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I'm no fan of Facebook, but I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election. It's hard to believe that they were aware of what was going

I'm no fan of Facebook, but I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election. It's hard to believe that they were aware of what was going on and allowed it to continue because they were making money off of it. The money they were getting was a pittance, all things considered.

alexasmyths 9y ago
The press swings memes in a pendulum. They hype, they hate, they hype, they hate. Right now, it seems their getting on finger wagging band wagon. When in 'hype' mode - the littlest, most innocuous thing is 'game changing'. When in 'hate mode' - the littlest, most incidental act is 'an example of the entire failure of the Valley'. Hype: Google Glasses 'will change how we interact as people' Hate: 'An Uber rider refused to accept seeing/helper dog = Silicon Valley is Evil'
- dasil003 9y ago
  The only problem with your theory is that The Media is not a monolithic entity.
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    It's definitely not 'my' theory. Major outlets are deeply intertwined and take cues from one another as to 'what the story of the hour' is. All of the 'grievances' purported by the press against SV today, could have been made 10 years ago - but they weren't. Why not? Andrew Keen at TechCrunch, or maybe the cynical guys at TheRegister were the only ones brave enough to say anything a while back. (Granted, Keen might be a cynic at heart :) ).
losvedir 9y ago
Even if they knew, I'm still not totally clear on what's wrong with running those ads. It seems everyone has such a low opinion of everyone else these days. I really wish the outcome of learning that Russians bought ads on facebook was a cultural antibody to not believe ads, not a call to ever more closely regulate what stuff people should see.
- bm1362 9y ago
  One could make the meta-argument that this is an attack on our trust in Facebook, a news conduit, and that the end result is people are more reliant on traditional news monopolies.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Avoiding the regulations on election spending and for those country's that have them the strict rules on political advertising eg in the UK all political adverts must have a named promoter who is registered
- danenania 9y ago
  While I agree that we don't want legally mandated censorship, companies like Facebook are constantly making decisions about what sorts of ads and content to allow or disallow on their platforms. I don't think it's too much to ask that they extend these policies to material that is designed by spy agencies to function as divisive and destabilizing propaganda. This kind of stuff can even lead directly to physical violence in extreme cases (think Pizzagate), so there is clearly some sort of line that these companies need to enforce if they want to be viewed as responsible actors. If they're smart, they'll self-police before it becomes a question of legal remedies.
  - vasilipupkin 9y ago
    Sure, but to somehow blame them for the stupidity of people that can be swayed by a ridiculous facebook ad is itself ridiculous. Facebook ads is not why Clinton lost to Trump and continuing to pretend like it is is just dumb.
    - danenania 9y ago
      We aren't just talking about some random FB ads. These were targeted specifically at undecided voters in swing states based on data from hacked voter rolls. It was a surgical operation designed to shift the balance while leaving a small footprint. It obviously wasn't the only factor, but given the extremely thin margins in the pivotal states, it's not unreasonable to wonder whether it could have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Whether or not it was the case, there should not be any question whether the elections of the world's supposed shining example of democracy might have been decided based on a foreign mafia state's disinformation campaign. Any companies that may have been unwitting accomplices need to own up and begin working on defensive measures immediately.
logfromblammo 9y ago
So people are angry that a media engine was used as a platform to deliver content designed to sway their opinions and behaviors using various forms of mendacity, exaggeration, obfuscation, prevarication, suggestion, dark psychology, titillation, and propaganda. Doesn't that describe all advertising? Also, shouldn't we be slightly happy that US tech companies were able to export US-audience advertising capacity to Russia, even though the dominant social network in Russia is now VKontakte? How much of this is just bellyaching because Facebook is making it too obvious that you are its product and not its customer, by selling its product (you) to foreign (to you) interests? Russia would not have been able to get impressions for so many so cheaply if the US valued critical thinking skills over the mindless consumerism and status signaling via re-sharing certain types of content.
- GVIrish 9y ago
  Well the first problem is that is a crime to allow a foreign national (which includes companies) to purchase political ads in US campaigns (Federal Election Campaign Act). If Russia efforts to buy ads on Facebook were sufficiently masked maybe Facebook wouldn't be responsible, but some indications are that some of these ads were purchased by clearly Russia entities. Second potential problem is that it is alleged that Facebook employees were embedded in the Trump campaign's digital efforts. This would not necessarily be a problem in and off itself, but there is a lot of rumbling about stolen voter data that was used for microtargetting on Facebook. If Facebook had knowledge of data that was illegally obtained by a hostile foreign intelligence service, there could be some additional culpability.
  - factsaresacred 9y ago
    They were not political ads. Does anyone read anymore? They were ads that highlighted social issues. That's it.
    - GVIrish 9y ago
      Most of the reporting I've read on that particular point state that most of the ads were aimed at divisive social issues rather than promoting a particular candidate, not that all of them were. Maybe the fact that the majority of the ads were not explicitly promoting or attacking any particular candidate will be enough to absolve Facebook of any blame. But chances are there were far more ads purchased than just that $100k buy so the question will be what did Facebook know, when did they know, and what did they do about it. Same deal with Twitter.
ZoeZoeBee 9y ago
>The money they were getting was a pittance, all things considered. Go a little further down the rabbit hole, you'll have your answer
659087 9y ago
> The money they were getting was a pittance Or at least, the money they told you they were getting was a pittance.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election Bad things happened through their products that would not have been possible, or at least as undetectable, without their products. "Bad things" refers to a foreign power running political ads to influence our democratic process. This is provoking a backlash. I find analogy in the financial services industry's response to the 2008 crisis. Let's zoom in on Goldman Sachs creating structured products with hedge funds betting against said products [1]. Goldman created a product referencing an index. This is like an ETF [2] referencing the S&P 500 except the relationship isn't 1:1 and the index isn't the S&P 500. Goldman asked a hedge fund to help it build the index because (a) the hedge fund knew the market well and (b) Goldman hoped to sell the risky part of the product to the fund. (The risky part bet on things going down. In every trade you need a buyer (long) and a seller (short). In every structured product you need parties betting up (long) and betting down (short).) TL; DR the hedge fund bought the risky part, Goldman marketed the other part, Goldman got paid its fee and the hedge fund made its money. "But these were sophisticated parties!" "But Goldman were acting as a market maker! They didn't have a fiduciary obligation to anyone and their counterparties knew this!" "But the hedge fund is an independent agent!" Doesn't matter. There was popular consensus that everyone looked like shit. If you don't say "that was shit, we won't let it happen again" you're in trouble. Society will create the laws and regulators to ensure it for you. Remember: laws are codified social constructs. The rule of law means codification precedes enforcement. But the social construct --> law process, the legislative process, is political. It's animalistic because we're animalistic. The counter-arguments I presented above are technically correct. Just like it's technically correct to claim Facebook doesn't manually review its ads. Or like it's technically correct to say said ads probably didn't sway the outcome of the election. It doesn't matter. Russia would not have been able to micro-target fractures in American society with the precision, and without detection, from afar as they did with the algorithmically- and selectively-deployed ad platforms Facebook, Google and Twitter built. That the negative effect is an inherent consequence of the system doesn't help. In fact, making that claim is counterproductive since it implies an independent outsider, i.e. a regulator, is needed to help rebuild the system. [1] https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/regulators-tackle-conflicts-in-securitization-deals/?_r=0 https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/regulators-tackle-co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund
GVIrish 9y ago
> I'm no fan of Facebook, but I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election. Allowing a foreign national to purchase political ads is a crime. If Facebook knew the buyer for these political ads was Russian, they were breaking the law. $100k may seem like a pittance, but it is very unlikely that it constitutes the entirety of Russia's efforts on Facebook. If there was any deeper collaboration with Russian persons seeking to influence the election there may be other crimes that were broken. This stuff is serious, especially considering the potential impact these efforts may have had. And judging by how both Facebook and Twitter are soft-pedaling, scrubbing data, and not answering questions, both organizations probably know they're in potential legal hot water.

alexasmyths 9y ago

The press swings memes in a pendulum. They hype, they hate, they hype, they hate. Right now, it seems their getting on finger wagging band wagon. When in 'hype' mode - the littlest, most innocuous thing is 'game changing'. When in 'hate mode' - the littlest, most incidental act is 'an example of the entire failure of the Valley'. Hype: Google Glasses 'will change how we interact as people' Hate: 'An Uber rider refused to accept seeing/helper dog = Silicon Valley is Evil'

dasil003 9y ago
The only problem with your theory is that The Media is not a monolithic entity.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  It's definitely not 'my' theory. Major outlets are deeply intertwined and take cues from one another as to 'what the story of the hour' is. All of the 'grievances' purported by the press against SV today, could have been made 10 years ago - but they weren't. Why not? Andrew Keen at TechCrunch, or maybe the cynical guys at TheRegister were the only ones brave enough to say anything a while back. (Granted, Keen might be a cynic at heart :) ).

losvedir 9y ago

Even if they knew, I'm still not totally clear on what's wrong with running those ads. It seems everyone has such a low opinion of everyone else these days. I really wish the outcome of learning that Russians bought ads on facebook was a cultural antibody to not believe ads, not a call to ever more closely regulate what stuff people should see.

bm1362 9y ago
One could make the meta-argument that this is an attack on our trust in Facebook, a news conduit, and that the end result is people are more reliant on traditional news monopolies.
walshemj 9y ago
Avoiding the regulations on election spending and for those country's that have them the strict rules on political advertising eg in the UK all political adverts must have a named promoter who is registered
danenania 9y ago
While I agree that we don't want legally mandated censorship, companies like Facebook are constantly making decisions about what sorts of ads and content to allow or disallow on their platforms. I don't think it's too much to ask that they extend these policies to material that is designed by spy agencies to function as divisive and destabilizing propaganda. This kind of stuff can even lead directly to physical violence in extreme cases (think Pizzagate), so there is clearly some sort of line that these companies need to enforce if they want to be viewed as responsible actors. If they're smart, they'll self-police before it becomes a question of legal remedies.
- vasilipupkin 9y ago
  Sure, but to somehow blame them for the stupidity of people that can be swayed by a ridiculous facebook ad is itself ridiculous. Facebook ads is not why Clinton lost to Trump and continuing to pretend like it is is just dumb.
  - danenania 9y ago
    We aren't just talking about some random FB ads. These were targeted specifically at undecided voters in swing states based on data from hacked voter rolls. It was a surgical operation designed to shift the balance while leaving a small footprint. It obviously wasn't the only factor, but given the extremely thin margins in the pivotal states, it's not unreasonable to wonder whether it could have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Whether or not it was the case, there should not be any question whether the elections of the world's supposed shining example of democracy might have been decided based on a foreign mafia state's disinformation campaign. Any companies that may have been unwitting accomplices need to own up and begin working on defensive measures immediately.

logfromblammo 9y ago

So people are angry that a media engine was used as a platform to deliver content designed to sway their opinions and behaviors using various forms of mendacity, exaggeration, obfuscation, prevarication, suggestion, dark psychology, titillation, and propaganda. Doesn't that describe all advertising? Also, shouldn't we be slightly happy that US tech companies were able to export US-audience advertising capacity to Russia, even though the dominant social network in Russia is now VKontakte? How much of this is just bellyaching because Facebook is making it too obvious that you are its product and not its customer, by selling its product (you) to foreign (to you) interests? Russia would not have been able to get impressions for so many so cheaply if the US valued critical thinking skills over the mindless consumerism and status signaling via re-sharing certain types of content.

GVIrish 9y ago
Well the first problem is that is a crime to allow a foreign national (which includes companies) to purchase political ads in US campaigns (Federal Election Campaign Act). If Russia efforts to buy ads on Facebook were sufficiently masked maybe Facebook wouldn't be responsible, but some indications are that some of these ads were purchased by clearly Russia entities. Second potential problem is that it is alleged that Facebook employees were embedded in the Trump campaign's digital efforts. This would not necessarily be a problem in and off itself, but there is a lot of rumbling about stolen voter data that was used for microtargetting on Facebook. If Facebook had knowledge of data that was illegally obtained by a hostile foreign intelligence service, there could be some additional culpability.
- factsaresacred 9y ago
  They were not political ads. Does anyone read anymore? They were ads that highlighted social issues. That's it.
  - GVIrish 9y ago
    Most of the reporting I've read on that particular point state that most of the ads were aimed at divisive social issues rather than promoting a particular candidate, not that all of them were. Maybe the fact that the majority of the ads were not explicitly promoting or attacking any particular candidate will be enough to absolve Facebook of any blame. But chances are there were far more ads purchased than just that $100k buy so the question will be what did Facebook know, when did they know, and what did they do about it. Same deal with Twitter.

ZoeZoeBee 9y ago

>The money they were getting was a pittance, all things considered. Go a little further down the rabbit hole, you'll have your answer

659087 9y ago

> The money they were getting was a pittance Or at least, the money they told you they were getting was a pittance.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election Bad things happened through their products that would not have been possible, or at least as undetectable, without their products. "Bad things" refers to a foreign power running political ads to influence our democratic process. This is provoking a backlash. I find analogy in the financial services industry's response to the 2008 crisis. Let's zoom in on Goldman Sachs creating structured products with hedge funds betting against said products [1]. Goldman created a product referencing an index. This is like an ETF [2] referencing the S&P 500 except the relationship isn't 1:1 and the index isn't the S&P 500. Goldman asked a hedge fund to help it build the index because (a) the hedge fund knew the market well and (b) Goldman hoped to sell the risky part of the product to the fund. (The risky part bet on things going down. In every trade you need a buyer (long) and a seller (short). In every structured product you need parties betting up (long) and betting down (short).) TL; DR the hedge fund bought the risky part, Goldman marketed the other part, Goldman got paid its fee and the hedge fund made its money. "But these were sophisticated parties!" "But Goldman were acting as a market maker! They didn't have a fiduciary obligation to anyone and their counterparties knew this!" "But the hedge fund is an independent agent!" Doesn't matter. There was popular consensus that everyone looked like shit. If you don't say "that was shit, we won't let it happen again" you're in trouble. Society will create the laws and regulators to ensure it for you. Remember: laws are codified social constructs. The rule of law means codification precedes enforcement. But the social construct --> law process, the legislative process, is political. It's animalistic because we're animalistic. The counter-arguments I presented above are technically correct. Just like it's technically correct to claim Facebook doesn't manually review its ads. Or like it's technically correct to say said ads probably didn't sway the outcome of the election. It doesn't matter. Russia would not have been able to micro-target fractures in American society with the precision, and without detection, from afar as they did with the algorithmically- and selectively-deployed ad platforms Facebook, Google and Twitter built. That the negative effect is an inherent consequence of the system doesn't help. In fact, making that claim is counterproductive since it implies an independent outsider, i.e. a regulator, is needed to help rebuild the system. [1] https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/regulators-tackle-conflicts-in-securitization-deals/?_r=0 https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/regulators-tackle-co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund

GVIrish 9y ago

> I'm no fan of Facebook, but I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election. Allowing a foreign national to purchase political ads is a crime. If Facebook knew the buyer for these political ads was Russian, they were breaking the law. $100k may seem like a pittance, but it is very unlikely that it constitutes the entirety of Russia's efforts on Facebook. If there was any deeper collaboration with Russian persons seeking to influence the election there may be other crimes that were broken. This stuff is serious, especially considering the potential impact these efforts may have had. And judging by how both Facebook and Twitter are soft-pedaling, scrubbing data, and not answering questions, both organizations probably know they're in potential legal hot water.