Democrats Being Blocked From Advertising On Trump's Failed COVID-19 Response Due To Content Moderation Rules
from the oh-fun dept
Here we go again: content moderation at scale is impossible to do well -- and, as we've discussed, things are especially tricky when it comes to content moderation and political advertising. Now, when you mix into that content moderation to try to stop disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and you run up against... politicians facing blocks in trying to advertise about Trump's leadership failures in response to the pandemic:
Prominent Democratic PACs in recent days have funneled millions of dollars into television ads accusing Trump of mishandling the coronavirus crisis. But staffers of several Democratic nonprofits and digital ad firms realized this week that they would not be able to use Google's dominant ad tools to spread true information about President Trump's handling of the outbreak on YouTube and other Google platforms. The company only allows PSA-style ads from government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and trusted health bodies like the World Health Organization. Multiple Democratic and progressive strategists were rebuked when they tried to place Google ads criticizing the Trump administration's response to coronavirus, officials within the firms told Protocol.
That anti-conservative bias sure is a pain, eh?
This wasn't just a one-off. Apparently other politicians have also been told they can't use Google's ad platform for those ads either:
One Democratic strategist said his digital firm had already gone live in recent days with several ad campaigns related to coronavirus on Facebook, which allows most political ads about the disease. "As we were getting ready to start broadening [the ad campaign] into Google, we reached out to Google to clarify what their rules were going to be," said one Democratic strategist who requested anonymity in order to maintain his relationship with Google. A Google ad representative told them they would not be able to place the ads.
But, of course, since federal government agencies are allowed to advertise on the platform, and this administration appears to view the entire apparatus of the federal government as solely part and parcel of the Trump re-election campaign, that basically means that Trump gets free reign over Google ads:
The Trump campaign and Republicans across the country also are not allowed to run advertisements right now. But the democratic strategists argue that the CDC and White House's messaging, which are permitted by Google, fall under Trump's purview.
"For Google to basically say that the Trump administration is the only entity that is allowed to talk about the most important issue in politics really puts their thumb on the scale of the incumbent president and against anyone who is really looking to challenge him," said Eli Kaplan, a founding partner of Rising Tide Interactive, a digital marketing firm for Democratic political organizations and progressive nonprofits.
This isn't to criticize Google, but to again highlight the straight up impossibility of the situation. More specifically, it's not hard to follow the very logical and reasonable thought process that leads to these rules being put in place. It wanted to limit people exploiting COVID-related panic for commercial reasons, and thus chose to limit COVID-related ads to government entities only. But, the issue comes down to distinguishing political ads from commercial ads, and it's easy (if you're not having to make that distinction) to just say that you'll allow the political ads, but not "commercial" ads, but suddenly that opens up a ton of other questions that all of the platforms have been dealing with regarding moderation of political ads: what is a political ad exactly? In some cases, it's more obvious, but in many cases, it's a big gray area.
This isn't about bias and it isn't about malice. It's about the simple fact that if you do content moderation, almost every "policy" you put in place will come back to bite you when you realize that, in practice, something will happen that seems insane even when you have a perfectly logical policy in place.
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Filed Under: ads, content moderation, content moderation at scale, covid-19, democrats, political ads
Companies: google
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anyone surprised? let's face it, Trump is such an egotistical person, he cant bear criticism and as soon as someone tries to speak the truth about him or what he's done/doing, he immediately starts attacking with the biggest load of bullshit possible!
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You should try reading the article next time, but hey that axe won't grind itself I guess.
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[Family 1 -of the 5 Families]: Hold on one sec... Keep the masses entertained while I reset the global markets.
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…whether the government entities are peddling dis- and misinformation on behalf of an narcissistic egomaniac whose pettiness and spite and thirst for (holding onto) power has resulted in, and will continue to result in, American coronavirus deaths.
Okay so that’s not the main issue at hand but it should damn well be right near the top.
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Considering how much mainstream news has been flat out LYING, these excuses are a joke in general. Trump says one thing, and mainstream news goes and says Trump said something completely different. What are these so-called journalists basing their B.S. on? They are flat out lying. When Trump just says something the left had already said, once Trump says it, it's not bad, wrong, etc, etc. It's a joke.
While the Democrats were wasting all their time on Orange Man Bad and lets Impeach over zero impeachable crimes. Trump had already started a Taskforce back in late January. Trump then suspended travel in/out of China, which he was then called RACIST for doing do. As trump is suspending flights from Europe, we have the Mayor of N.Y. out there saying there's nothing to worry about. Go to the Bars, and the Movies, etc. He's getting a pass.
What Universe are we living in? China has been flat out lying this whole time, and Mainstream news is acting like it's all facts?!?!?! Really? As they are buying up tons of supplies in other countries back in January and Febuary, all the while saying it's not that bad. Can't transmit it to others, etc, etc. W.H.O. was saying the same crap. Maybe if the Truth was put out there, Trump could have responded a little differently.
Be he also can t go and act like this is the end of the world, lets all PANIC. Gets attacked for that. Now says 100,000-200,00 could die from this and now is attacked for that. These are not journalist, they are leftist commentators. What happened to reporting the facts, Not your TDS views?
This is also why people are trying to shut up his LIVE press conferences. Because people can actually hear why he says in whole. Not a butchered up, made up crap they are telling people. They are reporting so many things that sound BAD, yet Trump NEVER said it!!!! That is a FACT!!! It's really pretty disgusting want they are doing and s many are eating up this propaganda. Trump has his flaws just like everyone. Thing congress, in general, is any better? No!
If y ou can't see it by now, you just have a really bad case of TDS. More and more Democrats are seeing what is going on and it's pissing them off also and they're now going to vote for Trump. Long, Long time Democrats!!! Open your eyes!! Watch what Trump says LIVE, then see what they write after.
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"Considering how much mainstream news has been flat out LYING"
omg - yer right .. I saw that Fox News bit the other day! It was flat out lies .. all of it!
7/10 - as it is a bit long
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watch?v=bkMwvmJLnc0
These are all his own words.
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Some (rather, most) Trump supporters are like Groucho Marx in Duck Soup when he said "Who're you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?"
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TDS: The derangement syndrome of being able to watch Trump talk & not be totally appalled. In the rare event he sticks the the teleprompter he makes Al Gore sound charismatic.
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Trump is only a truthteller in that he frequently says the quiet part out loud, like this.
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Hi, here’s a reality check for you.
On his second full day in office, Trump instituted a hiring freeze that resulted in nearly 700 vacant positions at the CDC.
Trump left other important positions vacant after he took office, too: He didn’t appoint a permanent Director of the CDC until July 2017; the top position at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) remained empty for nearly eight months; the permanent deputy administrator for USAID was named only last year; and within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), there was no Assistant Secretary for Health in for over a year, no Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response for eight months, and no Director of the Office of Global Affairs for five months.
Trump and then-national security advisor John Bolton forced out Homeland Security Advisor Thomas Bossert and his global health security team and dismantled a similar team within the National Security Council in 2018. Trump has yet to replace either team.
Trump oversaw a massive reduction in the NSC workforce. As of mid-March 2020, only two people who specialize in pandemics remain in the NSC as policy specialists.
Trump cut funding to the Centers for Disease Control, such that the CDC had to cut its epidemic prevention programs down from 49 countries to 10 in 2018. Trump also proposed moving millions of dollars away from other CDC global health programs. Oh, and China was one of those countries that was cut out of the epidemic prevention programs due to underfunding.
The White House proposed a 40% minimum reduction of officers in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Congress has blocked those layoffs, but the administration has prevented retiring officers from being replaced. (This plan is so widely reviled that even the Heritage Foundation came out against it.)
In 2019, Trump shut down PREDICT, a USAID program designed to detect and discover zoonotic diseases — which include coronaviruses.
In June 2019, Trump signed an executive order saying all federal agencies must cut the number of advisory committees by a third. Those committees contain outside scholars and specialists who help inform government officials, which then helps those officials make informed decisions about policy matters. The elimination of outside expertise within government — a longtime Republican goal — impairs informed policy decisions and undermines government credibility (which is also a longtime Republican goal).
Trump has either systematically defunded, or tried to defund, federal agencies that protect national and global health. His budgets for fiscal years 2018, 2019, and 2020 all called for at least a 10% decrease in CDC funding, including an average of $40 million in annual cuts to the Global Health division and an average of $70 million in annual cuts to the Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases program. Other agencies targeted for budget cuts include the National Institutes of Health (the agency that employs Dr. Anthony Fauci as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Trump administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 includes cuts to USAID, the foreign aid budget of the State Department, and the World Health Organization.
That same 2021 budget calls for major cuts to Medicare and Medicaid despite Trump saying he wouldn’t do that.
In early March of this year, Trump admitted he would rather have infected passengers on a cruise ship stay on the ship so the number of infected people in the U.S. wouldn’t go up. To put that another way: He admitted that he would rather doom other passengers to infection, and possibly death, so he wouldn’t “look bad”.
The U.S. lagged behind in testing for COVID-19 because of faulty test kits and narrowing testing guidelines from the federal government. This let the virus get a “head start” to infect people undetected. On the plus side (for Trump), it also meant the number of infect was low in the initial stages of the outbreak in the U.S.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review ordered all CDC informational posters removed from immigration courts across the country. Said posters contained information about best practices in helping to slow the spread of COVID-19.
If’n you want blame someone for the coronavirus outbreak at the feet of anyone in the United States government, you should start with the man in the Oval Office. Then you should work your way through his incompetent administration, his power-hungry sycophants in Congress, and the asskissing followers of his personality cult that are Republican voters. Maybe when you’re done with them, there might be some sort of blame to lay at the feet of Democrats — but I can’t imagine there will be much left.
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Obvious lying troll is obvious
Here's your Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5TZ6fTYrsE&t=77
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[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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[Asserts facts contradicted by reality]
Fixed that for you.
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" Trump had already started a Taskforce back in late January. "
That was very late to the game, and he had already crippled himself by shutting down the existing pandemic response squad that Obama had set up.
Seriously, even the positive things you people can come up with are testaments to his failure.
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Oh, and just to add to that - the "taskforce" was set up by installing his son-in-law who has no relevant qualifications and experience. Also, news has been coming out that he chose to use private servers that are not only hypocritical in the face of Clinton attacks over the last few years, but have also apparently made it very confusing for the people the taskforce is meant to be communicating with.
But, hey, Trump saved a few grand for a couple of years by getting rid of Obama's competently and proactively set up team that could have been immediately effective, so you'll probably still worship him despite the massive human and financial cost of his incompetent response.
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It's such a good thing that there's highly intelligent people like you around to tell us what's what.
I mean, after a trump press conference, I have to admit, I DO find myself saying to myself "what in the fucking fuck is that fuckhead talking about?" I, nay we, are truly lucky to have you here to dissect it for us.
There is such a deep state conspiracy in progress right under our noses, 'led by the mainstream media who have the audacity to ask questions that we don't truly care about. I have NEVER heard one of those reporters get down to brass tacks and ask the REAL questions on american's minds, like "what's your favorite color?" or " how's your golf game been?" They're just setting him up by asking what his administration is doing about the corona virus, when all america really cares about is how their stock folios are doing, or if trump's having regular bowel movements.
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As usual
Every talking head pushing "solutions" for "internet problems" is fucking clueless. They feared FUD from internet advertising and are now shocked that they are blocked from advertising even the simplest of truths.
What they really want is control and they are too fucking dishonest and clueless to realize how rules they push will bite them later.
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Why
So slanderous lying ads should not be blocked? Hmm. Ok. Why are all conservative ads being blocked as slanderous and fake? Even when they aren't? Not clear on your logic here.
It seems to be: Lie about Trump and edit video to lie. That's immoral (or whatever you are calling it this week) blocking. But then put out conservative talking points, and that should be blocked because it hits too close to home?
I guess in America Free Speech for me but not for thee is your motto.
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[citation needed] in re: “all conservative ads [are] being blocked”
Yes, it is. I hate the motherfucker with every last microfiber of my being. But lying about him doesn’t help anything.
If the conservative talking points are mistruths, mis- or disinformation, or flat-out lies? Yes. And the same goes for talking points from liberals, progressives, and conservative Democrats like Joe Biden.
Also: You may want to consider whether the issue you have is less about platforms moderating “conservative speech” and more about how you conflate speech that is more likely to be moderated with conservatives.
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Re: Why
"Why are all conservative ads being blocked as slanderous and fake? Even when they aren't?"
Point to an example of one that was blocked but not lying, please.
"I guess in America Free Speech for me but not for thee is your motto."
More like: we treat everything equally, but one side of the aisle seems to turn into whiny bitches the second they're called on their bullshit more than the others.
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Re: Why
Have you got your measles shot today? No, I don't mean the vaccine, I know you're too smart to get that, I mean an actual shot of measles so you can show us how your Alex Jones-certified supplements work.
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Re: Why
Also you:
"You do not moderate speech in the United States in accordance with the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Moderating is censorship. Censorship is un-American.
There you go. Fixed it for ya."
Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200331/17242244208/how-do-you-moderate-covid-19-misinformation-w hen-coming-official-sources.shtml#c308
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Plenty of blame to spread around
The current administration made have made the mortal blow to the CDC, but it looks like the patient was already on hospice care. A decade plus of under funding will do that. Read the link for more information.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v748x4/a-pandemic-expert-tells-us-why-she-was-so-wro ng-about-coronavirus
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No, a lot of us don't believe in that fantasy at all. We just wish you people would do the things you claim your religion tells you to do, instead of spending an hour at church then spending the rest of the week violating your scripture.
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I have no religion. Try to reduce me to another stereotype.
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Why would someone non-religious care about heaven?
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Well, you seem to believe in heaven, tho. Ultimately, that's a religious relic of "belief"in religious concepts.
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Not sure what, addition of the word "left" adds to your comment.
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Well, your own bias is quite evident:
"Prominent Democratic PACs in recent days have funneled millions of dollars into television ads accusing Trump of mishandling the coronavirus crisis. But staffers of several Democratic nonprofits and digital ad firms realized this week that they would not be able to use Google's dominant ad tools to spread true information"
"True information" lol.
Please for the sake of humanity, stop sim-representing "true" and "truth" as non-biased for the benefit of "Escape Pod Israel" infused narratives. and non-objective, non-biased-"realities".
All of your work indicates bias towards religious-tribalist narratives, all of those, manipulating truth and facts.
Non-objective, much?
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Show me any information in those ads that isn’t true — that isn’t supported by either facts or things said by Donald Trump himself.
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Sorry, I’m not accepting applications for new crazy trolls at this time. Please try again in six to eight months.
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"They won't allow any Covid-Deniers?"
You have to be a special kind of moron to be denying the facts about that disease at this point, and misinformation is causing people to literally die from it, either directly or indirectly due to actions taken as a direct result of the misinformation.
"It is one of the reasons I'm skeptical about whatever "Climate Change" is supposed to be"
Then, you're an idiot. The only people who have been questioning that for the last 3 decades have been paid oil industry shills. The actual science has not been in question to any realistic degree since at least the 1970s, when action could have best been taken to avoid the current problems associated with it.
"but even the most polite and rational rightwing people have been banned"
Name one who fits into that category. Also, if your standard of reasonable discord and a good news source is Twitter, you've already failed.
"Never give authority that you don't assume that tomorrow will be wielded by someone who is your worst enemy, hates you, and wants to destroy you."
Better a power to humans that can be repealed than power given to a pandemic that Trump has already caused to sentence thousands of Americans to death.
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"Then, you're an idiot. The only people who have been questioning that for the last 3 decades have been paid oil industry shills."
As a matter of fact, many major oil companies today are openly acknowledging global warming as being a "massive threat".
Some of Big Oil, such as Shell and BP, have been retooling their business to wind and solar in the expectation of a green energy boom. Some others, such as Chevron, have not, doubling down on the idea that "green energy" will fall flat, positioning themselves to dominate a new resurgent fossil fuel market.
So it's not just the experts and greenpeace talking about global warming anymore. Over half of Big Oil is similarly on board, as is quite a lot of the current heavy industry you'd expect to be on the climate change denier barricades.
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"As a matter of fact, many major oil companies today are openly acknowledging global warming as being a "massive threat"."
That is true, but largely because there's no denying the facts now. Temperatures have been climbing steadily and the predicted increases in things like regularity and severity of storms are happening. Those companies have largely realised that they're better off putting effort into alternate energy sources than waiting until government forces them to do it. It's just a shame that it's a little too late to get the best results.
So, kudos to them for finally changing their attitude, but we're still about 3 decades behind where we should be with green tech as a direct result of their actions.
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