FEC Asks Congress to Ban Prechecked Recurring Donation Boxes
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
First amendment law is full of surprises.
"Republican congressman Greg Steube asks Google CEO why his campaign emails are going to spam"
https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2020/jul/29/republi...
That’s an interesting non-denial: he never actually says the spam algorithm isn’t biased against conservatives. There could well be a bias, because many ML systems have unintended biases. Google could easily answer the question. It’d probably take an hour max to write and run the mapreduce or whatever they use now.
It should not be ironic, because Google has a history of seeing itself above any flaws, and as the Arbiter of Truth
This is because the politicians in office at the time of writing the "CAN-SPAM" act explicitly wrote in their own exemption for themselves for campaigning purposes. As to why religious orgs. also got included, I don't remember -- one wonders if it was simply to obscure the blatant "we are making ourselves above this law" look for exempting themselves from the law.
They (the politicians that time) did the same thing with the "Do Not Call" phone number list, politicians wrote in their own exemption for themselves for campaigning purposes, and then added an exemption for charity orgs. to the law as well.
(Contrast to Sanders, who, especially as the pandemic started, often guided people to give money to other causes. But even for his list I feel like there was an opportunity for coordinated action on many things that was lost)
What’s the point of coordinated channels of supporters if it’s just to get money? I’m not that interested in subsidizing consulting firms and adtech thank you
All of my elected officials have an official mailing list for constituents which separates out their calls to action on government matters from their fundraising, campaigning, etc. This includes Brian Fitzpatrick, who is a Republican. I prefer it that way so I can unsubscribe from donation requests and still get the other.
Seems like you signed up for fundraising mailing lists and then were surprised they were focused on fundraising. Try signing up for the other lists.
I didn't go "sign up" for a fundraising email, I donated to a campaign, and then my email got shopped around to a bunch of other fundraising lists.
Let's not even get into massive fundraising pushes that happen for absolutely dead-on-arrival campaigns like the kentucky senate race. Just pure money grabs...
As far as I know (2 decades ago i had some contact with that world) they're all that slimy. "dark patterns" like this are the least of it, they fake addresses, steal data from customers, fiddle accounting, etc etc. "It's not a crime until you've been caught."
Bingo. Campaigning is an industry.
All that money raised? Spent on more fundraising and advertising and consultants.
I'm unclear what all the defenders of Freedom Speeches™ think they're defending. The freedom to bury one's opponents under mountains of cash?
Any one legit concerned about speech would argue for less money, more fairness doctrine. For a start.
Instead it should be client-controlled, they give you some sort of payment token that you can pay or not pay. For recurring payments, you could trust a particular vendor you like (and then untrust them at will), but it should entirely be under your control. Unsubscription should be automatically handled by this as well.
Most politicians don’t want to anger their biggest supporters. DJT didn’t seem to care.
Until our political system “stabilizes” where high-profile elections aren’t won by teeny tiny margins or determined by turnout and voting access more than the real preferences of the population this is going to be an issue.
Can someone who donated to Trumps after-election campaign tell me what he/she feels about this? Partisan shenanigans or a generally good idea?
This is definitely a non-partisan issue of politicians straight up trying to trick people into donating more than they intend.
Fine print at the bottom revealed that if you had a payment method on file that click would, without further action, donate some set amount to candidate Foo. (I don’t recall the details of the amount.)
I’m fine with fundraising, but “click here to support” I expect to land me on a web page where I could read more and make a fully informed decision to donate, not to take money out of my account from the email click.
Yes, ban it to death.
* An email titled "watch our video [not asking for money]" which links to a request for money
* _two_ people - one from each side of the aisle - trying to gaslight me into donating "again" since I've purportedly already joined their campaign
* a fake survey where every prompt is some variation on "Did you know how vile those guys are?" and the only response options are "Yes, they suck" or "No, but I know now".
* an email written to sound like a personal letter, assuring me that some state legislators will be unjustly imprisoned if I don't sign a petition, but reveals upon clicking into the petition that they also need to collect $2,084 by midnight. (I only personally need to send $16 - it's "today's most popular amount!")
And I've only ever made a single political donation from my current email! I don't think it's partisan at all to say the status quo isn't okay here.
However I have a problem with pretty much all FEC regulations because I am a free speech absolutist, and I view these "campaign finance laws" at minimum to be a spiritual infringement on the principle of free expression even if they pass legal challenges.
They also rares accomplish their stated goals and often end up being an advantage to the incumbents in power who have access to more "free media" as part of their official duties...
I can sit here for five minutes and think up several ways to achieve the exact same thing some arbitrary UI element (prechecked checkbox) achieves. Don't even need a checkbox. Just change the terms.
*Ooops. Forgot Citizens United. Poop!*
To my understanding, Citizens United controls what you can do with your money. It does not cover what arrangements campaigns can have to charge you money. You can set a reminder to donate monthly if you want, but that doesn’t mean that PACs can necessarily charge you monthly, in my opinion.
Similarly, the courts have held that the FEC can’t control what candidates say, which is good. But the FEC can force political adverts to make it clear who paid for it, which is also good.
Buckley v. Valeo: “you can spend your own money without limit on political ads, if you aren't coordinating with a campaign”.
Citizens United: “...and that includes if ‘you’ are a corporation, not an individual.”
Neither restricts the ability of the federal government to restrict spending by or coordinated with campaigns, or donations to campaigns.