Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/11/warren-trolls-facebook-by-runn.html
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She is the best person ever right now.
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She continues to earn my admiration and endorsement. I’m with Liz.
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Sometimes genius looks simple and obvious in retrospect. This is one of those times. I’m in awe of the wit and the nerve.
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Damn.
She’ll make a good president.
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I believe that Warren’s thought processes are something like: I might be able to do more good in the Senate, but if I am called on to run, I will run, and if I am elected, I will serve.
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Warren has become one of Facebook’s key antagonists
More like, “Warren has responded to the sociopathy and enabling that Facebook has enacted in regard to Trump because it has decided profit is more important than truth or justice and has become, at best, a passive antagonist to democracy.”
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It will be fascinating, in a “my god I cant look away from this trainwreck” sort of way, to see just how far this gets taken.
It’s brilliant in it’s lawful evil efficacy; this move will net FB millions in the short term. When the regulatory hammer drops after the 2020 election season they can just move the goal post and rinse/repeat.
Not a publisher, indeed.
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Really this is something John Oliver should have thought of.
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Brilliant.
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Uhhhh I dunno if I’m fully on board.
I like that Warren balances her reassuring, dorky favorite-teacher persona with this kind of feistiness that distinguishes her from an aloof Hillary type candidacy.
But… I don’t feel great about another direct assault on the concept of truth, even if it’s done ironically in the name of a good cause. Seems like that can only lead further into the Darkest Timeline, where large chunx of the population reject reality and flock to whatever dark bizarre impulse burps up from the collective id.
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Warren is my candidate. A few flaws, but consistently the best option.
My president.
What? She plainly says in the ad that Facebook’s endorsement of Trump is not true.
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What makes anyone think Facebook could be trusted to fact-check political ads?
When we complain about how Facebook doesn’t censor and regulate enough speech, it plays right into their hands. If we find ourselves in a position where we’re dependent on a corporation to set the right corporate policy in order to safeguard the democratic process, we have majorly fucked up.
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I have the same feeling. The optics is not encouraging. It’s bald daringness smacks of (dare I say it) psychopathy. I doubt that her strategy here will move the left-right-center goalposts… so why do it? And would she similarly play fast and lose as prez? I understand what we’re fighting for here, but…
It would be far more effective if, like Moscow Mitch, she or the other top candidates threatened to pull their ad dollars from Facebook or Twitter.
I think people would like something like The New York Times’ policy (the advocacy/opinion policy also applies to political advertsing):
“We do not verify, nor do we vouch for, statements of purported fact in advocacy/opinion advertisements. We reserve the right, however, to require documentation of factual claims when it is deemed necessary.”
They don’t fact check political ads, but they’re also not going run something with blatant falsehoods.
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This is quite a quandary for Facebook, Twitter and others. Either they fact-check everything and refuse to publish whatever they deem untrue** - and get hammered for censorship or they stand back and get hammered for letting it slide. I am certainly not a fan of Facebook and Zuckerberg, but I can feel their pain here.
** I wrote “deem” because some issues may not be trivial to fact-check. Do we allow only verifiable claims to be published? How much verifiable? And who decides? This is a very slippery slope, IMO. There is a justifiable outrage at outright lies being published but where do we draw the line? Is it a good idea to have a private company with their own interests to be the arbiter of truth? Wouldn’t an independent, bipartisan body be better for this?
Be very careful what you are asking for - you may get way more than you have bargained for.
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