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Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

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Re: Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

#11

Post by ToucanLoucan »

delichon wrote: post #8
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amendments aren't god's laws passed to George Washington on Mt. Rushmore. We can change them if we feel it's appropriate. Commenter isn't making the case that the action is illegal, he's saying it's dystopian that the Government is making such blatant use of targeted media. And I agree.

To change the first amendment such that it no longer applied to the speech of political parties would amount to a revolution. Even if it were somehow accomplished without violence, it would deeply change the form of government.

I think it's a reasonable thing that the political parties shouldn't be able to use targeted online advertising that makes use of distressing amounts of demographic information to spread propaganda. Granted, I'm biased, I think we should ban targeted advertising altogether but still.

Re: Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

#12

Post by ceejayoz »

delichon wrote: post #8
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amendments aren't god's laws passed to George Washington on Mt. Rushmore. We can change them if we feel it's appropriate. Commenter isn't making the case that the action is illegal, he's saying it's dystopian that the Government is making such blatant use of targeted media. And I agree.

To change the first amendment such that it no longer applied to the speech of political parties would amount to a revolution. Even if it were somehow accomplished without violence, it would deeply change the form of government.

Revolutions are the norm in the American setup.

The first peaceful transfer of power from one party to another is sometimes called the "Revolution of 1800". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1800_United_States_presidentia...

Every constitutional amendment changes our government. The people who wrote the mechanism in expected this. I doubt they expected us to just... stop amending.

Re: Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

#14

Post by everdrive »

NickC25 wrote: post #9

It's very sad, and very telling that our biggest corporations have become suckups to the reactionary side of the right wing and continue to carry the water for the most degenerate and attention-seeking members of said right wing. None of these nutcases offer true help to society (note: neither do the extreme leftists, just so we're clear that I'm not team red or team blue), and it does no good that our corporations a…

The extreme flip-flopping of the major tech companies provides a few small possibilities that don't paint a good picture no matter how you look at it:

- They never believed in progressive causes, and were just siding with what they believed was the social majority. (and so when they perceive the social majority has changed, they immediately follow and would follow _any_ social majority.)

- They don't agree with the current anti-progressive social movement (ie, they still hold their old beliefs) but none of them have any backbone whatsoever, and are getting in line with virtually no resistance or fight.

- All the tech company CEOs just happened to be radicalized at the exact same time.

I'm sure that #1 is the most reasonable answer, although perhaps there's a dash of #3 in there. In any case, you'd have to question whether a party-in-power (from a social movement perspective) wouldn't just encourage this trend when _they_ were the ones winning.

Re: Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

#15

Post by gchamonlive »

At this point, whoever opposes big tech regulation is in favor of these kinds of abuses happening. Here in Brazil there is a big discussion around this regulation but for other reasons, like the social media algorithms pushing child abuse content to potential pedophiles.

The criticism against these regulations are all valid and need to be discussed, because we also don't want to create these mechanisms at the government level only so the next authoritarian president can use them for their own personal agenda. But all this discussion should be in the direction of how these companies are going to be regulated, not how they aren't.

Re: Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

#16

Post by loudmax »

everdrive wrote: post #4

This makes me wonder why people put up with targeted content whatsoever. I actually have a friend who works in game development, and he has a real chip on his should regarding the current attitude that the discoverable customer base has. For instance, he sees a lot of people who think developers are pushing things down people's throats, are making games bad or annoying on purpose just so that users get frustrated, et…

I fully agree. Just to add some nuance, walking away means pulling back, but it doesn't have to entail completely abandoning all social media. Obviously, the advertising here on Hacker News is very mild, just Y Combinator launches. But even Facebook and Reddit and Twitter can convey useful information. You do need to curate your feeds, but more importantly, know when to step away when the muck and the outrage seep in.

Optimistically, the cynicism you describe could develop into a sophisticated ability to discern fraud.

Re: Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

#17

Post by loudmax »

normalaccess wrote: post #13
sixQuarks wrote: post #7

There’s always one side that is lying, gaslighting, and deceiving. I’m surprised more people still can’t see what’s going on

I always assume it's both sides (no matter the topic) to some degree.

Yes, but not to the same degree. The disagreement is on which side is worse.

Re: Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

#18

Post by normalaccess »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #5
delichon wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first amendment prevents prohibiting it by law. If one party decided not to use social media to get their message out, the other party would get a huge advantage. Even if the parties agreed to leave that battlefield (a nice fantasy), they couldn't enforce it on their own candidates. So it would require a revolution or divine intervention to stop.

The amendments aren't god's laws passed to George Washington on Mt. Rushmore. We can change them if we feel it's appropriate. Commenter isn't making the case that the action is illegal, he's saying it's dystopian that the Government is making such blatant use of targeted media. And I agree.

But they are the best set of laws invented by humans so far for self governance. No kings, no popes, no dictators. As flawed as the current system is, the laws are good even if the people executing them are trash.

You can change lots of things much higher up in the system without taking away our God given rights enshrined in the founding documents to fix these kinds of issues.

Re: Weaponizing Ads: How Google and Facebook Ads Are Used to Wage Propaganda Wars

#19

Post by normalaccess »

delichon wrote: post #3
footlose_3815 wrote: post #2

Maybe a month ago, I started getting bombareded with every element of the right wing media ecosphere on Facebook. "Trump for President", Ben Shapiro, JD Vance, and piles of dogwhistle-named Facebook pages who are reaching for every way to feel relevant. Just recently, all of them, in-concert, started trying to focus on the lady who stole that Baseball at that game. All they are talking about for the last week. Promot…

The first amendment prevents prohibiting it by law. If one party decided not to use social media to get their message out, the other party would get a huge advantage. Even if the parties agreed to leave that battlefield (a nice fantasy), they couldn't enforce it on their own candidates. So it would require a revolution or divine intervention to stop.

This is true, it's an unfortunate race to the bottom of the attention economy. The only real solution is educating people about the trash tactics that are used to manipulate them.
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