[sjwright]

A system without restrictions favours the rich, it favours the dishonest, and it favours those who wield the best weaponized psychology. (And it favours most those with all three.) Your passing reference to platforms being open to a "variety of ideas" is—and I'm sorry in advance for the snark—but it's just adorable.

[wan23]

While I am in fact adorable, you've misunderstood my comment. It's difficult to talk about Zuckerberg's defense of Facebook's policy without having an accurate definition of the principle of free speech. That isn't to say that unlimited free speech is necessarily good or bad. For example, while many people on HN lean towards holding that principle as an ideal, the community also discourages excessively snarky comments.

[ls612]

And a system with restrictions like you want favors the authoritarians, those with the best real world bullying/harassment operations, and those who are well connected.

I’m sorry but liberal democracy isn’t the best form of government because the people are smart (they never have been), it’s the best form of government because the alternative is recurring political violence.

[sjwright]

I'm sorry but liberal democracy doesn't infer a strict libertarian view on political campaign messaging.

I don't want to assume you're American, but your fatalistic view of government sure does point towards that. I suggest you spend some time looking at how other liberal democracies handle this challenge. Online political advertising remains a challenge everywhere but usually the same legal and ethical frameworks apply—even if the frameworks still fail at the margins.

And to be clear, my objection isn't to all online advertising but specifically to Zuckerberg defending Facebook's stance by appealing to free speech. I don't think any Government should force Facebook's hand; I think they should seek to protect their social license and act independently as Jack Dorsey recently did.

[ls612]

So far as I can tell most other liberal democracies either handle the issue much the same way as the US does or they just flat out ban political parties that are too “fringe”.

I wouldn’t trust anyone who wanted to be the censor to be the censor.

[sjwright]

Few countries are like the USA if you’re willing to look close enough. The differences are there even if they don’t scream out at you.

[darkarmani]

That's part of the point of being rich. Most systems favor people with more money and smarter messaging.