Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion

> "Not being able to track ad spending by political parties, governments or individuals opens opens a huge opportunity for political corruption."

Okay, but why? Are you implying that it gives people some sort of advantage? If so, how is it any different to all the myriad other things that people could do that can effectively push or platform a campaign/political opinion? E.g. Biased reporting, speeches, skilled orators, organized rallies and their funding, etc.

And also, what is your definition of "political corruption"? Also, how is all this different to "campaigns", activism and general spending that is targeted at altering public opinion at the early childhood level? I.e. at primary and secondary schools.

I guess where I'm getting at is where do you draw the line, if any. We are, after all, part of a democratic society and one of the big supposed benefits is that it's marketplace of ideas where the best one effectively gets translated by the elected officials. Advertising/promoting such ideas should be part and parcel of such a marketplace.

Personally, I draw the line at propaganda and such aimed at developing minds. Till the past decade, I'd say the biggest movement that was doing this was the climate/pollution one. It's been heavily promoted and pushed at children way past the point of trying to foster environmentally-conscious and behaved adults that understand the consequences of some of their actions on the environment.

Is "propaganda" a clear line?

It's not different, and advertising has been a focus of many since the 80's.

Ever seen they live? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8AMRbqY6w

https://www.adbusters.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n7GfVFC6K8

When you look at these types of things, does it bother you that, e.g., when you look at the "by country" view, that there is all kind of noise in the categories? For example, looking at the USA, under the "Region" class, hundreds of regions are listed that have nothing to do with the USA, let alone are relevant.

Just seeing that kind of thing makes me immediately question the accuracy and precision of the data if the creators didn't even conduct that rather basic due diligence. Which is also related to my inherent general concern regarding the data because it seems that everyone simply just accepts that data is not only accurate and precise, but that it has also not been manipulated and tampered with, even though currently there is very little way to verify the integrity of the data, let alone have it certified as accurate or even honest. What is considered a political ad? Is there any skullduggery going on where Facebook and others classify things they don't like incorrectly in order to manipulate things? etc

It's not like that is an unfounded concern and really should be a basic measure of journalistic integrity whether the data was evaluated or provenance was certified. There are some obvious and intentional distortions manipulative and abusive distortions that come to mind, ironically the most prominent one from the A D L that classified all manner of unrelated incidents as "right wing white supremacist extremism" in testimony to Congress an in general in public; including classifying two black people as white supremacists, classifying a domestic dispute as white supremacist, a murder of a cheating spouse as white supremacist, etc. all in order to pump up and manipulate data and impressions for political purposes. The A D L propaganda was discovered rather easily because their data set was rather limited and could be reviewed in mere seconds, but how do you have any confidence whatsoever in the data of this type of site, regardless of any kind of specific intention, let alone even unintentional manipulation and corruption of data?

Perhaps, but what people find propaganda or not varies from person to person. Especially in this age where apparently none of us can agree on facts and truth.