Twitter to ban all political advertising
Twitter is to ban all political advertising worldwide, saying that the reach of such messages "should be earned, not bought". "While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics," company CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted.
Social media rival Facebook recently ruled out a ban on political ads.
News of the ban divided America's political camps for the 2020 election. Brad Parscale, manager of President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, said the ban was "yet another attempt by the left to silence Trump and conservatives". But Bill Russo, spokesman for the campaign to elect Democratic front-runner Joe Biden, said: "When faced with a choice between ad dollars and the integrity of our democracy, it is encouraging that, for once, revenue did not win out."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:31PM (31 children)
Between that and them considering any non-Progressive speech a hate crime, there shouldn't be much wrongthink left and everyone can live in a shiny, happy Twitterverse.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:39PM (2 children)
Twitter also goes after the left so basically, this a huge gambit to support the HRC wing of the Democrat party.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:40PM
The cia democrats: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/07/dems-m07.html [wsws.org]
Also known as the "neocons", ie the warmongering republicrats.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:23PM
Twitter’s Head of Censorship, Vijaya Gadde, is responsible for deciding what is considered an illegal political twitter ad. These are some of the Twitter groups she follows: Flip States Blue, Swing Left, SPLC, ACLU, David Hogg, Women's March (actually anti-woman due to Islamic leaders but whatever), Buzzfeed SF, HeForShe, Flippable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:40PM (7 children)
The Twitterverse will never be happy. Remove all the wrongthink and they will just make up new wrongthink and eat each other alive.
Also, Twitter isn't banning political advertising on the platform. They just aren't getting paid for it. They are kneecapping their own business so that they can't be blamed for future election results.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:25PM (6 children)
https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2019/03/29/get-woke-go-broke-dicks-sporting-goods-loses-millions-anti-gun-stance/ [redstate.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @06:27PM (1 child)
Someone should stab Ed Stack to death.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @07:14PM
There. FTFY. Because guns don't kill people, whack jobs with guns do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:21PM
Well, if Stack isn't sorry then he couldn't have cost Dick's Sporting Goods that much money with his anti-gun stance. Saying "lost out on millions of dollars" is saying that's money you didn't make from selling guns, not that you lost revenue from selling other goods because people don't want to shop there at all anymore.
Usually, though, when a CEO of a publicly traded company makes a decision to make less money on purpose, large shareholders sue the company. If that doesn't happen, if pension funds, hedge funds (who have no morals except profit maximization), and mutual funds don't sue them, then that will tell a very much larger story about what's really going on in the world. I haven't put that much credence in the notion that the Deep State/1%/UniParty/Lizard People are staging a coup to overthrow democracy in the West, but if the Big Money starts to behave in a fundamentally different manner than their usual, then you know something's up.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:14PM (2 children)
An update: 250 billion: https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/dicks-sporting-goods-ceo-feels-fine-about-losing-250-million-following-gun-sale-restrictions/Content?oid=16002028 [pghcitypaper.com]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:15PM
M, not B -- MILLION, not billion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @01:38PM
They operate large brick and mortar stores that could easily be replaced by Amazon or Walmart. Time will tell if alienating a chunk of their customer base was a good idea.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:28PM (19 children)
So when is Trump getting kicked off?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @05:03PM (16 children)
Trump is a progressive. He was democrat until he ran as a republican... Haven't you noticed the national debt doubling under him the same as Obama?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @07:01PM (15 children)
So, a fascist is a progressive now? Then why are republicans so masturbating to his image?
This reminds me of a time when "conservatives" call Hitler a communist because "socialist" in the name of the party. Like north korea is "democratic", because of the name....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @07:18PM
Fascism was always a progressive movement...
The nazis were socialist and had a centrally run economy. People were doing stuff like buying trucks and immediately junking them for the tires due to the mismanagement, and this type of nonsense was going on *before* WWII. I know you are too brainwashed to read this book but maybe someone else will educate themselves: https://mises.org/library/vampire-economy [mises.org]
Here is a lecture on the book for people who prefer that format: https://youtube.com/watch?v=17DkMDvKqw0 [youtube.com]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:58PM (11 children)
Words mean what idiots want them to mean (see the guy's reply to you below..."fascism was a progressive movement," what the actual fuck...).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:47PM (10 children)
Yes, you are the one ignorant or in denial of basic history. Sorry, but all you have to do is look it up and be capable of comprehending what you read. Here is just one of many examples (you can see the book cited above for more):
https://www.quora.com/To-what-extent-was-Adolf-Hitler-a-progressive [quora.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:55PM (9 children)
Did you even read the reply you linked to me? Good grief, by the "logic" employed in that post, *anyone* who attempts to improve peoples' lot is a "progressive" regardless of what their social, economic, or political position is. That's utterly, utterly vacuous.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:02PM (8 children)
Quote one example and explain. I mean anyone educated in history knows you are wrong, but it will be a good exercise for you. Eg, eitler explicitly quoted the American Progressive movement as an inspiration:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/american-eugenics [allthatsinteresting.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
There are millions of sources about this, you can figure it out yourself from here.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:16PM (7 children)
Do you have a point somewhere? Because all I'm seeing is "people who said they wanted to improve life for others did evil shit, therefore wharrrrgabl progressives as a whole are evil." This doesn't even rise to the level of a reasoned argument.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:19PM (6 children)
The point is that Fascism was a Progressive movement. Like I said originally.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:36PM (5 children)
Name me anything that intends to help people that is not a progressive movement, then? And, what do you propose we do instead of "progressivism," which will include virtually any human effort at all with the size of the net you're casting?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:47PM (4 children)
Cutting the US federal budget by 40%, and eliminating income tax for the lower 95%. Auditing the federal reserve, getting rid of all prohibition of drugs, etc.
This isn't hard to understand. Progressivism is all about government meddling. If you want to help people, do stuff that results in less government meddling.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 31 2019, @11:57PM (2 children)
Ah, I see your problem...you've got "progressive" conflated with "big government." I happen to think *some* of the things you're suggesting are very "progressive" indeed, in the sense that they would certainly improve peoples' lives overall, but you're not using words correctly here. If you have a problem with big government, *say so in the first place using those words.*
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @12:01AM (1 child)
No. That is not "my problem". It is the platform of the progressive movement, whose policies were the inspiration for Hitler and the Nazi party.
Anyway, ok. Choose to remain ignorant of history and use words inconsistent with how everyone has used them before you. Your loss, you will get screwed over due to this choice of yours.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 01 2019, @02:46PM
So is your issue reading comprehension, or moral insanity? I mean it could be a little from Column A and a little from Column B, but I'm morbidly curious...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday November 01 2019, @12:56AM
Now that would be progressive..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:21PM (1 child)
Obama was so progressive he created the right of the president to execute US citizens without trial. I'd like to call that a fascist policy but that would violate the formula that says only Republicans are fascists and that no matter what Democrats do, who they kill, who they spy on, and whose money they take for political favor, Democrats are never anything but peace loving goodness and light. You can tell by how they talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlz3-OzcExI [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dry on Friday November 01 2019, @01:00AM
I think his fix for your medical system was a good example of why he was such a disappointment. And executing anyone, even with a trial is pretty regressive,as well as singling out that only American citizens deserve a trial.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @05:03PM
Common sense doesn't work on the crazies that have a martyr complex. Not only do they have the crazy part, but they are emotionally invested in their own idess of persecution.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:26PM
I think this policy is Twitter's attempt to square the circle. They would really like to censor Trump, but they know that if he stops using their platform their business would implode. So they are going to try to shadow-ban conservative voices under the auspices of this policy while allowing progressive interests to keep on pushing "public interest" ads. It's the same dodge they already use for 501(c)(3) organizations whereby they can't do politicial advertising or they will lose their non-profit status, but they can do "issue advocacy" ads with no problem. So in practice the 501(c)(3)s tend to synchronize their advertising with the platform of the party nominees during election time.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:33PM (2 children)
This is going to cause them headaches. Maybe time to short Twitter. I see they are already down about 40% this month though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:40PM (1 child)
Well, this looks like political advertising to me: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1189715310766645254 [twitter.com]
So what exactly did they "ban"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:49PM
Twitter is not getting paid to artificially promote political ads and give political advertisers access to analytics:
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:35PM (4 children)
I wouldn't mind political ads if they weren't so full of hate and dis-information.
I wouldn't mind seeing an ad that says "Person[x] is running for a seat in your district. They're in [x] party. Vote!" Instead we see ads describing how the world will come to a screeching halt if you vote wrong. We see ads that are nothing but emotional tugs of war. I don't find any of this helpful. I see that many of these are actually harmful to our discourse. If all of these parties would tone it down it might not be such an issue.
It is quite a day when a corporation has to step in because the rhetoric is so terrible they'd prefer not to take the cash over their beliefs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:45PM
It is funny seeing the political ads after moving out of Illinois. The budget/debt/tax problems they make a big deal about here are tiny compared to what I am used to seeing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:32PM (1 child)
Amen to that. It's almost like the entire state of politics is rotten and needs all stakeholders to step back and take a breath and fix the fucking rules of conduct.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:29PM
History calls those moments, "revolutions."
The consensus is surfacing on all sides that we're nearly there again.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Thursday October 31 2019, @08:53PM
Doesn't tell me anything i wouldn't see looking at the ballot itself.
ISSUE 1 - Regarding the Dust Spec
John Doe (R) - Boil that dust speck
Jane Smith (D) - Horton is a Russian asset
Fred Jones (L) - We're Here!
ISSUE 2 - ......
Would be more useful.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:36PM (2 children)
Facebook bans telling the truth in political advertising.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:49PM (1 child)
truth & political should never be used in the same sentence.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:53PM
Not unless there is a negative qualifier such as "bans".
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @05:59PM
...but we already saw that last night. Nationals, World Series champs. Booyah!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @06:29PM (3 children)
Democratic front-runner Joe Biden, said: "When faced with a choice between ad dollars and the integrity of our democracy, it is encouraging that, for once, revenue did not win out."
how convenient since ole' uncle trumpy raised way more money than the democratic candidates have.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 31 2019, @09:30PM
Yeah, funny that, Joe. People should get rich the old fashioned way, have the government hand them a giant pile of money, right?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday October 31 2019, @10:24PM
What's the saying?
A fool and his money are easily parted?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @06:04AM
It's much worse than even that.
Twitter could not reject right leaning advertising while rejecting left leaning advertising. The reason is because it's directly provable with no plausible deniability in their motives whatsoever. By contrast when banning individuals or other social style messaging, they can appeal to violations of their terms and services which are vague enough to justify banning anybody. As a result Twitter can, and does, ban socially driven political messaging that they disapprove of. They are even more active in preventing things they disagree with from trending which is done entirely opaquely. And so long as they occasionally do a token ban of some radical left individual, they can get away with arbitrary restrictions on the other side of the aisle since they have plausible deniability.
So, in other words, what this does is effectively give Twitter the right to censor political advertising they disagree with, and promote those that they agree with. All while pretending to be impartial. Expect to see an identical ban pass on Facebook before year's end. The only reason it's not happening simultaneously is, again, some plausible deniability of collusion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @01:24AM (2 children)
Too late.
We let them in, this will continue. There is today no way to distinguish some marketing campaigns from a real bottom-top movements, which are usually taken down a bit quicker. And things come not only through robots from ad companies, also from bio-robots.
And don't make me laugh with this "leftism! leftism!". Have you ever seen a true left-side politician without corporation and general business nationalization in their program? Which company wants to be nationalized? They would not advertise a left-wing politicians no matter what.
The "leftism" is like a typical movie villain. It is made to create some enemy, but the true intention is to format (yes, as we format media) an universal ad receiving customer which would not complain except in cases in which paid agencies want it to. This way it is possible to create, and stuff in, even the most stupid products.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @07:20AM (1 child)
Leftism doesn't get rid of capitalism. It just changes the currency from the dollar to an invisible currency of government favor. These companies already have billions of the dollar currency, now they're just working on accumulating the government currency whose value is growing at an exponential pace.
Ask a poor urban individual his views on most significant political topics and you're not going to get an especially refined response. They "ain't got time for dat shit." Their political views tend to be pretty simple and short term. One group promises to give them free stuff right now, the other group doesn't. Why do you think the DNC is teasing reparations? It's a completely legal way to buy votes -- even better, without even spending a dime of your own money. Sadly that increasing lack of political knowledge or interest applies not just to these groups, but they're important for another reason. This is the US birthrate by income. Those earning $200k. We are currently, quite literally, breeding support for leftism. And poor births also come at a much earlier age meaning an even higher effective reproduction rate. If that's not intuitive imagine one group having their children at age 20 versus another group having them at age 200. Even with the exact same fertility rate, you'd have a radically different 'reproduction rate'.
And so, unless something radically changes, fairly extreme liberalism is likely to, sooner or later, dominate the US political scene. I don't think these companies' pandering is any sort of a shadowy conspiracy or anything, just an acknowledgment of this reality. As you go further left the government increasingly becomes the entity that decide which companies and individuals win, and which lose. By aligning themselves with the government at a relatively early stage, these companies are doing little more than investing in their own future. Facebook may head the ministry of Communication, Google the Ministry of Information, Twitter the Ministry of Propaganda.
It's ironic. It's completely understandable why people evangelize for leftism. I mock the urban voter there, but it's easy to see and empathize that they feel wronged by a society where it's not easy to reach the top. Yet they end up advocating for a system where not only does "hard" become "impossible", but one where the bottom -where they will remain- tend to be vastly worse off than before. Stalin and Mao strove to create communist nations. But, as always in these systems, some people are more equal than others. Even as tens of millions of people starved to death in their brave new worlds, the politburo feasted. And the people manning that politburo are, and will be, the very people that individuals think they're fighting against in advocating for a leftist system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @02:02PM
Rather both, left and right side, became their marketing versions of the same thing: Corporation government. There is no more "right" and "left".
Left without nationalization of private property (or means of production), but with companies creating more and more needs to have useless property (yes, you read right: Left-wing politics and praising the property).
Right without anti-foreign elements in the citizen level, only in the marketing from companies who get along with Chinese censorship for more money (yes, you read right: right-wing politics and tolerance for racially problematic elements).
This is not a politics discourse at all, this is a worthless show for advertisement. Does not matter what "wing" you choose, you have chosen corporation. So don't expect that people have no opinions and solutions if their political opinions became washed to the same thing sold in different packages.
It reminds me a picture I've seen in some meat shop: "Sausage: Pork with chicken" and "Chicken with pork" on the same shelf. These were of course the same sausages, and there was more clay in them than both pork and chicken.
The true "left" and "right" views are there, but they're "fnord'ed" by the "terrorist" meme.