7 ms·

Google, Facebook may have to reveal deepest secrets

44 points by zymhan 9y ago

mc32 9y ago
$1.5 billion was spent in the federal election season. 100k was bought by Russian interests and were questioning those 100k when we spend much more destabilizing other governments we oppose. Still, we should look into why a campaign season wastes 1.5 billion on one contest and no one bats an eye, or some do a little but the media couldn't care less. It's one of their cash cows.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- askvictor 9y ago
  Don't dismiss a (even much) smaller amount; if properly targeted it can be a lot more effective than the crop dusting approach that traditional advertising takes.
  - corporateslave2 9y ago
    Do you really believe this? You really think 100k stands up to 1Billion?
    - dlp211 9y ago
      Traditional media buys versus well targeted ads on Facebook. You don't need to sway everyone. That 100k stands up a lot more than one would think just comparing the two numbers.
      - corporateslave2 9y ago
        How do you know? Have you ever worked in online advertising? Most companies easily spend 100k a month. Are you aware you are being manipulated by the media on this story?
    - askvictor 9y ago
      Sure it can. If it can't then startups shouldn't bother, and revolutionaries, insurgents and freedom fighters should just surrender. I don't know enough about what happened in this case, but you can't dismiss the entire argument purely on the spend amount.
  - mc32 9y ago
    That's ridiculous. There is no way that a crack Russian/Ukranian team understand or have better info on the American public than American "pundits" and campaign professionals. Why couldn't Bernie buy 200k of highly targeted ads and beat Hillary or why couldn't a very well connected Hillary (who has good connections to Russia as well) not buy highly targeted and effective ads? I don't buy that narrative. There is no way a rag-tag team with $100k beats a political machine with real connections in DC, Wall Street, etc. which happened to also spend over $1billion. It's a ridiculous assertion. Why don't we, the US, buy these highly targeted ads in a place like Venezuela and get people to vote against Maduro (or any other gov't we don't like). It just does not work that way. Or, if it were to, the likes of FB and Google are doomed. Whoever this band of propagandists are they can undercut Madison ave and rake in the money for pennies on the dollar from corporate America.
    - blatherard 9y ago
      One of the questions being investigated is how such targeting might have been achieved. There just happened to be a data operation run by Jared Kushner, who is at the center of Mueller's investigation.
      - dmach 9y ago
        I also like to direct people to the following https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great... Also "no way a rag-tag team beats.." is straight from the plot of the movie Moneyball which is what we're talking about here. Also no-one is talking about GDPR which could stop this (please see below).
        mc32 9y ago
        We're talking several orders of magnitude here. It's not comparable to the moneyball sitch. The thing is, if that team has a secret sauce to convince people to change their minds, they are in the wrong game and would rake in billions serving corporate America and unseating Google and Facebook at their game. It's a tempest in a teapot.
- rtpg 9y ago
  Campaign finance is a big topic, at least for the Democrats. Public financing plus constitutional amendment to overturn Citizen's United was in the party program. And just because we do shitty things to other countries doesn't mean we should roll over and allow it to happen to us (see also: cyber attacks).
- throwawaylalala 9y ago
  Total sum is not less than 100k....
- seventytwo 9y ago
  $100k is only what's been proven so far. I highly doubt that's the entirety of the Russian influence campaign...
  - mc32 9y ago
    Then why are the likes of P&G rethinking their digital ads? You know, even if the amount were $10 million, in the face of over $1 Billion, it's still peanuts. If it were that easy, we'd be toppling regimes all over the world for pennies on the dollar but we're not because that's dreamland stuff.
    - Houshalter 9y ago
      Because an ad that makes people angry over a lie is 10 thousand times more effective than "buy our brand next time you shop". Why are we here commenting over a political story instead of about what toothpaste brand is best?
      - mc32 9y ago
        I don't think that captures it. You're basically arguing the angriest electorate will win. Obama won on Hope. I think what won the election this time was that people were a bit sick and tired of pols who promised all kinds of things but never delivered. Hillary promised all kinds of things and I would venture she never intended on delivering on many. Personally, I voted third party. I mean, if we look at her political history, it's always been opportunistic -by that I mean changing political position if it favored her. From the Super predator stuff to opposition to gay marriage to many things in between. I think people were tired of that and thought Trump offered an alternative which even if it didn't match up in all counts, they could at least believe he had the US interest in mind (as opposed to globalists who might have other priorities.) I think it's interesting that at one time the left campaigned against the mainstream left's globalist interventionist agenda but now they are proponents of globalism and interventionism and open borders. It's an interesting dynamic to witness.
- djikastra 9y ago
  Your point is moot. Inject 100k on a fake news items like "The pope is a paedofile" for instance and see the whole world talking and reposting it the next day. Spend a billion promoting something real but boring and you might see almost non-existent tracktion. By definition disinformation and destabilization campaigns are 1000x more effective, especially if organized by entities specializing on those for decades.
  - mc32 9y ago
    You're mistaken if you think there were not opposition ads against the opposition. Even just looking at the mainstream traditional ads by Hillary, they were very dark ads. Just the other day she was still chiding women for not voting for her, as if she was owed their vote. Who has that much entitlement? In your example Satan is accused of owning the pope and all other miscreants.
noncoml 9y ago
FB, Amazon and Google have to be split up. It is not in the interest of the society or safe to have such huge companies with such huge power. For Google at the very least the search engine has to become a separate independent entity with restrictions on how and what information is exchanges with the rest.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  I would argue that they do not to be split up, but commercial advertising has to be banned from the internet. This would fix pretty much every issue we face now.
  - malloreon 9y ago
    while we're doing things we'll never actually do, let's decide that money is not speech, ban all political contributions and publicly finance all election campaigns and fix every American problem for real.
  - davidcbc 9y ago
    That would solve all the current problems because the internet as we know it would collapse overnight and the world economy would be devastated.
- sabalaba 9y ago
  Many of the valuable projects that we get from FB (AI Research), Amazon (Echo, Kindle, etc.), Google (Brain, Waymo, GMail, Android, etc.), are due to their strong market position and a product that throws off cash. They have this market position because they are the best at what they do. These companies don't have monopolies because of government mandate, they have them because they make the best products. It's frightening to think that there are people out there who want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs but comforting that they are nowhere near the majority opinion. I hope it stays that way. I would hate to see Google Brain, Waymo, and Deep Mind go the way of Bell Labs.
  - pm90 9y ago
tanilama 9y ago
Well they are about to find out they are may be billions of features/factors that could involve those algorithms.
jstewartmobile 9y ago
The "Russia, Russia, Russia" Democrats are the same ones who want to regulate everything except silicon valley, this isn't even on the radar for the Republicans, and even Europe is somewhat in their thrall thanks to branch offices and the Dutch sandwich. All of this just proves to me that my US public school education on communism and the eastern bloc was simple propaganda. We are perfectly OK with having an unaccountable surveillance state as long as it makes money.
alehul 9y ago
It was apparently $100k spent by RT to promote news stories. Why is it so unusual for a news company to spend money promoting news stories on social media sites? This is nothing out of the ordinary (including if a government did try small actions to impact an election), and yet it has become such an intense witch hunt during the 2016 election.
- zeep 9y ago
  They are just overdoing it with this Russian witch hunt, it will end up costing them the election again if they keep up with it...
  - tw04 9y ago
    Who is "they"? If this isn't a bipartisan issue, that's a travesty and a mockery of our democracy. Another nation interfering in our elections shouldnt be a partisan issue.
    - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
      > "Another nation interfering in our elections shouldnt be a partisan issue." When you say "interfering," are you talking about buying ads?
      - tw04 9y ago
        Mueller's investigation has gone far beyond buying ads. But yes,I absolutely think it should be illegal for foreign nations to participate in our political process either through direct means (donations), or indirect (funding political ads), and I consider both interference in our elections.
        echaozh 9y ago
        Do the foreign countries you want to ban from influencing US elections include other western countries like Canada, Britain or Germany? What about Mexico? What if Mexico also bought ads to promote legalizing undocumented immigrants from Mexico? What if the undocumented immigrants themselves bought ads, do they count as foreign or domestic?
dmach 9y ago
Does anyone know how FB is planning to adhere to GDPR coming into force next year? Google are said to have stopped analysing peoples gmail. Could it be as simple as reducing the variables collected/predicted to a unashamed set that can be shown to users about themselves and could FB afford that?

44 points by zymhan 9y ago

mc32 9y ago

$1.5 billion was spent in the federal election season. 100k was bought by Russian interests and were questioning those 100k when we spend much more destabilizing other governments we oppose. Still, we should look into why a campaign season wastes 1.5 billion on one contest and no one bats an eye, or some do a little but the media couldn't care less. It's one of their cash cows.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
askvictor 9y ago
Don't dismiss a (even much) smaller amount; if properly targeted it can be a lot more effective than the crop dusting approach that traditional advertising takes.
- corporateslave2 9y ago
  Do you really believe this? You really think 100k stands up to 1Billion?
  - dlp211 9y ago
    Traditional media buys versus well targeted ads on Facebook. You don't need to sway everyone. That 100k stands up a lot more than one would think just comparing the two numbers.
    - corporateslave2 9y ago
      How do you know? Have you ever worked in online advertising? Most companies easily spend 100k a month. Are you aware you are being manipulated by the media on this story?
  - askvictor 9y ago
    Sure it can. If it can't then startups shouldn't bother, and revolutionaries, insurgents and freedom fighters should just surrender. I don't know enough about what happened in this case, but you can't dismiss the entire argument purely on the spend amount.
- mc32 9y ago
  That's ridiculous. There is no way that a crack Russian/Ukranian team understand or have better info on the American public than American "pundits" and campaign professionals. Why couldn't Bernie buy 200k of highly targeted ads and beat Hillary or why couldn't a very well connected Hillary (who has good connections to Russia as well) not buy highly targeted and effective ads? I don't buy that narrative. There is no way a rag-tag team with $100k beats a political machine with real connections in DC, Wall Street, etc. which happened to also spend over $1billion. It's a ridiculous assertion. Why don't we, the US, buy these highly targeted ads in a place like Venezuela and get people to vote against Maduro (or any other gov't we don't like). It just does not work that way. Or, if it were to, the likes of FB and Google are doomed. Whoever this band of propagandists are they can undercut Madison ave and rake in the money for pennies on the dollar from corporate America.
  - blatherard 9y ago
    One of the questions being investigated is how such targeting might have been achieved. There just happened to be a data operation run by Jared Kushner, who is at the center of Mueller's investigation.
    - dmach 9y ago
      I also like to direct people to the following https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great... Also "no way a rag-tag team beats.." is straight from the plot of the movie Moneyball which is what we're talking about here. Also no-one is talking about GDPR which could stop this (please see below).
      - mc32 9y ago
        We're talking several orders of magnitude here. It's not comparable to the moneyball sitch. The thing is, if that team has a secret sauce to convince people to change their minds, they are in the wrong game and would rake in billions serving corporate America and unseating Google and Facebook at their game. It's a tempest in a teapot.
rtpg 9y ago
Campaign finance is a big topic, at least for the Democrats. Public financing plus constitutional amendment to overturn Citizen's United was in the party program. And just because we do shitty things to other countries doesn't mean we should roll over and allow it to happen to us (see also: cyber attacks).
throwawaylalala 9y ago
Total sum is not less than 100k....
seventytwo 9y ago
$100k is only what's been proven so far. I highly doubt that's the entirety of the Russian influence campaign...
- mc32 9y ago
  Then why are the likes of P&G rethinking their digital ads? You know, even if the amount were $10 million, in the face of over $1 Billion, it's still peanuts. If it were that easy, we'd be toppling regimes all over the world for pennies on the dollar but we're not because that's dreamland stuff.
  - Houshalter 9y ago
    Because an ad that makes people angry over a lie is 10 thousand times more effective than "buy our brand next time you shop". Why are we here commenting over a political story instead of about what toothpaste brand is best?
    - mc32 9y ago
      I don't think that captures it. You're basically arguing the angriest electorate will win. Obama won on Hope. I think what won the election this time was that people were a bit sick and tired of pols who promised all kinds of things but never delivered. Hillary promised all kinds of things and I would venture she never intended on delivering on many. Personally, I voted third party. I mean, if we look at her political history, it's always been opportunistic -by that I mean changing political position if it favored her. From the Super predator stuff to opposition to gay marriage to many things in between. I think people were tired of that and thought Trump offered an alternative which even if it didn't match up in all counts, they could at least believe he had the US interest in mind (as opposed to globalists who might have other priorities.) I think it's interesting that at one time the left campaigned against the mainstream left's globalist interventionist agenda but now they are proponents of globalism and interventionism and open borders. It's an interesting dynamic to witness.
djikastra 9y ago
Your point is moot. Inject 100k on a fake news items like "The pope is a paedofile" for instance and see the whole world talking and reposting it the next day. Spend a billion promoting something real but boring and you might see almost non-existent tracktion. By definition disinformation and destabilization campaigns are 1000x more effective, especially if organized by entities specializing on those for decades.
- mc32 9y ago
  You're mistaken if you think there were not opposition ads against the opposition. Even just looking at the mainstream traditional ads by Hillary, they were very dark ads. Just the other day she was still chiding women for not voting for her, as if she was owed their vote. Who has that much entitlement? In your example Satan is accused of owning the pope and all other miscreants.

noncoml 9y ago

FB, Amazon and Google have to be split up. It is not in the interest of the society or safe to have such huge companies with such huge power. For Google at the very least the search engine has to become a separate independent entity with restrictions on how and what information is exchanges with the rest.

bigbugbag 9y ago
I would argue that they do not to be split up, but commercial advertising has to be banned from the internet. This would fix pretty much every issue we face now.
- malloreon 9y ago
  while we're doing things we'll never actually do, let's decide that money is not speech, ban all political contributions and publicly finance all election campaigns and fix every American problem for real.
- davidcbc 9y ago
  That would solve all the current problems because the internet as we know it would collapse overnight and the world economy would be devastated.
sabalaba 9y ago
Many of the valuable projects that we get from FB (AI Research), Amazon (Echo, Kindle, etc.), Google (Brain, Waymo, GMail, Android, etc.), are due to their strong market position and a product that throws off cash. They have this market position because they are the best at what they do. These companies don't have monopolies because of government mandate, they have them because they make the best products. It's frightening to think that there are people out there who want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs but comforting that they are nowhere near the majority opinion. I hope it stays that way. I would hate to see Google Brain, Waymo, and Deep Mind go the way of Bell Labs.
- pm90 9y ago

tanilama 9y ago

Well they are about to find out they are may be billions of features/factors that could involve those algorithms.

jstewartmobile 9y ago

The "Russia, Russia, Russia" Democrats are the same ones who want to regulate everything except silicon valley, this isn't even on the radar for the Republicans, and even Europe is somewhat in their thrall thanks to branch offices and the Dutch sandwich. All of this just proves to me that my US public school education on communism and the eastern bloc was simple propaganda. We are perfectly OK with having an unaccountable surveillance state as long as it makes money.

alehul 9y ago

It was apparently $100k spent by RT to promote news stories. Why is it so unusual for a news company to spend money promoting news stories on social media sites? This is nothing out of the ordinary (including if a government did try small actions to impact an election), and yet it has become such an intense witch hunt during the 2016 election.

zeep 9y ago
They are just overdoing it with this Russian witch hunt, it will end up costing them the election again if they keep up with it...
- tw04 9y ago
  Who is "they"? If this isn't a bipartisan issue, that's a travesty and a mockery of our democracy. Another nation interfering in our elections shouldnt be a partisan issue.
  - Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    > "Another nation interfering in our elections shouldnt be a partisan issue." When you say "interfering," are you talking about buying ads?
    - tw04 9y ago
      Mueller's investigation has gone far beyond buying ads. But yes,I absolutely think it should be illegal for foreign nations to participate in our political process either through direct means (donations), or indirect (funding political ads), and I consider both interference in our elections.
      - echaozh 9y ago
        Do the foreign countries you want to ban from influencing US elections include other western countries like Canada, Britain or Germany? What about Mexico? What if Mexico also bought ads to promote legalizing undocumented immigrants from Mexico? What if the undocumented immigrants themselves bought ads, do they count as foreign or domestic?

dmach 9y ago

Does anyone know how FB is planning to adhere to GDPR coming into force next year? Google are said to have stopped analysing peoples gmail. Could it be as simple as reducing the variables collected/predicted to a unashamed set that can be shown to users about themselves and could FB afford that?