[dvdcxn]

Bit of a non story - they offer the same services to any well funded ad agency regardless of political leaning. What would have been more concerning is if they rejected the agency - as this would show that google exercise political bias in who it chooses to collaborate with and target ads for.

[empath75]

It’s a non story legally but I’m sure a lot of people will rethink whether they want to continue to contribute to facebook’s bottom line by remaining on the service.

[iMerNibor]

I would prefer if facebook/google would not decide which political party is worthy to advertise on their services or not.

Once they start policing that it'll lower the bar for further blocking and we might end up with personal taste playing a role down the line.

[golemotron]

> I’m sure a lot of people will rethink whether they want to continue to contribute to facebook’s bottom line by remaining on the service.

You don't get it. We're now at the point where Facebook decides whether we contribute to the bottom line by keeping us on the service.

[chillingeffect]

I stopped going on fb last week. Sure, they still have a page on me, but I'm not watching their ads anymore. They're getting less ad revenue through me. If enough people were to leave, they wouldn't afford to run. Three letter agencies only run on govt revenue.

[beingmyself2]

As yes, don't leave Facebook because of the addictive mind-prison it builds around you or the creepy stasi-esque dossier it keeps on you. Instead quit Facebook as a way of social-signalling your authoritarian left-wing values. That isn't to say I'm not glad of the result either way.

[hsod]

Whence this assumption that FB and Google are politically neutral?

https://www.recode.net/2017/4/21/15384416/facebook-google-dc...

[mhneu]

Allowing lies is a non story? Inflaming division and ultimately putting an autocrat in the white house is a non story?

A reckoning over the use of social media is coming to the US. At minimum we're going to need to have full ad disclosure and a means to restrict lies.

[dvdcxn]

> ultimately putting an autocrat in the white house is a non story?

Democrats are free to pay google to signal boost their own content, and almost certainly will have.

This is only a story if Google denied the same services to Democrats. We would have already heard if this was the case.

[mhneu]

No one should be allowed to buy Facebook ads that contain lies: Democrat, or Republican, or Russian spy agency.

At least not if we want to keep a democracy in the US. Democracy depends on honest public debate.

[hueving]

Do you know what an autocrat is? It seems like you might be getting some lies in your daily sources of news...

[mhneu]

What?

Maybe you missed the stories from David Frum, former GW Bush GOP speechwriter and neocon, in the Atlantic? These are major major articles, critical to American public debate.

From Feb 2016: "How to Build an Autocracy The preconditions are present in the U.S. today. Here’s the playbook Donald Trump could use to set the country down a path toward illiberalism." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-...

Atlantic, Oct 2017: "The Autocratic Element Can America recover from the Trump administration?" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-aut...

Also Newsweek, Sept 2017 "TRUMP IS LIKE AN AUTOCRAT FROM GERMANY IN 1933, FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR SAYS" http://www.newsweek.com/trump-autocrat-germany-1933-former-b...

[CaptainZapp]

It seems that the president, if not being an outright autocrat, he does show rather autocratic tendencies.

For example : Musings about reigning in certain news sources if he doesn't like what they report.

There are other examples. But is the most blatant.