3 ms·

Meta joins Google in ragequitting EU political ads over onerous regulations

20 points by rntn 1y ago

andsoitis 1y ago
unserious word choices throughout article. "ragequit", "Zuckercorp". better reporting would be investigating the veracity and legitimacy of both sides of the argument, rather than just reporting that there are two sides and throwing incensed language at it. I didn't learn anything new in the article, no new insights, no changed minds.
- amiga386 1y ago
  > unserious word choices throughout article This has been the house style of The Register since 1994. Have you read El Reg before?
  - drcongo 1y ago
    Yeah, it's been shit since forever.
- flohofwoe 1y ago
  This is The Register, sir.
- jemmyw 1y ago
  Well I read the article and, having known nothing about the subject at all, found it somewhat informative. Having a few words of silly sprinkled throughout for amusement was fine. I don't read The Register often, it seems to concentrate more on IT industry news. But when they have run stories of interest they do seem to follow them up, so you get a reasonably researched picture over time and a couple of opinion pieces.
FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
Oh no, no political ads, what a huge loss.
lenerdenator 1y ago
So you're telling me that the most manipulative people in any society aren't able to use Google and Meta to manipulate for their own gain? ... is that a problem?
- hightrix 1y ago
  I’d love for the same to happen in the US. This seems like a huge positive.
thunderbong 1y ago
Related Meta to stop running political ads on Facebook and Instagram in the EU (www.euractiv.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44683148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44683148
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pyman 1y ago
Zuk thought the EU was the Wild West. It's not. Everyone sees the mess he made with hos polarising algorithms. More regulation for Zuk, please.
bko 1y ago
This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't think money is such a large factor in determining elections. Sure the person who wins tends to get the most donations and hence spend the most money. But that's because there is no incentive to give money to the person expected to lose. The prime example was 2016 where the spending was more than 2 to 1 in favor of Dems. And they also secured 57 major newspaper endorsements compared to just 2 from the other side. They just threw money at it. Same thing happened in 2024 presidential. And recently in NYC mayoral race, it was even more lopsided with the person who spent less money blowing out the one who spent more. The more likely impact of money is being able to get your message across at all. There's a saturation point. In any of these, does anyone think that if losing side spent twice as much money on their messaging they would have won? I don't. The only thing that might move the needle is if the little guy wasn't able to spend what little they spent to bootstrap support. Of course you can try to do so without spending, like walking door to door, but that doesn't scale very well. So I think restrictions on paid political speech will help incumbents.
- dehrmann 1y ago
  > This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't think money is such a large factor in determining elections. Remember the time Michael Bloomberg ran for president? It was the most expensive primary campaign in history, as the former mayor of NYC, he was qualified for the job (unlike Steve Forbes), and the only vote he got was from Guam.
- suid 1y ago
  The problem with describing the "spending" like this is that it only counts money that's donated to specific candidates or their PACs. What it doesn't count is the literal billions that have been spent capturing all of the media outlets (from TV networks and stations to newspapers, and throw in large modern media companies like Meta, Twitter/X, etc.). Also, the Republicans have a stranglehold on "political Christianity", where you basically get party sermons from the pulpit every day and twice on Sundays. The boost from these far outweighs any specific campaign spending, because these organizations have had years to build up their messaging on their targets, that no amount of specific election campaigning can come close to touching.
gmerc 1y ago
Shocking Europe would try to avoid being taken over by techno fascists. So onerous. So much regulation.
- bitshiftfaced 1y ago
  If only there was some way people could collectively choose who they elect in a democracy.
- lazyeye 1y ago
  Europe is already taken over by technocrats. They are just protecting their turf.

20 points by rntn 1y ago

unserious word choices throughout article. "ragequit", "Zuckercorp". better reporting would be investigating the veracity and legitimacy of both sides of the argument, rather than just reporting that there are two sides and throwing incensed language at it. I didn't learn anything new in the article, no new insights, no changed minds.

amiga386 1y ago
> unserious word choices throughout article This has been the house style of The Register since 1994. Have you read El Reg before?
- drcongo 1y ago
  Yeah, it's been shit since forever.
flohofwoe 1y ago
This is The Register, sir.
jemmyw 1y ago
Well I read the article and, having known nothing about the subject at all, found it somewhat informative. Having a few words of silly sprinkled throughout for amusement was fine. I don't read The Register often, it seems to concentrate more on IT industry news. But when they have run stories of interest they do seem to follow them up, so you get a reasonably researched picture over time and a couple of opinion pieces.

FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago

Oh no, no political ads, what a huge loss.

lenerdenator 1y ago

So you're telling me that the most manipulative people in any society aren't able to use Google and Meta to manipulate for their own gain? ... is that a problem?

hightrix 1y ago
I’d love for the same to happen in the US. This seems like a huge positive.

thunderbong 1y ago

Related Meta to stop running political ads on Facebook and Instagram in the EU (www.euractiv.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44683148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44683148

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

pyman 1y ago

Zuk thought the EU was the Wild West. It's not. Everyone sees the mess he made with hos polarising algorithms. More regulation for Zuk, please.

bko 1y ago

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't think money is such a large factor in determining elections. Sure the person who wins tends to get the most donations and hence spend the most money. But that's because there is no incentive to give money to the person expected to lose. The prime example was 2016 where the spending was more than 2 to 1 in favor of Dems. And they also secured 57 major newspaper endorsements compared to just 2 from the other side. They just threw money at it. Same thing happened in 2024 presidential. And recently in NYC mayoral race, it was even more lopsided with the person who spent less money blowing out the one who spent more. The more likely impact of money is being able to get your message across at all. There's a saturation point. In any of these, does anyone think that if losing side spent twice as much money on their messaging they would have won? I don't. The only thing that might move the needle is if the little guy wasn't able to spend what little they spent to bootstrap support. Of course you can try to do so without spending, like walking door to door, but that doesn't scale very well. So I think restrictions on paid political speech will help incumbents.

dehrmann 1y ago
> This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't think money is such a large factor in determining elections. Remember the time Michael Bloomberg ran for president? It was the most expensive primary campaign in history, as the former mayor of NYC, he was qualified for the job (unlike Steve Forbes), and the only vote he got was from Guam.
suid 1y ago
The problem with describing the "spending" like this is that it only counts money that's donated to specific candidates or their PACs. What it doesn't count is the literal billions that have been spent capturing all of the media outlets (from TV networks and stations to newspapers, and throw in large modern media companies like Meta, Twitter/X, etc.). Also, the Republicans have a stranglehold on "political Christianity", where you basically get party sermons from the pulpit every day and twice on Sundays. The boost from these far outweighs any specific campaign spending, because these organizations have had years to build up their messaging on their targets, that no amount of specific election campaigning can come close to touching.

gmerc 1y ago

Shocking Europe would try to avoid being taken over by techno fascists. So onerous. So much regulation.

bitshiftfaced 1y ago
If only there was some way people could collectively choose who they elect in a democracy.
lazyeye 1y ago
Europe is already taken over by technocrats. They are just protecting their turf.