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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

#41

Post by gchamonlive »

armchairhacker wrote: post #36
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…

I'm no political scientist, but I believe in checks and balances. It translates roughly to costly burocracy, but if the next president or Congress will face significant pushback either from each other or the judiciary, and if the democratic institutions are strong, then we can trust that a reasonably well structured law will prevent by itself abuse.

The law is abused in the US because they have the tradition of keeping the constitution to a bare minimum and govern by precedence and common sense, which as we can see isn't very productive.

So yeah I guess I'm advocating for burocracy for now, at least until someone comes with a better idea. I'd take burocracy many times before corporation abuse.

EDIT: now I see I haven't addressed the main question. I believe that society needs a mechanism to hold big tech platforms accountable for abuse. The speed which big techs can push certain kinds of information through their services is such that the due process, when it works, is only effective after damage is done and by then different accounts and different outlets are already pushing the same kind of disinformation ads. Therefore preemptive removal of this content is necessary. The problem now becomes how to make it so that the universe of content eligible for preemptive removal can't be abused by the current administration. How can we make it so that the Israeli misinformation machine can't overshadow other institutions, but at the same time guaranteeing that the next political party in power can't abuse this system to suppress valid propaganda from the opposition?

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

#42

Post by red_trumpet »

gruez wrote: post #37
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] ...

You are comparing the regulation of business practices to the breach of human rights. Do you also think your water company should be allowed to poison the water coming from your tap?

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

#44

Post by philipallstar »

ehnto wrote: post #39

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.

[flagged]

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

#45

Post by jimbohn »

pen2l wrote: post #27

Reddit is one of the most potent places where opinion-shaping has been happening. I've been getting ads for Reddit everywhere recently (even thought I've been a reddit user for about 20 years). r/worldnews is pretty tightly controlled, it's a default subreddit meaning 50+ million people see the posts submitted in this subreddit, and most critically, the ensuing conversation in comments which goes only in one directio…

And a lot of lead-generating subreddits are gatekept by admins/mods, sometimes for money. Also, there are russians offering services to promote (spam upvotes and fake comments) your product, and for some of our competitors it's very obvious when that happens, somehow reddit doesn't notice. Same about twitter, somehow super tight checks for normal users while some spam is somehow unfiltered. Social media is a destructive force.

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

#46

Post by _Algernon_ »

armchairhacker wrote: post #36
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…

Reverse chronological + subscription (ie. the user must actively make a choice to follow some channel or creator to get them in their feed). This is how most platforms started, and while there were still issues (eg. rewarding frequent posting) they seemed a lot less problematic than what we have today.

The main issue isn't the misinformation or disinformation; it is how quickly you can amplify reach and reach millions. Reverse chronological + follows based on active user choice would largely address that issue.

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

#47

Post by gchamonlive »

gruez wrote: post #37
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] ...

This is a stawman designed to misdirect the discussion. How about we keep discussing regulation in the context of ad abuse?

A valid criticism would be an implied false dichotomy in my original comment (either regulation or rampant corporate abuse). My idea is for us to discuss this. Is regulation not the right way? What's the alternative? Not, "oh if that doesn't work for all possible universe of applicable solutions, it doesn't deserve merit"

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

#48

Post by _Algernon_ »

cjs_ac wrote: post #23
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…

> 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 There's nothing stopping this hypothetical authoritarian president from creating this after they come to power.

It requires less political capital to repurpose an existing system than to introduce a new system for a specific purpose. See for instance the number of times Chat Control has failed to become law.

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

#49

Post by gchamonlive »

cjs_ac wrote: post #23
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…

> 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 There's nothing stopping this hypothetical authoritarian president from creating this after they come to power.

Which is why the democratic system relies on checks and balances. If the democratic institutions are strong an authoritarian governor will at worse face incredible pushback from the judiciary, if Congress and executive powers are taken over. If one of the three powers remain independent, there is hope to recover the democratic stability without a violent revolution.

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

#50

Post by _Algernon_ »

philipallstar wrote: post #44
ehnto wrote: post #39

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.

[flagged]

Stealing a physical thing = the previous owner can't use it.

Copying a thing or accessing a platform = the previous owner can still use or sell it.

Even if you consider it unethical access, the comparison to stealing really misses the mark.

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