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Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#261

Post by vixen99 »

eunos wrote: post #216
numair wrote: post #193

In case you think this is some esoteric issue involving kids’ stuff — keep in mind that the founder of TikTok was one of the most balanced voices within China, who argued that the country needed to engage with the West in a healthier manner. Zuckerberg et al and their incessant lobbying for that TikTok ban basically vaporized that guy’s pull within China, which eliminated a super-valuable asset for the West. So, yeah…

Trump (and Pompeo) destroys the liberal oriented ideology in China much more effectively than whatever Xi did.

Please explain?

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#262

Post by greenyoda »

While this story of Facebook smearing TikTok is getting all of HN's attention today, a perhaps more important story about Facebook is being ignored:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30855113

Summary: "A lawsuit accusing Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook of overstating its advertising audience got a lot bigger Tuesday when a court expanded the pool of plaintiffs to include more than 2 million small ad buyers.

Dismissing what he called a “blunderbuss of objections” by the company, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the case can proceed as a class action on behalf of small business owners and individuals who bought ads on Facebook or Instagram since Aug. 15, 2014.

The decision is another setback for the social networking giant after court filings in 2021 revealed that its audience-measuring tool was known by high-ranking Facebook executives to be unreliable because it was skewed by fake and duplicate accounts."

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#263

Post by Jackpillar »

bostonsre wrote: post #248
kmlx wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook continues to be the single greatest threat to Western society outside of Russia. this statement is both hyperbolic and naive at the same time.

Why is it hyperbolic and why is it naive? It was a tool used to influence elections in the United States, I can't think of any other entity that has had a larger negative impact on our society recently (maybe coronavirus?).

[dead]

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#265

Post by bko »

bostonsre wrote: post #248
kmlx wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook continues to be the single greatest threat to Western society outside of Russia. this statement is both hyperbolic and naive at the same time.

Why is it hyperbolic and why is it naive? It was a tool used to influence elections in the United States, I can't think of any other entity that has had a larger negative impact on our society recently (maybe coronavirus?).

> It was a tool used to influence elections in the United States

Are you talking about fake Russian accounts buying $100k worth of facebook ads in 2016? That constitutes 0.00625% of total spending (1.6 bn) on the 2016 election. Or are you talking about something else?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/facebook-sold-100000-ads-fak...

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#266

Post by dailyrorschach »

polyomino wrote: post #244
boomboomsubban wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And further in Mark Penn's Wikipedia article >Penn met with Trump in February and November 2019 to give him advice on his 2020 re-election strategy. The company claims to be right wing, why would you deny it?

I'm not denying that they claim to be republican, but their actions do serve both parties. As such, I don't think their claim to be republican is particularly meaningful.

Also worth context here that Stagwell is set up like another major holding company. They own Targeted Victory (R) and SKDKnickerbocker (D) as their two pillars in DC/public affairs/campaign comms. They also own other non-political communications companies.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#267

Post by sgjohnson »

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #207
lozenge wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Apple lies about performance on a stage... It's clearly from Apple and people treat it accordingly. Nobody relied on that information or even believed it. When Facebook pays a marketing agency to get anti tiktok headlines into local news, the reader has no idea who was involved and is left with negative impressions of tiktok that stay with them long after they forgot the details of the story (if they even read t…

Does this make Putin an ideal politician, since we know that anything that comes out of his mouth is likely a falsehood? That someone or something compulsively lies doesn't feel like a redeeming value.

Putin doesn’t care what the foreign audience thinks, whatever he says is almost certainly intended for his domestic audience.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#268

Post by pwython »

coldpie wrote: post #227
pwython wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The VW emissions violations are 100% proven deceit among customers and governments, as nefarious programming in their vehicles is much harder to detect than say, an editorial funded by FB spreading rumors about a competitor where the reader can form their own opinion. Unethical, yea, but 'small potatoes' compared to VW.

Facebook is party to genocide and is actively working to end democracy. Lying on emissions reports is small potatoes compared to that, yes.

While the VW scandal is based on facts with hard evidence [1], your other theory is currently conjecture.

[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830414-800-how-did-...

"Volkswagen programmed its on-board software to detect when cars with its TDI diesel engine were undergoing an emissions test, using information from the steering, brakes and accelerator. It then tweaked the engine settings to minimise levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx)."

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#269

Post by boc »

throwaway4good wrote: post #245
numair wrote: post #193

In case you think this is some esoteric issue involving kids’ stuff — keep in mind that the founder of TikTok was one of the most balanced voices within China, who argued that the country needed to engage with the West in a healthier manner. Zuckerberg et al and their incessant lobbying for that TikTok ban basically vaporized that guy’s pull within China, which eliminated a super-valuable asset for the West. So, yeah…

For many Chinese, the US has showed its true face in the past couple of years. Unfortunately this digs a lot deeper than Facebook. Facebook is guilty of poor management; involving themselves in partisan politics in order to get a competitor banned is an incredible stupid risk to take.

The US hasn't changed - it's always been a country of crazy people and smart people and zealots and honest, hard working folks. There's no such thing as our "true face" - American was populated by the radicals and risk-takers from other, older societies. We've always been a nation of slightly insane people.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#270

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

Woberto wrote: post #239
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent five years at Facebook, and it was probably the best place I've ever worked. The people were fantastic (except a the ex G and Amazon folks who were a lot less fun to work with), the problems were fun and the culture and tools were phenomenal. Granted, I don't agree with what they're doing in this article, but if you think they're the only big tech company that does this, I have a bunch of bridges to sell you…

Can I ask what kind of problems you enjoyed working on there?

Honestly, fixing ads related data science problems gave me a lot of satisfaction. I fully admit to being a weirdo, though.
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