Thread

1. bonoboTP · 1790503851 · focus · HN ↗

   There is no win here. In Europe they simply quit the political advertisement business and simply don't do political ads. Such clear rules work much better. No politics or any politics, free speech etc. Of course nobody really wants free speech. Only free speech for the "correct" side and silence the "dangerous" other side. It's always like that. So then it becomes a game of blaming social media either way. "They allow too much propaganda for Bad Party A! This is misinformation and election interference!" "They banned my preferred Good Party A (same party)! This is censorship and election interference!"

   There are no easy answers here, and every side just wants social media to support their side and suppress the others.

   1. alex43578 · 1790504009 · focus · HN ↗

      I guess the challenge comes in even defining "political" ads. Is an ad about expensive gas prices or egg prices political? Unless you put such a huge ring fence around any topics of economy, immigration, law, crime, etc; I can think of a number of effective messages that aren't inherently political, but would activate an audience aligned with a political affiliation.

      1. codedokode · 1790504319 · focus · HN ↗

         And also you can masquerade political ads as ads for a newspaper article, for example: "Governor A opens a new school" or "Party A declares amazing plans for next 5 years" (actually done here by ruling party, to work around election ad laws and limitations).
      2. bonoboTP · 1790504915 · focus · HN ↗

         Yes, but it puts friction on it. Perfect vs good etc.

         For example, you can't advertise overtly for political candidates or parties. You can't advertise if you are a political party or an org that has candidates for election. Of course they will then use supposedly independent orgs who are totally not affiliated with the party, but again it's some friction.

         In Hungary, since Fb banned political ads in the EU, the previous governing party had a much harder time in advertising themselves, they tried but didn't manage to go around the rules at scale.

         > defining "political" ads

         Yes, and people will also complain that you now suppress serious conversations about people's lives and want them to live in some rose tinted walled garden where they can only post wholesome sanitized corporate friendly content etc.

         And anyway in the last decade or more, there was a big push to say that "everything is political", you must always speak up for your ideas even in unrelated venues and spaces, etc., so yes it becomes very hard to delineate this because again, realistically, the problem is not political vs not political but my side vs their side.

   2. tremon · 1790513862 · focus · HN ↗

      A few years ago, in NL they banned a campaign from the Brandwondenstichting (foundation for treating burn victims) because it used photos from actual burn scars to warn the public. Ostensibly, the reason given was that it upset their delicate eyes -- which was the entire point of the campaign. The campaign itself was not political, but Facebook choosing to apply their weak US sensibilities to a Dutch campaign surely was a political act.

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