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Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

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Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#11
post #6

I find the irony in so many Americans being outraged at a foreign state influencing another state's elections to be deliciously intoxicating.

I think it’s mostly redirecting dissatisfaction. Dems waaay underperformed and need to find a scapegoat rather than look internally and see why people switched.

But no, they rather blame others, be they foreign or even within the party: right now the Dems can’t decide if they are 1980s Dems or 1920s Workers Partiers.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#12
post #8

This doesn't really communicate anything. All the examples are something of this ad about americans liking cars was targeted to americans who like cars. I don't at all deny Russia meddling, but the website does a poor job at showing what they were trying to influence. Example: This ad targeted people interested in same-sex marriage and 12 more. We speak for all fellow members of LGBT community across the nation. How…

[deleted]

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#15
post #11
post #6

I find the irony in so many Americans being outraged at a foreign state influencing another state's elections to be deliciously intoxicating.

I think it’s mostly redirecting dissatisfaction. Dems waaay underperformed and need to find a scapegoat rather than look internally and see why people switched. But no, they rather blame others, be they foreign or even within the party: right now the Dems can’t decide if they are 1980s Dems or 1920s Workers Partiers.

> why people switched.

If I remember correctly, it wasn't so much that many people switched parties, but that typical Democrat voter turnout was low, reflecting some amount of disillusionment.

Also, what you say about the Democrats' identity crisis seems to mirror what's been happening with Labour (the left party) in the UK.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#16
post #5

It's a very nice looking tool, but hijacking scrolling is always a bad call.

With my small touchpad on my laptop, I was unable to even get past the first entry. Closed the tab instantly after that. I'm sure the info was enlightening, but totally unreadable to me.

I'm guessing they optimized for mobile and forgot that desktop is still a thing. Works pretty decently on Firefox on my Android phone. I usually prefer text documents to "apps" that hijack scrolling but this one seemed usable enough for me (apart from search which is difficult to get to and fails to fetch any results).

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#17

If they bought ads to slant an election what does this say about the people falling for it? Also, this is just digital propaganda. The US gov. and media outlets do it too.

if someone shoots you what does that say about your ability to avoid danger and dodge bullets?

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#18
post #6

I find the irony in so many Americans being outraged at a foreign state influencing another state's elections to be deliciously intoxicating.

It's almost as though some governments have been determined through economic and military strength to be more significant and powerful than others perhaps?

Whataboutism doesn't change the facts at hand, do they? A hostile foreign state orchestrated an intelligence operation to elect a specific person to further their own geopolitical goals. Every single person in this country should be alarmed by this.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#19
post #8

This doesn't really communicate anything. All the examples are something of this ad about americans liking cars was targeted to americans who like cars. I don't at all deny Russia meddling, but the website does a poor job at showing what they were trying to influence. Example: This ad targeted people interested in same-sex marriage and 12 more. We speak for all fellow members of LGBT community across the nation. How…

I'm taking a wild guess here: The ads look like they were intended to drive traffic to pages, which would be the real 'meat' of the campaign. The ads themselves aren't very interesting.

Also, the image data is missing. A lot of these are non-sequiturs without the picture.

Re: Fakebook: A tool exploring the 2016 U.S. election Facebook ads bought by Russia

#20
post #15
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s mostly redirecting dissatisfaction. Dems waaay underperformed and need to find a scapegoat rather than look internally and see why people switched. But no, they rather blame others, be they foreign or even within the party: right now the Dems can’t decide if they are 1980s Dems or 1920s Workers Partiers.

> why people switched. If I remember correctly, it wasn't so much that many people switched parties, but that typical Democrat voter turnout was low, reflecting some amount of disillusionment. Also, what you say about the Democrats' identity crisis seems to mirror what's been happening with Labour (the left party) in the UK.

>reflecting some amount of disillusionment

Disillusionment through propaganda and well-timed leaks of stolen documents by a foreign, hostile power.

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