4 ms·

We don't have to put up with this. We simply choose to. But our laws could be whatever we want them to be.

by colingauvin 13d ago

tygon 13d ago
Unfortunately, "we" is often those with the monetary means to make their voice heard.
- ericmay 12d ago
  Well you can also just stop using these products. I don't have or use Facebook, Instagram, Whats App, Reddit (since they removed old.reddit.com unless you have an account), TikTok, Snap, or anything else. Folks want Facebook or whatever to be regulated into some perfect idea they have in their heads of how it should work and how it should be regulated. Sorry, many people have many views on that, and you're never going to be happy with an outcome. Even this article - Facebook is complying with EU rules/regulations and now you're not happy that your voice isn't heard through your preferred form of political activism. If Facebook allows this content, they break EU laws, or they have to allow some content you disagree with and now you're mad. I don't know why people, right, left, or sideways keep putting up with this stuff.
  - dgellow 12d ago
    That has absolutely nothing to do with the EU regulation that requires to label political ads and restricts targeting technics
    - ericmay 12d ago
      Yes it does. You're using the product and seeing the ad. You and others are mad that the product is complying with the regulation in a way you don't prefer. Stop using the product, and no ad is there to be seen and none of this matters.
      - dgellow 12d ago
        I don’t use meta’s products. The issue has absolutely nothing to do about an ad ban. There is no ban of political advertising in the EU.
        ericmay 12d ago
        Ban/regulation, whatever. It's in the article and comments. Whatever you want to call that.
        dgellow 12d ago
        > When the newly reopened Teatre Raval, which seats 193 spectators, asked Meta, the parent company of the two social media sites, why its publicity had been blocked, it was told “any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform [topics that are central to Woolf’s work] are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system” and are filtered out. That’s Meta response. There is no mention of any regulation in that article.
        ericmay 12d ago
        Just because The Guardian intentionally didn't mention the regulations or role they might play and you want to be pedantic about their existence doesn't mean there aren't any. Businesses are allowed to and routinely comply with regulations to their best ability even if it wasn't as intended based on the act of the regulator/government. For ex: [1] https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update_Ads_about_Social_issues_Elections_or_Politics.pdf https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update... [2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/transparency-and-targeting-of-political-advertising.html https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/transpare...
        dgellow 12d ago
        You’re the one who mentioned it was in the article. Have you read that regulation? Because I did, and it’s not any form of ban on political advertising
    - eithed 12d ago
      Same here - idk why are people jumping on the wagon of attributing the restriction to EU regulation. Looks to be a US compliance banning social topics that Trump administration is pursuing (but again, idk if that's the case, this is guesswork on my part)
  - TacticalCoder 12d ago
    > Well you can also just stop using these products. I don't have or use Facebook, Instagram, Whats App, Reddit (since they removed old.reddit.com unless you have an account), TikTok, Snap, or anything else. I don't have any of those but I do need one messenger to communicate with my buddies in the EU. As I'm a "fuck the Zuck" person and an "ABM" (Anything But Microsoft), Telegram is my poison. I don't have any doubt: I know it's not E2EE (and I doubt that one-on-one encrypted communication --it's a setting you MUST turn on-- in Telegram is actually really E2EE). But Telegram is neither from the Zuck nor from Microsoft, so that's a big win for me. Also basically everyone in the EU has Telegram now.
  - pixl97 12d ago
    >I don't have or use Facebook, Instagram, Whats App, Reddit There is a particular amount of economic privilege in this statement. While I am a person who doesn't use those services (and recently stopped using reddit), a large number of people are required to use those services for their job, so they can get money, so they can put food on the table. Worse these companies ingrain themselves into a lot of physical locations and data collection from other sources so your not free of them. Individual boycotts rarely work, even ones that attract attention from a good number of people, companies are better at waiting than individuals seem to be. Political action has a much higher likelihood of success when driven by smaller motivated groups.
    - ericmay 12d ago
      > There is a particular amount of economic privilege in this statement. Good, I am pro-privilege and support being privileged. I'm not sure how and why we came to the point in our society where if someone says "hey these products suck and I'm not going to use them", someone has to come along and attempt to guilt them into using them? You want me to create a Facebook account and post pictures of funny cats because Joe and Sally podcaster need eyeballs for their rage-bait podcasts or quirky coffee mug they drop-shipped from China? Sorry, not buying it. Don't like the products? Stop using them. Reliant on them? Go complain to regulators. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
      - tygon 12d ago
        For many, it is less silly cat pictures and more listing products for sale from a legitimate registered business (catering is a common one for example). Gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. If you do not take advantage of tools afforded to you, someone will and because social media like facebook is "free," that is a go-to.
        ericmay 12d ago
        Sure, folks can do what they want. I'm not disputing that, but this idea of "privilege" in this context, to me, is quite ridiculous.
- alt227 12d ago
  "We" is a massive group of people who all have wildly different ideas. Saying "laws could be what we want them to be" is highly subjective depending on who the "we" is at that current time.
  - pixl97 12d ago
    Yea, people use We as the royal we quite often. What "people" miss about the royal we is it works much better when you have lots and lots of money.
p-e-w 12d ago
At this point, I suspect that comments like this one are part of an astroturfing campaign by the ruling class. It’s the same bullshit as “we could stop climate change if only we bothered to bring cloth bags to the store instead of picking up a disposable plastic bag each time”. “We” don’t have any power. And once you accept that, you can stop blaming yourself and your neighbors for the world you live in, and direct your anger where it belongs.
- willy_k 12d ago
  “We” do, we could, if organized. Per your first point, that is the problem today - agreeing on a shared goal rather than infighting about all the peripheral issues.
  - david-gpu 12d ago
    What looks like a peripheral issue to you is somebody else's central goal. And vice versa.
  - alt227 12d ago
    Whos "We"? I would hazard a guess theres stuff that I don't agree with you on, and we would want certain laws written differently. Its important to remember that we all vote for what we think is right, based on a system evolved over thousands of years to cater for human fallibility. The modern rhetoric of "us against the billionaires" is simply not how the world works, despite how much people want it to.
    - constantius 12d ago
      The modern rhetoric is indeed reductive if you put words in the poster's mouth. The comment was about 'us vs the ruling class', which is very much how the world works. Your knowledge of history is equally flawed, if you believe modern democracy is some kind of evolutionary apex tenderly nurtured for the greater good for thousands of years.
- colechristensen 12d ago

We don't have to put up with this. We simply choose to. But our laws could be whatever we want them to be.

tygon 13d ago

Unfortunately, "we" is often those with the monetary means to make their voice heard.

ericmay 12d ago
Well you can also just stop using these products. I don't have or use Facebook, Instagram, Whats App, Reddit (since they removed old.reddit.com unless you have an account), TikTok, Snap, or anything else. Folks want Facebook or whatever to be regulated into some perfect idea they have in their heads of how it should work and how it should be regulated. Sorry, many people have many views on that, and you're never going to be happy with an outcome. Even this article - Facebook is complying with EU rules/regulations and now you're not happy that your voice isn't heard through your preferred form of political activism. If Facebook allows this content, they break EU laws, or they have to allow some content you disagree with and now you're mad. I don't know why people, right, left, or sideways keep putting up with this stuff.
- dgellow 12d ago
  That has absolutely nothing to do with the EU regulation that requires to label political ads and restricts targeting technics
  - ericmay 12d ago
    Yes it does. You're using the product and seeing the ad. You and others are mad that the product is complying with the regulation in a way you don't prefer. Stop using the product, and no ad is there to be seen and none of this matters.
    - dgellow 12d ago
      I don’t use meta’s products. The issue has absolutely nothing to do about an ad ban. There is no ban of political advertising in the EU.
      - ericmay 12d ago
        Ban/regulation, whatever. It's in the article and comments. Whatever you want to call that.
        dgellow 12d ago
        > When the newly reopened Teatre Raval, which seats 193 spectators, asked Meta, the parent company of the two social media sites, why its publicity had been blocked, it was told “any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform [topics that are central to Woolf’s work] are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system” and are filtered out. That’s Meta response. There is no mention of any regulation in that article.
        ericmay 12d ago
        Just because The Guardian intentionally didn't mention the regulations or role they might play and you want to be pedantic about their existence doesn't mean there aren't any. Businesses are allowed to and routinely comply with regulations to their best ability even if it wasn't as intended based on the act of the regulator/government. For ex: [1] https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update_Ads_about_Social_issues_Elections_or_Politics.pdf https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update... [2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/transparency-and-targeting-of-political-advertising.html https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/transpare...
        dgellow 12d ago
        You’re the one who mentioned it was in the article. Have you read that regulation? Because I did, and it’s not any form of ban on political advertising
  - eithed 12d ago
    Same here - idk why are people jumping on the wagon of attributing the restriction to EU regulation. Looks to be a US compliance banning social topics that Trump administration is pursuing (but again, idk if that's the case, this is guesswork on my part)
- TacticalCoder 12d ago
  > Well you can also just stop using these products. I don't have or use Facebook, Instagram, Whats App, Reddit (since they removed old.reddit.com unless you have an account), TikTok, Snap, or anything else. I don't have any of those but I do need one messenger to communicate with my buddies in the EU. As I'm a "fuck the Zuck" person and an "ABM" (Anything But Microsoft), Telegram is my poison. I don't have any doubt: I know it's not E2EE (and I doubt that one-on-one encrypted communication --it's a setting you MUST turn on-- in Telegram is actually really E2EE). But Telegram is neither from the Zuck nor from Microsoft, so that's a big win for me. Also basically everyone in the EU has Telegram now.
- pixl97 12d ago
  >I don't have or use Facebook, Instagram, Whats App, Reddit There is a particular amount of economic privilege in this statement. While I am a person who doesn't use those services (and recently stopped using reddit), a large number of people are required to use those services for their job, so they can get money, so they can put food on the table. Worse these companies ingrain themselves into a lot of physical locations and data collection from other sources so your not free of them. Individual boycotts rarely work, even ones that attract attention from a good number of people, companies are better at waiting than individuals seem to be. Political action has a much higher likelihood of success when driven by smaller motivated groups.
  - ericmay 12d ago
    > There is a particular amount of economic privilege in this statement. Good, I am pro-privilege and support being privileged. I'm not sure how and why we came to the point in our society where if someone says "hey these products suck and I'm not going to use them", someone has to come along and attempt to guilt them into using them? You want me to create a Facebook account and post pictures of funny cats because Joe and Sally podcaster need eyeballs for their rage-bait podcasts or quirky coffee mug they drop-shipped from China? Sorry, not buying it. Don't like the products? Stop using them. Reliant on them? Go complain to regulators. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
    - tygon 12d ago
      For many, it is less silly cat pictures and more listing products for sale from a legitimate registered business (catering is a common one for example). Gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. If you do not take advantage of tools afforded to you, someone will and because social media like facebook is "free," that is a go-to.
      - ericmay 12d ago
        Sure, folks can do what they want. I'm not disputing that, but this idea of "privilege" in this context, to me, is quite ridiculous.
alt227 12d ago
"We" is a massive group of people who all have wildly different ideas. Saying "laws could be what we want them to be" is highly subjective depending on who the "we" is at that current time.
- pixl97 12d ago
  Yea, people use We as the royal we quite often. What "people" miss about the royal we is it works much better when you have lots and lots of money.

p-e-w 12d ago

At this point, I suspect that comments like this one are part of an astroturfing campaign by the ruling class. It’s the same bullshit as “we could stop climate change if only we bothered to bring cloth bags to the store instead of picking up a disposable plastic bag each time”. “We” don’t have any power. And once you accept that, you can stop blaming yourself and your neighbors for the world you live in, and direct your anger where it belongs.

willy_k 12d ago
“We” do, we could, if organized. Per your first point, that is the problem today - agreeing on a shared goal rather than infighting about all the peripheral issues.
- david-gpu 12d ago
  What looks like a peripheral issue to you is somebody else's central goal. And vice versa.
- alt227 12d ago
  Whos "We"? I would hazard a guess theres stuff that I don't agree with you on, and we would want certain laws written differently. Its important to remember that we all vote for what we think is right, based on a system evolved over thousands of years to cater for human fallibility. The modern rhetoric of "us against the billionaires" is simply not how the world works, despite how much people want it to.
  - constantius 12d ago
    The modern rhetoric is indeed reductive if you put words in the poster's mouth. The comment was about 'us vs the ruling class', which is very much how the world works. Your knowledge of history is equally flawed, if you believe modern democracy is some kind of evolutionary apex tenderly nurtured for the greater good for thousands of years.
colechristensen 12d ago