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We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

news.vice.com

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Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#301

Post by micimize »

jabagonuts wrote: post #101

> VICE News did not buy any Facebook ads as part of the test; rather, we received approval to include "Paid for by" disclosures for potential ads. Playing devil’s advocate here, but maybe Facebook doesn’t waste time on people who don’t actually buy ads? Would be a much more compelling argument if the were actually able to purchase and run ads, and would be curious to see if the actual act of payment triggered a real…

Agreed. This investigation was incomplete without actually running an ad. Just because Ninja Turtle's PAC was approved to use the "Paid for by" byline doesn't mean they could actually get their ad all the way through Facebook's approval process

Maybe Vice didn't do it because it would expose them to criminal impersonation charges? And maybe that's also why Facebook feels their current process is good enough.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#302

Post by osrec »

PunchTornado wrote: post #295
sah2ed wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (More than NPM FYI) I found your claim hard to believe so I went digging but couldn't find any recent resource on the total number of downloads npmjs.org handles per month. I could have sworn they used to publish aggregate stats prominently on their home page somewhere ... but can't seem to find it. Anyway, aggregating* the download numbers of just 12 of the top npm packages comes to about ~504.4m, or half a billio…

it cannot be more than npm. npm is basically 1 line of code = 1 package

lol, made me chuckle!

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#303

Post by ams6110 »

jklein11 wrote: post #287
StreamBright wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> I get the sense that FB simply wants to pass off the liability to ad buyer Totally. It is Russia's responsibility not to accidentally or knowingly meddle with an election, not Facebook's. I guess there is one last question, what was Zuckerberg doing in a congressional hearing?

I'm assuming this is sarcasm but I can kind of see the case that Facebook is making here. For example, if a drunk person behind the wheel of a Ford does a tremendous amount of damaage, no one goes after Ford for not preventing it. Facebook is a tool. Is it Facebook's responsibility to make sure that everyone uses it ethically? I can understand putting in measures to make sure that everyone is using it legally and hav…

One thing I'd point out is that a drunk driver, dangerous as he is for individuals in his path, can't really affect anything beyond his immediate vicinity. Facebook has national and world-wide influence.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#304

Post by ams6110 »

poooogles wrote: post #231
jjeaff wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing as Experian leaked every single SSN in America to hackers, I'd say a SSN is a very small hurdle. Even if it had to match, which I'm sure it does not have to match the disclosure name - just the name of the payor.

>Experian Don't you mean Equifax? Or have I missed something. Google doesn't show anything interesting...

Odds are they've been hacked. Too big a target. We just don't know it yet.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#305

Post by ams6110 »

wayfarer2s wrote: post #294
coffeemug wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Professionally "banned" is not a free speech issue in the slightest. This line of reasoning never made sense to me. Free speech is both a legal and a cultural issue. A modern society cannot credibly claim to be free on legal grounds alone. Yeah, the government won't put me in prison or fine me, but if I get fired for being a staunch liberal (or conservative) then I'm not really free, am I? This doesn't just apply t…

> Depriving people of their livelihood for expressing political views is absolutely a free speech issue. I don't think free speech is the issue here. There's a difference between expressing your views on your own time and involving the company that you work for to adopt those views. We've all seen the disclaimers that people put on their twitter profiles and blogs distancing their personal views from the companies th…

Yes free speech means the government can't limit what you say (with some specific exceptions). It doesn't mean you won't face consequences or backlash or insults or derision from those in the civilian world who disagree with you.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#306

Post by gopher2 »

waisbrot wrote: post #262
Zyst wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In order to run a “Paid for by” disclosure on Facebook, you must first submit the name to the company for approval, along with an image of a valid driver’s license and the last four digits of your Social Security number. Paragraph in question. Are the driver's licences they used not the ones of the Senators? Or maybe they photoshopped them, or something along those lines? I'm a bit unhappy at the lack of elaboration…

Yes, it's difficult to follow exactly what they did. This: > We used 10 fake Facebook pages with no content, and changed the “paid for” disclosure after each senator was approved. Makes it sound to me like they got approval using a real identity and then changed the now-approved account to use a different name. Methodology aside, though, Facebook shouldn't be showing that they verified the identity if they did not ve…

Based on other's comments in the thread about having their advertisements not approved by FB, it sounds like Facebook does have an approval process that is greater than just "literally not Mark Zuckerberg".

However, Vice got around this by getting an ad approved and then editing (changing entirely?) the name and other properties of the ad. Maybe Facebook should re-approve ads when certain properties change? It's definitely impersonation... I'm not sure what officially constitutes stealing an identity.

I'd be curious how this experiment of impersonating a senator and buying advertising would go across print/billboards/reddit/other platforms. Maybe Vice will try some more experiments.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#307

Post by gideon_b »

eridius wrote: post #148
andrewflnr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably one of the only people they could actually be sure wasn't buying Facebook ads. Whereas a senator buying Facebook ads is, in itself, quite likely. Not really a fair comparison.

So what you're saying is, because a senator could conceivably be running ads, then any ad that claims to be by a senator should be approved without scrutiny? Besides being preposterous, that same argument applies to literally anybody in the world except, I guess, Mark Zuckerberg. So it sounds like Facebook's algorithm for detecting abuse is `if submitter == "Mark Zuckerberg" { reject(); }`

Facebook has strict controls against impersonating Zuckerberg in ads for a very good reason. Facebook has had those controls for years and they have nothing to do with politics. This is the reason you can't impersonate Zuckerberg in ads:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/technology/fake-mark-zuck...

Banning ads mentioning Zuckerberg is easy, so it makes sense that system works well. Imagine building a review system to combat fraudulent political advertising on Facebook, how difficult and complex that would be.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#309

Post by count »

abainbridge wrote: post #300
jklein11 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming this is sarcasm but I can kind of see the case that Facebook is making here. For example, if a drunk person behind the wheel of a Ford does a tremendous amount of damaage, no one goes after Ford for not preventing it. Facebook is a tool. Is it Facebook's responsibility to make sure that everyone uses it ethically? I can understand putting in measures to make sure that everyone is using it legally and hav…

However, if a newspaper prints a story saying senator X said Y, and that claim was false, then the newspaper can be sued, regardless of where they got that information or which employee wrote the story. Given your analogy, the question is, is Facebook more like a car manufacturer or a newspaper?

If a newspaper runs an advertisement that turns out to be false (say, a fake claim about a thing for sale), is it the newspaper or the advertiser who's at fault?

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#310

Post by StreamBright »

jklein11 wrote: post #287
StreamBright wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> I get the sense that FB simply wants to pass off the liability to ad buyer Totally. It is Russia's responsibility not to accidentally or knowingly meddle with an election, not Facebook's. I guess there is one last question, what was Zuckerberg doing in a congressional hearing?

I'm assuming this is sarcasm but I can kind of see the case that Facebook is making here. For example, if a drunk person behind the wheel of a Ford does a tremendous amount of damaage, no one goes after Ford for not preventing it. Facebook is a tool. Is it Facebook's responsibility to make sure that everyone uses it ethically? I can understand putting in measures to make sure that everyone is using it legally and hav…

Drunk people do not install presidents.
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