5 ms·

Are the ads illegal? Or the products they are advertising? The website for Soldier of Fortune advertises similar products, should they be shut down? How about t

Are the ads illegal? Or the products they are advertising? The website for Soldier of Fortune advertises similar products, should they be shut down? How about the print magazine, should that be shut down as well? There are a lot of sites out there that publish much more objectionable content. Should we shut all of them down as well?

dahart 6y ago
> Are the ads illegal? [...] should they be shut down? Probably not, but insurrection is. The ad isn’t the problem here, the context & juxtaposition is the problem. It’s not a call to shut down ads, it’s a call to avoid accidentally (or worse, intentionally) supporting illegal speech and violence.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Probably not, but insurrection is. If Facebook is distributing illegal messages inciting, or that constitute part of a conspiracy aimed at, insurrection, that is obviously a problem. What legal ads it shows next to such messages is, if a legitimate concern at all, orders of magnitude less important. If the content is not illegal, and the ads are not illegal, I’m not sure what the issue is at all.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Advertisements are also messaging. Take a news article about a governer starting a new coronavirus lockdown. This article having ads for hand sanitizer, and this article having ads for zip-ties, are two very different messages.
  - colpabar 6y ago
    >If the content is not illegal, and the ads are not illegal, I’m not sure what the issue is at all. Have you ever considered that what is illegal can be changed, and that the commenters you are replying to may feel that some part of this industry should be made illegal? It used to be legal to advertise cigarettes to children, and now it's not. If you want to argue that it will be difficult to write and pass legislation that actually accomplishes anything meaningful, I'd agree. But to say "no laws are being broken so who cares?" is just so unproductive. Something has to be done here, and I think I would rather have it be done at a government level so that I can at least feel like I had some say in it.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Have you ever considered that what is illegal can be changed, and that the commenters you are replying to may feel that some part of this industry should be made illegal? Sure, and I’ve seen plenty of decent arguments for moving the line of legality on the main content (less so on the content of the ads at issue, though there might be some.) Feel free to replace “should be illegal” for “is illegal” in the grandparent post. Doesn’t really change the basic point, which is that I fail to see much argument for why the juxtaposition should be of concern that doesn’t depend on one of the items (most likely the main content rather than the ads) being of much greater concern to start with.
- richrichardsson 6y ago
  > the context & juxtaposition is the problem This seems like an issue that cannot be solved (yet). No human editor would place insensitive adverts next to related content, and I think we're a way off ML knowing the myriad subtleties that could be involved. A sibling content mentioned adding rules to stop this particular case in point, but that just sounds like an endless game of whack-a-mole.
  - dahart 6y ago
    > No human editor would place insensitive adverts next to related content Right, isn't that the solution?
- TYPE_FASTER 6y ago
  The site https://www.sofmag.com/ https://www.sofmag.com/ currently shows advertising for gun accessories next to mostly political news and opinion pieces. Does the legality of this advertising depend on whether a person or an algorithm selected the advertising? Questions like these are probably why the bill Josh Hawley wrote is clearly targeted at Facebook and Google, what with the $1.5bil revenue number: https://outreach.senate.gov/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=SenHawley&crop=14313QQQ5897779QQQ5550481QQQ7266215&report_id=&redirect=https%3a%2f%2fwww.hawley.senate.gov%2fsites%2fdefault%2ffiles%2f2020-07%2f2020-07-28%2520-%2520Bad%2520Ads%2520Bill%2520Text_0.pdf&redir_log=461643216717635 https://outreach.senate.gov/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=... (huh, is that a click tracker? URL from https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-bill-remove-section-230-immunity-behavioral-advertisers https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-bill...)
  - dahart 6y ago
    > [site] currently shows advertising for gun accessories next to mostly political news and opinion pieces. I guess this is still somewhat straw man. Ads near politics and opinion on a politically oriented site also isn't what was being called out exactly. I guess that it could be summarized as advertising the ammunition to carry out a violent insurrection next to the call to create a violent insurrection (illegally), on a site that is primarily social, mass market, and supposedly politically neutral, that was the problem being called out. Trying to draw broader lines than that makes any argument specious at best. > Does the legality of this advertising depend on whether a person or an algorithm selected the advertising? Currently, no. Currently the advertising is legal regardless. (And note, again, the legality of the ads wasn't the issue being discussed.)

dahart 6y ago

> Are the ads illegal? [...] should they be shut down? Probably not, but insurrection is. The ad isn’t the problem here, the context & juxtaposition is the problem. It’s not a call to shut down ads, it’s a call to avoid accidentally (or worse, intentionally) supporting illegal speech and violence.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Probably not, but insurrection is. If Facebook is distributing illegal messages inciting, or that constitute part of a conspiracy aimed at, insurrection, that is obviously a problem. What legal ads it shows next to such messages is, if a legitimate concern at all, orders of magnitude less important. If the content is not illegal, and the ads are not illegal, I’m not sure what the issue is at all.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  Advertisements are also messaging. Take a news article about a governer starting a new coronavirus lockdown. This article having ads for hand sanitizer, and this article having ads for zip-ties, are two very different messages.
- colpabar 6y ago
  >If the content is not illegal, and the ads are not illegal, I’m not sure what the issue is at all. Have you ever considered that what is illegal can be changed, and that the commenters you are replying to may feel that some part of this industry should be made illegal? It used to be legal to advertise cigarettes to children, and now it's not. If you want to argue that it will be difficult to write and pass legislation that actually accomplishes anything meaningful, I'd agree. But to say "no laws are being broken so who cares?" is just so unproductive. Something has to be done here, and I think I would rather have it be done at a government level so that I can at least feel like I had some say in it.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Have you ever considered that what is illegal can be changed, and that the commenters you are replying to may feel that some part of this industry should be made illegal? Sure, and I’ve seen plenty of decent arguments for moving the line of legality on the main content (less so on the content of the ads at issue, though there might be some.) Feel free to replace “should be illegal” for “is illegal” in the grandparent post. Doesn’t really change the basic point, which is that I fail to see much argument for why the juxtaposition should be of concern that doesn’t depend on one of the items (most likely the main content rather than the ads) being of much greater concern to start with.
richrichardsson 6y ago
> the context & juxtaposition is the problem This seems like an issue that cannot be solved (yet). No human editor would place insensitive adverts next to related content, and I think we're a way off ML knowing the myriad subtleties that could be involved. A sibling content mentioned adding rules to stop this particular case in point, but that just sounds like an endless game of whack-a-mole.
- dahart 6y ago
  > No human editor would place insensitive adverts next to related content Right, isn't that the solution?
TYPE_FASTER 6y ago
The site https://www.sofmag.com/ https://www.sofmag.com/ currently shows advertising for gun accessories next to mostly political news and opinion pieces. Does the legality of this advertising depend on whether a person or an algorithm selected the advertising? Questions like these are probably why the bill Josh Hawley wrote is clearly targeted at Facebook and Google, what with the $1.5bil revenue number: https://outreach.senate.gov/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=SenHawley&crop=14313QQQ5897779QQQ5550481QQQ7266215&report_id=&redirect=https%3a%2f%2fwww.hawley.senate.gov%2fsites%2fdefault%2ffiles%2f2020-07%2f2020-07-28%2520-%2520Bad%2520Ads%2520Bill%2520Text_0.pdf&redir_log=461643216717635 https://outreach.senate.gov/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=... (huh, is that a click tracker? URL from https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-bill-remove-section-230-immunity-behavioral-advertisers https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-bill...)
- dahart 6y ago
  > [site] currently shows advertising for gun accessories next to mostly political news and opinion pieces. I guess this is still somewhat straw man. Ads near politics and opinion on a politically oriented site also isn't what was being called out exactly. I guess that it could be summarized as advertising the ammunition to carry out a violent insurrection next to the call to create a violent insurrection (illegally), on a site that is primarily social, mass market, and supposedly politically neutral, that was the problem being called out. Trying to draw broader lines than that makes any argument specious at best. > Does the legality of this advertising depend on whether a person or an algorithm selected the advertising? Currently, no. Currently the advertising is legal regardless. (And note, again, the legality of the ads wasn't the issue being discussed.)