Comment by cmeacham98 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cmeacham98 | Hacker News Reader

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If Facebook was lying here, you'd think Signal would speak up about it. It would be a HUGE PR win for them, I can already imagine the headlines ("Facebook denied their ads, banned their account, and then lied to cover it up"). It would be extremely easy for them to provide a screenshot of an email from Facebook or similar saying the ad was declined, so why don't they?

Secondly, while I'm no fan of Meta/Facebook (and think they're a net negative for the world), I trust them way more than Signal to get basic facts right in their statement. Facebook is a massive corporation with lawyers and PR people who know that outright lying about something like this is a horrible and possibly illegal idea.

It seems pretty obvious to me here that Signal expected Facebook not to comment on this and for them to net a juicy PR win. On the other hand, Facebook has no reason to believe Signal would stay quiet after being accused of lying if they had a shred of evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately Signal achieved their goal anyways, because we still have people like choppaface coming out of the woodwork to defend them because "Facebook would have done it anyways".

They did speak out about it, which is in the same article linked above that sources the FB disputation statement (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/06/facebook-and-signal-are-figh...):

> We absolutely did try to run these. The ads were rejected, and Facebook disabled our ad account. These are real screenshots, as Facebook should know.

I don't think your logic about companies lying really tracks with the historical record. Companies, when they believe they can get away with it, lie all the time.

Again, I'm not saying that one organization was certainly lying or not-lying; I'm just challenging your presupposition that Signal was lying.

Copy pasting what I sent in another response:

Signal provided no new evidence of this claim, and the existing evidence they did provide seems to support Facebook's side of the story (as I explained more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33900582).

I just don't see the motivation for Signal to hold back this evidence if what they're saying is true. It would be so easy for them to go and screenshot an email or page saying "this ad is rejected" - why don't they? The only way it makes sense is that they don't have this evidence, because they're lying.

> I'm just challenging your presupposition that Signal was lying.

I'm not presupposing anything, I'm looking at the available evidence and the actions of the actors involved and coming to a conclusion. If anything, I hate Meta/Facebook, I think they are a net negative to the world, and I probably came into this with a mental bias against them.

You're presupposing because you're coming to a conclusion that is not justified by the evidence.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

> The only way it makes sense is

I don't think you've provided convincing evidence of that.

Are the following all not possible?

1. They are unable to access that account or page any longer

2. Facebook chose to lie about this in a way that is not easily disproved by a screenshot.

3. Facebook disabled their account because of their ad content, but chose to put up a message that was more ambiguous.

*edit: formatting & make messaging more polite

> Are the following all not possible?

Correct, none of them are! When I last used Facebook advertising at a prior employer, they sent you an email when your ad was rejected informing you of this fact. Assuming that is still true (and I don't see any reason they would change this), then Signal should have undeniable proof about the claim that Facebook rejected their ads (which Facebook claims they did not do).

Of course, I strongly believe we will never see this evidence, because I think that Signal is lying and thus it doesn't exist.

The fact that Signal has not produced this evidence is strong evidence they are lying, because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from doing so. It would also be extremely weird for Facebook to lie about this, given they would know such evidence exists and Signal could easily disprove their lies.

How is the following not possible?

>Facebook disabled their account because of their ad content, but chose to put up a message that was more ambiguous.

We can fairly reasonably assume whoever is telling the truth is doing so about both things. Signal should know whether or not their payment details were actually having issues or not.

Now, if you want, you can believe that Signal is lying about whether or not the ads were rejected, wrote an extremely misleading blog post that strongly implies the suspension was permanent when it was temporary, but has correctly guessed that the real reason for the (temporary) suspension was their (unsubmitted) ads, and that they wrote this blog post rather than trying to submit their ads for the first time after being unsuspended.

But at that point, I would say that you are "presupposing because you're coming to a conclusion that is not justified by the evidence". You are so strongly biased that Facebook must 100% prove their innocence on every single point, but are just automatically assuming Signal is telling the truth with no evidence.

Signal did speak up about it, and flatly denied Facebook's statement.

Signal provided no new evidence of this claim, and the existing evidence they did provide seems to support Facebook's side of the story (as I explained more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33900582).

I just don't see the motivation for Signal to hold back this evidence if what they're saying is true. It would be so easy for them to go and screenshot an email or page saying "this ad is rejected" - why don't they? The only way it makes sense is that they don't have this evidence, because they're lying.

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