3 ms·

I think it's unrealistic to expect publishers to vet advertisements - all the "hur dur ads evil must ban" stuff aside - it would be nice if there was a good way

I think it's unrealistic to expect publishers to vet advertisements - all the "hur dur ads evil must ban" stuff aside - it would be nice if there was a good way to incentivise the publishers to do the right thing while being realistic about what they can do and that ads are here to stay - I'm not sure what. Technically it looks like a thing where an AI could do a 80% of the way there job - and with a human layer of sanity checks on top of it should be realistic - but still don't see a way to structure the incentives - this would cost a bunch of money and realistically do very little for FB (maybe prevent some bad PR from people getting scammed but TBH a lot of people won't even recognise they got scammed)

harry8 6y ago
It's perfectly realistic. You legally mandate it and they change their business practises. You think facebook and google would actually be unviable if they had to decide weather to publish an ad when they take the money? I doubt that strongly. Less profitable, sure. Less competitive in advertising with the newspaper, yep. Smaller players would be more competitive, absolutely. But even if they were unviable, someone else would work out how to set up a competing viable business with those constraints. Do you really doubt that? And perhaps if facebook can't be viable without advertising evil, destructive propaganda killing people who are mentally weakened by serious disease, they, you know, shouldn't be operating? Just a thought. Oh and "hur dur" yourself, man. Not productive to a rational and sensible discussion, yeah?
- rubber_duck 6y ago
  Sensible discussion ? How are you even supposed to determine what is fraudulent advertising as a publisher ? Are you supposed to inspect every product or verify the existence of every event before accepting a campaign ? This would basically wipe out the option to run small/local campaigns because of the upfront costs. And how would this benefit small players ? Their campaigns are smaller so as a % the flat cost of verification is going to be a significant price hike. Are they in a better position to verify that the ads they are running are not fraudulent ? And how would they cover their risk exposure considering a few missed fraudulent ads could put them out of business entirely compared to a large market player ? It would have radical consequences to a huge industry and it sounds like a knee jerk reaction because you don't like ads.
  - harry8 6y ago
    Run the ad in your local newspaper. When you place the ad they look at it and say "well that isn't obviously snake-oil" If it turns out that it was snake oil in disguise, the defence of that not being obvious to a reasonable person is a thing. You know much the same way the genocidal maniacs can't advertise genocidial mania in the new york times. Or your local newspaper. Is that ok on facebook or do they actually stop that? If they don't they probably should. If they do then they should keep doing it and extend to snake-oil frauds and such like. It benefits the small players as the cost reduction to google and facebook from the sheer scale of not vetting anything much is diminished encouraging publishers to run their own ads rather than outsource to the huge players with all the associated problems with that. (e.g. just one aspect, How can your advertising startup possibly compete with google given the status quo? With a diminished advantage of scale you have a better chance of setting up your advertising company in some particular niche or other). Beyond that I have no issue with small, local internet advertising being more expensive - if that even is the outcome, which I'm not convinced about. So running a small, local campaign pushes people and their advertising spend to local non-internet campaigns? I'm completely fine with that. I think that is a good thing, myself. More competition for advertising spend is a very, very good thing, in my view. For so many reasons. Censorship mitigation among them. A wouldn't publish the ad, B was unsure, but C said it was ok so I went there. Better than FB said no on a whim so now I can't advertise competitively. See, sensible discussion. I don't require you or anyone to agree with me. Just be civil, and not put words into others mouths they did not say e.g. "...because you don't like ads"
arrosenberg 6y ago
> it would be nice if there was a good way to incentivise the publishers to do the right thing while being realistic about what they can do and that ads are here to stay Fine the publisher every time they publish something fraudulent. It's not the public's problem or responsibility to solve this for Facebook.

harry8 6y ago

It's perfectly realistic. You legally mandate it and they change their business practises. You think facebook and google would actually be unviable if they had to decide weather to publish an ad when they take the money? I doubt that strongly. Less profitable, sure. Less competitive in advertising with the newspaper, yep. Smaller players would be more competitive, absolutely. But even if they were unviable, someone else would work out how to set up a competing viable business with those constraints. Do you really doubt that? And perhaps if facebook can't be viable without advertising evil, destructive propaganda killing people who are mentally weakened by serious disease, they, you know, shouldn't be operating? Just a thought. Oh and "hur dur" yourself, man. Not productive to a rational and sensible discussion, yeah?

rubber_duck 6y ago
Sensible discussion ? How are you even supposed to determine what is fraudulent advertising as a publisher ? Are you supposed to inspect every product or verify the existence of every event before accepting a campaign ? This would basically wipe out the option to run small/local campaigns because of the upfront costs. And how would this benefit small players ? Their campaigns are smaller so as a % the flat cost of verification is going to be a significant price hike. Are they in a better position to verify that the ads they are running are not fraudulent ? And how would they cover their risk exposure considering a few missed fraudulent ads could put them out of business entirely compared to a large market player ? It would have radical consequences to a huge industry and it sounds like a knee jerk reaction because you don't like ads.
- harry8 6y ago
  Run the ad in your local newspaper. When you place the ad they look at it and say "well that isn't obviously snake-oil" If it turns out that it was snake oil in disguise, the defence of that not being obvious to a reasonable person is a thing. You know much the same way the genocidal maniacs can't advertise genocidial mania in the new york times. Or your local newspaper. Is that ok on facebook or do they actually stop that? If they don't they probably should. If they do then they should keep doing it and extend to snake-oil frauds and such like. It benefits the small players as the cost reduction to google and facebook from the sheer scale of not vetting anything much is diminished encouraging publishers to run their own ads rather than outsource to the huge players with all the associated problems with that. (e.g. just one aspect, How can your advertising startup possibly compete with google given the status quo? With a diminished advantage of scale you have a better chance of setting up your advertising company in some particular niche or other). Beyond that I have no issue with small, local internet advertising being more expensive - if that even is the outcome, which I'm not convinced about. So running a small, local campaign pushes people and their advertising spend to local non-internet campaigns? I'm completely fine with that. I think that is a good thing, myself. More competition for advertising spend is a very, very good thing, in my view. For so many reasons. Censorship mitigation among them. A wouldn't publish the ad, B was unsure, but C said it was ok so I went there. Better than FB said no on a whim so now I can't advertise competitively. See, sensible discussion. I don't require you or anyone to agree with me. Just be civil, and not put words into others mouths they did not say e.g. "...because you don't like ads"

arrosenberg 6y ago

> it would be nice if there was a good way to incentivise the publishers to do the right thing while being realistic about what they can do and that ads are here to stay Fine the publisher every time they publish something fraudulent. It's not the public's problem or responsibility to solve this for Facebook.