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Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#91

Post by elorant »

Rjevski wrote: post #46
corobo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> micro-targeting Facebook adverts at the leader and his closest aides I'm guessing they created a new target list by uploading enough peoples' email addresses to get past Facebook's minimum list length. I don't know how many that is but when I last had a look at it a couple years back the minimum was 20

I think they raised that limit recently, but again nothing prevents you from creating lots of fake profiles just to get past that limit, then targeting all those profiles + the real user you want to target.

We should open a new thread some day with all the hacks you can do to target people on FB.

Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#92

Post by mkempe »

mkempe wrote: post #15

From a sporting (British?) point of view, it's a brilliant move. Other than that it's profoundly dishonest, and one has to wonder who they consider as their true enemy.

Whoever down-voted this does not understand sports, nor the British love of sports and betting. Maybe read some P.G. Wodehouse to understand and lighten up.

Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#93

Post by jdietrich »

hellllllllooo wrote: post #7

Wow. We've seen people microtarget leaders and CEOs with ads on Facebook to get a job. http://twicsy-blog.tumblr.com/post/174063770074/how-i-target... This is a case where microtargeting the boss hopefully cost them their job. This is completely unethical.

The financial journalist Martin Lewis is currently suing Facebook, because fraudsters are using his name and image to promote their schemes through Facebook advertising. The targeted nature of Facebook advertising makes it impossible to audit - there's no way of viewing all the ads being served on the platform. Lewis has been relying on members of the public to send him screenshots when these adverts appear in their feeds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43857921

Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#94

Post by mschuster91 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #50

Wow, a left-of-center party more worried about change from within than they are about losing the election to the right. What a bizarre and unprecedented thing. Thankfully that could never happen in my home country, the USA.

> Wow, a left-of-center party more worried about change from within than they are about losing the election to the right.

Being honorless to their ideals is actually something Social Democrats have a proven history - the German ones for example allowed the war bonds prior to WW1, prior to WW2 the SD leadership lacked the guts to oppose Hitler ("Preußenschlag", and a total underestimation of Hitler in the last months until the Machtergreifung), and modern Social Democrats went full scale neoliberal (most famously they gutted social security with the Hartz IV reforms). As a result, the neo-nazis of the AfD are the second most powerful party in both federal and bavarian polls, sharing the position with the Social Democrats...

Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#95

Post by infogulch »

madrox wrote: post #63
hellllllllooo wrote: post #7

Wow. We've seen people microtarget leaders and CEOs with ads on Facebook to get a job. http://twicsy-blog.tumblr.com/post/174063770074/how-i-target... This is a case where microtargeting the boss hopefully cost them their job. This is completely unethical.

I don't disagree, per se, but it's interesting that we have no problem with leaders of corporations personalizing ads for individuals while we are bothered when the position is reversed.

More than anything I think it's a more tangible argument for how microtargeting can go south. Most people are ok with the concept of advertising in general, and microtargeting feels like a small step from normal ads. "Yeah I get it, people want to sell me shit, what's the big deal?" This is the big deal.

Advertising's purpose is to infect your mind and trick it into thinking what the ad-buyer wants. In the past it wasn't as big of a deal, advertisers are less likely to use direct lies or manipulations if the audience is big: they can get backlash, some tricks have the opposite effect on some people, etc. Now that they can target individuals every trick in the book is fair game.

Now, if you talk to someone about these problems, they'll usually say something like "oh well it might affect other people, but ads don't affect me." Or "why would they care that much about me?" Guess what, if a politician can be be targeted and manipulated, a disgruntled coworker can target you, your ex can target you.

Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#97

Post by mc32 »

This pretty interesting, not only did his campaign fool him, they fooled the people voting for Corbyn —they made him appear more centrist than he actually was for, they feared, if they broadcast his real intended message to all, it might have turned voters away from his views.

Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#98

Post by fareesh »

andy_ppp wrote: post #27
fareesh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can speak to me one on one and tell me why I should vote for you, and you convince me - then you deserve my vote. Microtargeting allows you to do that at scale. If I care about a certain issue and you advertise to me in a way that matches up to the things I care about, and present ideas that I agree with, then you are campaigning correctly. If a politician saw that I cared about the environment and argued for…

What seems to constantly happen is that we are instead served up the porridge that’s specifically for us while we don’t see the whole picture and what all the other people have also been promised. What I’m saying is that the narrative of a manifesto or even what a political party stands for is corrupted by being “all things to all people” in their messaging.

Is there any example of this? In American politics and British politics (where much of the current drama stems from), the issues and candidates are promising opposite things in many ways.

Hillary Clinton was not promising the return of coal jobs. Donald Trump was not promising a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Jeremy Corbyn was not promising leaving the EU.

These were all very polarized issues and perspectives.

Yes in theory you can promise to be all things to all people but microtargeting is not happening in a vacuum, and it's unlikely that politicians will have success with promising contradicting binary things.

Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#99

Post by fareesh »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #70
fareesh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can speak to me one on one and tell me why I should vote for you, and you convince me - then you deserve my vote. Microtargeting allows you to do that at scale. If I care about a certain issue and you advertise to me in a way that matches up to the things I care about, and present ideas that I agree with, then you are campaigning correctly. If a politician saw that I cared about the environment and argued for…

> If you can speak to me one on one and tell me why I should vote for you, and you convince me - then you deserve my vote. Microtargeting allows you to do that at scale. The endgame of this notion is politicians promising each constituent exactly what they want to hear and concealing what they don't.

The key word there is convince. Most replies to my post seem to think the act of making a promise means you have convinced the voter.

It seems very hypocritical to think that people are responsible enough to choose their elected officials while at the same time argue that they can't be trusted to make an informed decision because of a Facebook ad which promised them what they wanted.

If you microtarget me and your opponent microtargets me, how am I going to be convinced by you? This is an adversarial process.

Re: Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign

#100

Post by coliveira »

AngryData wrote: post #34

Just another example on why marketing and advertisement is a scourge upon society, it is far to easy to manipulate from the background without oversight or any ethical or moral considerations and is known to be highly effective at making people act against even their own self interests.

Advertisement is also a way to buy support in the media. For example, in the aftermath of the oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico, BP showered money on TV and magazines. The real reason they did that was to tone down the coverage, especially in a moment where TV was deeply in need of advertisement money due to the big depression of 2008.
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