Written By:
mickysavage - Date published:
8:34 am, November 1st, 2019 - 11 comments
Categories: Dirty Politics, facebook, internet, jacinda ardern, Media, Politics, twitter, uncategorized, us politics -
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Facebook take note. And Jacinda Ardern’s campaign against harmful content on social media is having an effect.
Although I am not aware of Twitter political ads being a major thing I am pleased to see Twitter has stood up and banned political advertising. The rationale is very clearly recorded in this tweet thread:
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
These challenges will affect ALL internet communication, not just political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems, without the additional burden and complexity taking money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither well, and harms our credibility.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we're stopping these too.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
In addition, we need more forward-looking political ad regulation (very difficult to do). Ad transparency requirements are progress, but not enough. The internet provides entirely new capabilities, and regulators need to think past the present day to ensure a level playing field.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address.
— jack (@jack) October 30, 2019
All eyes will now be on Facebook. This cartoon neatly presents the problem.
Yes Facebook is the problem. (I don't use Facebook.) I believe that National has at least 20 attack ads on Facebook at the moment and they barely use Twitter.
There is a reason most National attack ads on Facebook consist of hate speech boomer memes.
and that is Facebook is hardly used by anyone under 40-50.
And most younger people who are on Facebook mainly use it for Messenger.
Twitter is a cesspit full of partisan hacks. It is ridiculous that either side would want to advertise in there in the first place, as there is no one on twitter that isn't entrenched with one side or the other.
Amen to that.
Elizabeth Warren's campaign account has 3.4 million followers.
You can get away with spreading shit whilst in a cesspit.
Twitter has always been broader than politics. Can be a beautiful experience.
Andrew Little making a personal complaint, while a politician, to the Advertising Authority seems to have been dismissed from serious consideration by the Authority. I don't feel satisfied about this approach which would lead to a lack of respect for politicians from the public. Politics and facts and decent discussion is under attack. Interesting what earlier comments have said about age groups and on-line use by the majority of young and older.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/402263/andrew-little-declares-little-confidence-in-advertising-standards-authority
Andrew Little was talking about how the government aimed to crack down on misinformation campaigns when he said he had little confidence in the judgement of the Advertising Standards Authority.
Last month, the authority dismissed a complaint he made in a personal capacity about a newspaper ad run by a National Party MP. (Nick Smith I think.)
The best thing about this decision from Twitter is that it makes Zuckerberg look even more pathetic.
Exactly as intended.
Of all the policy wins this government has had, this feels like my favourite