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How is it NOT his role to protect democracy? Democracy thrives on freedom of information, and with an informed populace. If the democracy's populace is gaining

How is it NOT his role to protect democracy? Democracy thrives on freedom of information, and with an informed populace. If the democracy's populace is gaining massive quantities of information from Twitter, isn't Jack Dorsey then directly involved in being an arbiter of democracy? For better or worse, isn't it factually true that these tech-info companies are directly woven into the fabric of our democracy?

haolez 7y ago
I was just talking about their statements, but regarding the argument, isn't this an arrogant position to take? You are basically saying that the majority of the population is not smart enough to detect fake news by themselves, and that a smaller group of smart individuals (you included) are better poised to protect "the people" and control what they should and should not be exposed to. Sounds a little dystopian and authoritarian to me as well. Fair democracy is hard.
- sp332 7y ago
  There's a difference between arrogance and actually having a lot of power. Zuckerberg is dodging accountability and pretending FB isn't responsible for the ads it's running. And it doesn't have to be a majority - the last election was decided by a margin of 0.09% of all votes cast, and ad platforms let advertisers target people pretty finely.
  - haolez 7y ago
    What's your proposed solution?
    - sp332 7y ago
      My ideal would be for some external regulator to police political ads, like the FEC already does to some extent. The policies would be made in public. The regulator would work with advertising platforms to set and enforce guidelines. Another option which would avoid some of the problems is to limit how tightly a political ad could be targeted. If misinformation is included in an ad, everyone should be able to see it and make a judgement. Targeting the most vulnerable people would not be an option. I think if a platform doesn't know whether an ad is true or not - any kind of ad - they should be very hesitant to run the ad. I think Twitter's decision to just not run political ads makes sense because it's hard for a private company to make policies in public. Even if they are really careful, there will always be some suspicion that they are favoring the highest bidder or Jack's favorite.
      - haolez 7y ago
        I mostly agree. Twitter is a private company and is free to do what they want. What I don’t agree is the CEO making the argument that he is protecting democracy. He is protecting his business. I strongly agree that adding more information to the system (like making ads metadata open) is good for the society as a whole and might lead to better decisions, as in decisions supported by better data. I don’t agree with the regulator idea, though. How do we make this regulator strong enough to resist corruption? It’s a tough job.

haolez 7y ago

I was just talking about their statements, but regarding the argument, isn't this an arrogant position to take? You are basically saying that the majority of the population is not smart enough to detect fake news by themselves, and that a smaller group of smart individuals (you included) are better poised to protect "the people" and control what they should and should not be exposed to. Sounds a little dystopian and authoritarian to me as well. Fair democracy is hard.

sp332 7y ago
There's a difference between arrogance and actually having a lot of power. Zuckerberg is dodging accountability and pretending FB isn't responsible for the ads it's running. And it doesn't have to be a majority - the last election was decided by a margin of 0.09% of all votes cast, and ad platforms let advertisers target people pretty finely.
- haolez 7y ago
  What's your proposed solution?
  - sp332 7y ago
    My ideal would be for some external regulator to police political ads, like the FEC already does to some extent. The policies would be made in public. The regulator would work with advertising platforms to set and enforce guidelines. Another option which would avoid some of the problems is to limit how tightly a political ad could be targeted. If misinformation is included in an ad, everyone should be able to see it and make a judgement. Targeting the most vulnerable people would not be an option. I think if a platform doesn't know whether an ad is true or not - any kind of ad - they should be very hesitant to run the ad. I think Twitter's decision to just not run political ads makes sense because it's hard for a private company to make policies in public. Even if they are really careful, there will always be some suspicion that they are favoring the highest bidder or Jack's favorite.
    - haolez 7y ago
      I mostly agree. Twitter is a private company and is free to do what they want. What I don’t agree is the CEO making the argument that he is protecting democracy. He is protecting his business. I strongly agree that adding more information to the system (like making ads metadata open) is good for the society as a whole and might lead to better decisions, as in decisions supported by better data. I don’t agree with the regulator idea, though. How do we make this regulator strong enough to resist corruption? It’s a tough job.