7 ms·
I don't see how Bloomberg did anything wrong. Paying people to publish your message is part of normal political campaigning.
by kanox 7y ago
I don't see how Bloomberg did anything wrong.
Paying people to publish your message is part of normal political campaigning.
- notyourday 7y agoTwitter is upset that Bloomberg paid people and not Twitter to do the ads.
- justforyou 7y ago>> Twitter is upset that Bloomberg paid people and not Twitter to do the ads. You are ultimately correct, even if downvoted.
- jakelazaroff 7y agoThey are not correct. Twitter does not accept political ads.
- notatoad 7y agopaying people to promote your message is normal if they disclose that they're being paid (even if the disclosure is implicit) paying people to tweet nice things about you as if it's just because they like you is dishonest.
- dmix 7y agoSee for example: the professional Instagram shills like fuckjerry (of Fyre Fest fame) always mention it was paid for by Mike Bloomberg in the text area https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/instagram-meme-accounts-mike-bloomberg-fuckjerry https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/instagra... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/mike-bloombergs-sponcon-memelords-wont-be-subject-to https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/mike-bloo...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ReverseCold 7y agoThat's why Bloomberg discloses the sponsored posts on Instagram as: (yes this was really sponsored by @mikebloomberg) in the description. The entire message is often ironic, so other nonsponsored people are also using (yes this was really sponsored by @mikebloomberg) in their posts to make fun of Bloomberg, so although everyone is disclosing they're being paid, you don't actually know if someone is being paid or not.
- notatoad 7y agofrom what i've seen, the people "disclosing" they're being paid fall into two camps: the people who are actually getting paid, and are saying nice things about bloomberg. and the people who are sarcastically saying they're getting paid, and are definitely not saying nice things about bloomberg. so it's pretty easy to distinguish who's using that disclosure honestly.
- teruakohatu 7y agoOn Instagram influencer wannabees have been known to publish fake ads in order to make themselves look important enough to get high profile sponsers. I would imagine the same will could happen in elections.
- mc32 7y agoYeah I don’t know how you handle something like this and don’t end up in a place where only sanctioned decrees and declarations from the ministry of truth in information is allowed. Not that there’s an obvious solution to this mire
- Pfhreak 7y agoYou require paid tweets to include #ad or "paid for by..."
- dragonwriter 7y agoYou require paid political ads by campaigns to explicitly say “Paid for by <campaign>”. As, in fact, we already do, this is just a hack around the way those laws are applied.
- throwaway2048 7y agoNot every restriction on speech on a platform is a path straight to 1984
- deevolution 7y agoAnd this is a part of normal functioning american politics. The manufacture of consent, as Noam Chomsky described.
- blfr 7y agoBloomberg is not manufacturing any consent though. He's just proving, again after Hillary did it in 2016, that money doesn't win elections. I for one am glad this talking point is being finally put to rest.
- claudeganon 7y agoI would say paying off media outlets, think tanks, state party leaders, plotting with the DNC for a brokered convention, is beyond a parody of manufactured consent. You’re analogy to Hillary also doesn’t hold much water because his intent is not to become president, but to prevent Sanders from getting the nomination, or, if he does keep Trump in power by poisoning the well in the primaries.
- rayiner 7y agoIn the Iowa caucuses, Sanders won a plurality, but tellingly he did terribly in second alignments. (I.e. when other candidates were not viable, those candidates’ supporters avoided Sanders.) That strongly indicates that his support is strong, but has a low ceiling—confined to a plurality of the party. That’s not surprising. The Democratic Party as currently constructed is a third-way coalition including traditional progressives, labor, neo-liberals, and minorities. Sanders might have a plurality of the support in the party, but he threatens to blow up that coalition. A successful Presidential candidate has to win 95% of their own party. But only 76% of Democrats say that they would vote for a socialist: https://news.gallup.com/poll/285563/socialism-atheism-political-liabilities.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/285563/socialism-atheism-politi.... A successful Presidential candidate has to evenly split independents—who comprise 30% of the electorate—with the other party’s candidate. But independents’ views of socialism are much closer to those of Republicans than to those of Democrats: https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807047941/poll-sanders-rises-but-socialism-isnt-popular-with-most-americans https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807047941/poll-sanders-rises-.... Any successful democratic candidate must win super-majorities of non-white people (90% of African Americans, and 75% of Hispanics and Asians.) But just 33% of non whites have a favorable view of socialism. Bloomberg isn’t “buying” the support of “media outlets, think tanks, and state party leaders.” These are the people who established the third way coalition after devastating losses in the 1980s. These people are already looking for an alternative to Sanders. Bloomberg’s money is just getting his candidacy out there to help coalesce the “not Sanders” majority of the party.
- zzzeek 7y agoit's against Twitter's terms of service: "We have made this decision based on our belief that political message reach should be earned, not bought. " https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/prohibited-content-policies/political-content.html https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/prohibited...
- kanox 7y ago> political message reach should be earned, not bought. This is complete bullshit: paid professional campaigning has always existed and is used by everybody.
- Pfhreak 7y agoHas always existed is not the same as should exist. Everyone does it does not mean it should be done.
- throwaway17_17 7y agoFor this comment to make sense you need to specify the following: 1) By ‘always’ you mean since Twitter was founded 2) By ‘is used by everybody’ you mean it was done using backroom deals and that bought support was quietly and as organically appearing as possible put on the platform Bloomberg broke the first rule of SV politics, i.e. don’t get us caught in the middle, or exposed to liability, (otherwise known as plausible deniability). If Bloomberg had done this quietly and it was just a rumor Twitter would have given him a pass. But his team seems to have decided the bill in a china shop approach was their best bet. But it is getting him press coverage so maybe a win anyway.
- TAForObvReasons 7y agoIt's a massive win for Bloomberg. The discussion about paid advertising has now shifted from "Bloomberg is a bad actor" to "Twitter/Facebook are bad actors"
- kelnos 7y ago
- dragonwriter 7y agoThis is an novel attempt to hack the laws around required disclosures associated with first-party poltiical campaign ads. It may not violate the campaign laws it is designed to hack around and it may not violate the deceptive advertising laws underlying the FTC guides on disclosure of paid social media advertising and endorsements, but it certainly is not normal for political campaigns.
- thefourthchime 7y agoPolitics is a dirty dirty street fight. As they say NASCAR “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin'”
- ryguytilidie 7y agoMaybe we shouldn't be encouraging more corruption than we already have...?
- craftyguy 7y agoModeling our election campaign laws after NASCAR is probably not the best idea.
- tclancy 7y agoI dunno, I’d love to see the country in a permanent left turn instead of what we’ve done for the past 50 years.
- pengaru 7y agoI chuckled, but there are actually three road courses in the NASCAR Cup Series.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoThat permanent left turn just results in the burning of a lot of energy to end up in the same place you started. Oddly enough, going back to how things were 50 years ago is what many conservatives are asking for.
- buboard 7y agoWhat about the people paid to defend paid promoters in social sites?
- mayankkaizen 7y agoDo these make it clear that they are being paid for this campaign? This is fraud in the sense that it creates fake wave. Being a genuine supporter is one thing and being a supporter because you are paid to be so is another.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- catalogia 7y agoBeing 'wrong' and being 'normal political campaigning' are very far from mutually exclusive.
- abootstrapper 7y agoHow much did you get paid to post that?
- chillwaves 7y agoFTC stipulates disclaimer if a person is being paid for their endorsement. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc...
- rorykoehler 7y agoNormal maybe. Wrong? Definitely