6 ms·

TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

40 points by kunkelast 7y ago

tarjei 7y ago
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.
- neflabs 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    > a lack of informed political discussion Was TikTok was an appropriate place for informed political discussion?
    - liotier 7y ago
      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.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        What are you using the definite article to mean there?
  - fwn 7y ago
    But isn't TikTok specifically talking about paid ads in this article? Our parent wrote that paid political advertising is favoring those with the greatest amount of money to spend and therefore (as far as I understood) reducing the quality of political conversation. (Which sounds plausible to me, since money is a factor largely unrelated to quality.) You seem to imply that paid political advertising is increasing the quality of the discourse. Is that right? If yes, I'd love to know why!
  - fiblye 7y ago
    > In the US, a lack of informed political discussion is one major factor keeping young voters away from the polls. I agree. But the purpose of political advertising is to misinform.
  - LocalH 7y ago
    This isn't about political ads, it's about silencing any politics on the platform. That's not true at all, at least not on the surface. Do you have any proof of anyone being banned as a user for posting political content? From the article: “Any paid ads that come into the community need to fit the standards for our platform, and the nature of paid political ads is not something we believe fits the TikTok platform experience,” says Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s VP of Global Business Solutions, who recently joined the company from Facebook. “To that end, we will not allow paid ads that promote or oppose a candidate, current leader, political party or group or issue at the federal, state or local level — including election-related ads, advocacy ads or issue ads,” he says.
- adolph 7y ago
  How is political defined? What happens in the US is that if certain financing is unavailable to be used in a certain way, like direct support of a candidate or party, then that money is shifted into “issue advertising” which presents a topic of political disagreement to favor one side over another. Within the information domain of a political debate, there may be human activities that are non-political but political organizations disguise themselves within, for example, adoption services in the abortion debate. Many messages, such as car advertising have an implicit political message that public funding of roads is positive and liberating. Maybe Norway has the line between political and everything else figured out or maybe there is a cultural definition that makes it easier, but banning political advertising seems very difficult.
  - frosted-flakes 7y ago
    Seems simple enough to me: if it's funded by a political party or candidate, it's a political advertisement, regardless of the content. There are always ways of illegally hiding candidates' expenses, but most of the time it should be obvious who funded an ad opposing or promoting a politician.
kypro 7y ago
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.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Define "political" lobbying for improved minimum wages is political as would be climate change.
- adolph 7y ago
  See also preference falsification: * A person who hides his discontent about a fashion, policy, or political regime makes it harder for others to express discontent.* One socially significant consequence of preference falsification is widespread public support for social options that would be rejected decisively in a vote taken by secret ballot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification
- viraptor 7y ago
  > 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. This is a bit ironic way to phrase it since (in some areas) the previous generation was against gay marriage under the influence of religious institutions. (to a significant degree anyway) The new generation has very non-religious support for it.
- 7y ago
beager 7y ago
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
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  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.
  - beager 7y ago
    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.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      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.
      - beager 7y ago
        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.
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
exabrial 7y ago
Maybe next they can explain their ban on a Winnie the Pooh memes?
tu7001 7y ago
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.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  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?
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    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"!
  - tu7001 7y ago
    In my opinion it's bad. Anyway my kids don't know and I have constitutional rights to bring them up according to my views.
mAEStro-paNDa 7y ago
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.

40 points by kunkelast 7y ago

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.

neflabs 7y ago
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 7y ago
  > a lack of informed political discussion Was TikTok was an appropriate place for informed political discussion?
  - liotier 7y ago
    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.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      What are you using the definite article to mean there?
- fwn 7y ago
  But isn't TikTok specifically talking about paid ads in this article? Our parent wrote that paid political advertising is favoring those with the greatest amount of money to spend and therefore (as far as I understood) reducing the quality of political conversation. (Which sounds plausible to me, since money is a factor largely unrelated to quality.) You seem to imply that paid political advertising is increasing the quality of the discourse. Is that right? If yes, I'd love to know why!
- fiblye 7y ago
  > In the US, a lack of informed political discussion is one major factor keeping young voters away from the polls. I agree. But the purpose of political advertising is to misinform.
- LocalH 7y ago
  This isn't about political ads, it's about silencing any politics on the platform. That's not true at all, at least not on the surface. Do you have any proof of anyone being banned as a user for posting political content? From the article: “Any paid ads that come into the community need to fit the standards for our platform, and the nature of paid political ads is not something we believe fits the TikTok platform experience,” says Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s VP of Global Business Solutions, who recently joined the company from Facebook. “To that end, we will not allow paid ads that promote or oppose a candidate, current leader, political party or group or issue at the federal, state or local level — including election-related ads, advocacy ads or issue ads,” he says.
adolph 7y ago
How is political defined? What happens in the US is that if certain financing is unavailable to be used in a certain way, like direct support of a candidate or party, then that money is shifted into “issue advertising” which presents a topic of political disagreement to favor one side over another. Within the information domain of a political debate, there may be human activities that are non-political but political organizations disguise themselves within, for example, adoption services in the abortion debate. Many messages, such as car advertising have an implicit political message that public funding of roads is positive and liberating. Maybe Norway has the line between political and everything else figured out or maybe there is a cultural definition that makes it easier, but banning political advertising seems very difficult.
- frosted-flakes 7y ago
  Seems simple enough to me: if it's funded by a political party or candidate, it's a political advertisement, regardless of the content. There are always ways of illegally hiding candidates' expenses, but most of the time it should be obvious who funded an ad opposing or promoting a politician.

kypro 7y ago

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.

C1sc0cat 7y ago
Define "political" lobbying for improved minimum wages is political as would be climate change.
adolph 7y ago
See also preference falsification: * A person who hides his discontent about a fashion, policy, or political regime makes it harder for others to express discontent.* One socially significant consequence of preference falsification is widespread public support for social options that would be rejected decisively in a vote taken by secret ballot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification
viraptor 7y ago
> 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. This is a bit ironic way to phrase it since (in some areas) the previous generation was against gay marriage under the influence of religious institutions. (to a significant degree anyway) The new generation has very non-religious support for it.
7y ago

beager 7y ago

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

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
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.
- beager 7y ago
  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.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    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.
    - beager 7y ago
      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.
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago

exabrial 7y ago

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

tu7001 7y ago

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.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
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?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  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"!
- tu7001 7y ago
  In my opinion it's bad. Anyway my kids don't know and I have constitutional rights to bring them up according to my views.

mAEStro-paNDa 7y ago

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.