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We all wear tinfoil hats now

thenewatlantis.com

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Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#101

Post by kordlessagain »

toss1 wrote: post #99
linuxftw wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was to suppress and divert turnout of the opponent's supporters. Surely you're aware that political mudslinging ads have been a thing since like, forever, right? > finding black voters and highlighting Hillary's 25-year-ago comment on "superpredators" Maybe don't say such crazy things, don't have to worry about someone calling you out on it. I don't recall her campaign ever addressing this issue, I don't recall…

Yes, I'm very well aware that this has been a thing since, like, forever. A fine example was in the 2000 South Carolina primary when Karl Rove working for Bush, distributed door-to-door flyers just ahead of the primary that implied that John McCain had an illegitimate black baby from an affair. McCain had actually adopted a child from Bangladesh. McCain lost the primary. Similarly with the HRC issue. It is one thing…

All this is doing is leading to the looming amplification attributed to social media and hyper-connectivity.

Tipping something over when it is unstable is a decent strategy, but chances increase they'll get something squished at some point in the near future.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#102

Post by DubiousPusher »

darkerside wrote: post #65
DubiousPusher wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add to that you have to find some news sources outside the U.S. mainstream. For years I read all the biggies but there were all kinds of things I missed. U.S. deploying troops in Africa U.S. mistaken drone strikes against civilians Uighut detention in China The success of drug decriminalisation in Portugal Etc There is a collective bias in mainstream news wherein they decide what is interesting and bias again…

Is there a Drudge Report type aggregator specifically for this kind of news?

Man I wish. I don't know of one. I love the Drudge Report no matter what liberal media says about it. It's got crazy but it's got everything else too.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#103

Post by kordlessagain »

dangerface wrote: post #52

The op doesn't seem to know the first thing about advertising and is in denial of how it works. Op asks head of facebook advertising if advertising influences people, their response "No companies spend millions on advertising with us because it doesn't work!". > The gullibility of the latter two may have stemmed from wishful thinking: If Brexit and Trump could be traced to the malign influence of a single company The…

Other than the fact you are calling the wrong person an "op" I think this statement says a lot about you:

> the reality is that if advertising didn't work people wouldn't pay for it

People don't pay for advertising. Instead, corporate assholes who do advertising spend money on search for models which make enough to cover the costs of finding ways to get people to repeat the pattern of "re-seeing" or "re-hearing" a brand or message in mind. This is the non-corporate being that does this: the corporation or government.

The public's predisposed nature to keep your marketing crap out of their minds isn't a good excuse to do it, either. Even if it makes money and they allow it without knowing the cost.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#104

Post by mirimir »

toss1 wrote: post #79
dangerface wrote: post #52

The op doesn't seem to know the first thing about advertising and is in denial of how it works. Op asks head of facebook advertising if advertising influences people, their response "No companies spend millions on advertising with us because it doesn't work!". > The gullibility of the latter two may have stemmed from wishful thinking: If Brexit and Trump could be traced to the malign influence of a single company The…

Exactly. Moreover, the second sentence gets it entirely backwards >The previously little-known company, reporters claimed, had used behavioral influencing techniques to turn out social media users to vote in both elections. The major Cambridge Analytica push was not to increase turnout of supporters, it was to suppress and divert turnout of the opponent's supporters. E.g., finding black voters and highlighting Hillar…

Yes, exactly. This is a book review. But also propaganda. Almost a hit piece.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#105

Post by oarabbus_ »

34679 wrote: post #39

I'll put my "hat" on for a moment and ask: Why doesn't the FEC enforce its policy on the identification of political advertisements and who paid for them when it comes to social media activity? Why is it that a 30 second radio ad needs to have "Paid for by the Candidate X campaign", but millions of dollars worth of paid online trolls needn't disclose a thing? According to their own published rules, this sort of activ…

>but millions of dollars worth of paid online trolls needn't disclose a thing?

Can you elaborate? Twitter doesn't allow paid political advertising and Facebook has a clear disclaimer at the top of every such ad.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#106

Post by mirimir »

toss1 wrote: post #99
linuxftw wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was to suppress and divert turnout of the opponent's supporters. Surely you're aware that political mudslinging ads have been a thing since like, forever, right? > finding black voters and highlighting Hillary's 25-year-ago comment on "superpredators" Maybe don't say such crazy things, don't have to worry about someone calling you out on it. I don't recall her campaign ever addressing this issue, I don't recall…

Yes, I'm very well aware that this has been a thing since, like, forever. A fine example was in the 2000 South Carolina primary when Karl Rove working for Bush, distributed door-to-door flyers just ahead of the primary that implied that John McCain had an illegitimate black baby from an affair. McCain had actually adopted a child from Bangladesh. McCain lost the primary. Similarly with the HRC issue. It is one thing…

I've worked as a canvasser, and organized door-to-door campaigns. One of the key CA products was an app for canvassers, telling them about each home on their route. So they knew which homes to ignore, and what message to deliver for the ones worth hitting. And that both saved time, and arguably increased effectiveness.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#107

Post by SergeAx »

Propaganda is so old news. Brexit and MAGA today are touching the same strings inside people's souls that fascism and nazism did a hundred years ago. Evolution of media from newspapers and radio to TV and Internet just made propaganda more taylored.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#108

Post by jvagner »

a0zU wrote: post #100
ameister14 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As an ad insider I know first hand that the tactics used by Cambridge Analytica and other agencies work, thats why people pay me to do it. As another ad insider I know first hand that people are willing to pay me to do a ton of things that don't actually work. (They often continue trying to do so after I tell them it doesn't work and it's a bad idea) People and companies pay millions for things that don't work all t…

Just out of curiosity what are common things that people try that don't work?

* Buying lists, dumping money in email campaigns to lists

* Losing patience with the development of a sales funnel, dumping money into ads that have no reasonable copy, targeting, offer

* Repeating offers because the development of a sales strategy is hard

* Ignoring blockers to brand development.. such as changing the company name/logo often, ignoring feedback from current customers about things like broken products and poor customer experiences, etc., and instead, dumping money into ad campaigns instead

etc

etc

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#109

Post by darkerside »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #102
darkerside wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a Drudge Report type aggregator specifically for this kind of news?

Man I wish. I don't know of one. I love the Drudge Report no matter what liberal media says about it. It's got crazy but it's got everything else too.

Yeah, crowdsourced content is great, but there's something to be said for things curated by a single actual human being.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#110

Post by MR4D »

34679 wrote: post #39

I'll put my "hat" on for a moment and ask: Why doesn't the FEC enforce its policy on the identification of political advertisements and who paid for them when it comes to social media activity? Why is it that a 30 second radio ad needs to have "Paid for by the Candidate X campaign", but millions of dollars worth of paid online trolls needn't disclose a thing? According to their own published rules, this sort of activ…

There is a simple answer to this question (excellent question, BTW !)

The FEC can only do this if "political advertisement" is first defined.

And that's where you will most likely hit a wall. Let's run through a scenario to see if we can get people on HN to agree what is or is not a political "ad":

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "God, I hate paying taxes."

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "God, I hate paying high taxes."

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Why are we paying such high taxes?"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Why does anyone vote for these high taxes?"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Who votes for these high taxes?"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "We shouldn't have to pay such high taxes!"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Why wont anyone reduce our taxes?"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Why wont (insert politician) reduce our taxes?"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "They should vote to reduce these high taxes!"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "(insert politician) should vote to reduce these high taxes!"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Anyone who thinks these taxes are reasonable shouldn't be in office"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Anyone who thinks these taxes are reasonable shouldn't be voted out of office"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "That's it - I'm voting these tax-mongers out of office"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "That's it - I'm voting (insert politician) out of office"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "That's it - I'm voting these tax-mongers out of office, and you should too"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "That's it - I'm voting (insert politician) out of office, and you should too"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Vote these tax-mongers out of office"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Vote (insert politician) out of office"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Stop our excessive taxes!"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Stop our excessive taxes, (insert politician) !"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Stop our excessive taxes NOW!"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "I'd vote for anyone who will reduce our taxes!"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Vote for anyone who will reduce our taxes!"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "Vote to reduce our taxes!"

- Person tweeting on April 15th, "I'll vote for anyone who can beat (insert politician) and lower our taxes!"

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