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Twitter stops running political ads on platform

Slartibartfast

Slartibartfast

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Trump campaign blasts 'very dumb' Twitter decision | TheHill

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."
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:usflag2:

Score one for democracy!
 
tacomancer said:
Trump campaign blasts 'very dumb' Twitter decision | TheHill



:usflag2:

Score one for democracy!
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Will be interesting to see how they define a political ad. Is any tweet by Trump or CNN on a political issue an ad? Is an ad only something someone pays Twitter for or is it any tweet they consider political?Then what is considered political? If someone tweets that we just had the hottest summer in history is that a tweet about global warming or just a statement of fact (just an example not sure if it was the hottest summer).
 
ocean515 said:
A business should be allowed to make decisions it believes are correct.

However, any rational thinking person should be very concerned when those actions amount to censorship.

This slippery slope the left is racing down is a danger to the fundamental ideals this Nation was founded on.
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I suspect this is a temporary solution until the problem of bots can be solved through better algorithms.
 
code1211 said:
I wonder how the term "political" will be interpreted.

Will the posting of messages, not advertising, be unaffected by this?
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great question! Lets find out (because I have no idea)
 
ocean515 said:
A business should be allowed to make decisions it believes are correct.

However, any rational thinking person should be very concerned when those actions amount to censorship.

This slippery slope the left is racing down is a danger to the fundamental ideals this Nation was founded on.
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There is no censorship going on here. Twitter is a privately owned company, entitled to operate as it pleases.
 
tacomancer said:
I suspect this is a temporary solution until the problem of bots can be solved through better algorithms.
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It doesn't change the fact that subjective censorship is becoming the norm for people on the left.

That posses a clear and present danger to the fundamental rights our Constitution protects.

Bot, algorithm, or human, when unknown and unseen forces decide what people are allowed to see, we as a Nation are in danger.
 
ocean515 said:
A business should be allowed to make decisions it believes are correct.

However, any rational thinking person should be very concerned when those actions amount to censorship.

This slippery slope the left is racing down is a danger to the fundamental ideals this Nation was founded on.
Click to expand...

All of the social media applications are participating in the creation of a new "Marketplace of Ideas".

If they are controlling and rejecting ideas, they will soon be regulated into a less "Wild West" brand of freedom.

Giving tyrants the ability to control the masses hardly equates to freedom.

Employing this internal rule may be the opening to a First Amendment law suit.
 
ocean515 said:
It doesn't change the fact that subjective censorship is becoming the norm for people on the left.

That posses a clear and present danger to the fundamental rights our Constitution protects.

Bot, algorithm, or human, when unknown and unseen forces decide what people are allowed to see, we as a Nation are in danger.
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and I am fine with all of that, as long as humans are doing the communicating :)

Right now light AI is being weaponized and that needs to be fought until the problem can be studied and systems adapted to be more resilient.
 
RaleBulgarian said:
There is no censorship going on here. Twitter is a privately owned company, entitled to operate as it pleases.
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Marketplace of ideas - Wikipedia

<snip>
The marketplace of ideas metaphor is founded in the philosophy of John Milton in his work Areopagitica in 1644 and also John Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty in 1859.[1]

It was later used in opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The first reference to the "free trade in ideas" within "the competition of the market" appears in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s dissent in Abrams v. United States.[2]

The phrase "marketplace of ideas" first appears in a concurring opinion by Justice William O. Douglas in the Supreme Court decision United States v. Rumely in 1953:

"Like the publishers of newspapers, magazines, or books, this publisher bids for the minds of men in the market place of ideas".[3]

The Supreme Court's 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio enshrined the marketplace of ideas as the dominant public policy in American free speech law (that is, against which narrow exceptions to freedom of speech must be justified by specific countervailing public policies).

<snip>
 
Mashmont said:
Exactly what the left wanted. Now Twitter can run its Marxist newsfeed without any dissenting views. This is why the big push for so-called CFR.
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and that pretty much has nothing to do with what twitter is addressing.
 
code1211 said:
All of the social media applications are participating in the creation of a new "Marketplace of Ideas".

If they are controlling and rejecting ideas, they will soon be regulated into a less "Wild West" brand of freedom.

Giving tyrants the ability to control the masses hardly equates to freedom.

Employing this internal rule may be the opening to a First Amendment law suit.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

These questions of subjective censorship being deployed by these dominate social media platforms raises some real Constitutional issues.

On one hand, a business/corporation should have a right to make business decisions that it feels best suit it's objectives.

On the other hand, given their dominance as a means of social discourse, should they be allowed to manipulate the information they allow their consumers to see?

It seems obvious these questions will need to be hammered out in the courts.

What is concerning to me is the endorsement of censorship on the part of so many people.
 
Mashmont said:
Exactly what the left wanted. Now Twitter can run its Marxist newsfeed without any dissenting views. This is why the big push for so-called CFR.
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It's going to be very interesting to see which republicans are the most mad about social media cracking down on political ads that are lies or come from foreign countries.

Then we'll know which republicans are actually true Americans.
 
tacomancer said:
and I am fine with all of that, as long as humans are doing the communicating :)

Right now light AI is being weaponized and that needs to be fought until the problem can be studied and systems adapted to be more resilient.
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Interesting claim, but the result is still censorship, as it assumes consumers don't know any better, and some unknown, unseen person/program does.
 
ocean515 said:
Agreed.

These questions of subjective censorship being deployed by these dominate social media platforms raises some real Constitutional issues.

On one hand, a business/corporation should have a right to make business decisions that it feels best suit it's objectives.

On the other hand, given their dominance as a means of social discourse, should they be allowed to manipulate the information they allow their consumers to see?

It seems obvious these questions will need to be hammered out in the courts.

What is concerning to me is the endorsement of censorship on the part of so many people.
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If twitter has that kind of power, then they should be broke up using monopoly rules so there can be competing services.
 
ocean515 said:
Interesting claim, but the result is still censorship, as it assumes consumers don't know any better, and some unknown, unseen person/program does.
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That's where I disagree. If generative algorithms are shaping a political message instead of a human, that is no longer a censorship question because its not a message coming from people.

Here is an interesting read on how good AI is getting in this space: This A.I. Bot Can Convincingly '''Write''' Entire Articles. It'''s So Dangerously Good, the Creators Are Scared to Release It | Inc.com
 
tacomancer said:
If twitter has that kind of power, then they should be broke up using monopoly rules so there can be competing services.
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There has been talk about breaking up these massive social media operations.

Not sure I favor that.

My concern is what I have been commenting on.
 
ocean515 said:
There has been talk about breaking up these massive social media operations.

Not sure I favor that.

My concern is what I have been commenting on.
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Its a different issue I agree, but one to be considered if any one company gets too powerful. Especially when it comes to something as sacred as free speech.
 
tacomancer said:
That's where I disagree. If generative algorithms are shaping a political message instead of a human, that is no longer a censorship question because its not a message coming from people.

Here is an interesting read on how good AI is getting in this space: This A.I. Bot Can Convincingly '''Write''' Entire Articles. It'''s So Dangerously Good, the Creators Are Scared to Release It | Inc.com
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Well, I disagree.

The assumption, to put it bluntly, is that people are too stupid to know any better, so some outside force is going to decide what people are allowed to see. Whether that was generated by bots, or humans.

That is presumptuous, and it's another stake in the heart of the fundamental protections and rights contained in the US Constitution.
 
ocean515 said:
Well, I disagree.

The assumption, to put it bluntly, is that people are too stupid to know any better, so some outside force is going to decide what people are allowed to see. Whether that was generated by bots, or humans.

That is presumptuous, and it's another stake in the heart of the fundamental protections and rights contained in the US Constitution.
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people are shockingly easy to manipulate emotionally. Its actually quite sad and it usually takes a whole generation before people become wise to whatever the technique of the day is. But people are not perfect and because you don't have the needed education to see it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.

and to put it bluntly, an unemotional engine like an AI is well suited to exploiting our vulnerabilities in this regard. This is like hand guns versus a nuclear bomb, there is a reasonable and optimal space for social freedoms versus technology.
 
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Since everything has been politicized, Twitter will be.....crickets'
 
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