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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

#31

Post by ehnto »

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…

> 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, etc.

There are studios that churn out crap games to capture the casual games market, which is not the gaming industry that an avid gamer would be familiar with.

Watch a kid with a tablet navigate the mobile/casual game market, you will feel sick. They flick between two dozen games in an hour, 90% of each game is locked behind microtransactions, and they get about a minute or two before the unskippable ad shows up.

The ad is for another lootbox/microtransaction fueled game, or actual gambling sometimes, and it's only another couple of minutes before an ad shows up in that game too. Rinse and repeat.

Kids are having their reward circuits absolutely fried, and it is not game enthusiasts making these games, it's just regular old capitalist companies who are trying to squeeze an opportunity.

It is every bit the exploitive, uncreative industry your friend thinks it is, but I do believe it is not the same as the games industry. It's like the difference between a board game and a slot machine.

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

#32

Post by JKCalhoun »

normalaccess wrote: post #19
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.

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.

> The only real solution

Do there western countries have the same problem as the U.S.? Are they doing a better job at what you suggest?

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

#34

Post by ceejayoz »

delichon wrote: post #22
ceejayoz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To say that every election and amendment is a revolution may be true in some sense, but it isn't near the colloquial definition. Neither, strictly speaking, would removal of political speech protections by the approval of 38 out of 50 states be an actual revolution, but that's a lot closer. And I doubt it's possible.

I certainly doubt it's going to happen - too many vested interests in power opposing. But it seems less impactful than, say, "women can now vote" in the spectrum of constitutional changes.

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

#35

Post by n8m8 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #21
n8m8 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Has me thinking: In any field, over time, there's R&D for it to become more effective. How this progression might apply to marketing: 1. Printed ads, newspapers, billboards, magazines -- You can explain your product and show a picture of what it looks like to demonstrate the value to customers 2. Television ads, black and white -- We can demonstrate the value to customers so well! 3. Wait a minute, if we…

>We've gone from "Demonstrate the value of our product" to "Create an illusion of our lifestyle" Scott Galloway occasionally mentions that he thinks most consumer spending is irrational and marketing spends purpose is to make people buy irrationally. Anecdotal observation supports his observation, most strikingly in fashion, where people buy the branded item that costs 100x (or more) than the equally useful unbranded…

I'm not familiar with him, thanks for sharing, will check out his work

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

#36

Post by armchairhacker »

gchamonlive wrote: post #15

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 governm…

What kind of regulation do you have in mind?

The government controls the algorithm? Then the government pushes propaganda.

The algorithm is public? Then what kind of public algorithm? "Sort by recency", "sort by popularity", etc. will be gamed by propaganda-pushers. "Sort by closest friends" is better, but I suspect even it will be gamed by adversaries who initially push genuine interesting content and encourage you to befriend them, then shift to propaganda.

Sorry to be cynical, but I doubt you can prevent people from being attracted to and influenced by propaganda; if necessary, well-funded organizations will hire paid actors to meet people in person. You must narrow the goal, e.g. can hinder foreign propaganda by down-weighting accounts from foreign IP addresses, detecting and down-weighting foreign accounts which use residential VPNs, and perhaps detecting and down-weighting domestic people who are especially influenced by foreign propaganda to the extent they're probably being funded (but you don't know, so then you get controversy and ambiguity...)

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

#37

Post by gruez »

gchamonlive wrote: post #15

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 governm…

Can you imagine this logic being applied to any other topic?

>At this point, whoever opposes [CSAM scanning/encryption backdoors] is in favor of [child abuse/criminal activity] ...

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

#39

Post by ehnto »

It is a disservice to yourself and family to not block ads. You shouldn't let these companies have a conduit into your life.

I don't think it's amorale to use the service for which you are blocking the ads for either. If they don't like it, they can try a new business model. They don't protect you, why should you protect them.

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

#40

Post by AnimalMuppet »

simpaticoder wrote: post #21
n8m8 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Has me thinking: In any field, over time, there's R&D for it to become more effective. How this progression might apply to marketing: 1. Printed ads, newspapers, billboards, magazines -- You can explain your product and show a picture of what it looks like to demonstrate the value to customers 2. Television ads, black and white -- We can demonstrate the value to customers so well! 3. Wait a minute, if we…

>We've gone from "Demonstrate the value of our product" to "Create an illusion of our lifestyle" Scott Galloway occasionally mentions that he thinks most consumer spending is irrational and marketing spends purpose is to make people buy irrationally. Anecdotal observation supports his observation, most strikingly in fashion, where people buy the branded item that costs 100x (or more) than the equally useful unbranded…

I read once that the goal of (most) advertising is to make the person you are envy the person you could be if you bought whatever they're selling. In other words, they're trying to steal your satisfaction, and then offering to sell it back to you.

Don't remember who said it, or I'd give credit where due...

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