Of course, that requires a political system motivated by doing the right thing for the country's citizens. As opposed to being controlled (sorry, lobbied) by monopolistic corporations and, in particular, where few politicians dare take a stance against FB for fear of the misinformation campaign that would inevitably ensue. On Facebook.
I was going to ask you for a reference on this, because I was pretty sure that no such standard existed.
I was quite wrong!
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/complaints-about-broadc...
"Broadcasters are responsible for selecting the broadcast material that airs on their stations, including advertisements. The FCC expects broadcasters to be responsible to the community they serve and act with reasonable care to ensure that advertisements aired on their stations are not false or misleading.
The FTC has primary responsibility for determining whether specific advertising is false or misleading, and for taking action against the sponsors of such material. You can file a complaint with the FTC online or call toll-free 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357)."
So we have:
"The FCC expects broadcasters to be responsible to the community they serve and act with reasonable care"
and
"The FTC has primary responsibility for determining"
So...maybe we should give online advertising the same treatment?
As an aside: this FCC regulation surprises me; I'm quite aware that there are numerous limits to free speech, but I didn't expect this to be one of them.
I've always been an ardent believer in expansive free speech, and I still am, though age has allowed me to accept more limits. Though it doesn't feel right to me, the negative impact of (largely?) unregulated online political advertising is big and getting bigger.
Then also some states like Ohio it's illegal to sell ads to businesses that aren't solvent, Facebook is currently being sued by school districts for selling ads to a charter school that later ended up closing, which I feel is a huge overreach since most of it's automatic and the school themselves decided to buy the ads. So I guess you have to do a financial background check before selling ads. Probably easier to just exclude Ohio from selling ads, but the lawsuit hasn't been settled yet. So far no activity for 7 months but still on the docket as a open case.
Edit: FCC -> FTC
Hahahahahahaha yeah sure they do.
Then there's another show about entertainment and news, and the woman on their sometimes gets dresses provided to wear. I noticed that's mentioned in a text overlay at the very end... However guides for YouTubers say you should mention say it on audio too, don't just put in the text description or on the screen as text.
Then Apple gives TV shows and movies free iPhone's and Macbooks for promotion... I seen it mentioned in the end screen but don't remember ever hearing a voice over saying products provided by Apple, but if you are a YouTuber you are supposed to mention you got a free Macbook every time you mention it according to one guide. So seems unequal and some confusion out there too. I know some tech channels, rving, camping, etc will accept free products to review, but if you use or mention them in any future videos or blog posts, people might of not seen your first post where you reviewed and disclosed you got it for free to review... So I guess you have to repeat a bunch of legal jargon in every video then.
I doubt many people get free Apple products as vloggers, but one of the examples was if you got a free knife as a hunting channel, you should disclose it in future mentions. So that's a more realistic example probably, but wouldn't surprise me if someone even forgets who sent them a knife if they collect them after the initial review. Then recently the FTC set more rules for videos targeted at kids on YouTube, and some lawyer mentioned he spoke with the FTC and some of these people don't even own phones or really understand what YouTube even is. Also not sure if I remember if the Price is Right mentioning products they are giving away, I think they just show the car yet as far as I know GM or KIA is giving it to them for free for the product placement, I bet if a YouTuber gave away cars they'd have to disclose it much more. I guess the old media probably can afford more people in DC than the independent vloggers can.
Then if you got paid to go to a conference, and wanted to live tweet about it, you have to mention it in every single Tweet some how from my understanding. Not sure how you'd do it with the space limit. Maybe when I read these things, I'm taking it more literally than most do. I bet a lot of businesses are out of compliance with many things if you look for it. I was reading up on PCI recently for credit card processing, and I helped a lady once years ago with her shopping site and if I remember right she just gave people a generic admin login shared between people, but I guess that's a major no no as everyone should have their own separate account. Then some web hosts market their servers as being PCI compliance too, but wonder if it's really true. Just seems like a lot out there, but I do remember hearing once that the average citizen commits 3 felonies a day.
I think it'd be fun to be a travel vlogger some day, so I think my personal policy would be not to accept free stuff to review, but I know some companies just send people stuff in general if they post a PO Box without asking, so wonder if they feel pressured to review items... but I think the whole idea of fans sending you random stuff is creepy, there's some vloggers who do mail vlogs and people send them candy and stuff... Mommy and daddy says not to take candy from strangers, yet you let random people from around the world mail you candy... I rather just use things I paid for myself, and if I liked it enough mention it on my own. Don't want to feel obligated to some brand.
I do think the general idea of the FTC is good though, don't want companies lying and scamming people. There's probably selective enforcement too, for like the most outrages cases.
There's a credit for a product placement researcher and a "thanks to Thermo Fisher for lab equipment" (plus a couple of others that don't stand out as companies you'd recognise) but there's no "Promotional Consideration from ..." section in the credits that I can see (Bluray version, 2:04:21 length)
They already have that power, and one of the problems posed by Facebook is that they leverage that power to disseminate false information devised to undermine democracies by unscrupulous totalitarian regimes.
1) Facbook could be broken apart from Instagram and WhatsApp.
2) Mark Zuckerberg is not beholden even to shareholders due to the rights of the shares he owns. Restructure the companies so he still owns the same % of the companies but has the same voting rights as any other shareholder.
Luckily you don't need logic when you can just throw money at lobbying. Sadly, this is incredibly effective in the US today.
Even if that's true, it might not work for Facebook. The politicians that Facebook would need to lobby may feel personally threatened by Facebook's power over the electoral process. Penny-ante campaign contributions and a few face to face meetings probably aren't enough to overcome that.
True, but a promise to use that power to benefit particular politicians probably would.
I would rather risk total garbage in the public forum than establish a ministry of truth.
If fact-checking political advertising gives them too much power, and not doing so is something they themselves decided on, then they already have that power. If no one company should have that amount of power, they should have that power taken away from them.
The bigger next step is that any alternative to breaking them up would be against their freedom of speech. I'm having trouble coming up with an alternative that wouldn't, but there might be one.
The logical conclusion is that the government steps in write laws on what social media should do.