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Meta to stop running political ads on Facebook and Instagram in the EU
- jabjq 1y agoThe best, most successful political ads in social networks are not paid.
- andrepd 1y agoOf course. Literally every time I search anything in my native language on incognito youtube or a fresh instagram, I immediately get suggested propaganda videos from the local far-right party. Who needs ads when you've got The Algorithm on your side?
- bigbadfeline 1y agoThe Algorithm is present here to, there are dedicated down-voting accounts, many of which are far-right and apparently well funded... They monitor for comments that don't fit their propaganda and down-vote them - no argument, no explanation, no interaction. It was done to your comment too, so I had to intervene.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- MITSardine 1y agoHopefully a future step is enforcing airwave time limits/parity as is done in traditional media, for the countries that have such rules. How this can be done is another question, not just from a technical standpoint...
- duxup 1y agoLast time I signed up for a twitter account I was IMMEDIATELY followed by a handful of accounts. I'm not sure how. Two even seemed to try to pretend to be from my local town, albeit awkwardly. They had a lot of normal-ish posts. Then after a bit their posts turned pretty dark / lots of allusions to "new people in town". I was curious so I checked out their profile, one described themself as "a former libtard who saw the light". Those profiles pretty much went down the path you'd expect after a while.
- soco 1y agoI read about this kind of tactics. Same with Facebook groups - knitting, cooking, history: they start by gathering a mass of normal fans, then slowly turn to the original aim of spreading propaganda. And in this case it was all pro-russian anti-war good-old-communist-times garbage.
- duxup 1y agoMy neighbor was a part of a facebook mom's group that went that way. It was a normal group, all the discussion you'd expect, but then the person running the group pretty much took the wheel and turned it hard to the right and even tried testing the locals for their loyalty and etc. Expelling anyone even wondering what was going on and so on. It was wild.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoDon't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
- progbits 1y ago> blames ... regulation ... political ads transparency rules Blame is a fun word to use. Poor Meta lawyers, need to do some work before accepting money to spread propaganda.
- victorbjorklund 1y agoIt is not just propaganda. Its also normal political parties that try to reach out to voters to inform them of their politics.
- prasadjoglekar 1y agoBingo; and one side's legitimate outreach appears to the other side to be blatant propaganda. Paid or unpaid. That's the normal nature of democracy; it's a contact sport. It's better if people see all messages with proper attribution rather than an intermediary deciding what's allowed and what is not. Incidentally, in the US at least, the old fashioned TV networks are require to offer all political candidates the same, lowest, media rates. PACs and outside money pay market rates.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> It's better if people see all messages with proper attribution We’re talking about targeted ads on social media.
- barbazoo 1y agoNo one sees the same political ads. Everyone sees a customized version of whatever lie they want to tell you. Get that shit out of the shadows and out in the public where everyone can see who says what. They shouldn’t be whispering what they want in everyone’s ears.
- iamflimflam1 1y agoThis is the problem. When political messages are out in the open where everyone can see and challenge them it’s healthy. When it’s whispers tailored to individuals playing on their hopes and fears…
- yostrovs 1y agoWhy not make transparent all speech involving opinions or attempts to change anyone's mind, so that the listener can "understand who is behind them"?
- duxup 1y agoIt seems Facebook simply doesn't want to.
- s1mplicissimus 1y agoIt would lower the value of said "messaging", because who speaks does make a difference when people evaluate trustworthyness. Lower value = less profits for ad platform. I hope that answers the question of "why not" :)
- game_the0ry 1y agoWho knew a social network founded by a goofy, rebellious nerd that used to have "Random Play" as a relationship status would have such an affect in our world. What a time to live in...
- duxup 1y agoWould just a given policy ad be allowed? So my candidate is known for pushing "ban ducks from ponds", it's not his only thing but he's known for it. So then I put out a bunch of ads about dealing with the scourge of ducks on ponds to get that problem in people's heads ... That ok?
- ruined 1y agothe first sentence of the article describes the conditions
- duxup 1y agoI feel like there's a lot of room inside those conditions for questions. Perhaps other people see these decisions as far more obvious? I do not. "That's political" is already a common phrase often used to dismiss what people don't agree with.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoWe're just talking about paid ads, not what you discuss with your cousin.
- duxup 1y agoThat example is to show how folks can decide something is "political" even if it's just something they don't like. That can apply to anyone, including people deciding if an advertisement is political or not.
- bigbadfeline 1y agoIndirect propaganda schemes of your duck kind aren't effective. Some will be caught by the rule, some won't. So what? The rule still makes the media environment a lot cleaner. Can you clean every last spec of dust from your driveway/sidewalk? Well, you don't have to, cleaning the big shit and mud is good enough.
- sam-cop-vimes 1y agoGood riddance to bad rubbish
- poisonborz 1y agoWondering about the consequences to the Hungarian government, which is by far the largest spender on Meta political advertisement in the EU (yes, bigger than Germany or the EU Parliament itself). I only have last year's data (per capita), since then the spending grew significantly. https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/BFvCl/2/ https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/BFvCl/2/
- miltonlost 1y agoHopefully will reduce the right-wing propaganda and Orbán’s stranglehold on the country. He’s been a big maker in the authoritarian playbooks being used across the world now
- pbnjeh 1y agoIIRC, I saw some reporting that Hungary was spending (far) more on ads targeting other European countries and those elections, than on ads targeting their own. In other words, an instigator, agent, and/or vehicle for right wing propaganda Europe-wide.
- riffraff 1y agoI've seen so many ads by the HU government and associated entities on YouTube I think they must be in the top 3 there too.
- chpatrick 1y agoI hope this change also covers government-affiliated entities like Megafon, CÖF etc.
- soco 1y agoNow I must wonder how come I never see any kind of political ads on Facebook...???
- Tuna-Fish 1y agoFacebook allows targeting specific groups of people, you don't belong to one that anyone wanted to show political ads to.
- mrtksn 1y agoThis doesn’t mean that it can’t be used for political manipulation. For example, one can run ads claiming that they are an agency helping refugees collect the government issued houses and cars to induce outrage against refugees to boost the sentiment for the right or they can run ads claiming that they are into business of helping the rich avoid paying taxes in exaggerated amounts to boost rhe left leaning politics. The last few elections were tainted with right wing populist spending money that at first glance isn’t theirs, also it was exposed that the american personna Tim Poool was receiving money from Russia connected sources to boost certain ideas. There are also many creative ways like foreign countries making large ad spending on social media people who boost positions that they support. Then people start noticing that and produce content just for that. Then there’s the case with Twitter where if Musk follows you and retweets or likes you you make good money because the algorithm increases your exposure, if he stops doing that you fade out so you have to create content that pleases such people.
- bigbadfeline 1y agoTrue
- blitzar 1y agoNothing of value was lost, not even Metas shareprice.
- seydor 1y agoThis is funny because EU commission and parliament are among the largest advertisers on fb. I don't know if it counts as political ads
- ChocolateGod 1y agoJust me but I've often round the EU commission advertisements more about being informative than trying to sway an opinion in favour of any political party.
- isodev 1y agoI think that’s very good news. Political ads should never have been a thing in the first place.
- Yoric 1y agoBest news of the day!
- ajdude 1y agoI see plenty of unsolicited posts on my Facebook feed that are very political, except they aren't ads. I always just block whatever page posted it, but what's the point of blocking political ads if these posts still make it through the standard viral distribution channels?
- CommenterPerson 1y agoI think this is a good move. EU has been passing some good regulations to combat internet enshittification.
- hulitu 1y ago> Meta to stop running political ads on Facebook and Instagram in the EU For how many femtoseconds ? /s