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I notice you don't address his actual point though. If, let's say, a group advocating for the abolishment of asset forfeiture wants to communicate their messag

by Lazare 7y ago

I notice you don't address his actual point though. If, let's say, a group advocating for the abolishment of asset forfeiture wants to communicate their message, and the media is not covering it, it would be natural for them to try paying for ads, and the obvious place to put ads are on social media, since that's where the eyeballs are (cf, the collapse of the news media). If social media bans those ads then while the group clearly still has free speech, they will have little way to meaningfully exercise it. You might say - and I'd certainly agree - that the real problem is a world where everyone is on Twitter and Facebook to the exclusion of all else, and thus a world where 3-4 CEOs can unilaterally decide that nobody needs to hear anything about asset forfeiture (or whatever). And yet, that's the world we're in. (You also don't seem to understand what "free speech" is. By your logic, a law banning the purchase television ads for Democratic candidates - but allowing the purchase of television ads for Republicans - would be okay, because after all, those ads cost money, so it's not restricting the Democratic candidates right to free speech. That's absurd, no?)

Angostura 7y ago
I humbly disagree > it would be natural for them to try paying for ads, and the obvious place to put ads are on social media It would be natural to them to post to their Facebook page because that's what social media is for and then for their committed network of supporters to repost etc. Remember - that's the advantage of social media - you can quickly get the work out to your supporters without having to go through intermediaries, or having to pay for advertising.
- Lazare 7y ago
  That's not how social media works. Feeds are highly curated. > you can quickly get the work out to your supporters without having to go through intermediaries, or having to pay for advertising. How do you think Facebook makes money? And as a followup, why do you think people pay money to run ads on Facebook? Like, I 100% agree with you that this is how it should work, and it's how we all thought it would work 15 years ago, but it feels oddly disconnected from the world we live in.
  - v4dok 7y ago
    Indeed this is the way it works but I think you restrict your view by taking social media as some society constant. If there is no way for the public to find the information it looks for in a meaningful way in facebook or twitter, it will migrate to something else or push it to change. It might push the platforms to feed people with an equal share of all sides instead of feeding them what the "want" and anyone else has to pay
    - roenxi 7y ago
      Paid advertising to get ideas out has existed for at least as long as we've had newspapers and probably a lot longer. Take this case, for example. URL says it all: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/muslims-take-out-full-page-newspaper-ad-to-denounce-anti-semitism-against-our-jewish-sisters-and-brothers/ https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/muslims-take-out-full-page-n... It sounds nice to say that we are going to keep some communication channels free of political speech. It is an option. But it is possible (I claim: likely) that more communication leads to better political outcomes, so sealing off easy-to-use channels like advertising may not actually help.
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        > But it is possible (I claim: likely) that more communication leads to better political outcomes Not when that speech is deceptive, and particularly not when people can pay money to a company to ensure that those lies are disseminated as widely as possible.
      - kyboren 7y ago
        > But it is possible [...] that more communication leads to better political outcomes I believe this is true and also that this is basically the hypothesis motivating freedom of speech under law. However, I believe that modern digital political advertising is a very different kind of communication than the open, genuine discussion in a free marketplace of ideas that free speech advocates often envision. I think one big problem is information fragmentation taken to the extreme: Each person is now subjected to his or her own individually-targeted propaganda. It is a non-genuine, abusive form of individualized communication that in my opinion tends to erode opportunity for political consensus. In my view, some forms of political advertising are perfectly acceptable. Attending a political debate and arguing well for your candidacy is perfectly acceptable. Enlisting Cambridge Analytica or foreign intelligence services to employ individual psychometric profiles to serve up the most effectively manipulative propaganda is not acceptable. Advertising that is more generally broadcast as opposed to narrowly targeted is perfectly acceptable, and potentially even desirable for political discourse. Advertising that is "too" targeted is potentially corrosive to political discourse. I would love to see proposals on how to draw the line, legislatively, that would address these concerns and also pass strict scrutiny.
- indymike 7y ago
  That was the case years ago. Facebook does not show every post in your followers stream. Once you get to a certain size, you have to pay to ensure the message gets delivered with boosted posts and such. Many of these political organizations have popular Facebook pages and still have to pay to get their posts into their followers streams.
  - rebuilder 7y ago
    Aha, now it makes sense that Zuckerberg is so insistent on keeping political ads.
    - goldenkey 7y ago
      The old Myspace behavior of friending everyone you met online has benefited FB in spades... Wow.
sjwright 7y ago
Claiming that we must be reliant on private corporations for free speech is a corruption of the very concept. I don't agree with your argument, but to the extent that there's any truth to it the remedy can only be to fix the underlying problem—not submitting to it. To be clear, my objection isn't to all online advertising but specifically to Zuckerberg defending Facebook's policy with an appeal to free speech. Obviously speech without funding is weak an ineffective, but if Facebook voluntarily chose to eliminate all political advertising, it is irrational to claim that your freedom of speech has been curtailed. Facebook's existence isn't promised to you.
- _jal 7y ago
  Well, I'm sympathetic to where you're coming from, but this is muddled. "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one" has been a cliche for a long, long time, and while it is a little flip, there's a truth there. Your freedom of speech does not require me or anyone else to amplify it. Or even listen. Put another way, do you believe you should be forced to tell other people my message? What about everyone else's?
  - sjwright 7y ago
    What I will say is that both extremes are unworkable—from blanket bans to the authoritarian forcing of companies to publish poltical ads against their will. Everything was fine back when the newspapers had a healthy tension between revenues and credibility. And when the sheer quantity of advertising venues was small and the advertisements devoid of third-order ulterior motives. Until we can reign in the excesses of online advertising, it's more prudent to be cautious than dive further into the abyss.
- Lazare 7y ago
  > Claiming that we must be reliant on private corporations for free speech is a corruption of the very concept I don't disagree with you! And I think if you'll look around, you'll see it is true. Your ability to get your viewpoint out is, perhaps more than at any other time since the 19th century, dependent on it being deemed acceptable by a handful of powerful gatekeepers. Between the incredible amount of consolidation we've seen in media companies, the dominance Google has on search, the dominance Apple and Google have on app stores, and the dominance a small handful of social media and messaging corporations have on communication, it's kind of amazing how few entities control what so many get to see in every context. I really, really welcome suggestions on how to fix this. But I don't think pretending it doesn't exist is the answer.
davinic 7y ago
You're presenting a false dichotomy. Another solution would be to allow the ads but disallow personalized targeting.
riantogo 7y ago
So if I run a advocacy group in favor of asset forfeiture but don’t have money to pay Zuck, then what? Screw my advocacy group? You want folks with money to have “more free speech” and don’t see anything wrong with that?
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  >You want folks with money to have “more free speech” and don’t see anything wrong with that? Yes, I don't see anything wrong with that. If I choose to print 1,000 flyers to hand out, I am using money to amplify my voice. Do you see anything wrong with this? Facebook Ads are no different.
  - dfalfndfk 7y ago
    We should cease pretending scale does not matter. Also that analogies are useful. Your flyer analogy is not useful because it does not _replace_ another flyer. A clear analogy would be buying advertising space in a newspaper. If you were to buy the entire newspaper's advertising space to amplify your voice I would definitely consider it an abuse of power and wrong.
tw04 7y ago
If the media isn't covering their message because they're LYING, then the media is doing their job. The fact Zuckerberg thinks that people who are intentionally misleading people "deserve a voice" is ridiculous. These aren't little white lies, or a bending of the truth, they're bald-faced lies intended to confuse or misinform the voting public. I'm not sure why we're pretending they deserve the same platform as people spreading factual information. They're more than free to say whatever they want on their own property and in their own homes. But if they want a seat at the media, then at minimum there needs to be a GIANT disclaimer both before and after the advertisement both calling out the false assertions and letting people know the advertisement is strictly for entertainment purposes.
- Bostonian 7y ago
  Who gets to determine what the lies are? I think the following frequently-made assertions are misleading: (1) Women are paid 72 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men. (2) Rich people pay less taxes than the poor. (3) Blacks are being wantonly killed by the police in large numbers. However, I think that in a free country, progressives can make ads with such messages, and conservatives are free to debunk them. Likewise, progressives can debunk misleading statements by conservatives.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    TV stations have been making these judgement calls for decades. It seems to work fairly well.
    - Bostonian 7y ago
      They usually don't: In phony Facebook ad, Warren said most TV networks will refuse ads with a 'lie' but that’s wrong https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... 'Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 states: "If any licensee shall permit any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office in the use of such broadcasting station: Provided, That such licensee shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast under the provision of this section." It also specifically says licensees can’t censor "material broadcast by any such candidate." Broadcasters are bound by that act and therefore can’t reject a presidential candidate’s ad, even if contains false information. (The candidates do have to abide by disclosure rules to make it clear who paid for the ad.)'
landryraccoon 7y ago
I'm sorry, I don't follow. If a group wants to post on social media, they can just post on social media. Ads increase the reach of those with money. That is exactly what they do and nothing more. Why would we want to further amplify the voice of those who have money? The fact that the cause is the abolition of X or the support of Y is a non sequitur, in either case it is the viewpoint of someone with the money to promote their voice. I have very little concern that the opinions of those with large quantities of money at their disposal are underrepresented in politics, or do not have the ability to make their voices heard.
- texuf 7y ago
  Just because I’m subscribed to someone on social media doesn’t mean they show up in my feed. That change happened long ago. It’s only guaranteed to show up if they pay.
  - aggie 7y ago
    It's not going to show up in everyone's feed if you pay either. You're just talking degrees of exposure. Getting to 100% of eyeballs vs. 80% or 10% is arbitrary.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    So Facebook - who controls your feed (and made said change) now wants to say that their right to prioritize (based on money) what stuff goes on your feed shouldn't be questioned?
    - semiotagonal 7y ago
      > their right to prioritize (based on money) what stuff goes on your feed It's not your feed, it's their feed; you're just the person eating it.
      - fermenflo 7y ago
        Thank you... Everyone seems to be forgetting that this is a 100% opt-in service. Why do we get to say what FB is obligated to do and to what standards they have to keep their website at?
xwowsersx 7y ago
You last point, in parentheses, is exactly right. Came to say the same thing.
jakelazaroff 7y ago
That's just how money works, though: the more you have, the more you can amplify your speech. The "media" (including social media) is really just a group of people with a lot of money who use it to selectively amplify messages. To that end, I think your position is contradictory. If X group has a moral right to use their money to promote speech via ads, why shouldn't media owners have the same right to use their money to promote speech via their platforms?
crtlaltdel 7y ago
don't "traditional" media outlets already decide what ads to run, and reject ads that do not meet their standards (along with any applicable regulatory constraints)? i was under the impression that even the Penny Saver circulars reserve the right to deny ad placements based on their own, internal standards. obviously i don't know much about this area...if anyone has canonical references they could point to i'd love to learn more.
burtonator 7y ago
One problem is that we have two extremes: - Twitter: no political ads - Facebook: any political ads, including lying. It would be nice to at LEAST have an agreement that ads saying things that are objectively incorrect should not be run. For example, if I ran an ad that said "Hacker News was owned by Rupert Murdock" (which is false) then this ad should be blocked. There might need to be some penalty applied retroactively. Like if you're busted running a fake political ad your company is on timeout for 60 days. To be fair, I realize this is a difficult problem this is why we might have to add a penalty period. Surely we can live in a world where we have facts, right?
austincheney 7y ago
> You might say - and I'd certainly agree - that the real problem is a world where everyone is on Twitter and Facebook to the exclusion of all else Then I would say you are living in artificial world delightful for advertisers. I have a Twitter account that I have not really used in a decade and nobody else in my family has ever touched Twitter. My wife has a Facebook account she uses to keep in touch with family, but nobody else in my family has a Facebook account. I know MANY people in my professional world who have neither.
stjohnswarts 7y ago
It doesn't matter, this is a private company, if they don't want to fact check political ads then they should stop showing political ads. No one can make them do anything but it might be a public opinion win for Zuck for once and be good for the way people view Facebook. Twitter is right on this one.
birdyrooster 7y ago
You mentioned a minor downside to limiting paid political ads online. We get a huge upside in return. The game we want is one where political movements can organically gain traction based on popularity. In this world where political ads are banned, movements don't need financiers to be as successful as they could be. In your example, it's ironic you mention the civil forfeiture movement, because they are exactly the type of people who aren't spending money on ads. PACs and Super PACs for election campaigns are doing the spending. I wish you would acknowledge this.
xmprt 7y ago
Free speech doesn't mean you're free to force others to hear your point.
tripzilch 7y ago
You're just switching one filter "is covered by the media" for another filter "has money to pay for ads".

by Lazare 7y ago

Angostura 7y ago

I humbly disagree > it would be natural for them to try paying for ads, and the obvious place to put ads are on social media It would be natural to them to post to their Facebook page because that's what social media is for and then for their committed network of supporters to repost etc. Remember - that's the advantage of social media - you can quickly get the work out to your supporters without having to go through intermediaries, or having to pay for advertising.

Lazare 7y ago
That's not how social media works. Feeds are highly curated. > you can quickly get the work out to your supporters without having to go through intermediaries, or having to pay for advertising. How do you think Facebook makes money? And as a followup, why do you think people pay money to run ads on Facebook? Like, I 100% agree with you that this is how it should work, and it's how we all thought it would work 15 years ago, but it feels oddly disconnected from the world we live in.
- v4dok 7y ago
  Indeed this is the way it works but I think you restrict your view by taking social media as some society constant. If there is no way for the public to find the information it looks for in a meaningful way in facebook or twitter, it will migrate to something else or push it to change. It might push the platforms to feed people with an equal share of all sides instead of feeding them what the "want" and anyone else has to pay
  - roenxi 7y ago
    Paid advertising to get ideas out has existed for at least as long as we've had newspapers and probably a lot longer. Take this case, for example. URL says it all: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/muslims-take-out-full-page-newspaper-ad-to-denounce-anti-semitism-against-our-jewish-sisters-and-brothers/ https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/muslims-take-out-full-page-n... It sounds nice to say that we are going to keep some communication channels free of political speech. It is an option. But it is possible (I claim: likely) that more communication leads to better political outcomes, so sealing off easy-to-use channels like advertising may not actually help.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      > But it is possible (I claim: likely) that more communication leads to better political outcomes Not when that speech is deceptive, and particularly not when people can pay money to a company to ensure that those lies are disseminated as widely as possible.
    - kyboren 7y ago
      > But it is possible [...] that more communication leads to better political outcomes I believe this is true and also that this is basically the hypothesis motivating freedom of speech under law. However, I believe that modern digital political advertising is a very different kind of communication than the open, genuine discussion in a free marketplace of ideas that free speech advocates often envision. I think one big problem is information fragmentation taken to the extreme: Each person is now subjected to his or her own individually-targeted propaganda. It is a non-genuine, abusive form of individualized communication that in my opinion tends to erode opportunity for political consensus. In my view, some forms of political advertising are perfectly acceptable. Attending a political debate and arguing well for your candidacy is perfectly acceptable. Enlisting Cambridge Analytica or foreign intelligence services to employ individual psychometric profiles to serve up the most effectively manipulative propaganda is not acceptable. Advertising that is more generally broadcast as opposed to narrowly targeted is perfectly acceptable, and potentially even desirable for political discourse. Advertising that is "too" targeted is potentially corrosive to political discourse. I would love to see proposals on how to draw the line, legislatively, that would address these concerns and also pass strict scrutiny.
indymike 7y ago
That was the case years ago. Facebook does not show every post in your followers stream. Once you get to a certain size, you have to pay to ensure the message gets delivered with boosted posts and such. Many of these political organizations have popular Facebook pages and still have to pay to get their posts into their followers streams.
- rebuilder 7y ago
  Aha, now it makes sense that Zuckerberg is so insistent on keeping political ads.
  - goldenkey 7y ago
    The old Myspace behavior of friending everyone you met online has benefited FB in spades... Wow.

sjwright 7y ago

Claiming that we must be reliant on private corporations for free speech is a corruption of the very concept. I don't agree with your argument, but to the extent that there's any truth to it the remedy can only be to fix the underlying problem—not submitting to it. To be clear, my objection isn't to all online advertising but specifically to Zuckerberg defending Facebook's policy with an appeal to free speech. Obviously speech without funding is weak an ineffective, but if Facebook voluntarily chose to eliminate all political advertising, it is irrational to claim that your freedom of speech has been curtailed. Facebook's existence isn't promised to you.

_jal 7y ago
Well, I'm sympathetic to where you're coming from, but this is muddled. "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one" has been a cliche for a long, long time, and while it is a little flip, there's a truth there. Your freedom of speech does not require me or anyone else to amplify it. Or even listen. Put another way, do you believe you should be forced to tell other people my message? What about everyone else's?
- sjwright 7y ago
  What I will say is that both extremes are unworkable—from blanket bans to the authoritarian forcing of companies to publish poltical ads against their will. Everything was fine back when the newspapers had a healthy tension between revenues and credibility. And when the sheer quantity of advertising venues was small and the advertisements devoid of third-order ulterior motives. Until we can reign in the excesses of online advertising, it's more prudent to be cautious than dive further into the abyss.
Lazare 7y ago
> Claiming that we must be reliant on private corporations for free speech is a corruption of the very concept I don't disagree with you! And I think if you'll look around, you'll see it is true. Your ability to get your viewpoint out is, perhaps more than at any other time since the 19th century, dependent on it being deemed acceptable by a handful of powerful gatekeepers. Between the incredible amount of consolidation we've seen in media companies, the dominance Google has on search, the dominance Apple and Google have on app stores, and the dominance a small handful of social media and messaging corporations have on communication, it's kind of amazing how few entities control what so many get to see in every context. I really, really welcome suggestions on how to fix this. But I don't think pretending it doesn't exist is the answer.

davinic 7y ago

You're presenting a false dichotomy. Another solution would be to allow the ads but disallow personalized targeting.

riantogo 7y ago

So if I run a advocacy group in favor of asset forfeiture but don’t have money to pay Zuck, then what? Screw my advocacy group? You want folks with money to have “more free speech” and don’t see anything wrong with that?

s1artibartfast 7y ago
>You want folks with money to have “more free speech” and don’t see anything wrong with that? Yes, I don't see anything wrong with that. If I choose to print 1,000 flyers to hand out, I am using money to amplify my voice. Do you see anything wrong with this? Facebook Ads are no different.
- dfalfndfk 7y ago
  We should cease pretending scale does not matter. Also that analogies are useful. Your flyer analogy is not useful because it does not _replace_ another flyer. A clear analogy would be buying advertising space in a newspaper. If you were to buy the entire newspaper's advertising space to amplify your voice I would definitely consider it an abuse of power and wrong.

tw04 7y ago

If the media isn't covering their message because they're LYING, then the media is doing their job. The fact Zuckerberg thinks that people who are intentionally misleading people "deserve a voice" is ridiculous. These aren't little white lies, or a bending of the truth, they're bald-faced lies intended to confuse or misinform the voting public. I'm not sure why we're pretending they deserve the same platform as people spreading factual information. They're more than free to say whatever they want on their own property and in their own homes. But if they want a seat at the media, then at minimum there needs to be a GIANT disclaimer both before and after the advertisement both calling out the false assertions and letting people know the advertisement is strictly for entertainment purposes.

Bostonian 7y ago
Who gets to determine what the lies are? I think the following frequently-made assertions are misleading: (1) Women are paid 72 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men. (2) Rich people pay less taxes than the poor. (3) Blacks are being wantonly killed by the police in large numbers. However, I think that in a free country, progressives can make ads with such messages, and conservatives are free to debunk them. Likewise, progressives can debunk misleading statements by conservatives.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  TV stations have been making these judgement calls for decades. It seems to work fairly well.
  - Bostonian 7y ago
    They usually don't: In phony Facebook ad, Warren said most TV networks will refuse ads with a 'lie' but that’s wrong https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/15/elizabeth-warren/phony-facebook-ad-warren-said-most-tv-networks-wil/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct... 'Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 states: "If any licensee shall permit any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office in the use of such broadcasting station: Provided, That such licensee shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast under the provision of this section." It also specifically says licensees can’t censor "material broadcast by any such candidate." Broadcasters are bound by that act and therefore can’t reject a presidential candidate’s ad, even if contains false information. (The candidates do have to abide by disclosure rules to make it clear who paid for the ad.)'

landryraccoon 7y ago

I'm sorry, I don't follow. If a group wants to post on social media, they can just post on social media. Ads increase the reach of those with money. That is exactly what they do and nothing more. Why would we want to further amplify the voice of those who have money? The fact that the cause is the abolition of X or the support of Y is a non sequitur, in either case it is the viewpoint of someone with the money to promote their voice. I have very little concern that the opinions of those with large quantities of money at their disposal are underrepresented in politics, or do not have the ability to make their voices heard.

texuf 7y ago
Just because I’m subscribed to someone on social media doesn’t mean they show up in my feed. That change happened long ago. It’s only guaranteed to show up if they pay.
- aggie 7y ago
  It's not going to show up in everyone's feed if you pay either. You're just talking degrees of exposure. Getting to 100% of eyeballs vs. 80% or 10% is arbitrary.
- r00fus 7y ago
  So Facebook - who controls your feed (and made said change) now wants to say that their right to prioritize (based on money) what stuff goes on your feed shouldn't be questioned?
  - semiotagonal 7y ago
    > their right to prioritize (based on money) what stuff goes on your feed It's not your feed, it's their feed; you're just the person eating it.
    - fermenflo 7y ago
      Thank you... Everyone seems to be forgetting that this is a 100% opt-in service. Why do we get to say what FB is obligated to do and to what standards they have to keep their website at?

xwowsersx 7y ago

You last point, in parentheses, is exactly right. Came to say the same thing.

jakelazaroff 7y ago

That's just how money works, though: the more you have, the more you can amplify your speech. The "media" (including social media) is really just a group of people with a lot of money who use it to selectively amplify messages. To that end, I think your position is contradictory. If X group has a moral right to use their money to promote speech via ads, why shouldn't media owners have the same right to use their money to promote speech via their platforms?

crtlaltdel 7y ago

don't "traditional" media outlets already decide what ads to run, and reject ads that do not meet their standards (along with any applicable regulatory constraints)? i was under the impression that even the Penny Saver circulars reserve the right to deny ad placements based on their own, internal standards. obviously i don't know much about this area...if anyone has canonical references they could point to i'd love to learn more.

burtonator 7y ago

One problem is that we have two extremes: - Twitter: no political ads - Facebook: any political ads, including lying. It would be nice to at LEAST have an agreement that ads saying things that are objectively incorrect should not be run. For example, if I ran an ad that said "Hacker News was owned by Rupert Murdock" (which is false) then this ad should be blocked. There might need to be some penalty applied retroactively. Like if you're busted running a fake political ad your company is on timeout for 60 days. To be fair, I realize this is a difficult problem this is why we might have to add a penalty period. Surely we can live in a world where we have facts, right?

austincheney 7y ago

> You might say - and I'd certainly agree - that the real problem is a world where everyone is on Twitter and Facebook to the exclusion of all else Then I would say you are living in artificial world delightful for advertisers. I have a Twitter account that I have not really used in a decade and nobody else in my family has ever touched Twitter. My wife has a Facebook account she uses to keep in touch with family, but nobody else in my family has a Facebook account. I know MANY people in my professional world who have neither.

stjohnswarts 7y ago

It doesn't matter, this is a private company, if they don't want to fact check political ads then they should stop showing political ads. No one can make them do anything but it might be a public opinion win for Zuck for once and be good for the way people view Facebook. Twitter is right on this one.

birdyrooster 7y ago

You mentioned a minor downside to limiting paid political ads online. We get a huge upside in return. The game we want is one where political movements can organically gain traction based on popularity. In this world where political ads are banned, movements don't need financiers to be as successful as they could be. In your example, it's ironic you mention the civil forfeiture movement, because they are exactly the type of people who aren't spending money on ads. PACs and Super PACs for election campaigns are doing the spending. I wish you would acknowledge this.

xmprt 7y ago

Free speech doesn't mean you're free to force others to hear your point.

tripzilch 7y ago

You're just switching one filter "is covered by the media" for another filter "has money to pay for ads".