My ideal would be for some external regulator to police political ads, like the FEC already does to some extent. The policies would be made in public. The regulator would work with advertising platforms to set and enforce guidelines.
Another option which would avoid some of the problems is to limit how tightly a political ad could be targeted. If misinformation is included in an ad, everyone should be able to see it and make a judgement. Targeting the most vulnerable people would not be an option.
I think if a platform doesn't know whether an ad is true or not - any kind of ad - they should be very hesitant to run the ad. I think Twitter's decision to just not run political ads makes sense because it's hard for a private company to make policies in public. Even if they are really careful, there will always be some suspicion that they are favoring the highest bidder or Jack's favorite.
I mostly agree. Twitter is a private company and is free to do what they want. What I don’t agree is the CEO making the argument that he is protecting democracy. He is protecting his business.
I strongly agree that adding more information to the system (like making ads metadata open) is good for the society as a whole and might lead to better decisions, as in decisions supported by better data.
I don’t agree with the regulator idea, though. How do we make this regulator strong enough to resist corruption? It’s a tough job.
Another option which would avoid some of the problems is to limit how tightly a political ad could be targeted. If misinformation is included in an ad, everyone should be able to see it and make a judgement. Targeting the most vulnerable people would not be an option.
I think if a platform doesn't know whether an ad is true or not - any kind of ad - they should be very hesitant to run the ad. I think Twitter's decision to just not run political ads makes sense because it's hard for a private company to make policies in public. Even if they are really careful, there will always be some suspicion that they are favoring the highest bidder or Jack's favorite.