Donnie on suicide watch. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/technology/twitter-political-ads-ban.html Twitter Will Ban All Political Ads, C.E.O. Jack Dorsey Says SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter said on Wednesday that it would ban all political ads, putting a spotlight on the power and veracity of online advertising and ramping up pressure on Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, to reverse his hands-off stance. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, said political ads, including manipulated videos and the viral spread of misleading information, presented challenges to civic discourse, “all at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.” He said he worried the ads had “significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle.” He added that he believed that the reach of political messages “should be earned, not bought.”
it would be funny to see Trump's twitter feed moderated https://thehill.com/policy/technology/468219-trump-campaign-blasts-very-dumb-twitter-decision Trump campaign blasts 'very dumb' Twitter decision “Twitter just walked away from hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue, a very dumb decision for their stockholders," Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. "Will Twitter also be stopping ads from biased liberal media outlets who will now run unchecked as they buy obvious political content meant to attack Republicans?" he added. The Trump campaign accused the social media platform of "yet another attempt to silence conservatives, since Twitter knows President Trump has the most sophisticated online program ever known.” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced the policy change Wednesday, saying the company will no longer accept political advertising that promotes candidates or particular hot-button issues. Dorsey said that "political message reach should be earned, not bought." "Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people," he wrote in a lengthy thread explaining the policy change. "We believe this decision should not be compromised by money."
Nothing like announcing that a week after they lost $8 Billion in marketcap and 25% of their stock price. I bet there are some pissed off funds out there. Class actions cometh.
Meh, people here complain that companies' fiduciary responsibility means they should stay out of politics. This is one way to grant them their wish.
Well, there's a difference between 'staying out of politics' and taking the ad revenue. Can you imagine what would happen to the stock of Comcast(NBC), CBS, Disney (ABC), News Corp, and Viacom if they did that.
Come on, that's not at all the same argument. Take whether the Twitter decision is good or bad out of the equation for a moment. A company taking a stand on a particularly charged and polarizing view and pushing advertisements to promote that view is not at all the same thing as saying "you know what? We want all political advertisements - regardless of who they support - out of our model". I happen to like the Twitter decision from a user standpoint. From an executive standpoint, however, I can see the risk in doing this to the overall profit stream.
eh, it's the same thing...if one party unloads a budget that dwarfs the other party's in advertisement on a platform, the hosting company's position has by default become a bias supporter of that party, even if they don't believe in anything they stand for. The result is all the same, even if you took the "belief" system out of the equation. You may argue, well "that's the capitalistic view", but you're essentially rewarding the monopolistic power of the party w/the most money and not necessarily the most competitive in a "voter count" basis. In a democracy, the competition is a vote count, not dollar count. meanwhile; ignore the stupid music:
https://www.axios.com/mark-zuckerbe...ing-9d8345fe-5c73-4e1b-a5a7-e9f6b9e9fa85.html Zuckerberg’s power to hurt Trump Top Republicans are privately worried about a new threat to President Trump’s campaign: the possibility of Facebook pulling a Twitter and banning political ads. Why it matters: Facebook says it won't, but future regulatory pressure could change that. If Facebook were to ban — or even limit — ads, it could upend Trump’s fundraising and re-election plan, GOP officials tell Axios. Trump relies heavily — much more so than Democrats — on targeted Facebook ads to shape views and raise money. Red flag: Kara Swisher, of Recode, the super plugged-in tech writer, predicted on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that Mark Zuckerberg will ultimately buckle on allowing demonstrably false political adds on Facebook: "He's going to change his mind — 100% ... [H]e's done it before." Twitter this week announced a ban on political and advocacy ads. ("Platforms give pols a free pass to lie," by Scott Rosenberg) Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale ridiculed the decision ("yet another attempt by the left to silence Trump and conservatives"), signaling the wicked backlash that would hit Zuckerberg. Why it would hurt Trump: His campaign has mastered the art of using Facebook’s precision-targeting of people to raise money, stir opposition to impeachment, move voters and even sell Trump shirts and hats. The Trump campaign often uses highly emotional appeals to get clicks and engagement, which provides valuable data on would-be voters and small-dollar donors. Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told Axios: "We’ve always known that President Trump was too successful online and that Democrats would one day seek to wipe him off the Internet." "That’s why we’ve invested so heavily in building up our data to allow us to communicate with millions of voters away from any third-party platforms like Facebook." "Democrats demanding internet platforms shut down political advertising will guarantee Trump’s victory in 2020. They’re idiots." By the numbers: The Trump campaign has spent $15.7 million dollars on Facebook ads this year, according to data from progressive advertising firm Bully Pulpit Interactive. The next closest Democratic spender is billionaire Tom Steyer, who has so far spent less than half of that. Those numbers don't include millions of dollars of additional Facebook ad spending from outside groups. The conservative non-profit Judicial Watch, for example, has spent $2.5 million on issue ads since the beginning of the year.