[john___matrix]

I wonder if it'll be a obscurely named toggle hidden away in a settings sub page somewhere just so they can say they've offered the option.

Unlikely of course but it would be nice if they were turned off by default and they offered users the option to turn them on with a disclaimer about how inaccurate and shady many of them are.

[buybackoff]

Not only hidden away, but one will have to set this option every time the page refreshes, as with time ordering of timeline. That latter behavior nullified FB usability for me, not using for 2+ years and happy. Every time when come back just run away scary of the political trash bin it has become.

[missedthecue]

There are browser extensions for that

[amelius]

Facebook is the least of our worries. We need a system where running a successful political campaign does not depend on how much money you bring. Each candidate should have the same budget and so equal amount of exposure.

[Spivak]

I don't know how you do this fairly without infringing on non-political candidates right to free speech.

It seems a little nuts that I'm not allowed to endorse my preferred candidate because my endorsement has value and my candidate hit their cap.

[amelius]

Simple. Suspend the right to loud forms of free speech during political campaigns.

Or have an independent panel measure the media exposure of each candidate. Then compensate them accordingly.

[Spivak]

Easy, just revoke the most protected form of speech in the country during such times when that speech is most important. I don't think the Supreme Court is going to buy that one.

[amelius]

Why? Every candidate still gets some time-slots for stating their opinion. The point is that everybody gets the same amount of time.

And people who are not candidates and who want to express their opinion, they can: (1) vote, or (2) be a candidate. What they can't do is buy media time or advertisements, etc., which many wouldn't equate with "free speech" anyway.

[kleer001]

True. And sadly the most basic solutions rarely get air time anywhere.

Just as I rarely see petitions for "equal and free advertising for all candidates" I rarely see "hold authorities accountable for their actions". Sure there's related arguments among the clammer, but never hear it stated that simply.

[m463]

> I wonder if it'll be a obscurely named toggle hidden away in a settings sub page somewhere just so they can say they've offered the option.

Wouldn't that disproportionately remove only young urban democrats from political advertising?

also, how come the news of this change only came from a non-american news source?

[gonzo41]

Facebook is going to make a staggering amount of money up until November this year in the US. That's why its not getting airplay in the states.

[corin_]

> Wouldn't that disproportionately remove only young urban democrats from political advertising?

If that were the case, it might actually be beneficial to Democrats since they wouldn't waste money advertising to those people meanwhile Republicans wouldn't be able to change their minds with advertising.

Or it could go the other way, and inability to constantly be reminding those people how great the dems are and how important it is to vote means the turnout will be lower among those who turned off ads than if they hadn't been able to.

(And I agree with everyone saying that FB cares more about making bank from the election than about actually improving the situation.)

[Spivak]

I don't really understand the argument that these ads have value to the people that turn them off. You might be able to make a case that the ads have some good by passively informing people and getting your message out but anyone who's turning them off I would imagine has pretty much made up their mind.

[mcherm]

> also, how come the news of this change only came from a non-american news source?

Well, did you read the first two sentences of the article?

> Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg says users will be able to turn off political adverts on the social network in the run-up to the 2020 US election. In a piece written for USA Today newspaper, he also says he hopes to help four million Americans sign up as new voters.

The USA Today article is easily located: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/17/facebook-v...

My conclusion is that Hacker News has a bias in favor of a news source like the BBC over a news source like USA Today which is strong enough to overcome USA Today having the original story yet have the BBC article be the one voted up.

[braythwayt]

I’m not a statistician, but I know my internet memes, and the one that comes to mind is, “n=1.”

Especially considering that there are a LOT of factors driving why one of many articles describing the same thing would get upvoted. Choice of headline and time of day come to mind as factors that sometimes outweigh “original source.”

My own n=handful experience is that I can sometimes post one of my own essays, get crickets, and then it will get a second chance, and BOOM, front page.

At least one of those times, the essay has gotten traction elsewhere, like Twitter and Reddit, so one possible explanation is that sometimes people upvote articles about a subject they have seen elsewhere.

If that were the case, it would favour secondary articles over the original.

[dang]

The overwhelming reason for things like that is randomness. If you answered 'randomness' every time such a question arises, you'd probably have a better mental model of HN than maybe anybody (us included). But of course that's deeply unsatisfying, so we invent stories instead. Randomness plus cognitive bias equals narrative. I'm not putting you down—we all do this.

I think a moderator took a look at the two articles and felt like the BBC one was a bit more neutral, while the USA Today one was a bit more press-releasey, so didn't change the URL. I haven't looked at either article; I'm just reporting how we tend to consider these things.

[blocked_again]

> Unlikely of course but it would be nice if they were turned off by default

This means the revenue KPI of the ads team would go down right? So will never happen.

[disgruntledphd2]

It's probably worth noting that if you were running an online ads platform, revenue probably wouldn't be what you'd optimise for. You'd be better off optimising for an event that advertisers will pay you for.

[blibble]

no doubt it'll keep "accidentally" getting switched back on

[AshleysBrain]

In my experience, if it's just an option on a settings page somewhere, virtually nobody will change it in practice. So if that's what they do and it's still enabled by default, this could be completely ineffective - but provide some political cover for them.

[CyanBird]

They would not even need to hide it, the fact that it is an optin feature already means that most people won't ever turn it off and therefore be exposed to said political messaging even when the idea is for them to not be