3 ms·

If you accept the argument that forbidding political ads is not possible, then I guess it depends on how much you care about large corporations ability to inter

If you accept the argument that forbidding political ads is not possible, then I guess it depends on how much you care about large corporations ability to interfere with democratic processes. Having FB act as the gatekeeper to which political ads are allowed on the worlds largest social media platforms, and which are not seems like a pretty bad outcome to me. > Remember, Facebook is still a private enterprise and they’re under no obligation to make everyone (or anyone) happy. Sure, but this is kinda irrelevant to the discussion about what they should do, or more importantly, what they should be allowed to do. The concept of Net Neutrality would be an almost identical violation of freedom of association, but it’s a regulation with a huge amount of popular support.

otterley 7y ago
> If you accept the argument that forbidding political ads is not possible I don’t agree (at least insofar as this is their policy and not, say, a legal restriction). I think they can get reasonably close using good judgment, and there will always be arguments about the edges. Such is life. We can’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. None of this argument is about regulation or coercion, by the way. This is really about what I think their own policies should be, not about government regulation of political speech, which is an even bigger minefield.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  I’d say this stance is based on the presupposition that a solution implemented imperfectly is in fact good, or at least better than no solution implemented at all. You say yourself that this would require FB to make (naturally subjective) judgements about what is or is not political. The very best case scenario would be that FB ends up marginalizing fringe views. But would you even trust FB as an organisation to reach a level of neutrality where only the most fringe views were marginalized? I certainly wouldn’t. The alternative is simply that FB leaves it up to the audience to make their own judgements about the credibility of the content they view, something I’d consider to be a far superior outcome. Nothing FB does will ever relieve people of the burden of thinking for themselves.
  - otterley 7y ago
    > I’d say this stance is based on the presupposition that a solution implemented imperfectly is in fact good, or at least better than no solution implemented at all. Yes. :) > You say yourself that this would require FB to make (naturally subjective) judgements about what is or is not political. The very best case scenario would be that FB ends up marginalizing fringe views. That sounds good to me! > But would you even trust FB as an organisation to reach a level of neutrality where only the most fringe views were marginalized? I certainly wouldn’t. Why not? We have no evidence to suggest they'd be terrible at it. > The alternative is simply that FB leaves it up to the audience to make their own judgements about the credibility of the content they view, something I’d consider to be a far superior outcome. Do you really consider the current state of affairs to be superior and/or ideal? Perhaps I would agree with you in a perfect world where more people were naturally distrustful of content, but we've seen that a large segment of the population is not particularly good at separating the wheat from the chaff. Case in point: https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/26/media/russia-trolls-facebook-events/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/26/media/russia-trolls-faceboo...
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      > You say yourself that this would require FB to make (naturally subjective) judgements about what is or is not political. The very best case scenario would be that FB ends up marginalizing fringe views. > That sounds good to me! I think we just have very different values here. I’d consider this to be incredibly harmful. I remember a time when “gay people are just normal people who should be treated with respect and dignity” was a very fringe view. My parents remember when “black people shouldn’t be segregated from the rest of society” was a fringe view. > Why not? We have no evidence to suggest they'd be terrible at it. I think a lot of people would say that there’s plenty of evidence that FB isn’t capable of politically neutral moderation. > Do you really consider the current state of affairs to be superior and/or ideal? I think for as long as we’ve had language we’ve had misinformation. I don’t think there’s anything remarkable about the current state of affairs at all. There is no system you can put in place to determine what’s true on behalf of other people, because no matter what you do, people still need to make their own judgements about the information they consume. There is only one institution in most democratic societies that acts as an authority on matters of fact or truth, and that is the justice system. In that system, every fact put forward for consideration is subjected to extensive scrutiny and debate, yet it still produces endless amounts of controversy. Every other truth seeking institution, whether public or private, is even less capable of establishing consensus. The problem you can’t solve with such systems is that the truth is a fundamentally subjective matter. Any authority established to determine the truth can do nothing more than reflect its own biases and prejudices. History has no examples of misinformation being defeated by censorship, the only solution is competing view points and critical thought. It’s not a problem FB can solve, nor one we should want them to try and solve.

otterley 7y ago

> If you accept the argument that forbidding political ads is not possible I don’t agree (at least insofar as this is their policy and not, say, a legal restriction). I think they can get reasonably close using good judgment, and there will always be arguments about the edges. Such is life. We can’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. None of this argument is about regulation or coercion, by the way. This is really about what I think their own policies should be, not about government regulation of political speech, which is an even bigger minefield.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
I’d say this stance is based on the presupposition that a solution implemented imperfectly is in fact good, or at least better than no solution implemented at all. You say yourself that this would require FB to make (naturally subjective) judgements about what is or is not political. The very best case scenario would be that FB ends up marginalizing fringe views. But would you even trust FB as an organisation to reach a level of neutrality where only the most fringe views were marginalized? I certainly wouldn’t. The alternative is simply that FB leaves it up to the audience to make their own judgements about the credibility of the content they view, something I’d consider to be a far superior outcome. Nothing FB does will ever relieve people of the burden of thinking for themselves.
- otterley 7y ago
  > I’d say this stance is based on the presupposition that a solution implemented imperfectly is in fact good, or at least better than no solution implemented at all. Yes. :) > You say yourself that this would require FB to make (naturally subjective) judgements about what is or is not political. The very best case scenario would be that FB ends up marginalizing fringe views. That sounds good to me! > But would you even trust FB as an organisation to reach a level of neutrality where only the most fringe views were marginalized? I certainly wouldn’t. Why not? We have no evidence to suggest they'd be terrible at it. > The alternative is simply that FB leaves it up to the audience to make their own judgements about the credibility of the content they view, something I’d consider to be a far superior outcome. Do you really consider the current state of affairs to be superior and/or ideal? Perhaps I would agree with you in a perfect world where more people were naturally distrustful of content, but we've seen that a large segment of the population is not particularly good at separating the wheat from the chaff. Case in point: https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/26/media/russia-trolls-facebook-events/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/26/media/russia-trolls-faceboo...
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    > You say yourself that this would require FB to make (naturally subjective) judgements about what is or is not political. The very best case scenario would be that FB ends up marginalizing fringe views. > That sounds good to me! I think we just have very different values here. I’d consider this to be incredibly harmful. I remember a time when “gay people are just normal people who should be treated with respect and dignity” was a very fringe view. My parents remember when “black people shouldn’t be segregated from the rest of society” was a fringe view. > Why not? We have no evidence to suggest they'd be terrible at it. I think a lot of people would say that there’s plenty of evidence that FB isn’t capable of politically neutral moderation. > Do you really consider the current state of affairs to be superior and/or ideal? I think for as long as we’ve had language we’ve had misinformation. I don’t think there’s anything remarkable about the current state of affairs at all. There is no system you can put in place to determine what’s true on behalf of other people, because no matter what you do, people still need to make their own judgements about the information they consume. There is only one institution in most democratic societies that acts as an authority on matters of fact or truth, and that is the justice system. In that system, every fact put forward for consideration is subjected to extensive scrutiny and debate, yet it still produces endless amounts of controversy. Every other truth seeking institution, whether public or private, is even less capable of establishing consensus. The problem you can’t solve with such systems is that the truth is a fundamentally subjective matter. Any authority established to determine the truth can do nothing more than reflect its own biases and prejudices. History has no examples of misinformation being defeated by censorship, the only solution is competing view points and critical thought. It’s not a problem FB can solve, nor one we should want them to try and solve.