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Simple solutions: * Block all political ads all the time. * Require all political parties, and their PACS, to register as a known Advertiser account within th

Simple solutions: * Block all political ads all the time. * Require all political parties, and their PACS, to register as a known Advertiser account within the system. Any time an ad runs, and regardless of the source, the associated party will be heavily penalized with a removal of their non-paid content. There needs to be ramifications for their abuse of the platform. Being that Facebook can't charge them a fine, penalizing their organic exposure is the only thing that they can hold against them. Multiple offenses will result in longer and longer periods of their content being "muted".

lanevorockz 6y ago
Only if they wanted a fair balance, I think Facebook is just aiming to under advertise Conservatives. There is no secret that about 95% of all donations from Silicon Valley goes to Democrats. It won't take too long until the whole world is a mirror of California.
- zo1 6y ago
  It's not quite 95% all around, here are the top ones with the percentage of all their employees' contributions to the Democrat party: Netflix = 98% Nvidia = 93% Adobe = 93% IBM = 90% Salesforce = 89% Google = 88% Microsoft = 85% Apple = 84% Paypal = 84% Cisco = 80% Amazon = 77% Facebook = 77% Intel = 68% Broadcom = 68% Oracle = 67% Texas Instruments = 60% Qualcomm = 50% Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-ranked-by-employee-donations.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-... Still pretty bad, and makes one worry about where those employees are donating their non-political and non-tracked donations to. Edit. Added source.
  - zeroonetwothree 6y ago
    Surprising it’s the Dems in Congress that want to break up tech then. I guess money isn’t everything.
    - zo1 6y ago
      I thought it was more being driven/pushed by conservatives? Edit. Wow, this conversation is seriously devolved when a simple question gets downvoted.
      - blackflame7000 6y ago
        You committed wrong-think so you must be silenced.
      - blackflame7000 6y ago
        And as you can see below I was silenced for speaking ill of the overlords. They get off on making an imaginary number go down...
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Those are employee contributions, in their capacity as private citizens, not contributions made by the company. Don't forget to count company PAC contributions, often made to both sides.
    - zo1 6y ago
      I didn't say they were made by the company, I said they were made by the employees of those companies. It's important as it speaks to the huge imbalance of democrat vs conservative individuals inside those companies.
    - mason240 6y ago
      And who at the companies are making decisions about policy? Employees.
      - pjc50 6y ago
        .. not really? Most of the time policy is set from the top. Netflix isn't exactly a worker co-op.
        blackflame7000 6y ago
        Everybody contributes to a companies culture and that drives the people at the top too.
dsugarman 6y ago
Can they not charge them a fine? Can't they put something in their terms that requires a monetary penalty as well as a "time-out"? I love your solutions but I also worry that facebook wouldn't want to put them in place because of all the lost revenue, if you make the abuser pay for the lost revenue then all incentives seem aligned
anjel 6y ago
You describe the system pretty much in place for decades in western european countries. The problem is, media companies have grown dependant on the easy 9figures in ad revenue they are all but guaranteed each election cycle. Take that election rev away and the 4th estate collapses.
maybeOneDay 6y ago
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but does this not potentially incentivise political organisations running their opposition's ads (it's probably feasible to do so in such a way that they don't really reach anyone) and then reporting the infractions and thereby getting their opposition punished?
- anonymouswacker 6y ago
  These are "simple" solutions--i.e., not good ones.
  - schwinn140 6y ago
    Fair enough. What do you propose?
marketingtech 6y ago
Completely banning political ads puts incumbents at a huge advantage. Emerging challengers don't have nearly as much free organic distribution, so they need to buy ads to build momentum and expand their reach. Even in the current US presidential election, Biden has 3.2 million Facebook followers while Trump 31.7mm on his personal page and 6.3mm on his presidential page. Without paying for ads that extend your audience beyond your pre-existing followers, the incumbents will always have more reach for their messages. Completely agree that we should be able to see the people responsible for running each of these ads though, with personal liability for the content that they're sharing.
- schwinn140 6y ago
  Good point regarding the incumbents. This clearly isn't a simple problem to solve...some one will always lose. Sadly, we cannot trust our political leaders to simply do the right thing. To the contrary, we need to have these types of discussions in an effort to govern the government. :(

lanevorockz 6y ago

Only if they wanted a fair balance, I think Facebook is just aiming to under advertise Conservatives. There is no secret that about 95% of all donations from Silicon Valley goes to Democrats. It won't take too long until the whole world is a mirror of California.

zo1 6y ago
It's not quite 95% all around, here are the top ones with the percentage of all their employees' contributions to the Democrat party: Netflix = 98% Nvidia = 93% Adobe = 93% IBM = 90% Salesforce = 89% Google = 88% Microsoft = 85% Apple = 84% Paypal = 84% Cisco = 80% Amazon = 77% Facebook = 77% Intel = 68% Broadcom = 68% Oracle = 67% Texas Instruments = 60% Qualcomm = 50% Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-ranked-by-employee-donations.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-... Still pretty bad, and makes one worry about where those employees are donating their non-political and non-tracked donations to. Edit. Added source.
- zeroonetwothree 6y ago
  Surprising it’s the Dems in Congress that want to break up tech then. I guess money isn’t everything.
  - zo1 6y ago
    I thought it was more being driven/pushed by conservatives? Edit. Wow, this conversation is seriously devolved when a simple question gets downvoted.
    - blackflame7000 6y ago
      You committed wrong-think so you must be silenced.
    - blackflame7000 6y ago
      And as you can see below I was silenced for speaking ill of the overlords. They get off on making an imaginary number go down...
- pjc50 6y ago
  Those are employee contributions, in their capacity as private citizens, not contributions made by the company. Don't forget to count company PAC contributions, often made to both sides.
  - zo1 6y ago
    I didn't say they were made by the company, I said they were made by the employees of those companies. It's important as it speaks to the huge imbalance of democrat vs conservative individuals inside those companies.
  - mason240 6y ago
    And who at the companies are making decisions about policy? Employees.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      .. not really? Most of the time policy is set from the top. Netflix isn't exactly a worker co-op.
      - blackflame7000 6y ago
        Everybody contributes to a companies culture and that drives the people at the top too.

dsugarman 6y ago

Can they not charge them a fine? Can't they put something in their terms that requires a monetary penalty as well as a "time-out"? I love your solutions but I also worry that facebook wouldn't want to put them in place because of all the lost revenue, if you make the abuser pay for the lost revenue then all incentives seem aligned

anjel 6y ago

You describe the system pretty much in place for decades in western european countries. The problem is, media companies have grown dependant on the easy 9figures in ad revenue they are all but guaranteed each election cycle. Take that election rev away and the 4th estate collapses.

maybeOneDay 6y ago

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but does this not potentially incentivise political organisations running their opposition's ads (it's probably feasible to do so in such a way that they don't really reach anyone) and then reporting the infractions and thereby getting their opposition punished?

anonymouswacker 6y ago
These are "simple" solutions--i.e., not good ones.
- schwinn140 6y ago
  Fair enough. What do you propose?

marketingtech 6y ago

Completely banning political ads puts incumbents at a huge advantage. Emerging challengers don't have nearly as much free organic distribution, so they need to buy ads to build momentum and expand their reach. Even in the current US presidential election, Biden has 3.2 million Facebook followers while Trump 31.7mm on his personal page and 6.3mm on his presidential page. Without paying for ads that extend your audience beyond your pre-existing followers, the incumbents will always have more reach for their messages. Completely agree that we should be able to see the people responsible for running each of these ads though, with personal liability for the content that they're sharing.

schwinn140 6y ago
Good point regarding the incumbents. This clearly isn't a simple problem to solve...some one will always lose. Sadly, we cannot trust our political leaders to simply do the right thing. To the contrary, we need to have these types of discussions in an effort to govern the government. :(