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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

#151

Post by AnthonyMouse »

adrr wrote: post #148
toast0 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is putting up illegal ads, shouldn't you file suit against the advertiser? Advertising is a commercial activity, so it should be reasonable to follow the money and find the advertiser. If necessary, add more requirements for advertisers to be identified/indetifiable so that suits can be served.

Except for online, fault falls under the business providing the venue/platform. You get shot at a concert/bar/sport game, the venue is at fault. Everyone has a duty of care except for online and because they aren't liable, they don't care. Why is there a special carve out for online companies?

Happy to support the repeal of any laws that put liability on a physical venue for the actions of a third party.

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

#152

Post by _Algernon_ »

jpadkins wrote: post #69
_Algernon_ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do put additional editorial standards on news publications. This puts legal responsibility for the published content on the publisher. It doesn't seem like that big a step to apply a similar standard to advertising platforms. Advertisers have failed to selfregulate the ads they choose to publish and it is infeasible to use the court system to judicate every false ad (that would be millions of court cases). Ergo yo…

Can you give examples of laws that put editorial standards on publishers? I am not familiar with any (I mostly know US stuff). A quick search only returned: - Disclosure of Advertorial Content: U.S. law requires that if paid content is presented as editorial matter in a periodical, it must be clearly marked as an "advertisement". - Prohibiting Harmful Content: Laws prohibit publishing content that is obscene, libelou…

Here is an English translation of the Norwegian law around this topic: https://lovdata.no/dokument/NLE/lov/2020-05-29-59 (Chapter 4 is of particular interest for this discussion)

I assumed the US had something similar, but seems I was wrong.

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

#153

Post by pyrale »

jpadkins wrote: post #134
pyrale wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying google does not apply editorial oversight on ads they run? To the best of my knowledge google does restrict who can advertise with them, and their decisions are final and not subject to judicial oversight. In that context, what google chooses to allow and what they ban is newsworthy. In this specific case, even moreso, since the ads violate google’s own rules.

Ad networks apply editorial oversight with respect to their own published policies* I am not aware of any ad network policies that approach the subject of "what is true" or "what is propaganda". They also apply restrictions to what they are legally liable for which is fairly narrow today (I.e. child porn or harmful substances to minors, etc) Forcing ad networks to be the main arbiters of what is true vs. propaganda i…

> I am not aware of any ad network policies that approach the subject of "what is true" or "what is propaganda".

From the article:

> The ad mimicked a UN website but actually linked to an Israeli government page

You don't need to judge wether the information linked is true to judge whether the ad misrepresents what users will find behind the link. If Pepsi made ads using a fake Coca Cola website to redirect to pepsi products, they would run afoul of google's policy regardless of your opinion on Pepsi.

Whether you think this enforcement choice is legitimate or not, as you said, it's clearly an editorial choice from google, and there's no reason it should escape public scrutiny and, if needed, regulation.

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

#154

Post by normalaccess »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #108
normalaccess wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution is not a list of rights the people have, it's a list of rights the Government Doesn't have. You want to add government to fix government? Or take rights away to support your own chosen party? That's a fools errand. It's easy to spot a problem, but very hard to get the right solution.

Your entire assertion seems to boil down to "government bad" with no further analysis or theory. "Add government to fix government" is effectively how representative democracy works, at least in theory. The amendments we are currently discussing in fact fit the description of "adding government to fix government" quite literally; they were ratified additions to the Constitution. And like, yeah spotting problems is ea…

The amendments to the U.S. Constitution generally limited the power of the government as time went on.

Less government is *almost* always better. I'm no anarchist but I do believe that we need to massively trim the fat from time to time. And I also believe that America has the best foundation to build upon. I have yet to see better founding documents.

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

#155

Post by normalaccess »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #141
normalaccess wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

if god gave us those rights, they wouldn't need to be in a document. they would be intrinsic to our nature. i know this is cynical and people on Hacker News Dot Com hate when i say this, but it will never change the fact that the constitution was authored and approved by men who owned human beings (including at least one man who took the teeth from human beings he owned to put into his own mouth). i don't care how hi…

Because that is not the nature of man. Even angels fall when they forget who they are.

So good men are needed to push back the overwhelming desire to rule as gods over our fellow men.

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

#156

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

normalaccess wrote: post #155
GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if god gave us those rights, they wouldn't need to be in a document. they would be intrinsic to our nature. i know this is cynical and people on Hacker News Dot Com hate when i say this, but it will never change the fact that the constitution was authored and approved by men who owned human beings (including at least one man who took the teeth from human beings he owned to put into his own mouth). i don't care how hi…

Because that is not the nature of man. Even angels fall when they forget who they are. So good men are needed to push back the overwhelming desire to rule as gods over our fellow men.

it's so perfectly, sickeningly ironic that the historical figures we refer to as "good men" who "push back the overwhelming desire to rule as gods over our fellow men" literally claimed the right to own other human beings.

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

#157

Post by gessha »

philipallstar wrote: post #63
_Algernon_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> the comparison to stealing really misses the mark I know this always triggers a hard-coded response based on regex, but the comparison doesn't rely on the specifics of stealing, so it's not a valid criticism. The logic is: people offer things in exchange for a price. You can take the things in exchange for the price, or you can leave the things. You shouldn't take the things without paying the price.

I make a GET request and I get a response back. It’s the server’s choice/logic how to respond. What I do with the string response is my own business.

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

#158

Post by heavyset_go »

n8m8 wrote: post #6
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…

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…

> 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

I implore you to look at the advertisements and propaganda from ~100+ years ago. This was not the case, manipulation happened in the same ways it does today. Hell, go back ~250+ years and you'll see the same thing. Propaganda played a huge part in the founding of the US, for example.

Similarly, look up early Nazi and Third Reich propaganda. There are internet memes today that look like they were copied directly from some pamphlets printed in the 1930s.

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

#159

Post by heavyset_go »

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.

The last thing that ever needs to happen in the current US political climate is a Constitutional convention.

The worst people on the planet would love for an opportunity to carve up what few remaining rights people have left in favor of enshrining their power for centuries to come.

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

#160

Post by tracker1 »

etchalon wrote: post #111
tracker1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could create a law that says regional/national advertising requires a company or person be in that jurisdiction and that they must hold $$$ in bond as a guard against false claims. This would prevent foreign ads targeting domestic users, and/or give you an organization to sue domestically. In this case, it's likely that the Israeli govt would work through a US based org, and that in court that case would likely f…

Or you could just hold the platforms liable for the advertising they host, and leave it up to the platforms to decide how best to weigh the trade-offs between that liability and their, to date, woefully underwhelming moderation.

Because I'd prefer to preserve the freedom of speech to it's fullest extent as opposed to corporate or govt censorship.
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