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Comment by kanox | Hacker News Reader

Using the banner of "transparency" to stifle political advertising is just censorship through other means.

We should instead explicitly allow and protect unlimited anonymous political messaging.

I'm thoroughly confused by the problem you see. You are positing a case where the richest people would feel like they can't speak up? I'm more concerned with people who aren't even affected by the issues (perhaps because they don't live in the nation state) having undue influence on the outcome.

"We should instead explicitly allow and protect unlimited anonymous political messaging."

Richest party wins? Is that how democracy should work?

It seems to be the way in the USA. The two best funded parties blow all other political discourse out of the water.

Well "democracy" already has a problem if voters are so vacuous and easily swayed by paid advertising.

There's a reason that advertising works ... they tap into the deepest human instincts and urges. As much as anyone wants to believe they are too smart to be swayed by advertising, it's only hubris.

Any data/citations on this? I feel like myself and most people would not change their views(especially on abortion) based on a few seconds looking at an ad on facebook.

With regards to political views, the point isn't in any way to change your view, it's to use your view. By taking out ads that stoke someone's feelings about abortions, they can get them to follow a FB page, which can then in the future be used to promote other things (like specific political candidates), or to spread propaganda (like, "hey look at this fake news over here").

And thus, by association ... your views can certainly change.

> "If this person/page that I agree with so strongly on abortion (or whatever) has this other opinion over here, I should probably give that a second consideration"

Can you explain what you see as a downside of this? The data is anatomized so I assume I won't find your name in it, so how is this affecting you or your political group?

I can see a political group could be affected if they spend undeclared money or if they support a cause that don't want to admit publicly(and this is a good thing IMO, the groups should not support causes that they don't want to admit they support).

I think that the people making those arguments are either those who have the money which enables influence or whose living is dependent on the previous group’s ability to continue doing so.

Admitting that mass mind control through advertising may not be in the people’s best interests is simply not in theirs.

Increased transparency is not at all equatable to censorship.

On the other hand, unlimited unaccountable anonymous political advertising that stifles everyone else is exactly what causes the censorship of actual legitimate views and opens up societies to manipulation and abuse from internal and foreign actors.

Why? Surely that means that the winners of every referendum or election will be those with the deepest pockets?

Or those with the most convincing messages?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely against advertising, but I don’t discriminate; if you argue that political advertising is bad because it biases the voters and hinders the optimal choice, surely the same can be said about commercial ads and consumers as well.

It doesn't matter how convincing your message is if it never reaches anyone because your opponents are paying more than you for the same keywords / etc.

Many places do say the same about commercial ads, for example, banning advertisements for cigarettes.

A key difference in many cases is that my life and the world are much less affected by me choosing to go to KFC instead of MacDonalds, than they are by a large country being run by a parties of different ideologies.

There’s a limited amount of time in each day. A limited part of that day, you spend engaged with social media. A wealthy party can buy out all this prime time advertising and control the only narrative you get to see.

But it obviously is, this is the whole point of advertising, and why advertising messages don't focus on information but on emotions.

This is why many things are not allowed to advertise in many countries (not only topics like cigarette or alcohol but also form of advertisings), and why advertising is regulated.

Political advertising on the other hand should be much MUCH more regulated because they can cause major market disruptions. A brand advertising can maybe change one very specific market for some time, but political advertising can change the WHOLE market for a very long period.

To be honest I don't even understand how it is even a debate given how the US democracy is completely failing to tackle that particular issue.

I don't really see the issue with transparency.

As a EU citizen, I'm very much in favour of both transparency and I'd go as far as identity disclosure.

If you're willing to spend money to sway society in a specific direction, surely you wouldn't mind that people know your stance?

That just gives the party with the money the upper hand. Thats an awful idea.

Money in politics actually does little for the candidates. Please review Freakanomics on this. As a recent example, Trump won with a great deal less money than what Hillary used. Had he used more, we would not hear the end of how money influences politics. But it doesn't. People have tastes, convictions, prejudices, etc that no amount of ads will change. Ads affect a small number of people and help to cement in the voting block, improve turnout, etc. Swaying votes is much harder. The media is in charge of that.

Money in politics past a certain amount does little for the candidates. The difference between 600k and 100k is significant, politically.

How does it change which party has more money? They can already advertise, it'll just be tracked with their name - how does that change with anonymity?

Wouldn't it instead make you actually look at the content instead of knee-jerk this party good, that party bad?

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