Twitter the world's cesspool has removed one piece of it's mildew... wow.... cheers...
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Does Mr Zuckerberg realize the ads fb allows against, rather than for, climate change and women's empowerment are lies? Deliberate and calculated lies with emotional motivated advertising techniques thrown in. By allowing these ads, one must assume that what he is promoting is the spending of dollars by entrenched monopolies to protect their monopolies, one of which is fb, which has flagrantly violated anti-trust laws to assemble its monopoly, and has also profited from illegal foreign ads (which they knew were from foreign sources, paid for in rubles) to increase Mr. Zuckerberg's wealth at the expense of the public Good.
Being a computer/liberal arts guy from Harvard, maybe he doesn't understand climate change, or know of any women needing empowerment, but I don't buy that.
The problem is not politicians lying on Facebook. In the era of "money is speech" and an extremist SCOTUS, any law regulating political speech on social media will be struck down.
No, the real problem is Facebook itself - a quasi-government entity with global reach and ability to influence elections in every country it operates in, but unaccountable to anyone. There are no voters, there are no elections. Zuckerberg has total control as a result of how his shares are structured. And now they even want to launch their own currency. THAT needs to change. The more Facebook grows, the more of a threat to democracy ANYWHERE it becomes.
All important stuff. However, it merely scratches the surface, as Dorsey probably realizes.
No abstract of 'freedom' furnishes an answer, and Zuckerberg is a planetary menace for suggesting it does. Also, the deeper problems of the Internet have more to do with the act of publishing and the style of talk than the substance of the chatter. The Internet virtually wiped out authenticated publishing, news, and historical resource. Anything goes. Anything gets re-tweeted.
Russian fake ads are a menace, but they probably do less harm than informal and casual-looking dis-information and those who control it, such as Trump. The Internet is an invitation to havoc.
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Free speech means that we all have the purview to express our opinions at will. What free speech does not mean is the bastardizing of facts to change opinion with lies and pointed untruths.
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....really important issues like climate change or women’s empowerment? What makes them more important than education policy and healthcare? Some people might think protecting Medicare, or building a wall are really more important. The idea Jack is unbiased he would deny, yet he allows himself to edit Twitter product to his liking. I bet on Zuck when I bought Facebook at $21 a share. How many people are glad they bought Twitter stock?
Not so fast Ms. Swisher.
Before we go patting Jack Dorsey on the back, let us remember that Twitter still allows accounts to post malicious and fake content. Mr. Dorsey still advertises that all communication can be done effectively in 100 words or less which leaves many adults scratching their heads and which is exactly why we are in this Twitter / Facebook predicament. Coaches that preach to a crowd used to attention deficits don't usually serve larger society very well.
Any media content that cannot be vetted has to be treated as bad content. If you don't believe that, try getting your op-eds posted on the NY Times without having your editors give it the Thumbs Up. Or try allowing us to post our comments without a moderator managing them.
At the end of the day, I blame misinformed people including many who cover the technology portfolio and who galloped in joy the day Facebook and Twitter were thrust on us. They had no idea, did they ?
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The way this works, politicians can still lie all they want. However, they will only be able to lie to their own followers. Anyone else who sees that lie will have to get it from someone passing it on, or someone writing about it.
Now, what kind of people want to stay as followers of a politician who *lies* to them? Seems like they might want to follow someone who at least tells -them- the truth, at least sometimes.
I am not on Facebook or Twitter but I will join Twitter now because of Jack's stance on no political ads.
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Mr. Dorsey of Twitter is my new superhero.
Zuckerberg remains the evil destroyer of truth.
I'm not kidding.
I have decided that I no longer need Facebook in my life. I don't need to support a billionaire who doesn't care about the country he has made his billions off of. So I'm done.
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Zuckerberg totally dodged the question about allowing lying. He just doesn't want to be in a position to admit that a "liberal" ad relating to doing something about climate change would be allowed, while a "conservative" ad saying that climate change is a Chinese hoax would be banned - since it's a lie.
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I just disabled my Facebook account and signed up for Twitter. I know that means nothing to Mark Zuckerberg, but it means something to me.
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We cannot require the platform to police what it true, because requiring is just "allowing" on steroids. Do we really want MZ deciding which ads are true?
Times v. Sullivan needs a small tweak for our modern era. Granting anonymity should replace malice as a condition of liability. Publishers (in this case, platforms) should be held liable for untrue statements for which they do not provide the name of an author subject to US jurisdiction. A publisher should be allowed to sell dissemination, but not anonymity.
I just disabled my Facebook account and signed up for Twitter. I know that means nothing to Mark Zuckerberg, but it means something to me.
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Minds programmed by capitalism just cannot understand what truth is. Just like religious minds cannot understand what freedom is. Both are sick.
Wasn’t free speech and paid speech already conflated with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision? Mark is probably aware of that.
1
This feels like nonsense to me. Twitter's business plan is all about people commenting - mostly opinions that others see and decide to follow. Nothing like FB. It has no impact on their real business.
Don't know if getting rid of political ads is good or bad, but political ads should always include the financial sources, conflicts of interest, and contributors. Otherwise citizens cannot put the ad in the context of the sources.
1
My deceased uncle, who had a long and distinguished career as a diplomat, said that there is a flaw in our Bill of Rights. Essentially, he continued, philosophical and religious speech need be the most protected. Political speech needs protections but also needs some limits: one's political speech need not be protected by the right to tell lies and defame your rivals -- the right to political speech also has responsibilities.
Going down the scale here, commercial speech cannot contain falsehoods: what we know as truth in advertising needs to be the law of the land.
And we all know that yelling Fire! in a crowded theater is also not protected speech.
There's more but I leave that to the lawyers, the philosophers, the professors of history, and others who are better with words than I am and have studied history with more attention than I have.
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Jack Dorsey knows good marketing when he sees it.
He doesn't let a good self-serving opportunity pass him by.
Way to go Jack.
Backpage went down Twitter's stock went up.
Go, Jack.
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Stand and Applaud! Intelligent Integrity.
Zuck and Sheryl Sandberg are as shallow and delusional as Trump, albeit much smarter and much richer. Jack Dorsey hit the nail on the head.
Pity we still have to see the Trumpster's tweets, but you can't have everything right away. With any luck, the Tweeter-In-Chief will fade into a well-deserved obscurity by November 2020, if not sooner.
1
WHile I applaud this move.....the number of people / spokespeople being paid what were advertising dollars, to tweet 'messages' will explode.
Individual Paid Twitter Lobbyists will go up exponentially.
We will need rules around revealing whether you are a paid political agent.
I've long told my employees "Facebook is for the unemployed". Now I can feel even better about enforcing that rule. Hard to come up with a bigger waste of time than FB. What a remarkably inefficient communication tool.
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Libel laws govern the behavior of other news entities. When will Congress step up to the plate? No use until the Senate has a Republican majority because the chief abusers will not vote against themselves.
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In NY Times v. Sullivan (1964) and Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (1967), the Supreme Court established standards for defamation of "public figures." In the former opinion (based on an erroneous advertisement criticizing police in Montgomery, Alabama), the court wrote:
"The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a Federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with 'actual malice'—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."
Even by that high standard, Trump's Twitter account and Fox News's "opinion" broadcasts are courting lawsuits daily from public officials and private citizens alike. Any legitimate news organization that published some of the reckless, unverified allegations they have disseminated (most recently accusing a career US military officer and Congressional witness of "espionage," without attempting to provide any evidence) would be deluged with lawsuits.
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People like Zuckerberg only understand making more money. Like Trump, he doesn't have an ethical bone in his body. He won't turn away a paying add regardless if it hurts our country. Until enough people boycott his platform, he will take money from the Russians and anyone else who wants to pour millions into breaking our democracy.
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The proof is in the reading of the twitter.
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Worth $70 billion and still doesn’t understand the meaning of “censorship.”
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"Disingenuous digital sousaphone." Thank you, Kara, thank you, thank you.
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It truly baffles me how one (1) man is able to say that he alone has "considered whether they should carry these ads". Mark is not the arbiter of what free speech is. He should not be the sole decider of how billions of people get their news, communicate with each other, etc. All of this isn't even including the fact that FB now frequently gives temporary bans to POC for poking fun at white people (the origination, afaik, of "yt", "whyt", and others, was to get around whatever software it is that crawls around groups looking for "hate speech"). But...lies about political candidates are just fine...lol, ok!
As another column on NYT said within the past few days....it's probably time for Mark to retire and go off the grid.
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I’m just waiting for some individual or .org to sue TWTR for discriminatory practices. “After all, you accept ads from Tide and Viagra, and they often make questionable claims, too.” Citizens United is a joke. I’m glad Dorsey put the need for moral accountability over profit. Political advertising should be outlawed. How much better use could the millions spent on such drivel be applied to real probs that are facing our society.
If someone posts something on Facebook, I am ok with Facebook saying well we'll be hands off with that, and I'm ok with the Communications Act saying they are not a publisher as to that post.
If someone pays to place an ad on Facebook, then Facebook is in fact PUBLISHING that ad for money, and should be treated just like newspaper. In short, they should be able to be sued for libel for false ads, plain and simple. I struggle to come up with any policy rationale for why this would not be the case. I don't think you need government oversight over regulatory review, just let the plaintiffs lawyers loose and they will shape up.
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Jack Dorsey,
Good first step. Here is the next one: disable all twitter accounts of elected officials. The have plenty of ways to get their message out and don't need this platform, which is abused minute by minute. Regardless of who is the source - Democrat, Republican, Independent or Socialist - once they gain office, deactivate the account.
1
Just watching and listening to JD and MZ is stark contrast in maturity and sensibilities. It seems eight years and 1,000 miles can make a difference
JD came of age before America was pulled into the deep end by Fox News, the South's takeover of the Republican Party, and the full blown corporatizing of media and America. He at least had a glimpse of a better America. Plus, JD comes with a more down to earth Midwestern sensibility.
MZ, whose life was surrounded in East Coast privilege, moves in the same bubble of the beyond-rich; knows little beyond our hyper-partisan, wealth-obsessed, all-Republican-roads-lead-to-Trump world; and started FB in the run up of Wall Street's ethical meltdown.
I suspect MZ is competing with Bezos for Master of Everything in the Universe, while JD looks to the more pedestrian title of Mayor of NYC.
We will see if JD indeed has the values and ethical courage to stand up to the Big Boys of Wall Street. But, at least he's not being led by the nose like MZ.
2
I think we also need to do something about fake accounts. Two days ago I saw a Democratic ad on Facebook. The top-rated reply was from a "person" with 1 friend, 3 posts, and a fake claim of affiliation with a university (no such person listed in the public directory). The "person" wrote a hostile post designed to provoke a response, without bothering to state a single fact. 28 people who received the targeted ad spent time engaging with this post and writing replies. So this fake account got into the heads of lots of people and triggered all sorts of negative emotion. This seems to me a paradigmatic example of a psychological assault on our democracy that reaches all the way to the occcupant of the White House.
1
Elections should be free and fair for all, similar to Denmark. All candidates publicly state their platform on equal footing then have four weeks to campaign. They all get the same sized poster to put up a portrait and their political party in designated areas. No more. They vote on a Sunday. It is done and they get on with the work of government and not raising money.
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Keep up the pressure. We either need Facebook to regulate itself or look to Congress for regulation.
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Mark Zuckerberg at least has an understanding of the concept of free expression, which is why Facebook isn't available in China. To comply with the Chinese censors would erode the foundation of the company.
Twitter is perfectly fine operating in China under the rules of that nation. So lets not pretend that this is anything other than Dorsey trying to differentiate himself from FB to attract a larger (and more affluent) US audience.
Defending freedom is sometimes a lonely task.
The fact that Ms Swisher is upset that Twitter still allows "@realdonaldtrump can still huff and puff away on his disingenuous digital sousaphone" is the real story. She wants people banned for their thoughts and ideas, lest their ideas somehow contaminate those who aren't as sophisticated as herself.
The next more from Twitter will likely be banning individuals on the political right for "dangerous" ideas such as low taxes or lower regulation.
Getting the private sector to do what the government is Constitutionally unable is still censorship.
1
I thought it was brilliant that Dorsey eliminated all political ads rather than attempt to sort out true from false, which would be a mess, and provoke non-stop howling from all sides. Still, I can see the endlessly creative political class inventing new ways to achieve their advertising goals on Twitter. Meanwhile back at the ranch, the sophomoric logic of Facebook prevails: In a free marketplace of ideas, who needs facts?
3
Since "issue" advertising is almost indistinguishable from political advertising and with PAC ads disguised as public information services, I wonder how this is going to work out.
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@Charles One way to minimize this is to not accept ads from POLITICAL action committees at all (PACs) and to not accept ads that name politicians or political parties.
Will you get rid of it? No. That is an unrealistic expectation. Humans have always gamed the system (regardless of what system it was) and will continue to do so.
@RJM Agreed. You can define an "issue" as something that indiscriminately affects all persons (or all persons in a manifestly nonpartisan class). Global warming, as an issue, affects all people, not just Dems, Rs, Independents, or any other grouping. Civil rights issues affect all American citizens. Access to abortion (among other women's health issues) affects women of any political persuasion. This leaves lots of room for permitted ads. In our hyperventilating, hyper-polarized society, some of these may appear political, but they aren't.
From the column:
“Mr. Zuckerberg wasn’t having any of it when he addressed analysts on his earnings call, keeping up the same arguments that I called lightweight and reductive in a recent column.”
If that recent column’s “same arguments” are still relevant, why not provide a link to them?
Excellent! I assume this means we won’t be getting any more tweets from cadet bone spurs.
I can dream, can’t I?
Are we being naive, hoping that self regulation by industries will make actual regulation unnecessary? It seems pretty clear that Zuckerberg has little social conscience, and will continue to be driven only by profit. No one is silly enough to accept that allowing politicians to lie on facebook is necessary to protect first amendment rights. Most libs think first amendment is very important but are intimidated by self serving claims, e.g. that massive political donations are critical to the progress of democracy. The notion that blatant lies in political ads are in some way a good thing also looks very self serving for both Trumpists and Facebook.
Before we declare the virtues of Twitter we have to see how this is implemented. While advertising by campaigns is going to be easy to identify and ban, issue advertising is going to be near impossible to clearly delineate. If you see an anti abortion ad from a SuperPAC is it political speech or not. In the end I suspect that this will book down to a publicity stunt without much real bite. As much as sIdislike FB, the position they took is far more realistic. The Twitter move is akin to a supermarket deciding not to sell tabloids. Most people know that they are full of lies and somehow the republic still lives.
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@Groovygeek Supermarkets deciding to not sell tabloids is actually a great idea, now that you mention it.
@Groovygeek Just subject all social media advertising to the same regulatory oversight on TV, Radio and Print. A third party, non-profit body should govern advertising on social media and will need approval like a telecaster stamp to allow it to go live. And to get that stamp, supporting documentation is required and letter of attestation signed so the advertiser is easily identified. It's actually very simple.
2
Facebook should follow suit and refuse all political ads. They should do a lot more, for sure, given the demonstrated capacity the social network has for disrupting democratic elections with targeted disinformation. But if they don’t take this minimal step immediately, the House should pass legislation outlawing political ads on social networks.
Of course it will die in the Senate, but it will be one more piece of evidence attesting to the fact Republican Senators care more about retaining their power than saving our republic.
Americans who see this as a threat to free speech are encouraged to learn more about the power of Facebook algorithms to distort elections and soon.
One can start by researching more of what Ms. Swisher has reported (and podcasted) on the subject.
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I’m an artist who uses facebook primarily to post photos of my paintings; it is a good promotions tool. I’ve taken issue with some of their policies in the past — and have seen many of my friends and followers leave the platform in protest — but I’ve always looked the other way. This time, though, I’m not so sure I can.
It is disingenuous and patently wrong for Mr Z to claim that paid advertising is the same as free speech. The only thing they have in common is that they both use words. Claims made on standard tv ads are generally truthful, because there are legal ramifications to claiming false information on tv. How on earth can he justify giving a platform to ads that he KNOWS are not true? It is unconscionable. Good for Mr Dorsey for banning them altogether and rising to his responsibility. Bad for Mr Z for, once again, showing his true colors. Shame on him, and shame on us for allowing his greed to go unchecked.
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@Brian Nash
I think we all have to ask why we are on Facebook and how our mere presence provides more grist for the machine.
The Facebook business model is Orwellian at best.
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@Brian Nash
A real question that needs to be addressed is why people, especially older ones, are so likely to believe disinformation and lies that appear on small screens; they for some reason do not approach these with the same raised eyebrow they often do with other media.
One wonders if that is due to the fact that their other screens--specifically television--were governed at least some of the time by regulations requiring fairness and at least a modicum of truth in advertising, and perhaps they got used to television's relative "trustworthiness" and generalized that to their computers and phones.
Obviously, people need to be dissuaded from such generalizing--and they probably need to be more skeptical of television, too.
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@Brian Nash
Claims made on standard tv are generally truthful because they have a wide audience. The audience isn't targeted for its susceptibility to the message, and the messages outrageous, viral potential. In the world monetized by clicks, outrageous lies are the best and most promoted.
14
The real story here is that Zuckerberg is so rich and successful he's been able to live in such a bubble over the past decade-plus that he probably sincerely thinks his argument makes any sense whatsoever.
Mark Zuckerberg cannot imagine not doing everything he can to keep adding to his fortune. It's unAmerican not to do so.
i don't do twitter but good for him. Baby steps, democracy, baby steps!
Are Trump's tweets a form of unpaid political advertising? I get that at least Jack Dorsey is doing something. Multiple times Trump has violated Twitter's terms of service. Yet his account remains active. Let's not give this guy too much credit. He's making Zuckerberg look bad but how hard is that?
Sometimes I am thankful I have always been anti-social.
2
Trump just Tweeted one of his own ads. Surely this has to be removed.
1
Well, isn't that just nice of Mr. Dorsey; however, The Zuck is determined to stay true to Facebook's 'mission statement' (remember those?) which is--Show Me The Money!
As an active user of Twitter, I love its ability to transmit short yet hopefully pithy information between a relatively select group of colleagues and followers for the topics we find interesting (usually quite technical, sometimes humorous).
It's time to start using these powerful tools to restore civility in political dialogue; banning political ads on Twitter is a brilliant, courageous stand and a tremendous start.
Now with the onset of AI and machine learning, it'd be great if Twitter could provide truth ratings for political speech. A few emojis would make it evident when a post is based on truth and facts, or when it's total horse-hockey. Bring on the Truth Engine!
1
We are living in an era the likes of which none the the writers of the Constitution could possibly have conceived. The telegraph, radio, telephone, television, trans-ocean cables, geosynchronous satellites for goodness sake - - - all beyond the experience of even the most sapient of these gentlemen.
We now live in a period where our technologies have given us the digital (and perhaps soon the quantum) age. “Social media” is one derivative of this age, and it is a game-changer. The old rules simply do not apply. Mark, Jeff, Tim and the other Titans of Silicon Valley now hold the reins.
We are in the midst of a vast social experiment the likes of which the world has never before seen. There is no peer review board, no ethics committee, no one to monitor the gauges or safety valves. We have opened Pandora’s Box. There is no particular reason to think that democracy as we know it will, or even should, survive.
And this experiment is being carried out at the very same time that we are disrupting the climate of our one and only home. Interesting times.
Good grief Charlie Brown.
5 cents please.
6
Yes, paid speech is not free speech. And even free speech is not an inalienable right if it's untrue. (Like falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater just to panic everyone and revel in the chaos you create... which is exactly what a lot of social media trolls, including Trump himself, do with their lies, false tweets and posts. There is no question this kind of destructive false speech can and should be regulated, so if the social media companies won't do it, Congress needs to regulate those companies - just like they regulate truth in advertising for anything else.)
But Zuckerberg's Facebook (and Google) already know this, because they are signatories to Europe's law against online disinformation.
Hey Zuck, why can't you do for the USA what you already did for the democracies on the other side of the Atlantic?
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@Election Inspector There are already laws against defamation, FYI.
Twitter is one giant political ad. Just look at the way the current White House occupier uses it.
3
I’d suggest that the proper comparison is to Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart taking the assault weapons off the shelves, equally admirable business decisions.
6
The most amusing (and I do say "amusing" with a clenched jaw) part of all this absurdity is that I think Mr. Zuckerberg actually seems to believe the porous, half-baked, and sophomoric nonsense he is using as an argument for this policy on political advertising.
This is yet another problem with extreme wealth inequality: men and women who are so insulated from reality by their money, and similarly endowed to try to influence as they see fit are rarely capable of rationally appraising the interests of others. Rather, they think that THEIR interests are of course similar to those of others. They are almost always wrong. Here's something Mark: people are busy trying to survive and keep food on the table for their families; they do not have time to parse and research the constant deluge of messaging they will receive this year. You are responsible for ripping apart America's democracy.
Democracy is messy, noisy, upsetting, and flawed. But having accountable representatives and a structure that is meant to be open to its citizens, even if we have a lot of work to do in perfecting our union, this is something that can serve the interests of our citizens more often than not.
Rich n'er-do-wells, however well bejeweled, tend to make a mess--Zuckerberg is a fantastically appalling example. He's a modern Carnegie/Rockefeller, and needs to be disassembled in anti-trust proceedings, lest he create even more carnage in the wake of his shameless profit mongering.
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@John Although at least Carnegie built libraries.
2
Was on Twitter in for the twelve months leading up to the 2018 election; left shortly after as the overwhelming bot population spreading untruths turned me off. But if Mr. T and Mr. Z are not happy about this turn of events, I may reconsider joining.
2
Let us hope that newspapers, television and radio also ban political advertising.
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Right, it's just one small step, and it's low hanging fruit. Even disregarding the abuses of the "Tweeter in Charge", what about troll posts that "go viral"? There's no guarantee "Pizzagate" couldn't happen over and over again. I think micro fact checking every post is a non-starter, even if 100% objective fact checkers could be guaranteed.
You'd think that with the huge profits FB just posted they would be able to afford robust fact-checking infrastructure. Instead, they'll horde their money, pay out big bonuses, and go buy Teslas to drive on crumbling streets and vacations to countries with better privacy laws and social safety nets. Repulsive!
1
It's all about money, I would say in totality, which is spiraling this country down the drain and ruining the entire planet. Without a moral compass, nothing is sacred, and that's where we are right now in our society.
Good move for Twitter, thumb down for Facebook. The challenge is how to deal now with millions upon millions of American adults addicted to screens, too distracted to participate in civic life, allowing their children to be brainwashed. Social media has been hijacked for propaganda aimed at siphoning every cent from our pockets, having tapped into our reptilian brains where we will do almost anything, even bring out the destruction of democracy. And ensuring that Americans continue participating in their own manipulation, lining up like lemmings walking off a cliff with their noses buried in their iPhones, not seeing it coming.
God help us all.
1
People have a choice of shunning any social media which won’t fact check the information put on it, which allows lies, incite violence, use shameful, guilt and threatening tactics go unchecked in it’s platform. After all ads are meant for targets and if there is no target ads are useless.
Facebook must follow Twitter and ban all political ads.
If he really wanted to do the right thing, Twitter would ban @realDonaldTrump. If I had an account and used it to spread hate speech and foment violence, it'd be banned... and I've never threatened to unleash nuclear war on an entire country.
2
Why are all the news outlets omitting the rest of Dorsey's tweet on this matter, his indirect jibe at Facebook?
"For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want!”
Zukerberg’s stands are making me want to sell my Facebook stock. He is harming the country.
4
Just delete your Facebook account. A few 100 million deleted accounts would send a message to Mr. Zuckerberg...
And hey, after a week, you can always restore your account since they keep it on their servers anyway!
2
@Gershwin I would be happy to do this. Is anyone organizing a coordinated effort like this?
So, Zuckerberg is esentially okay with those who yell "Fire!??" in a crowded theater where no fire exists? Facebook is begging to be regulated by the US government.
Mark Zuckerberg has made a perfect machine-to-destroy-democracy.
Why am I not surprised by his self-serving, disingenuous, psychopathic Congressional testimony? Watch it. Really watch him. Look into his eyes.
I've seen more evidence of an inner life in the expressions of sharks.
2
Force the move.
Get off Facebook in large numbers!
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@Xfarmer It needs to be coordinated like the Womens March. If anyone has any info like this, please share.
Best news about the interwebs since...well, forever!
In the original movie of Spider-Man, Peter Parker’s uncle Ben (played by Cliff Robertson),after he was fatally shot, told Peter, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
Mark Zuckerberg clearly doesn’t get that.
Nice piece on Zuck's duplicity today.
One aspect of this issue that gets only superficial discussion is micro targeting. When Lyndon Johnson's 1964 campaign ran the gut-wrenching "Daisy" ad, the entire electorate saw it and could make informed individual decisions about how they regarded the candidate. With micro targeting a candidate can have the best of all worlds: a hate filled Nazi ad to one audience, a pro-Israel ad to another, an ad in support of the second amendment to some and a universal background check ad to others.
Of course, targeted advertising has been around forever with ad placement by media market, by demographic or by direct mail. Still, the chances of discovering duplicitous and contradicting ad content is much higher for something that is going out over the airwaves, in print or mail. Today we are looking at very private distribution to individual Facebook, You Tube, or email accounts with much less chance of being broadly distributed.
It’s a dream for politicians who can now speak out of dozens of sides of their mouths at once. At a minimum, regulators should insist that all political ads go to all constituents.
Props to @jack. It is definitely a small step, but it is leaps and bounds more than Zuck has done or will probably ever do. In keeping with your Apollo theme......how on earth can Zuck think his platform can be an arbiter of truth when there are pages dedicated to Flat Earthers and people claiming the moon landing was fake. We are risking our democracy. Facebook needs to step up.
There are millions of Americans on Facebook and way too many of them are way too easily fooled.
1
Tweet, Tweet, Hooray!!
2
Dorsey showing leadership and ethics. Zuckerberg not at all. Every time I drove by ‘Zuckerberg General Hospital’ in SF, I gag.
3
Facebook is all about ... Facebook. They don’t care if the country is torn apart, if a racist is the president, if his entire cabinet is corrupt and empowered by a do nothing senate and criminal AG. Facebook doesn’t feel any social responsibility- this is a revenue opportunity and they will ride it out until regulation stops them
Facebook is at war with the world and the only way to win is to quit Facebook
5
Given that Facebook's revenue from political advertising is 0.5% of their total --- even then a whopping amount for the normal corporation --- it seems like a wonderful marketing tool to say we're no longer tolerating paid lying.
2
So happy to see some true corporate responsibility. I had not been an active Twitter user before, but I will become one now to show my support.
How would Fauxbook's ad team respond if they suddenly were booking hundreds of political ads that contained tremendously unfactual statements about Mark Zuckerberg?
He'd been pretty openly acting like someone getting ready to run for office as recently as earlier this year with his little tour of primary states.
I deleted my 12 year old fb account today. Vote with your eyeballs and clicks. Maybe Mr Zuck will get it.
3
Honest Question: If NYT publishes an OpEd, by a political entity or person with obvious lies, would there be any liability for NYT?
It is horrific that Zuckerberg earns money by allowing false testimonials.
Does a public comment section ameliorate apparent approval/acquiescence?
1
Dorsey should shut down the Trumpster and get the Nobel Prize for contributions to world peace.
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I quit FakeBook and Twit after the 2016 election as it was obvious what happened.
Today I rejoined Twitter
I pray for sanity
But all news and NYT must change their ways
45 was given far more free media coverage and still does
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Isn’t Tr*mp’s regular Twitter account a never ending political river of thousands of lies? Jack should suspend that account since it’s a nonstop political ad.
3
Bravo.
2
Freedom of the Press (including social media) includes the right to not print, to not publish unacceptable content, and to not accept ads. It does not impinge on advertisers' free speech just because your church's bulletin declines to publish a Viagra ad. Political speech does not require that we listen, nor is the NYTimes required to publish ads for American Nazi Party candidates.
The step Dorsey and Twitter took is laudable. and shows clearly the self-serving hypocrisy of Mark Z and Facebook management.
5
When lies are OK:
"...we don't remove false news from Facebook but instead, significantly reduce its distribution by showing it lower in the News Feed."
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/false_news
{Lower in News Feed, but still there???}
"... we do not want to allow content that is designed to deceive, or that attempts to mislead users to increase viewership."
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/integrity_authenticity
"... we remove content aimed at deliberately deceiving people to gain an unfair advantage ..." https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/fraud_deception
If these policies apply to all your other users, Facebook, in your own words, then Why do you accept money to publish lies from political campaigns? Why are FB revenues more important than truth, given your own policy standards???
7
Facebook should fire Mark Zuckerberg as CEO and hire Jack Dorsey.
3
my best advise is drop FB from your social media habit and you will feel sooo much better about yourself and your community.
6
@V I agree. I still get on FB every few weeks, I still need that capability for other reasons, but I've noticed that absence makes me overall healthier and saner!
So this is how democracy can fall: to capitalism. Remember the idea a few years back that capitalism would be the way to get rid of authoritarian regimes: a way to get China into the Western view of individual freedoms and representative government. Instead, Facebook, Google, NBA sell out to China and to money. China will be using capitalism to ruin Western democracy. We will let them censor and dictate our platforms for the sake of making money.
Shame on all you greedy traitors!
1
Thank you Jack Dorsey. This is a bold simple step that will solve a lot of the problem. Mark Zuckerberg should do the same.
1
The call to control Facebook is just another attempt by the left to stifle free speech. In many respects, you could call all political advertising since its purpose is to promote one side over another, despite the facts in the matter. Zuckerberg is right, and I hope he has the will and stamina to withstand the assault he is currently enduring. The liberal bastions of CBS, NBC and ABC have for years been making billions on political advertising where Dems and Repubs relentlessly trash one another. One of your letter writers is correct. Dorsey would like to silence the Republicans, but he can’t do it, so he’s banning all political advertising! Your columnist would like to paint this as a noble gesture. It’s not. It’s an infringement on free speech, paid for or not.
2
@Joe Gagen
"Dorsey would like to silence the Republicans, but he can’t do it, so he’s banning all political advertising!"
Prove it. You can't, can you? Yours is just an opinion.
My opinion is that the Republicans poison the well with their constant lies on Facebook and Twitter.
See how that works? Everybody has an OPINION. But opinions aren't facts.
That's exactly why Twitter's move is the right one. Remove all doubt.
It’s only appropriate that Fakebook accepts fake political ads. Anything for an audience. And zuck knows that it’s not the money from the ads that matters but all the racist trolls drive engagement.
Hooray for Twitter! This insignificant (just one) but social-media active Wisconsinite vows to better master her Twitter tools and transfer her time & attention allegiance to a service that deserves it.
28
Kudo to Mr. Dorsey!
Unfortunately, the big Greed triumphs over the sensibility of owning the responsibility to rigorously filtering posting and political ads, that have been spewing lies, hate speeches, and alternative facts, that prevalent inside FB. Mark Zuckerberg unwillingness and inability to grasp the gravity of great importance in handling the issues, becoming synonymous with FB as an ivory tower of the propaganda's networking media platform.
Would an employee at FB be fired, or be promoted, after being caught for spreading damaging lies for a personal gain?
FB decision to accept the money from politicians and lobbyist, to allow their unfiltered and unverified misleading ads viewed by millions of people to create public discourse, reflect the ethics and moral characters of the workers and decision makers at Facebook across the board. FB is a money making tool with no soul!
By the way, with the current political leadership at FB.
FB employee who lies, would likely be getting a promotion!
Funny, but I don't remember ever voting for Mr. Zuckerberg.
2
“This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach."
What about newspapers, TV, radio etc.
Do they publish or show political ads for free?
2
@Joshua Schwartz
By no means. Traditional media outlets get paid to air political ads, just like they get paid to air all other ads about medicines, beer, insurance, etc.
@Joshua Schwartz
There are laws governing news outlets.
FOX has to label itself "for entertainment purposes only" to cover itself from possible lawsuits for publishing untruths.
Twitter’s policy banning political ads looks good for PR purposes, but fails to come to grips with the real problem, deceitful ads, while throwing out the baby of honest ads with the dirty bath water. Paid advertising is a form of free speech. Now ads for progressive candidates and causes are banned as well, while Trump can continue to spew forth lies because he didn’t pay to post them.
2
Zuckerberg argues that in a democracy, we should not limit speech. That is completely wrong. For a democracy to work, voters must have the proper information. Does Zuckerberg want racists to reign free on his site? Allowing the extreme right to push policies through sensationalized gaslighting that will destroy the poor and minorities is no different. Information by the FOX opinion hosts and other Trump minions is meant to keep their supporters rich, which essentially means it is hurting much of the American population. This information should not only be taken off Facebook but all media outlets for its hatred.
Corporations are not people. They are sociopathic by design, serving only economic interests.
Money is not speech. Money buys a public address system to dramatically increase the volume of one voice over others.
Facebook is a media company, funded by advertising, that crowdsources the content they present to their audience.
Zuck is manifestly in way over his head as an arbiter of what political "speech" tens of millions of people receive. Unfortunately, his greed dovetails perfectly with the US Supreme Court's view of speech: it's all about money. If you can afford to pay to put your "speech" out there, it is ipso facto protected by the First Amendment. Both Zuck and the Supreme Court have this in common: they are failing in their fiduciary duties to keep American democracy democratic.
2
Although this was a pretty savvy move by Dorsey, it does nothing real to address free speech issues. Twitter's user numbers and posts are augmented by swarms of fake bot accounts, and its user guidelines are not routinely or uniformly enforced -- hence Trump being able to tamper with witnesses, threaten to nuke foreign countries, spread conspiracy theories, and maliciously defame someone nearly every day. Until Dorsey addresses those things, which he could absolutely and easily do, this move is just a dig at Zuckerberg and nothing else. Jack could care less about free speech and truth in advertising. All he knows is his stock price just went up.
The idea that I would agree with Jack Dorsey on anything is astonishing, but that is the world in which we live. I will add him to other mostly-execrable people who have temporarily "helped", such as John Bolton and even Jeff Sessions.
1
Impossible to comprehend FB admitting ads by politicians that can be lies and that they can say almost any lie they desire. It’s not that they don’t have the money to fact check, it’s that they do not care. That thinking defines the word deplorable
Not to defend Zuckerberg or anything. However, what moral authority does Twitter have after Trump? Twitter is the primary arm of the President's misinformation. And yet, suspending Trump's Twitter account is off limits. I say Twitter and Facebook are birds of a feather.
I agree with Twitter's policy. But I think Jack Dorsey's tweet is largely advertising. It reminds me of "Why I'm quit tobacco" from Mad Men. Facebook says it has open free speech including un-fact-checked political ads, so Twitter stops running political ads. Nice PR move.
Also, the problem with social media goes much further than political ads. Social media platforms are addictive, and are deeply harmful to mental health and real life social relationships. There is a bunch of garbage on social media, not just fake news but friends posting political opinions, baby pics, etc. Just the fact that anyone can post what they want, and if they stop posting Facebook notifies them to engage more, is a massive problem.
We don't need to ban political ads. We need to ban tweets and FB posts and the newsfeed. We need to ban social media as a whole.
Facebook cannot do the right thing as long as Zuck holds court. And he will never, ever, willingly step down. It's time for the federal govt. to shut them down.
4
Zuckerberg's moral compass has dollar signs at all points. He's a weak man who is too afraid to take a stand against shareholders. He even looks perpetually frightened. His one creation in life, and even that is debatable, is FB, a parade of human foibles and vanities. Anything that threatens that cash cow and Zuckerberg's legacy is a nonstarter with him. I didn't expect anything more from him.
Where is government regulation when you need it most?
1
My investment counsellor wanted me to put some of my money in Facebook. I told him I thought FB was cancer and said no thank you. I wish more people would do the same.
3
Facebook and it’s investors have to be held accountable for their insatiable need for more money and more power, power that they claim they don’t want and power they used to claim they didn’t have.
Furthermore, If we can get European fashion houses to pull an entire collection, then why can’t we get Facebook to act with at least a veneer of morality and where is the ‘me too’ generation? Liberals seem to find the gumption to fight battles that are in the past but unable to muster any momentum to fight the present and future enemies they shelter in their pockets.
To borrow a slogan from the past: Act up!
Is your virtual world that important?
And lastly to all the news organizations, get off the social media sites and apps. I’m tired of hearing and reading about all ills of social media and then being told to tweet you about it or discuss it on your Facebook page.
Wake up!
1
It’s a fabulous development.
Now if only we could get the USPS to keep those lie filled campaign mailers out of our mailboxes.
That would be Yuge!
2
Jack Dorsey needs to address Kamala Harris's concerns regarding Trump blatant misuse of Twitter's platform to "target" and "harass" the whistle blower at the center of the Ukraine scandal. Trump has broken Twitter's rule as well as the rule of law & his Twitter feed needs to be held accountable. I believe the former attorney general of California knows a little bit about the rule of law.
3
Aren't there other billionaires, like Tom Steyer, who actually love America, that could create an alternate platform to FB, that doesn't sell the 'truth' to the highest bidder? I'm sure billions would drop FB if there were other choices.
2
Social media is the scourge of modern society and Facebook is the glaring example of the reasons. I made the decision to dump it as the role it played in allowing the Russians to manipulate the 2016 election was becoming clear. Sure, I miss being able to easily keep in touch with far-flung acquaintances and relatives. I miss funny memes and cute animals. On the other hand, faced with passively supporting the willful destruction of Western societies just to help obscenely wealthy narcissists keep their power and make a buck, though, I’m making it work with no social media at all. Surprise. I feel better. The social side of social media is a dangerous addiction. The media side of it is an existential threat. It has come to that. We’re better off without it.
Classic leftist strategy: can't win on on the merit of their ideas, so they resort to preventing people thinking for themselves.
2
@Moshe You seem to be implying that leftists engage in groupthink and conservatives do not. This implication is false.
1
please let any presidential tweet be deemed a political ad.
2
I finally have a reason to commend Dorsey. With Facebook amorals Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg I don’t expect that will never happen.
2
Everybody seems to be operating on a logical fallacy: that people like Zuckerberg and Trump have strong moral principles that help guide their decision-making process.
Please stop being so naive. Their greed is not a bug, it's the feature!
2
Zuckerberg is an accomplice to every politicians lie for which he accepts money.
We were badly zucked in 2016 by facebooks best feature, the ability to micro target advertisements! This allows a custom message to be transmitted to a target group, and no need for the messages to be consistent across groups or even true! Who would ever use such a feature?!
1
Oh for goodness sake. Isn't it obvious that this is about money and not free speech. Mr. Zuckerberg is obviously a clever fellow. Clever enough to know his prattle about free speech is just that. If he wants to wrap himself in Brandeis and argue that the remedy for harmful speech is more speech he has a straightforward way to achieve his expressed goal. He can allow only political ads that go to all of Facebook's users instead of permitting micro-targeted political ads. In that way the lies will not be hidden where they poison selected targeted Facebook users out of sight of everyone else. Instead the entire community of Facebook users will see them - and challenge and correct them. Pretty simple isn't it? My guess is that Mr. Zuckerberg knows this full well. He just loves money more than he loves free speech - or apparently anything. The monster he has created should be broken up.
2
Z is on the wrong side of history and he knows it. He reminds me of a swimmer flailing in the waters before eventually drowning.
2
trump learned to master media.
From the newspapers to television to all the modern stuff.
With the best Russian experts and the workers in St Petersburg he evened mastered the personal spaces of the social addicts and the ballot boxes, especially where it counts, and cheating is easier.
The trump electoral college is another failed institution.
Impeach ahead.
It's really all you have control over.
Go House!
Yet another failure.
2
Count on Zuckerberg to do the wrong thing, the selfish thing. Sandberg will encourage him to double down on anything that will make them richer and nothing that will protect America if it won't make them richer.
3
"@realdonaldtrump can still huff and puff away on his disingenuous digital sousaphone, but his campaign cannot pay to do so."
No. We the People will continue to pick up the tab ... and eventually, clean up the mess he leaves behind.
1
What ought to happen, of course, is that they should operate at least on the same rules as newspapers do. What I, myself, would like to see would be that the actual person of anyone and everyone who posts anything can be identified by Facebook, and that anyone who forwards something must be able, correctly, to identify the source of that which he/she forwards, otherwise suffer potential criminal charge.
It's about money not free speech. If Mark were a true patriot he would put aside bundles of money. He would not allow his forum to be used by Russians, and domestic groups who engage in misinformation. Just listening to Trump speaks he lies constantly. He even lied about his own father being born in Germany when he was born in the Bronx. I mean if you can lie about where your own father was born nothing is sacred in political ads. He also keeps saying he had a "perfect conversation." He's the only person I'm aware of who constantly speaks in superlatives. How about having just a plain, great conversation and not a perfect one? 100% on an exam is an example of a perfect score not a conversation. Especially when the person who had the conversation gives us his own interpretation of how the conversation went.
Zuckerberg's concept of free speech reminds me of Burroughs's "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." which is quite the opposite to "We came in peace for all mankind."
2
Yesterday's NY Times Morning Briefing reported that "Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and a former Facebook executive, said ... it was highly likely that [to affect the US's 2020 election] Russian groups were already ... working with locals in the United States to post inflammatory messages on Facebook. By employing locals, he said, Russians did not need to set up fake accounts or create accounts that originated in Russia, making it easier to sidestep being noticed."
Do with that what you will.
1
I’m taking myself off Fb completely. Kudos to Jack Dorsey.
2
Zuckerberg has clearly lost the cool factor.
Thank you, Mr. Dorsey. You are setting an example to be followed by others. Sadly, Mark Zuckerberg will stutter and side step his horrendous policy allowing disinformation to prevail on his platform. When is enough money enough, for goodness sake? You reap what you sow, Zuckerberg.
Watched "The Great Hack" last weekend. Ditched FB the next day. this is good news.
1
Everything Trump says is political. Does this mean he is banned?
The obvious answer is to regulate Facebook out of politics, but will politicians really vote to take away one of their most effective promotional tools? They're all horrible - portraying themselves as defenders of democracy and free speech as they do everything they can to destroy it.
I canceled my account on Facebook largely because of the site’s publication of obviously false and defamatory political ads. I hope Zuckerberg et. al. will stop messing with the public and follow Twitter’s example. It’s a very simple solution which requires no first amendment judgment calls regarding the veracity of ad content — just get rid of them all! Of course, it appears that the “almighty dollar” is winning this contest for the FB crew, so doesn’t look likely that honor will win out!
This becomes a slippery slope. College campuses are next when white supremacist groups want to "lecture" about some humans being superior to others or maybe even the earth is flat. And who knows what else? But short of going down this draconian slope, it would probably make more sense to force debunked or false positions to have a seal of "disapproval" or the likes.
Let's be clear. We're asking Facebook, Twitter, and the rest to save us from ourselves. We have these wonderful tools, but as a species are incapable of using them responsibly. We demand the Mark and Jack be the adults in the room, and we get mad at them because they won't. And why should they? Why should they supply all the maturity if we are unwilling to do so? Remember how it felt when our kids made a mess and expected us the clean up after them?
Considering there seems to be no social media with a moral conscious, Dorsey has just filled a much needed gap and gathered a few more followers along the way no doubt. Good move.
Keep it up Kara-If Zuckerberg ever grows up and takes responsibility for the actions of Facebook it will be because of your prodding.He disdains the Congressional hearings but your constant insistence that he take seriously the sins of Facebook may eventually get to him!
trump running America with 99% of the elected GOP, and of the base is still a gong too far.
As long as they remain in their circles, watch only Fox, and so on, nothing can change.
I say, drop leaflets.
Uncle Sam should bust Facebook up.
Then Uncle Sam regulate and fine Facebook for unfair trade practices.
Followed by Uncle Sam investigating Facebook for violation of antitrust laws and privacy rights and deceptive trade practices in restraint of trade and monopoly.
A correction: Social media isn't hostage to abuse, lies and sensationalism. Social media directly benefits from it.
Probably Facebook's direct income from political ads isn't huge. But the fact that my racist uncle can log in find some lie and then rant and engage his buddies is priceless for Facebook.
Social Media has no reason to stop providing platform for lies and sensational content.
1
Put a health warning on Facebook like on cigarettes.
"Facebook is an unregulated business that collects your personal data when you use its website.
Facebook reserves the right to sell all your personal data it collects to the highest bidder without your knowledge or consent.
All postings on Facebook are the opinions of the poster and may be totally false and misleading. Facebook performs minimum screening of website content. We therefore recommend that you do not rely on or believe anything contained on Facebook.
You agree to hold Facebook harmless if you are harmed in any way by relying on anything whatsoever posted on this site.
Have a nice day"
2
Mark Zuckerberg's business model is to organ-harvest human-privacy for his personal profit while socializing its losses, which include collapsed IQs, collapsed perceptions of reality, and collapsed democracies.
Here are Facebook's annual profits (NOT revenues - profits)
2018 $22 billion
2017 $16 billion
2016 $10 billion
2015 $3.7 billion
2014 $2.9 billion
2013 $1.5 billion
Tens of billions of profit is not enough for Mark Zuckerberg and his Frankenstein invention that turns brains into gaslighted mush around the globe.
Zuckerberg wants the free market of real and fake ideas to remain perfectly unregulated.
So what if someone yells 'fire' in a crowded theater.
So what if an orchestrated propaganda campaign of Big Lies and Half-Truths destroyed Europe 80 years.
So what if the survival of democracy is predicated on an honestly informed citizenry.
Zuckerberg has demonstrated that he lacks a human conscience and has failed out of this world's human history course.
He's not very bright.
He has zero ethics.
He loves his money and his power.
He has no interest in the well-being of society.
People like Mark Zuckerberg is why we need strong governments.
Otherwise, there's nobody to prevent Zuckerberg from organ-harvesting the world's brains and turning it into complete Facebook jello.
Regulate and quarantine this modern Frankenstein.
He and his Facebook toy are a danger to society.
10
It is actually getting tedious repeating the obvious...censorship does not include refusing to provide a platform for lies and incitement to violence.
3
I often read most of the comments on stories that don’t involve ideology or moral outrage and I find it disturbing how little attention is paid to important issues that affect the world. Yesterday two Russian state of the art supersonic bombers took off from SAR (South Africa). The emerging military presence in Africa coupled with the social media disinformation campaign is another way Russia is able to get more bang for their buck.
While Americans spends days and tens of millions of dollars on the killing of one terrorist, Russia quietly and inexpensively gains a strategically important foot hold in the lower Southern Hemisphere, an area of the world that’s proved difficult for them to penetrate recently. The importance of Russian military jets in this area is also significant because it makes the formerly hard to reach drone base in Australia directly in Russia’s newly expanded field of vision.
Russia is winning hearts and minds, gaining vision while the west bickers over fleeting political and economic drama.
2
Ms. Swisher. Thank you.
We have to commend Jack Dorsey and Twitter for the initiative.
Mr. Dorsey should also have a closer look at other information flowing into the site. Anything that has the shape and sign of haste speech should be banned as well.
Recently Facebook removed several hundreds of postings, suspected to be of Russian origin. Facebook should not allow political advertisements. Because, they distort facts, and only serves to the advantage of one side, and mislead the people. Those wanting to spread lies and disinformation. It is all done in the name of free speech. Facebook should view all of them as unhealthy to our real free speech, and to our democracy. That ideral should supersede the money and profits objective.
Lately, there has been much discussion on the role of the Social Media organizations. What is unclear is what our lawmakers propose doing, or whether action is being taken to make the Social Media organizations more responsible, and accountable.
1
It is important to keep in mind that money is the volume control of free speech, not the free speech itself. Unchecked, those with more money can drown the voices with less financial means. Dorsey's move is a step in the right direction. On the other hand, Facebook still allows money to control the volume, shame!
5
Thank you Jack Dorsey. Perhaps Zuckerberg and Facebook will reckon with the inevitable. Allowing political ads, which cannot be substantiated, is reckless and undermines the civility of our democracy. And really, Zuckerberg is such a clueless kid. Unevolved, uneducated in the humanities and truly a threat to our democracy. ,
1
I don’t like twitter or the twits who tweet, but this strategy deserves applause.
3
Dear Kara Swisher:
I played the sousaphone in junior high school, high school, and college. I love your image of Donald Trump huffing and puffing away on his “disingenuous digital sousaphone.” Wonderful!
Thanks for the smile. :-)
Dean
2
Facebooks days are numbered. I find more and more people are off put by how the company operates and how it uses the data that it spies on you for. Across my Facebook network I would guess that that activity is down about 80-%. For me personally I post 10% 0f what I used to.
4
Twitter has taken a step in the right direction. As for Facebook's willingness to countenance lies, perhaps their old motto ("Don't be evil") should be modified: "Don't be evil. Just enable it."
8
@Observer
that was Google
Facebook never wants anything except world domination
@thostageo Point(s) taken (about both the slogan and Facebook's goal). Thanks.
Zuckerberg is a "true believer" and an ideological fanatic.
He follows the tenets of that peculiar brand of Silicon Valley Libertarianism that posits that more information, more data and fewer restrictions on the content and use of that information will always lead to a better outcome.
In his mindset, if Democracy falls it only proves that it is an outmoded and inefficient system. Whatever replaces it is bound to be better.
Move fast, break things- a catchy motto, but what if the thing you break could take generations to replace?
12
@DazedAndAmazed The tragic flaw of Libertarianism is that it relies on citizens to self-police. Character, like most traits, follows a bell-shaped curve. A few among us are saints, a few are evil, and most lie in between. But, when those few evil ascend to prominence, it takes ten saints to offset that one sinner. Because, it is far easier to destroy than it is to create. And, that universal asymmetry lies at the root of Libertarianism's failure as a political philosophy.
3
@DazedAndAmazed do lies and 'misinformation' count as 'information'?
And yet Trump's presence on Twitter which is largely a nonstop political ad (and often just a smear campaign and filled with lie after lie after lie) is still OK?
9
As I keep saying, Facebook and Twitter and other social media are media outlets pretending to be private communication. They are not private communication such as letter or phone calls. The Post Office does not put ads on or in our letters, the phone companies do not insert ads into our conversations. Social Media needs to be regulated the same way broadcast and cable is regulated.
11
The difference is that Twitter ads aren't profitable. Points awarded to Jack for doing the right thing, but just barely.
2
My own suspicion is that if Dorsey could have banned only ads for Republicans and conservatives he would have been happy to do so. After all, many such people have been banned from Twitter for suspiciously liberal motives on ambiguous "rules".
1
@kwb -- Did you give even a moment's thought to the nation that the reason Twitter banned Republicans and conservatives is because many of their ads were inflammatory and pushed flat-out lies?
Facebook and Google have ”banned” political ads in Washington State due to their refusal to comply with our State’s ad disclosure rules. Nevertheless there have been thousands of dollars of ads in the current election cycle, because they don’t spend much effort policing their “ban.” Time will tell if this Twitter ban operates similarly.
5
In 2018, Zuckerberg laid the foundation for this by very carefully portraying Facebook as a technology company rather than a media company, and we're seeing the result of that now. If Facebook were designated a media company, it would be held to a higher standard in accepting and publishing advertising content.
6
Yes, it's your courage, rather altruism, tempered GREED is what is required to eliminate, at least minimize the effect of false propaganda in politics especially in elections as in 2016. This will also have a worldwide impact, benefits.
If Facebook won't have the altruism, they will eventually be forced to do it by (worldwide) fines and/or by law. When they face with their viability, they will come around. And Mark Zuckerberg will then be seen as a pariah, the opposite of Bill Gates & Warren Buffett & family, and the less known Ted Turner who started the giving back of unearned riches (in 1997, I believe, pledging $1 billion to UN, which was what his net worth grew, nearly doubling in a year), eventually leading to the billionaires' pledges.
And Jack Dorsey is a Ted Turner. Thank you, Jack Dorsey. Your act is phenomenal!
12
Since Facebook only exists because Zuck wanted a way to "rate" college co-eds he never had a shot at sleeping with, I keep my expectations of Facebook as low as possible. Everyone else should keep their expectations of him below the barrel - then his entirely predictable responses won't be such a surprise.
19
I don't know much about Mr. Dorsey, but he seems to be a man with some integrity and courage. Both of these characteristics seem to be sorely missing from our current society. Keep it up Mr. Dorsey. I hope you are starting a trend.
15
"In this game of internet chicken, will Mr. Zuckerberg eventually flinch, as he did with Mr. Jones, whom he allowed on his platform until he didn’t?"
Zuckerberg will continue to allow lies and disinformation on his platform so long as it fills his pockets...and until Congress actually passes legislation to regulate his and other social media platforms which publish subversive attacks on our democracy, truth and reality.
It might speed Congress up if someone with deep pockets would sue Zuckerberg and Facebook on grounds of defamation, false advertisement, sedition. A court should be able to find that free speech does in fact have limits and that knowingly publishing lies for money is not protected by the First Amendment.
16
Given his record until now, I don't think that we can expect anything from Mark Zuckerberg except what he thinks will benefit Facebook's business model. It's unrealistic to rely on business executives to have any other attitude. There's no substitute for enlightened regulation. Regulation may often not be enlightened, but in the U.S. regulation is enlightened more often than business decisions are.
6
Everything wrong with social media is a gigantic failure by design. From the internet's inception among military and academics not anticipating "bad actors". No one thought through the unintended consequences of file sharing and its impact on everything from recorded music to print journalism? How many dailies have disappeared leaving corporate broadcast as sole media? This consolidation couldn't have been more efficient if it were planned.
"Gong Global" was a good thing? Until there are filters on content origin, ideas like "our Constitution", or "our laws" or "Free Speech" are archaic. When you're talking to a machine, do you even reference "freedom"?
"Anonymity is Power". Your social media could work like Next Door where every post is tied to a physical address. You may not like you're neighbors, but at least you know they're local.
13
Zuckerberg has some of the same tics as Trump. He likes to win and he likes it to be at an adversaries expense. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the more evil ads Facebook published in 2016 were designed by Facebook using data mined on voter behavior and then specifically targeted to push Trump win. Zuck is just the type of guy who would want to see if he could do it.
14
How much money does FB take in with political ads? That's where the story starts and ends.
FB practices capitalism as if it were a religion. In this regard they very clearly represent the American zeitgeist.
15
Beautifully written article! The content is a giant ray of hope but just wanted to say that Kara's writing is poetic and lovely to read.
19
Twitter has done the right thing in banning political ads. Free speech has zero to do with it and Zuckerberg knows it. Facebook could easily solve the problem of lying ads that sometimes foment actual violence by not selling them.
27
The FCC used to control media outlets via the fairness doctrine which required news outlets to provide controversial issues in the public interest that were honest, equitable, and balanced. Thank you Ronald Regan for bringing the Wild West of Hollywood to the whole globe. We wouldn’t have to rely on the kindness of billionaires for nearly every aspect of our lives if we had a few publicly brokered regulations for the literal air we breathe, water we drink, and information we consume. Forty years after Regan we now live in the trickle down world wrought by republicans determined to worship at the altar of the ‘free market’—helped along by a few legislative moves to guarantee profits for the private sector.
So. Much. Winning.
24
I honestly can't believe the liberal position on regulating foreign influence in elections and disinformation is proposing an outright BAN on political speech on social media.
This is truly one of the most remarkable things I have heard in American politics. I don't recall EVER reading such a broad, overinclusive, non-tailored speech regulation proposed in any scholarly articles on free speech, the First Amendment or participatory democracy.
Outsource censorship to a large media corporation?
I don't often agree with political commentary in the New York Times. But I've never propose an outright BAN on political speech.
4
@Mmm
It's not a ban on political speech. It is a ban on paid political ads. Citizens United is the most egregious example of being anti-free speech and this is a tiny chip out of that ruling.
9
@Heartland If you can't buy ads, then you have to literally own a media company to speak through any modern means of communication (other than shouting on a soapbox I guess).
Banning ads is just a simple-minded idea. And has never been proposed seriously before. Because if the government tried it, it would be struck down immediately.
But liberals want to browbeat Facebook into acting like the thought police because the government can't? It's dangerous for all the same reasons we don't want the government to censor political speech.
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@Mmm
I think you are missing the point. When FB takes money to show ads, the rules should change.
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The crazy fact that "Truth In Advertising" does not apply to political ads is the issue and is the courts and Congress' issue to resolve -- not FB or Mark Z.
Having said that, I sure think Z's life would be a somewhat easier if FB, as a private company, did not allow political ads. At least he could then come to Washington along with Mr Dorsey and ask Congress why they have to do the heavy lifting, while congress bickers and blames everyone else but themselves.
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@Tom Pollan FB is a publicly traded company, not "private".
Could political advertising revenue really be worth supporting lies that could lead to the destruction of our democracy? This is the fundamental question for Zuckerberg as FB employees and users question the company and the legitimacy of these ads.
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Facebook can't be changed - won't be changed. We need something just as big built from scratch with a powerful moral heart and soul to inspire compassion and unite us. Some people are working on that right now. I'm proud to be one of them.
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@Gunter Bubleit Godspeed and Good luck!
@Gunter Bubleit
Perhaps a new social networking site called 'InYourFaceBook'.
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Quite honestly I am amazed that anyone believes anything that appears of Facebook, Twitter or whatever "social media" platform you may choose to support by providing them unlimited free information about yourself..
Other than as a place to see pictures of your grandkids or a grumpy looking cat (now thankfully deceased) what value has this social media stuff added to our society?
Social media has probably been the largest contributor to lost productivity at work, increased motor "accidents" and repression of social skill development in the younger generations.
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@MrC
Hey, I despise social media as much as the next guy, but your schadenfreude over Grumpy Cat (RIP) is a bridge too far!
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What facebook can and should do is fact check adds and put the results of that factcheck right up there with the adds where they can be seen.
If politicians want to buy space for lies they must be willing to have these lies called out right on the same page with the add.
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This is precisely what Facebook should commit to as well. “Mr. Dorsey said as much in his tweets: “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.”” This has been the concern with regards to social media for years. If there is one thing that has come from these difficult times is that everyone has a responsibility to look at how they are contributing to strengthening our democracy. We’ve learned that there are people who don’t really understand how fragile even our democracy is when those who hate, give into anger and grievance rather than hope and land in the White House with sycophants. Thank you Mr. Dorsey.
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Twitter shouldn't be winning accolades for suppressing free speech. If Twitter finds that something posted is full of inaccuracies they certainly have the power to identify them as such. God forbid that they might have to hire some employees to do that work and negatively affect the bottom line, at least in the short run.
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@Tom Refusing to run paid political ads is not suppressing free speech, any more than refusing to run tobacco ads on TV is suppressing free speech.
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@Tom
Both Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey have decided to pass on the issue of identifying/fact-checking political ads. One decided to just allow the ads regardless of content or truth. One decided not to allow any such ads on the site. One thinks the public should be the true arbiter of what is truth or fiction on the site. One doesn't have a good answer, yet, about the impact on paid political speech on democracy.
@Tom "some employees"? "suppressing free speech"? no. are they keeping people from running into the streets with signs full of lies and screaming their inaccuracies? no. they are not.
It's about profit. The ads that lead to most engagement and returns for FB, Youtube and others are those that promote anger and fear through far out lies and conspiracy theories. That's what is pumped out by politicians and other corporate/vested interests and MZ knows which side his bread is buttered on.
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So far as I can tell Dorsey made the right move: "We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought."
But this has nothing to do with whether truth or lies will prevail in the marketplace. Dorsey by this move just puts all arguments with equal space to develop. IN OTHER WORDS, YOU CAN NEITHER PAY FOR TRUTH OR LIES, TRUTH AND LIES MUST BE EARNED AND NOT BOUGHT.
Contrast Dorsey's message with Facebook: Facebook will permit truth and lies to be subject to money; who can pay the most or influence the most in any way potentially wins.
But the problem with all political parties is they object to money only if they do not have enough of it to challenge other parties, and they are not particularly concerned about paying for truth to exist. And even if people were willing to pay to have truth exist, how can you be sure this at end is really having the road to truth illuminated and not just money working to its own advantage?
The problem appears to be money; money working for truth or lies cannot be trusted. What's worse, a political party raising money to spread truth or to spread lies? The answer seems obvious but I'm not so sure. It's best to remove money entirely from the equation and have the pursuit of truth and conquest of lies based on other factors, and on human qualities such as preference for the one over the other.
Dorsey made an important distinction. Carry on.
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Ms. Swisher loses me when she writes that Zuckerberg "expertly but wrongly conflat[ed] free speech with paid speech and conveniently le[ft] out the part about allowing lies." Can she explain to us how the Constitution or any other law differentiates "free speech" from "paid speech"? Does she not see that "lies" is a term over which innumerable battles could be fought? (I'd love to start with the use of "she" by the NY Times to refer to a man who insists that he's a woman.) The Congress is perfectly free to create laws that might regulate Facebook and other such enterprises, but it doesn't. (It could, for instance, define Facebook as a publisher and make it responsible for every libel it relays. Good luck on that one.) Zuckerberg, whatever his faults, is entirely right that it should not be his or his company's job to decide what political speech is legitimate and what is not.
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@Bob Roberts
"Paid speech" is a commercial transaction - based on a contract. A contract has (at least) 2 parties, who must agree on the terms contained therein. If one party does not agree to those terms, they are free to walk away. There is no Constitutional prohibition of such an action.
Dorsey is well within his legal rights to refuse to enter into a contract he dislikes. Zuckerberg could do the same if he wasn't 100% profit-driven.
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@Bob Roberts
And therein lies the problem about which most people are up in arms: There are no laws regulating types of speech on social media platforms, unlike other traditional media outlets ( print, TV, radio). Sure, the Facebooks, etc. of the world filter out hate speech ( when they can) and the like, but they have no legal responsibility to pursue the truth in advertising, unlike the others.
Let the buyer/reader/consumer beware.
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@Bob Roberts
And Facebook being a global platform, your notions of "Constitution" and "speech" are just quaint.
For anyone that has followed the Big Z since his college days,we knew before his most recent visit to Congress what he would say.
When he was the Small Z and busy crafting technology and acquiring other's works he built an enterprise that would serve his power and pecuniary interests. College lessons about civil society and civic duty to democracy went unlearned.
Big Z is only partly a citizen. He is fully economic being. His enterprise is the embodiment of that, half a person driven by a limitless need for satiation of money and power interests.
Many such enterprises have always fallen outside the boundaries of critical societal needs. The Trump brand was always for the folks in need of the Trump brand. If not Trump, then it was to be whomever was on the scene to satiate those "in need."
Not so for the Big-Z. His enterprise developed in a technological field ---social media ---- that wasn't even around when Trump graduated college. He was free from pesky laws, even norms, as he crafted his social media product. He met people's overwhelming "needs," needs that "back in the day" did not even exist. Without the self-controls civil society expects from its citizens, he was free to mold Facebook as he chose.
If in the process the age of liberal democracy is altered, perhaps mortally, what is the problem? Facebook will not only survive, it will be even more profitable and powerful.
And Congress? And Democracy? The Big Z has spoken: "Whatever."
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OK. Good for Twitter and Jack Dorsey. No matter how that decision was arrived at, it's both adult and responsible.
I would not, however, look for any comparable moves from greedy young Mr. Zuckerberg and his Facebook. They are unconcerned with the threat to our electoral system they represent. Their primary -- indeed, their only -- concern is profit. Facebook will continue to be an unbridled and destructive political force until it is compelled to change by legal means.
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@Jimbo
I have a plan for that: REGULATION!
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What kind of political advertising will this cover?
Is it just ads that directly say 'vote for so and so'?
OR is it also political ads endorsing or condemning particular policy via lobby groups?
What does this include?
Zuckerberg: “In a democracy, I don’t think it’s right for private companies to censor politicians or the news.”
But that’s the problem. Facebook is more than a company. It’s a global Information disseminating network and it really operates no differently than a news media organization. The only real difference is that it has a multitude of niche markets where various “news” is fed to customers based on their preexisting biases. Facebook profits off of knowing what people like and dislike. They spoon feed people news based on this knowledge.
So it needs to be regulated and treated like a publisher. It’s way more than a “private business” and let’s not forget that Facebook also owns Instagram. Many people share Instagram posts on twitter and I wonder how that’s going to work when the nuts start sharing their political videos from Instagram on twitter. Twitter will not be able to uphold its decision if Zuckerberg does not do the same. Facebook has thus far avoided regulation simply because we have a president (and a political party) who rely upon the dissemination of disinformation. It’s not a free speech issue. It’s a monopoly issue.
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@Corrie
Except media journalists traditionally are guided by ideas about social responsibility for example or national identity. Social media has no boundaries. Social media has no "national identity". Social media may not be human. Money is all.
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@Corrie While there may appear to be some similarities, there is a major difference: FB is a data mining & marketing business; news media is in the journalism and news business.
And by focusing on how FB's impact has evolved, seems like we overlook the very basic failure of not having protected personal privacy in the digital arena from the beginning.
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There are three primary considerations at play. First, Facebook is a private corporation. It has the power and discretion to choose who it will sell its advertisement time to. Free speech and First Amendment considerations do not apply to a private corporation. Thus, like Twitter and like every other private corporation, Facebook can choose not to accept certain advertisements, whether political diatribes or hate speech.
Second, as a private corporation Facebook can choose, within limits of existing laws like antitrust and public policy, to maximize its profits. Alternatively, Facebook could maintain profitability and its own viability by doing the "right thing." We know what doing the "right thing" is.
Third, if Facebook does not shift gears and reject paid political advertising, then it risks having either Congress, or, perhaps, state legislatures, enacting laws that regulate its conduct.
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Corporations are people. Money is speech. So sayeth the Supreme Court.
Since Mark Zuckerberg's only motivation is money, how much would FB actually lose should it not post political ads? Perhaps Mark should ask himself this important question. Ironically, I believe more people would sign-up for FB if it started being the social network it claims to be, rather than a tool for the unscrupulous. In fact, if FB does, indeed, continue to allow political ads, I will cancel my membership and will encourage everyone I know to do the same.
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Zuckerberg has to be disciplined, and unfortunately it will fall to the Congress to do it. Freedom to publish anything, even lies from politicians, is using freedom as an oxymoron. Absolute freedom cannot exist. There must be a counterpart of restraint, or it is not freedom.
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Facebook can design massively sophisticated targeting algorithms but can’t develop a basic fact checker to apply universally to all political ads?
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@Mark Ford But who fact checks the “fact checkers”?
@Mark Ford
Of course they could.
They choose not to.
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@Mark Ford If you use FB on a laptop or computer you can block 100% of the ads.
Also, they can't track your location, just your IP address.
FB is never going to reign in their primary source of $$$, that's why you have to clampdown on FB yourself.
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It’s interesting that Zuck mentions climate change as an example of a potentially worthwhile issue ad. Ironically Facebook’s approach to political ads is akin to climate denialism. They’re shrugging their shoulders and saying who knows what’s true and what’s fiction, and who are we to judge when there are big economic consequences at stake? Funny how the judicious decision is so often the one that benefits the bottom line Meanwhile the polar ice caps of truth and civility melt away.
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I think Facebook and Zuckerberg have decided that profits are more important than democracy and truth. Elizabeth was right, we need to break up these big tech giants and regulate more for the sake of mankind.
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@George Marley bingo.
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The real problem is not that politicians lie. It is that anyone would even consider molding their political opinions based on posts on Facebook. We constantly show ourselves unworthy of our franchise.
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Forbid any political ads - like we banned ads for cigarettes. Each candidate gets equal time on a party political broadcast.
Apart from that, they can stick to their own sites and to being newsworthy to real reporters.
Done.
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@ST In France during the period of elections, the campaign expenses are limited (and reimbursed by the State if the party reach 5% of the votes)
For presidential election, every candidate has the same equal time whatever his importance or chances on radio and television.
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@Laurent I have seen that in my travels and you are 100% correct. Citizens United has allowed legal public corruption. So frankly has lobbying.
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We would be much better off to have a company like, say, Wikipedia to create a social networking company that is by paid subscription only with no ads.
It would be done as a public service with rates set to cover expenses only. Think of all the millions of people paying $10/15 mo. like a coop and putting Facebook out of business.
When Zuck gets hit with that kind of backlash, I imagine he would have a transformation.
In the meantime, short of that, we might get lucky and will be able to unleash Senator Warren on him. Love to see that too.
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@Blanche White It doesn't make economic sense for Wikipedia to create a social networking company that is by paid subscription only with no ads. It would never work. Very few people are going to pay $100-$150 a year for a service that they can get for free. Despite all of the negative press, Facebook users have gone up 9% over last year.
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I work in tech. One day our boss lectured about "k-factor". A measure of virality. The higher the k-factor, the faster and wider it the information spreads.
Recently, there was study that measured k-factor based on the sentiment of tweets. The results were obvious: outrage spreads fast, but dies out sooner, while reason spreads slowly and lasts a little longer.
The problem is that outrageous lies spread fast and wide, while the fact checks never have a chance catch up. Just keep piling on a new outrage every day to drown out the fact check from the day before.
This is why letting *anyone* spread outrageous lies is wrong. To uses another bit of internet jargon, misinformation needs an "exponential backoff"
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@Iko So it really is true, then, that a lie travels halfway around the world while the truth is putting its shoes on... just as Mark Twain said.
We've known this is the way things work for 150 years and have sat our hands when it comes to regulating these platforms.
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@Iko you’re describing what trump is doing: piling on a relentless barrage of outrages too fast to catch up to with the truth.
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@Matt
See also Jonathan Swift.
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This will not happen with Zuckerberg. Perhaps if you continue shaming the Board until it is only Thiel and Andresson left, with no new members due to the toxicity, there may be a change.
Start with Ken Chenault. He is a decent person that needs to preserve that decency.
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@Dane Madsen
This is a wake up call for Zuckerberg.
Change or be left behind.
Anything to shift politics away from social media is a plus for democracy. Social media seems to be the easiest form of media to pollute with disinformation. Perhaps because it is so new and people haven't had time to figure out how to integrate it successfully into a democratic framework. Basically it is out of control and threatening to undermine democratic governments everywhere. The internet in general is a problem and certainly sites like 8chan where white power types congregate and exchange ideas about carrying out acts of terror has resulted in a very serious domestic terror threat in the US and other democratic countries. The co-founder of 8chan, who no longer is an owner, said it should be taken down but that hasn't happened. It is not clear whether Americans can get on top of this whole internet situation before everything started by Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, etc comes tumbling down.
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The real (possibly only) winners: the Democratic and Republican parties. When social media organizations ban political advertising they are banning competition. They are not only banning 'lies' but also the voice of new political movements and new ideas that touch upon politics.
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To prevent the danger of any one or group restricting ideas and opinions they do not want you to hear, say or think, we need many alternatives to Facebook and Twitter so that no one, especially the ruling class, has a choke-hold on you.
Choke-points can be used to countermand the American ideal where you can "think what you want and say what you think."
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Frankly, I think both facebook and twitter are a waste of time and serve no real purpose. A marketing scheme. Empty calories. Does the good out way the evil. In this time and place in our society I say the answer is NO.
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@cjr Disagree. With Twitter I can follow whom I want within the topics I care about. I like that I create lists specific to my community. It can be an addictive waste of time or it can be a tool for staying informed... it's up to you.
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@cjr Agreed. If both vanished by the AM, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.
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@Steve "Like" and "care about" are sometimes divorced from the general good. I'd like to see a time when Twitter produced a message that benefitted a community, a state, a country, the world.
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And it certainly was a nice gesture however ...
“Twitter said the ban would not greatly affect its advertising business, which is the main way that the company makes money. Ned Segal, Twitter’s chief financial officer, said political ad spending for the 2018 midterm elections was less than $3 million. The company’s annual revenue totals about $3 billion.”
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While the decision is commendable, Jack and Twitter are going to save ad buyers lots of money and there will probably be a proliferation of fake accounts spreading false information and anonymous ones like Mitt Romney’s Pierre Delecto.
2
Twitter's decision is misguided. Until it solves the bot problem, this will do more harm than good. Remember that it's estimated half of Trump's 66+ million followers are bots. During the 2016 campaign, Russia spent very little on advertising; most of the damage came from bots and trolls put to work by their Internet Research Agency.
This ban will hit NGOs. Groups trying to get the word out about climate change, immigration justice, health care, etc., aren't going to be adept at viral marketing. Do we really want RAICES to have to try to get clever when they’re getting the message out about the latest atrocity being committed against migrant children?
This will also make it difficult for previously unknown politicians to break through. Remember MJ Hegar's Doors ad that caused such a sensation and put her on the map? That kind of thing won't be possible now. Advertising on TV is only available to already established campaigns with lots of cash.
Twitter is trying to accomplish two things here. First, to position themselves against Facebook. Mission accomplished, I suppose...but at what cost?
Second, they're trying to avoid the controversial but not-as-hard-as-they-would-have-you-believe work of prohibiting ads that are untruthful and/or highly misleading.
They could and should do fact checking, even if it causes them to lose some users. They should also demand full transparency from any campaign or group advertising on the platform. Today's decision is a cop out.
5
I applaud this move. Twitter, like Facebook, like the internet itself, has been more bad than good for public discourse. Too many of us do not control our impulses, gather our thoughts, and think about the implications of our voices when we have a bullhorn with instant global reach at our fingertips. This does damage in small ways - to family and friendships - and in large ways, when it monetizes everything and enables the fracturing of our fragile political systems.
38
Who knew that the Big Brother Orwell warned us about would turn out to be Facebook. Unchecked, deceitful political advertising is the greatest threat to democracy this country has ever seen. If they don't ban it, we will turn into an authoritarian society where power will be for sale to those who can deceive us the best. Our ability to discern truth from fiction will be lost. These are desperate times.
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@Cuddlecat
Turns out Huxley was far more prescient the Orwell ever was.
1
@ cuddlecat
We are in a totalitarian society where power is bought.
Glad to know you’re in my alternative universe of Philly.
1
@Cuddlecat That’s a very Orwellian idea.
1
I remember the days of yore, when the only harm facebook hath wrought was that awkward Harvard students e-ogled their secret crushes that wouldn't talk to them otherwise.
As juvenile as that was, I suppose I'd be fine with whatever efforts steer social media platforms back in that direction.
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