Patterico's Pontifications

10/31/2019

The News, The Truth Of It, And Who Gets To Decide

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:06 am



[guest post by Dana]

It seems like there is a bit to unpack in this: President Trump re-tweets Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume responding to iconic Democratic and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton about Facebook’s decision concerning political ads:

About Facebook’s political ads:

Right as Facebook was set to report its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced his company would be banning political advertisements.

But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t take the bait. On the company’s earnings call, he defended Facebook’s decision to allow ads that contain false information.

“Some people accuse us of allowing speech because they think all we care about is making money, and that’s wrong,” Zuckerberg said on the earnings call. “I can assure you that from a business perspective, the controversy this creates far outweighs the very small percentage of our business that these political ads make up.”

Facebook’s approach came under intense scrutiny this month after the company said it would allow Trump’s re-election campaign to run an ad with false claims about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. The ads policy was a major point of discussion at a congressional hearing last week where Zuckerberg testified.

On the call, Zuckerberg said the company estimates ads from politicians will be less than 0.5% of its revenue next year.

“To put this in perspective, the FTC fine that these same critics said wouldn’t be enough to change our incentives was more than 10x bigger than this,” he said.

Zuckerberg also argued that Google, YouTube, some cable networks and national broadcasters run “these same ads.” Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I think there are good reasons for this,” he said. “I don’t think it’s right for private companies to censor politicians and the news.”

–Dana

45 Responses to “The News, The Truth Of It, And Who Gets To Decide”

  1. Good morning again!

    Dana (05f22b)

  2. It’s OK for TV to constantly run lies by politicians but if social media allows the same ads then God help us all.

    They’re ads from politicians, and therefore dishonest almost by definition.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  3. So are they just discovering that political ads can be complete Barbra Streisand?

    The Washington Post just had an opinion piece by a former Time editor, Constitution Center chairman and Obama State Dept staffer which argued offending certain groups to the point of drawing a violent response should be illegal.

    “”Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. Why, they asked me, would you ever want to protect that?” Stengel wrote. “It’s a fair question. Yes, the First Amendment protects the ‘thought that we hate,’ but it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another. In an age when everyone has a megaphone, that seems like a design flaw.”

    https://reason.com/2019/10/30/former-time-editor-and-ceo-of-constitution-center-calls-for-ending-first-amendment-passing-hate-speech-laws/

    So they’re not just claiming they must be the arbiters of what’s true in political ads, they must also have the power to decide what gets published/tweeted/sent out on the interwebs PERIOD.

    Democracy dies in darkness.

    harkin (337580)

  4. 2. I said the same thing in an earlier thread, Pat.

    Gryph (08c844)

  5. it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another. In an age when everyone has a megaphone, that seems like a design flaw

    This is a wholly unsophisticated argument and it’s made in bad faith. Having to confront ideas and opinions you disagree with isn’t a design flaw. Can cause violence is and it both encourages violence and ensures censorship.

    frosty (f27e97)

  6. Memo to Brit Hume:

    Brit, Brit, Brit… get over yourself:

    “Television in not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park…” – Howard Beale [Peter Finch] ‘Network’ 1976

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  7. In Hillary’s world, government would force private companies to censor news — something government cannot do directly. I would rather have 1000 liars speaking than one truth-teller silenced.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  8. ^in=is

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  9. Memo to Brit Hume

    “Nothing happens until it happens on television”

    –Sean Connery, “Wrong is Right”

    Kevin M (19357e)

  10. They’re ads from politicians, and therefore dishonest almost by definition.

    They state a case as if it were black and white, when it never is. There are other professions that do the same.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  11. @7. It already does– and been doing so for decades: at least on what is piped out on the public airwaves; license renewal criteria and all that.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  12. license renewal criteria and all that.

    Really? When was the last license revoked for crossing the line on speech?

    Also, given the myriad alternative communications channels, what strength remains in the “public airwaves” rationale other than frequency allocation? Everything else is strictly high bidder.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  13. Patterico:

    It’s OK for TV to constantly run lies by politicians but if social media allows the same ads then God help us all

    One thing is: They’re not the same ads.

    Internet ads, like direct mail, can be targeted much more finely than television ads. so that nobody on the other side sees them or knows what’s being said.

    One way to deal with that is to create an archive of political ads which has been done. The would-be censors don’t seem to be happy with that solution.

    And even TV ads can be missed. In 1995, the Clinton campaign or related PACs (I’m not sure who ran ads all across the country attacking the Republicans for the government shutdown, but they avoided the media markets of New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. so that Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich wouldn’t know about them.

    Sammy Finkelman (b1f8c4)

  14. Admittedly, I wouldn’t want government to prevent CBS from showing full frontal nudity on Saturday morning cartoon shows. Nor do I see the need — CBS knows what its viewers will tolerate better than the State does.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  15. #14.

    SpongeBob No Pants?

    Appalled (1a17de)

  16. Sammy,

    TV ads are only seen in battleground states. In California, not so much. I suspect that the targeting of Internet ads will be as selective, given the chance. I don’t really see the problem that you see; why do I need to see the lies told someone else? If they are only shown to the choir, what is the harm? Or the effect?

    Kevin M (19357e)

  17. SpongeBob No Pants?

    The point being that the State is no more altruistic than private companies when it comes to censorship. Even less, since private companies can go broke, but the State is forever.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  18. Is it ‘truth’ for you sitting at home watching revenue generating ads electronically placed into the images you see in the stadium background of a World Series game or football game that in ‘reality’ do not exist in the stadium itself? [Most people don’t even realize it.] Is it ‘truth’ for a given platform, like a television network or local affiliate, to manipulate and thereby change an original program for broadcast/telecast with pan-and-scan, or colorization– or worse, ever-so-slightly-speed it up and literally edit individual frames out to fit into a time slot simply to create that much more commercial time for sale and profit?

    It always comes back to money. Political advertising is a sweet revenue stream for network and especially local affiliates. ‘Truth’ has nothing to do with it.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  19. @12. You can look up the challenges– it happens more often than you think– usually w/local affiliates– and, of course, Nixon had WaPO’s TV licenses in his sights during Watergate.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  20. @14. Public pressure by some groups brought about an effort to institute ‘the family viewing hour’ in the late 70’s — which was ruled unconstitutional. Look it up.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  21. 16. Kevin M (19357e) — 10/31/2019 @ 10:25 am

    I don’t really see the problem that you see; why do I need to see the lies told someone else?

    Becausew they might be different from what they tell you.

    You might be right. LA ad NY might have been avoided because they are not battleground states. Not so the DC area. That was so that Dole and Ginrich and their staff woudn’t see them.

    Sammy Finkelman (b1f8c4)

  22. Trump sends ads to the choir (and measures their effectiveness by how many recipients make reservations to attend a Trump rally) but others maybe not so.

    Sammy Finkelman (b1f8c4)

  23. More media malpractice: just days after embarrassing themselves by referring to al-Baghdadi as “austere cleric” instead of “terrorist”, today the WaPo referred to Donald Trump as “president” instead of “criminal traitor”.

    Could we get a rage-thread started about this?

    😉

    Dave (f9f142)

  24. Zuckerberg’s obtuse on this; his attitude is only going to accelerate the eventual reclassification [or break-up] of operations like Facebook in the U.S. from a ‘social media platform’ into a broadcast entity given how it’s carried [which we usually pay to access] to reach our various gadgets- requiring licensing. Often had conversations about this w/my boss back in the day. Likened this era of social media development to that of the growth of early radio– albeit a little more complex- before FCC regs., and licensing was instituted; a time when individuals could actually assemble equipment, raise an antenna on their own dime and time— and broadcast as their own radio stations- not unlike what Patterico or anybody else today does establishing a blog or website- no licensing necessary and you have your own standards and practices. If/when that changes and all these sites operating in the U.S. are required to get licenses and pay a fee for same, many are going to disappear– or be forced ‘offshore’ – like ‘pirate radio’ was in the UK.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  25. @23 I feel that in the same spirit as “Barak Hussain Obama” trump should be referred to as “Donald Trump, reality TV star and frequent Howard Stern guest”

    Manataur (e632fa)

  26. @24.Postscript. What works to Zuckerberg’s short term ‘advantage’ is that unlike their young staffers, the long in the tooth crop of current congresscritters– the ones who still can’t figure out how to stop the clocks on their VCRs from flashing- are essentially technically illiterate about the web. But that won’t last.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  27. They probably don’t have to worry about clocks on VCRs any more, but there are digital clocks and clock radios.

    Sammy Finkelman (b1f8c4)

  28. SHOT: Aaron Sorkin writes an open letter to Zuckerberg in the NYT accusing Facebook of assaulting the truth by not fact-checking political ads.

    CHASER: Times has already issued three corrections to errors in the open letter which got past their fact-checkers.

    CURBSTOMP: Zuckerberg responds by quoting a speech from An American President (written by Sorkin) about defending, even celebrating freedom of speech which you hate.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/ComfortablySmug/status/1189979403192811521

    harkin (337580)

  29. No one else will dare cop to it, but Zuckerburg-________ 2024?

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  30. @27. Don’t bet on that, Sammy.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  31. “No one else will dare cop to it, but Zuckerburg-________ 2024?”

    He did some stuff that looked a lot like preliminary campaigning back in 2017, but if anything it made the whole “Zuckerberg is actually a robot” meme even stronger.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  32. You can look up the challenges– it happens more often than you think– usually w/local affiliates– and, of course, Nixon had WaPO’s TV licenses in his sights during Watergate.

    Challenge, smallenge. I bet that the Whacked-Out Church of God files 100 of them. They are like complaints to the post office. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  33. ‘the family viewing hour’ in the late 70’s — which was ruled unconstitutional. Look it up.

    And yet the networks tend to honor it anyway and put their racier shows on later at night.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  34. What happened to the truth?

    This country now has political parties that are controlled by the 10% most liberal or 10% most conservative voters that show up for primary elections. When you consider that moderates have fled both parties leaving control of the parties to the most radical, it is no wonder that truth often takes a back seat to winning a primary. In 1970, about 20 percent of voters were unaffiliated. Now, about 45%.

    I believe that, unless this is reversed or a third party rights this ship, we are headed for even more polarized parties and media. Today, politicians do not pay a price for slavish loyalty to party. They do pay a price for telling the truth.

    noel (f22371)

  35. @@32/@33. Not quite, but the point is it’s these ‘interest’ groups who target and made/make the effort to begin with–and in the case of the FVH, it was knocked down in court. Breen and the Hays Code along w/t Catholic church were quite the PITA and all over the film industry for decades to keep the film biz in line; twin beds, dress codes etc., and all that; some of those pre-code films were seen to be fairly risque for these groups in their time. In our era, the hot point is less about sex and more excessive violence.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  36. Let people decide! We don’t need a nanny. And if some ads are bad, then point that out. This is just the liberals and D’s trying to gate-keep and censor. How much longer before every Conservative is labeled a “Russian Asset” for opposing the D’s?

    rcocean (1a839e)

  37. Kevin M: the kids are safe, there haven’t been Saturday morning cartoons on any of the major broadcast networks since about 2006.

    kaf (bd613c)

  38. 37. There;s no more TV Guide, so I didn’t know that.

    My impression was they still had them, but fewer of them.

    I need to check Saturday television listings in a Saturday newspaper.

    Sammy Finkelman (b1f8c4)

  39. @38. They have their own channel: The Cartoon Network

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  40. Travel sports did them in also…rather than having a few hours to kill before one afternoon game, there are now trips made in the wee hours for multiple tournament games the last of which can start at 11.00pm in some cases.

    urbanleftbehind (efd16d)

  41. . I don’t really see the problem that you see; why do I need to see the lies told someone else? If they are only shown to the choir, what is the harm? Or the effect?

    I would suggest several reasons why you want to see them

    First, so you know they exist, and recognize that the reactions of the “choir” to the false claims, and if need be challenge them.

    Second, because otherwise you will have no way to recognize that ads targeted to the choir you belong to might be untruthful.

    Kishnevi (e2dc4e)

  42. There;s no more TV Guide, so I didn’t know that.

    Actually, there is. Not that you’d care.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  43. A world where Hillary Clinton gets away with flippant response to being asked if she wiped her servers with “Like with a cloth?”, or where her husband responds to a grand jury inquiry with “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”, that is a world where up is down and down is up and democracy can’t thrive. It’s been going on for decades now, funny how she got woke to it just now.

    PTw (894877)

  44. “Actually, there is.”

    Yeah – that app is muy handy. And it’s free.

    harkin (337580)

  45. 42. Yes, I wan inexact. There is (or was) a TV Guide, (it seems to have almost entirely faded away) but it doesn’t contain actual television listings, just general articles, so it is not the TV Guide of old.

    My subscription had just been renewed for four years when they dropped the listings.

    Sammy Finkelman (b1f8c4)


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