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Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

Why are they allowed to profit from spreading misinformation without consequence?

Limitations on corporate liability and America's approach to company registrations means that often times companies openly profiting from misinformation are torn down - then the owners register a new one and keep on keeping on - if their actions can be proven to cause real harm the owners may be prosecuted but this is a rare occurrence and not enough to discourage people from trying to profit from it apparently.

On the flip side, do you want Facebook or any company to control what you can or can not say?

I mean, it'd be best if the government did this and was held accountable in terms of censorship in all the normal ways they are - but Facebook decided to adopt the responsibility to be the one who needs to control it... so they made their own bed.

I think this is a more complex issue than some make it out to be.

That said, if you walk into a restaurant and start yelling about something, they can absolutely kick you out, because it's a private company, not the government.

Do I want regulations that would prevent things that are illegal to say on one media form to apply to all? Sure. You can't just go buy a TV ad that says "blue cars cause cancer", knowing that it will drive business away from a guy you hate that makes blue cars. But I can go have that facebook ad up in 5 minutes.

As part of living in a society, I am happy to cede some freedoms for a better world.

FTC is supposed to enforce truth-in-advertising laws regardless of the medium (television or online).

They already do. These are advertisements and Facebook accepts money and approves them explicitly (and limits what advertisers can say/do already).

Random FB post - yeah maybe theres a 1st amendment argument there - but ads are already "Facebook authorized speech"

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