And why would you need them back? Finally, I’d love to hear about some of these “ads for products that have political messaging” (assuming they’re not the obvious case of T-shirts, stickers, etc. promoting a candidate or cause).
bluGill 7y ago
Are they? In the US radio and TV cannot refuse such ads. I'm not sure how/if this regulation applies to Facebook (radio/tv get there because as a limited space part of their license says that have to support them), but Facebook is too big to try to thumb its nose at politicians like that. There are many ways politics can make life hard for Facebook while staying in the letter of the constitution. Facebook when it was 100 friends from Harvard could ignore politics. Facebook with millions of users cannot.
- otterley 7y ago
  > I'm not sure how/if this regulation applies to Facebook It doesn't. > Facebook is too big to try to thumb its nose at politicians like that. I don't really see it as "thumbing its nose." Politicians and their backers would still be free to post whatever they want. But they wouldn't be able to use a paid advertisement to force their (potentially false) messages into people's News Feeds.
- r00fus 7y ago
  FB ads and TV/Radio ads are not the same. FB has organic content that politicians and their campaigns can get involved with already to the tune of millions of followers. FB declining all political money doesn't sound like a discrimination issue.
mc32 7y ago
I think they are working in new territories. Their options now are allow all candidate for public office ads or refuse all of such ads. The tendency, given our 1A context would be to allow all. But I think the Congress should step in and set the rules for how companies should govern this new territory. Not doing so leaves an important aspect of democracy in the hands of companies to make decisions for politicians.
reroute1 7y ago
Why should they? People can make up their own minds we don't need to restrict online advertisements. False messages appear in all other forms of advertisement, facebook or twitter is no different.
- otterley 7y ago
  Because the potential for societal harm is arguably greater when politicians manipulate the population through falsehoods than it is by purchasing a good or service based on false advertising. And consumers have direct recourse to the law (i.e., damages) for fraud, whereas no such recourse is available to the public until re-election if they elect a politician based on falsehoods.
  - reroute1 7y ago
    But how is this different than political ads on the radio or tv or a billboard? Sounds like you are against political advertisements of any kind. I don't disagree there could be damage done by misinformation, but I don't think that's a compelling reason to ban political ads. I still think people should look at the ads and decide for themselves what is true.
    - otterley 7y ago
      This is a tricky question. Traditionally, communication with the public was mainly two-way; the public could directly question candidates and hold them accountable there if the candidate lied. I’m very much for traditional free speech here as there is direct accountability. With the rise of broadcast media (TV, radio, newspapers) came a new era of marketing-driven candidacies. Candidates became much further removed from the process of attracting voters, and they figured out ways (helped by Madison Avenue ad men) to manipulate the public using those ads. By the 1990s we reached peak crazy with negative ads, innuendo, third party ads, and the elimination of “equal time” rules on broadcast TV that required at least an attempt to level the playing field. Now with social media, we have the most challenging combination of marketing savvy, cheap and automated provisioning of ads, and precise targeting - and even worse accountability. We’ve even heard possibilities that politicians might target ads to non-aligned voters misdirecting them as to voting instructions or locations. So: am I against free speech? No. I’m definitely a believer in it. But am I against delivering political advertisements through certain channels? Yes.

fiftyacorn 7y ago

I wish there was a way to opt out of political ads on social media

mythrwy 7y ago
There is a really good way! Opt out of social media that shows stuff you don't want to see.
- marktucker 7y ago
  Facebook has major platform lock-in for me, though, since that's where all my friends are. The proper solution is to vote with your ad-blocker.
  - izzydata 7y ago
    How is Facebooks ad pricing structured? Do people pay Facebook on the amount of users Facebook claims it will reach or by actually views counted by whether or not it loaded or was clicked? It seems possible that Facebook could charge people claiming it will reach 10 million users even if every single one of those people ends up blocking it.
  - AlexandrB 7y ago
    > The proper solution is to vote with your ad-blocker. That's just engaging Facebook in an arms race that they will eventually probably win. The only real solution is not to use Facebook.
  - driverdan 7y ago
    If FB is required for friendship then they're not really friends.

debt 7y ago

They don't want to exercise editorial control of their ads because "fact checking" crosses the chasm of media company vs not-a-media company. They super duper don't want to be called a media company. They're simply a publisher. ;)

otterley 7y ago
As far as I’m aware, no such legal distinction exists. I’m not sure where you got this idea from.

gwbas1c 7y ago

Anyone have a link to the letter that isn't behind a paywall?

eej71 7y ago

It's not clear to me that one could always decide what constitutes a political ad in the first place. Sure, there is the obvious, vote for candidate X. But what about issue advocacy ads? Are ads from an industry advocate group political? Say it was funded by the Koch brothers defending fossil fuels? Or what about an ad from the Southern Poverty Law Center to fight for disenfranchised voters? Or what about an anti-vax group looking to mobilize their base? I don't see how its that clear cut.

otterley 7y ago
Why does it have to be clear cut? Why not bias on the side of denial? Facebook doesn’t have to be a platform for paid political speech.
- eej71 7y ago
  So if planned parenthood runs an ad inviting people to join their network of supporters to protest in support of a right to abortion - would that be paid political speech in your eyes? How about if the Catholic Church runs an ad for a pro-life YouTube channel? It's easy to say things like "not be a platform for paid political speech". I'm sure you have a clear cut line in your head and it makes sense to you. But to expect a large corporation - or some thoughtful government committee - to draw that line with any consistency or articulable principle seems incredibly naive.
  - otterley 7y ago
    (Yes to both examples.) As I've said elsewhere, we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The decision matrix doesn't need to be perfectly consistent or articulable. (As Justice Stewart once said of pornography, "I know it when I see it.") Biasing towards denial will help make Facebook a much more peaceful place. Besides, as I've said elsewhere, this is about paid distribution, not banning from Facebook. People and organizations should remain free to do and say whatever they like in their own groups and pages, and members or individuals should remain free to share these messages if they like. But that's a different thing from forcing a message into someone's feed.

gremlinsinc 7y ago

Maybe the government needs to A. bring back the fairness doctrine. B. Update it for ads/propaganda/social media. Say for instance they created an agency that basically monitors/fact checks news and advertisements. Or it could just be political ads. I think the government should enforce honesty in political ads, I mean allowing lying in political ads seems to say corruption is allowed. As lying = corruption. Or no agency and just severe consequences/litigation for publishing/republishing 'fake news' without some sort of byline saying 'this is fake news', and dishonest political ads could also be sued against. I mean as litigious as we are there's a gold mine for the legal industry here.

sk84life 7y ago

Why Facebook employees are not worried of they customers privacy..? This fake worry talk is weird to me.