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Comment by criddell | Hacker News Reader

> "should a political party be allowed to run targeted ads at members of the opposing party, giving false information about the election date?"

Would that actually be legal? Are you allowed to try to suppress the vote like that?

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It is 100% legal to send mailers or put up billboards (which are not as regulated as shared spectrum for TV/radio) with the wrong election date to people, and this happens a couple of times every election cycle. Sometimes its government agencies, sometimes its a campaign (first example that popped up when googling: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/spin-cycle/zeld...). I don't think any of them has been investigated by the FEC.

It's funny that I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the comments to reach a discussion that I think really highlights the crux of the problem. We know that social media platforms will take down content that is illegal. The issue is that it's legal for political parties (or anybody) to post false or misleading statements for the purposes of political propaganda.

AOC's hypothetical ad shouldn't be policed by Facebook, it should be policed by the police, or at the very least be an example of criminal defamation that is handled in the court system. I Am Clearly Not A Lawyer but I am surprised by looking at the existing legislation on criminal defamation that it's not.

We also shouldn't ignore that we are talking about ads. You can post political messages on Twitter, but Twitter won't promote that message in exchange for money. Facebook should follow suit.

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