
TikTok explains its ban on political advertising - kunkelast
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/03/tiktok-explains-its-ban-on-political-advertising/
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kypro
Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion.

As a side note, I wish there was less exposure to political opinion in
general. I think there's a problem in how a single celeb, or a close friend
talking about their political views can be so influential. Not because they've
made a particularly good argument, but because that person is trusted or
looked up to.

I often wonder how we would vote if we were blind to the opinions of the
media, celebs and friends. I find it fascinating how political memes exist and
evolve for almost no reason. How one generation can be almost universally
opposed to something like gay marriage, then suddenly in just a generation the
majority of the population is in almost religious support of it.

Would this happen if we were forced to think about politics for ourselves
instead of relying on the main stream opinion for what's right and wrong? As
someone on the spectrum I find frustratingly difficult to find anyone with
their own takes on the popular political topics of the day.

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captainmuon
> Political advertising should be banned entirely in my opinion.

How can society change for the better if you can't communicate and try to
convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and
think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your
solution.

There is a _de-facto_ ban on political advertizing (or "worldview"
advertizing) in Germany, and it is really frustrating. The army can run ads
looking for recruits, but you cannot run an ad for a peace campaign. There are
ads for cigarettes, soft drinks, and alcohol, but most places won't let you
run an ad to advocate, lets say, better healthcare.

Basically, this just helps cement the political status quo.

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HunOL
> _How can society change for the better if you can 't communicate and try to
> convince people of your ideas in the public space? If you see a problem and
> think you have a (political) solution, you should be able to advertize your
> solution._

It increase impact of money. Who have more money more likely to win.

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abfar
What if we require that every $1 spent by someone on a political ad must also
be balanced by a $1 subsidy for the opponents' ads? Seems fair to me and would
reduce the impact of money. (I'm sorry but I forgot who proposed this idea.)

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afiori
What about systems that are not strictly with two sides?

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dictum
I'm not convinced, but there's a possible setup: a fund. Entities donate to
the fund, and then the money would be distributed among the candidates (either
equally, among a smaller number of qualifying candidates, or for all
candidates, proportional to e.g. a party's representatives in the legislative
branch)

(This would do nothing about money buying influence — as long as the donors
are known, their wishes would be carried out by at least the major parties)

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tarjei
As much as I fear the China with regard to censorship, I think this could be a
wise move for all social media platforms.

There are two reason why I think this:

a) Political advertising on social media is very hard to police as you can
create huge amount of versions of each ad and target very different audiences.

b) Political advertising at volume favors the richest campaigns with the
largest amount of knowledge about their targets.

By blanket removing political advertising from these platforms more focus
would have to be made for more traditional forms of political work (door to
door etc) and thus a slower more deliberate political climate.

It is by no means panacea but a good start.

Norway has always forbiden political TV-advertising, something that I think
has helped the debate stay a bit less polarized, though that has changed with
the advent of Facebook and it's ilk.

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neflabs
This isn't about political ads, it's about silencing any politics on the
platform.

There are over 80 million US downloads of TikTok as of October 2018, with an
active user count of 40 million [1]. This means China's authoritarian regime
is influencing the political discussion of 40m+ US citizens.

You say this ban is good, I disagree. In the US, a lack of informed political
discussion is one major factor keeping young voters away from the polls. It
also prevents global free speech from reaching 400 million Chinese users.

1\. [https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-
statistics/](https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/)

~~~
chrisseaton
> a lack of informed political discussion

Was TikTok was an appropriate place for informed political discussion?

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liotier
The forum is the right place for political discussion, regardless of what the
forum is. As for the political discussion being "informed", that is
subjective.

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chrisseaton
What are you using the definite article to mean there?

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exabrial
Maybe next they can explain their ban on a Winnie the Pooh memes?

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mAEStro-paNDa
Why not ban _all_ advertising? Isn't that the discussion we should be having?

If we're going to accept that advertising is an ever-existing industry in our
lives, then shouldn't the conversation be not about what kinds of advertising
we should ban, but media awareness in general?

Bans should be reserved for the most egregious, such as products that kill
(tobacco) or explicit incitements to violence, for example.

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beager
An effective razor for what I presume will be a lively discussion here:

Your first amendment rights don’t compel a private sector company to host your
speech, or require them to accept your ad dollars for your message

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JoeAltmaier
No but American ideals may. It's not all about 'what's the legal minimum they
can get away with'. Hopefully its not just about that.

As a platform hosting media, it's not clear what their editorial latitude is,
or should be.

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beager
Ideals are unfortunately insignificant here. Companies are all about doing the
legal minimum, especially if that is in line with profit maximum. Right,
wrong, or indifferent.

Also, I believe they have absolute editorial latitude. They’re not a utility.

Don’t want to wet-blanket your post because I do think companies should be
idealistic, bold, and consistent with their policies, notwithstanding what
laws or constitutional rights dictate. But you can’t compel them to be, and
arguing that they should be leads you down a path of moot argument and
friction.

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JoeAltmaier
Doesn't mean the public should let them get away with it, or whitewash it.
Ideals mean something to the public (I hope). We should make that plain. Its
about the only leverage we have.

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beager
Definitely. You vote with your attention, your pageviews, your own voice. And
you vote with your vote, as does everyone else who is legal to vote.

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JoeAltmaier
And your dollars. The Big Vote.

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tu7001
Censoring information about Hong Kong protests may be taken as a bad thing.
But it seems obvious to me, that banning pro LGBT content in app for kids is
very desirable.

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JoeAltmaier
Disagree. Kids can learn about all sorts of people. Not sure where that
comment was supposed to be going. Should images of black people be banned from
apps for kids?

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Nasrudith
Yeah it is effectively normism deciding "respectability" and "morals" which
are actively antimoral. I see no difference between that and banning
depictions of mixed races families to "discourage miscegenation".

It is the category of "stop interfering with my indoctrination of my kids with
that pesky reality"!

