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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

#101

Post by fragmede »

philipallstar wrote: post #84
snapcaster wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I truly believe I have no moral obligation to any of these entities and I see them as amoral organizations _at best_ who can't possibly reciprocate

Can you tell me the moral difference between that and saying that you don't believe you have a moral obligation to Porsche dealerships?

You do! In fact, I have a boxter and a 911, and I'm about to take out a mortgage for a Carerra GT. Why aren't you doing your part!? Are you gasp poor, or worse, lazy??? Am I going to have to report you to DepHomeSec?

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

#102

Post by ceejayoz »

helqn wrote: post #96
chpatrick wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence "allegedly", but I think it's pretty telling that the people who work at Google and Meta are okay with this.

Should everybody who works at Google and Meta be progressive?

You don't have to be progressive to be not "okay with this".

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

#103

Post by gruez »

jpadkins wrote: post #71
conover wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government (and/or society?) have already deputized private organizations to enforce various types of controls either implicitly or explicitly. Banks (AML) and Payment Processors (recent Steam content removal news) come to mind. Irrespective of whether it's a good or bad things, it already exists.

The Banks don't determine if you are a terrorist or what not. They comply with the order when a judge gives them a lawful order to freeze accounts. I think it's okay to deputize corporations for the execution of the law in the digital world. You really, really don't want the federal government or mega corps to determine what is the "truth" vs. "propaganda". It's way too much power in society to be centralized. The de…

>The Banks don't determine if you are a terrorist or what not. They comply with the order when a judge gives them a lawful order to freeze accounts.

How do you think this works in reality when the people getting sanctioned are trying to bypass the sanctions by creating shell companies and false identities? You either have a totally ineffective sanctions regime because it can be trivially be bypassed by setting up new shell companies, or a vaguely effective one because banks are deputized to figure out whether their customers are sanctioned or not. Luckily we have the latter.

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

#104

Post by sniffers »

dizlexic wrote: post #61
sniffers wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a deeply cynical and selfish point of view.

Why? Cynical is believing people must be protected from opinions. I'm far more optimistic than most.

Oooooof. Yeah, we should definitely let governments pipe their propaganda directly into every surface in our lives constantly. Surely that's something that's healthy and good for all of us. Governments have no incentive to lie and have no power to buy out all the bandwidth.

"Well, at least I made money on the government shutting down discussion" is deeply messed up.

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

#105

Post by phba »

everdrive wrote: post #14
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 c…

Option four: It is all part of a deliberate strategy.

The principles of propaganda are well established. Edward Bernays clearly described how to plant ideas and influence public opinion a hundred years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)). The only thing that has changed is the speed and intensity of communication.

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

#106

Post by const_cast »

jpadkins wrote: post #55

> Google did not pro-actively vet the truth of Israeli government claims It is really scary that people are pushing for Google and Meta to be the arbiter of truth. I don't think people realize what they are asking for. Western civilizations have a tradition of liberal free speech, and allowing the courts to sort out the specifics of what speech causes harm to what parties (libel, etc). There are already laws on the b…

You're correct, the solution then is to just block ads all together.

The reality is that ads are the primary vehicle for malicious content, whether it be malware, scams, or deception, on the web.

Google, as well as Meta, has demonstrated they do not take adequate measure to block said malicious content. This can lead to tangible real effects, such as getting scammed and losing your life savings.

Therefore, every web user should use a strict ad blocker per FBI recommendations. This is no longer a business question or a free-speech question, it is a computer system security question.

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

#107

Post by pyrale »

jpadkins wrote: post #55

> Google did not pro-actively vet the truth of Israeli government claims It is really scary that people are pushing for Google and Meta to be the arbiter of truth. I don't think people realize what they are asking for. Western civilizations have a tradition of liberal free speech, and allowing the courts to sort out the specifics of what speech causes harm to what parties (libel, etc). There are already laws on the b…

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.

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

#108

Post by ToucanLoucan »

normalaccess wrote: post #92
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell of an assertion to make when the laws have given rise to an administration that, by virtue of loading the courts, have effectively mimicked the exact sort of power plays one expects from a dictator, up to and including allusions from the leader about not having the next election.

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 easier than giving right solutions, but what you're discussing here feels a lot more like just giving up on it entirely, which seems a horrific practice when the entity in question literally runs your society?

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

#109

Post by nradov »

gchamonlive wrote: post #41
armchairhacker wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 keepi…

Your comment makes no sense. Laws and regulations aren't intended to be "productive" so that's a total non sequitur. The US Constitution has some flaws but it's still the closest anyone has come to perfection in the governance of human society.

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

#110

Post by titzer »

dizlexic wrote: post #60
RandomBacon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're saying that you believe money is more important than morals. You're not alone, and that is a problem.

I believe an individual is responsible for their own opinions. I also believe that people should spread their own opinions however they can. Personally, I think my outlook is much more moral than someone who wants to silence others. Objective truth is very rare, but differences of opinion are everywhere.

So let's get this straight. You admitted you make money off ad revenue which is 100% a business of using a platform for one thing (the thing people want) to instead allow random people with money to force information on other people to get them to think and do things (when said target people would, almost by definition, prefer not to think or do those things), selling people's attention and interrupting their lives on the regular, subtly coercing them using whatever deceptive tactics work best (the kinds of psychological and neurological vulnerabilities that exploit unconscious mammalian behavior), and seem to think that nothing in the social contract constrains you from vetting what garbage lies people put in the ecosystem, as long as you are making money.

Hard disagree on that being "moral". You let people put ideas into other people's heads because they pay you. And we're not talking "good" ideas like education and facts, but usually vapid consumerism crap at best and viral lies and propaganda at worst.

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