Hacker News Reader

Comment by jpadkins | Hacker News Reader

> Google did not pro-actively vet the truth of Israeli government claims

It is really scary that people are pushing for Google and Meta to be the arbiter of truth. I don't think people realize what they are asking for. Western civilizations have a tradition of liberal free speech, and allowing the courts to sort out the specifics of what speech causes harm to what parties (libel, etc).

There are already laws on the books for false advertising. In the US, the FTC is one who prosecutes those laws, not Google or Meta!

full disclosure: I work on Ads at Google. You really don't want to privatize the prosecution, judgement, jury, and execution of speech laws to mega corps (and I am usually pro-privatization on most topics).

View on HN

You're correct, the solution then is to just block ads all together.

The reality is that ads are the primary vehicle for malicious content, whether it be malware, scams, or deception, on the web.

Google, as well as Meta, has demonstrated they do not take adequate measure to block said malicious content. This can lead to tangible real effects, such as getting scammed and losing your life savings.

Therefore, every web user should use a strict ad blocker per FBI recommendations. This is no longer a business question or a free-speech question, it is a computer system security question.

Are you saying google does not apply editorial oversight on ads they run? To the best of my knowledge google does restrict who can advertise with them, and their decisions are final and not subject to judicial oversight.

In that context, what google chooses to allow and what they ban is newsworthy. In this specific case, even moreso, since the ads violate google’s own rules.

Ad networks apply editorial oversight with respect to their own published policies* I am not aware of any ad network policies that approach the subject of "what is true" or "what is propaganda". They also apply restrictions to what they are legally liable for which is fairly narrow today (I.e. child porn or harmful substances to minors, etc)

Forcing ad networks to be the main arbiters of what is true vs. propaganda is a huge step towards an Orwellian society.

* some policies related to the concept of truth are one dealing with scams or fraudsters. Even then, it's only the scope of "does this advertiser actually provide the service they claim to be" or not, which is way more objective than anything related to war, religion, or the middle east.

> I am not aware of any ad network policies that approach the subject of "what is true" or "what is propaganda".

From the article:

> The ad mimicked a UN website but actually linked to an Israeli government page

You don't need to judge wether the information linked is true to judge whether the ad misrepresents what users will find behind the link. If Pepsi made ads using a fake Coca Cola website to redirect to pepsi products, they would run afoul of google's policy regardless of your opinion on Pepsi.

Whether you think this enforcement choice is legitimate or not, as you said, it's clearly an editorial choice from google, and there's no reason it should escape public scrutiny and, if needed, regulation.

Don't fall into the trap of "everything not mandatory is prohibited".

Google doesn't really want scam ads. It doesn't make a lot of sense to penalize them for removing some of them just because their process isn't perfect; removing them doesn't have to be banned.

But if you make not removing them mandatory, you're replacing the justice system with a private corporation, which is pretty crazy. If the police accuse you of a crime, they have to prove it to a judge and jury. You can appeal to a higher court. Google doesn't have that. And if you add liability for not removing something, they're going to err on the side of removing things they ought not to, with no recourse for the victims. Competitor wants you out of the search results? Report it to Google and you're out, because they get a billion complaints and removing them by default is safer than getting prosecuted for missing a real one.

The correct solution is to let Google remove things that are bad without punishing them for not being perfect -- maybe even err on the side of imposing (civil) liability for removing things they shouldn't instead of not removing things they should -- and rely on the criminal justice system for going after the criminals.

The article does not document isolated cases of individual free speech, but a coordinated campaign of government run propaganda.

The government (and/or society?) have already deputized private organizations to enforce various types of controls either implicitly or explicitly. Banks (AML) and Payment Processors (recent Steam content removal news) come to mind. Irrespective of whether it's a good or bad things, it already exists.

The Banks don't determine if you are a terrorist or what not. They comply with the order when a judge gives them a lawful order to freeze accounts. I think it's okay to deputize corporations for the execution of the law in the digital world. You really, really don't want the federal government or mega corps to determine what is the "truth" vs. "propaganda". It's way too much power in society to be centralized. The decision on these nuanced issues needs to have due process and be de-centralized.

It's not just lawful court orders, over the years many explicit and implicit "suggestions" about "risk" have been issued to banks to discourage activity deemed undesirable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

That is not how AML-CFT work. Banks calculate your level of risk. When in doubt, they will cut you off or block individual transactions, unless the benefits outweigh the risks.

>The Banks don't determine if you are a terrorist or what not. They comply with the order when a judge gives them a lawful order to freeze accounts.

How do you think this works in reality when the people getting sanctioned are trying to bypass the sanctions by creating shell companies and false identities? You either have a totally ineffective sanctions regime because it can be trivially be bypassed by setting up new shell companies, or a vaguely effective one because banks are deputized to figure out whether their customers are sanctioned or not. Luckily we have the latter.

I'm familiar with how sanctions work wrt advertisers / publishers. It would be totally fine if a court or similar institution said "here is a list of propaganda orgs, please limit what ads they can buy in our jurisdiction" and the ad networks were authorized to find all of their shell companies associated with those named entities. But that is not what the article is advocating for.

I'm objecting to the notion that mega corp ad networks are the best organization to determine what is truth vs. propaganda in our society.

That is not how KYC works. Every account gets screened against hundreds of lists, not just of 'criminals', but of people deemed 'sensitive'. Once you get on such a list, good luck finding any bank.

I had a bank transfer confiscated by Office of Foreign Assets Control. I think it was because the money (my rent) was going to someone with a foreign sounding name. I filled out all the paperwork to dispute it and was told they (a government agency) had no record of it. This was maybe eight years ago. I gave up on it because one month of rent wasn't worth the enormous hassle of fighting the government (to me, at that time). I changed how I made payments and moved on.

I've been criticized before for not fighting back. I had other struggles at the time. Leave me alone about that. I made the right call for myself.

I think we owe it the next muggee to fight the mugger, at least as far as filing the paper work if not literally.

Just because something already exists doesn't mean that we want more of it.

> Irrespective of whether it's a good or bad things, it already exists.

Which is how we know that it's a trash fire that should be stamped out rather than causing it to spread.

Your idea is that the U.S. government lawfully prosecutes foreign governments, including hostile ones?

The thing is that Google already is doing exactly that. Login to adsense and behold the following message: Due to the war in Ukraine, we will pause monetization of content that exploits, dismisses, or condones the war.

This has been in place for as long the war has been going on.

Are you OK with spreading genocide-denial propaganda?

You mean US history books * ? It's not my place to decide. It's a free society.

* from my PoV, US history books taught in classrooms deny or downplay the genocide of native American people, so of which were my ancestors. But I don't want society to try and use mega corps to push my PoV.

Google and Meta penalized and curbed Covid vaccine misinformation. No reason they cannot do the same with state-sponsored Zionazi propaganda.

Just repeal section 230 and we can make the court systems the arbiter of truth. Meta/Google don't care about what ads they run because they have no incentive to stop misinformation in fact they make money off of it.

If someone is putting up illegal ads, shouldn't you file suit against the advertiser?

Advertising is a commercial activity, so it should be reasonable to follow the money and find the advertiser. If necessary, add more requirements for advertisers to be identified/indetifiable so that suits can be served.

Except for online, fault falls under the business providing the venue/platform. You get shot at a concert/bar/sport game, the venue is at fault. Everyone has a duty of care except for online and because they aren't liable, they don't care. Why is there a special carve out for online companies?

Happy to support the repeal of any laws that put liability on a physical venue for the actions of a third party.

We do put additional editorial standards on news publications. This puts legal responsibility for the published content on the publisher.

It doesn't seem like that big a step to apply a similar standard to advertising platforms. Advertisers have failed to selfregulate the ads they choose to publish and it is infeasible to use the court system to judicate every false ad (that would be millions of court cases). Ergo you do the obvious which is to make the advertiser name a human editor who holds legal responsibility for published ads (on behalf of the company).

Now you can sue the advertising company (eg. Google) for millions of false advertisements at once.

Actually we don’t put any responsibilities on news publications beforehand. They can be sued after the fact for libel/slander.

Yes, but you can sue the organization itself.

However, our laws mean that Google, Meta, etc. are not legally responsible for the content of the ads they run. The creator of the ad is.

And it is shockingly easy to construct a legal entity that is unaccountable.

You could create a law that says regional/national advertising requires a company or person be in that jurisdiction and that they must hold $$$ in bond as a guard against false claims.

This would prevent foreign ads targeting domestic users, and/or give you an organization to sue domestically. In this case, it's likely that the Israeli govt would work through a US based org, and that in court that case would likely fail for free speech rights. Though a case/org in another nation might not hold up under that nation's laws.

Or you could just hold the platforms liable for the advertising they host, and leave it up to the platforms to decide how best to weigh the trade-offs between that liability and their, to date, woefully underwhelming moderation.

Because I'd prefer to preserve the freedom of speech to it's fullest extent as opposed to corporate or govt censorship.

Who has standing to sue? We already see the current President using lawsuits to allow media companies to bribe him.

The injured party... in the above case, the UNRWA would sue the org paying for the ads in the target location, for example the US org paying for the ads themselves in the US.

I should have said liability, it would have been more precise, but I'd argue that liability is a form of responsibility so I don't think your correction is warranted.

Can you give examples of laws that put editorial standards on publishers? I am not familiar with any (I mostly know US stuff). A quick search only returned: - Disclosure of Advertorial Content: U.S. law requires that if paid content is presented as editorial matter in a periodical, it must be clearly marked as an "advertisement". - Prohibiting Harmful Content: Laws prohibit publishing content that is obscene, libelous, or scandalous. - Copyright and Intellectual Property: Laws govern the exclusive rights of authors to their literary and artistic works, including the right to print, publish, and distribute them. - Privacy Laws: Publishers must comply with laws protecting personal data and privacy. - Online Platforms and Section 230: While not directly about publisher standards, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act generally protects interactive computer services from liability for user-generated content, distinguishing them from publishers in this context.

I can't sue a publisher for running an ad that was libel. I sue the advertiser who created the libel.

Here is an English translation of the Norwegian law around this topic: https://lovdata.no/dokument/NLE/lov/2020-05-29-59 (Chapter 4 is of particular interest for this discussion)

I assumed the US had something similar, but seems I was wrong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com