[davesque]

I can imagine a lot of ways this could be done ethically. Maybe they tried to keep the bot activity to a minimum. Maybe they kept a lookout for non-German (and especially Russian) accounts trying to buy political ads. Either way, I think it ought to be pretty clear that the free market, hands off approach doesn't work.

[owebmaster]

> Maybe they kept a lookout for non-German (and especially Russian) accounts trying to buy political ads

This is HEAVY intervention. Specially if it is more specifically to "russian".

[davesque]

I don't think we can have much of a conversation here. I simply believe that foreign nationals shouldn't take out ads to influence the elections of countries in which they're not a citizen. If we can't agree on this, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. And, just in case anyone tries to counter with a "pot calling the kettle" argument, I don't care if the US government has ever tried to influence the elections of other countries. I don't think that's ethical either.

So, just to restate my position, if what Facebook meant by upholding the integrity of elections amounted to preventing foreign nationals (non-Germans) from buying political ads on their platform, I'm all for it.

[owebmaster]

> I simply believe that foreign nationals shouldn't take out ads to influence the elections of countries in which they're not a citizen. If we can't agree on this, then we'll just have to agree to disagree

I totally agree with it! Now I ask you, do you agree? Because US institutions bought a lot of political ads in the past years when the Brazilian government was overthrow. Now guess which side did these institutions support? :)

[davesque]

Read my previous comment.

[Larrikin]

Good?