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Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#81

Post by heartbreak »

kbenson wrote: post #43
VickBear wrote: post #6

Main questions and comments that strike me when I see the $100,000 amount is: With Clinton spending $141.7 million and Trump spending $58.8 million on advertising, does that miniscule amount even matter? What was even the CTR with those advertisements? Is there even anything wrong with any country or person(s) doing that or trying to do that since we already have Super PACs and lobbyists? I have more thoughts that ar…

I believe the number of voters in key districts needed to swing the electoral college to Clinton was in the tens of thousands. If it was targeted perfectly (which of course is impossible), that's almost two dollars a person that needed to be influenced. How many Facebook ads impressions does that buy per person? While I think it's unlikely that anyone could have accurately targeted to that degree, it does put into pe…

Not impossible if the voter registration data from 21 states was used for targeting.

https://www.apnews.com/cb8a753a9b0948589cc372a3c037a567

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#82

Post by zghst »

tynpeddler wrote: post #27
dragonwriter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, the $100,000 may not be the full spend, it's just the minimum based on what has been identified as false-flag accounts linked to Russia. There may well have been orders of magnitude more spending that has not been identified as false flag accounts (further, it's not even the total expenditure of resources on the false flag accounts, just the part actually spent buying placement—when comparing to campaign spend…

The $100,000 may well have been a small fraction of what was actually spent, but until we have proof the outrage needs to be kept down. We're in real danger of revisiting yellow journalism and creating an even more polarizing political situation.

We are already in an era of yellow journalism, every angle, every sentence, every clip is contorted to reflect a narrative approved by corporate elites for publishing. All of this drama merely drives profits.

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#83

Post by zghst »

Gigablah wrote: post #65
nasredin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whataboutism. Example: Country A caught doing something bad. "...but what about Country B?" Whataboutism is quite popular in discussions WRT Russia.

Either argument can also be a thought-terminating cliche.

Good one

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#84

Post by zghst »

debacle wrote: post #64
Harimwakairi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the outrage needs to be kept down No. If a foreign power attempted to influence one of my country's elections for its own gain, I am outraged. The amount of effort or money spent is quite immaterial to me.

You need to step back for a minute. Think about a scenario where Russia actually did influence our elections. Do you think the response would be this passive? All of this Russia talk is a farce. If Russia actually interfered with US elections, the US response would be awe inspiring.

Exactly.

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#85

Post by unholythree »

mythrwy wrote: post #57
Gargoyle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're downvoted, but this has been exactly my thought all along. The people who saw these ads weren't going the other way anyway.

No, no they weren't. Which make the whole drama even more objectively silly. For the record I have no doubt the Russians do engage in covert activities not in the best interests of the U.S. But these straw grasping dramas have gotten tiresome.

I'm not sure. I honestly don't know if the assessment in the article is correct, but it seems to me the objective of a project like this isn't to change any minds but harden existing postions and prevent compromise. The impression I got was that the writer argues the Russian's goal in this operation was encourage more extreme political views in order to divide the American people and weaken national unity.

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#86

Post by hackinthebochs »

chokolad wrote: post #75
hackinthebochs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This started as "Russia hacked the election" and now we are talking about I guess you missed the news about their attempted and successful intrusions into state election databases?

> I guess you missed the news about their attempted and successful intrusions into state election databases? I did miss the news where Russians successfully manipulated results in those databases. Can you provide me some links, please?

No, there hasn't been any hard evidence that records were manipulated (AFAIK). But I don't see how our response should be substantively different knowing they altered records vs. just having had access to the databases.

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#87

Post by lostmsu »

Harimwakairi wrote: post #36
tynpeddler wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $100,000 may well have been a small fraction of what was actually spent, but until we have proof the outrage needs to be kept down. We're in real danger of revisiting yellow journalism and creating an even more polarizing political situation.

> the outrage needs to be kept down No. If a foreign power attempted to influence one of my country's elections for its own gain, I am outraged. The amount of effort or money spent is quite immaterial to me.

Hm, now I think about it, what exactly are you outraging about? It's not like buying ads on Facebook or influencing people by showing them texts or pictures is illegal.

Hacking attempts, yes, are a big problem. Facebook ads - not a problem at all.

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#88

Post by uoaei »

This is how they operate, in fact this is the MO of modern propaganda techniques: divide and conquer.

If we keep the fracas alive by distrusting our neighbors (loudly and proudly!), this lowers our ability to face threats from outside head-on. We need trust in our compatriots to do a good job doing whatever it is we want to do as a collective.

State actors with intent to harm a citizens' coalition only need to sow distrust and more than a few wrenches will be thrown in the cogs by people who feel they're doing the right thing protecting their country.

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#89

Post by uoaei »

Gargoyle wrote: post #49
mythrwy wrote: post #47

I find it hard to believe anyone susceptible to having opinions on BLM or Muslims would be measurably influenced by an ad on facebook. Maybe that's why they only spent 100K. A similar op by Western intelligence services would cost what... maybe 10 million? 100K in ads, 9.9 million for contractors and mid level management bureaucrats.

You're downvoted, but this has been exactly my thought all along. The people who saw these ads weren't going the other way anyway.

I think it's less about swaying their minds and more about making them more active and vocal about the topic, which spreads their opinion to people who otherwise would stand no ground either way. The people they would directly affect are their family members and established friends, who have an inherent trust for people they know and have opened up their lives to.

In essence, it created pseudobots that serve as outlets for the kinds of messages (read: divisions) they wanted to sow.

Re: Russia used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over Black Lives Matter, Muslims

#90

Post by int_19h »

ewzimm wrote: post #79
scarmig wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...all the time? This line of questioning comes up a lot as the ultimate gotcha, but the people upset about Russian meddling today are also the ones most likely to be upset about American meddling in the past.

I'm curious about your opinion here. I haven't seen this idea that countries shouldn't try to influence each other's politics until last Fall. Not saying the idea wasn't out there, just never encountered it. I've seen plenty of dissatisfaction with things like American or Russian propaganda, but never anyone saying that it shouldn't be allowed at all. So what would a world in which countries don't influence each othe…

I think it's not so much the fact of influence, as it was the nature of it.

If, say, RT runs propaganda pieces in favor of candidate X, and against candidate Y, that's fine, because everybody knows that it is Russian propaganda. They can factor that knowledge into their decision making accordingly (and it doesn't need to be negative - e.g. someone who is interested in warmer relations with Russia, for whatever reasons, might actually support the candidates they endorse).

Coincidentally, this is also the kind of involvement that US and other Western countries normally practice overseas. E.g. looking back at the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, it was very obvious and transparent which side was backed by the US government.

In contrast, what we've seen in this past election is covert foreign propaganda, that tries to actively conceal and misrepresent its identity (many of those fake FB accounts and groups pretended to be American). Not only there are obvious ethical issues aside, but - in US, at least - it also runs afoul of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is a law that has been around for almost 80 years now. So you can hardly say that it's some new thing.

Then there's also the orthogonal aspect where a lot of that propaganda is blatantly false to an unusual degree. We're not talking about spin here, but actually manufacturing entire news stories around events that never happened, and facts that were never true.

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