Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
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Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#2I am not able to understand what it is: can somebody help?
Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#3I am not able to understand what it is: can somebody help?
From my understanding, it's a dataviz of Facebook ads linked to politics.
For instance, if we select "Browse per country" and then "France", you can see political ads, with their political party, their content, their settings, etc.
Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#4It's unbearably slow
Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#5I am not able to understand what it is: can somebody help?
You can, for example, see ads that are targeted for one country e.g. US but are paid with different currency e.g. RUB.
Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#6I love the idea, but the interface needs some work.
In my humble opinion, your home page should be the interactive map part - show people the good stuff as quickly as possible. Those who want to read about the project will find their way to the info.
Also, the map should be a little more intuitive to use. Don't make people dig for the gold.
Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#7I am not able to understand what it is: can somebody help?
I fumbled about in the Map tab for a while, not getting anywhere. But if you select your country and various parameters, using the 'Timeline' and 'Content' buttons gives you an idea of how targeted ads changed over time and what the content was. ... I think.
Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#8Really don't fully understand why facebook is being accused of creating this. And the AD and PR agencies are being let off scott free? Granted, facebook are culpable ethically for not appreciating that the manipulation afforded to advertisers could be utilised towards political persuasion. Why, then, if the tools are so powerful, are we not examining the power of the advertising industry for utilising the latest studies in psychology and anthropology? Making us request specific drugs from our doctors, or beer for our fridge, or thinking that some items may make us happy? None of which may be the best choice for us, or actually work.
Why is it different for political organisations to manipulate the population using those tools than it is for multinationals?
Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#9This is something that Facebook and ad-serving companies should be fully transparent about.
* Who is paying for their political propaganda?
* How much was spent?
* What were the ads?
* How was it paid?
Not being able to track ad spending by political parties, governments or individuals opens opens a huge opportunity for political corruption.
Re: Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
#10I’ve been an investigative reporter for a long time, and data like this are essential for reporting on campaign activity in the digital age. Only looking at contributions and expenditures in disclosure reports isn’t enough anymore.
This isn’t the most intuitive viz on the planet. But dear smart tech people and data scientists with a strong public interest streak: Please keep doing this and get it online. At least for me, when I see it, I’ll put it in front of other journos on social. We compete but help each other out by sharing tips like this through professional orgs and journalism boards like Y Combinator (which I’ve followed closely for years).
Many of us are particularly keen on helping young journalists become natural investigators, and the next generation has a huge amount of data smarts already. Let’s put it to work for justice and fairness and all that mushy human freedom and better leadership stuff.