Does Facebook allowing white-nationalist content mean it's endorsing it as an editorial decision?
If any other publication published content that endorses white nationalism, they'd be shunned by the advertising world. Can't imagine Proctor & Gamble or Chevrolet as willing to place their ads next to white-nationalist content in Facebook.
Like, I might if the ad is relevant to the piece of content in question. For example if I am watching construction/woodworking/industrial videos on youtube I won't be surprised if I see ads relating to tools, but thats about it.
I'm not gonna go ahead and buy this tool specifically because the ad is on a video I enjoyed, or associate another company with evil just because it's on a bad video.
Another guess would be it's simply the subconcious thing of seeing an ad to something potentially bad?
I doubt it, but it's complicated. Advertisers think that people do. People know that advertisers think that they do, so they use that to their advantage. If they disagree with something, they know there's nothing they can do... but... they can feign outrage ("I'm boycotting Crest toothpaste because they support X") and since advertisers think they're being genuine, they act. Thus, even though they know the advertisement has nothing to do with the social networking user they dislike, they can have action taken against the person they don't like.
No advertiser is bold enough to say "I think you're lying," and thus, the problem persists. Advertisers get to be the ad-hoc censors of the platforms they advertise on.
I'd guess people would buy more stuff in general if for example TV ads were all aired in the middle of upbeat shows.
Yes. This is how branding works. It's why companies pay for a famous celebrity to represent their brand, instead of a random person, because you associate a higher quality with a famous celebrity.
The major brands have very specific rules on what their ads can appear next to.. they actually write down things like "our ad can't appear next to blood/violence" etc..
Doesn't matter if it's user-generated or not. As long as that image exists next to the brand, the brand is fucked. I mean, what would you think of Chanel if they ever placed their beautiful ad next to a picture of a dead body?
In my opinion it should go back to the old days of chronological content from only the entities I've decided to listen to. (I.E. followed/friends/subscribed.) That way, if the WN want to push their mess, they can, and I'll never be exposed to it because I'm not at all interested in following someone who would ever share that.
If I'm researching a topic about them, then I can search using a standard searching algorithm, and find the relevant content.
Maybe a naive point of view in today's age, but that's what I think is simplest. It also just happens to be how it used to be.
to the general public “publisher”=“something like the NYT” vs legally where it probably means “making stuff publicly available”?
It seems Facebook Et Al want the best of both worlds
This was just a “i’m Not sure if in many of these cases it’s a confusion over general vs legal definitions” :D
Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Medium, Instagram and various others are all in the exact same situation. Hopefully at one point they'll be made to take a real stance and either admit they're a publisher or stay neutral on content.
