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I mean...... were foreign agents so obviously involved that they were buying election ads on foreign cards/wires with foreign billing addresses? This honestly

I mean...... were foreign agents so obviously involved that they were buying election ads on foreign cards/wires with foreign billing addresses? This honestly seems like it solves literally nothing. I'd be shocked to hear that foreign powers didn't already have e.g. diplomatic staff living in the US who were buying ads and listing their home or non-consular work addresses... Actually, is there any indication that listing a consular address is prohibited? Because if not, then not only does this seem to not solve anything, it would in fact fail with certainty to solve anything at all, except maybe give the USPS some extra much-needed revenue. Seriously, what am I missing here?

ejstronge 9y ago
> I mean...... were foreign agents so obviously involved that they were buying election ads on foreign cards/wires with foreign billing addresses? Yes. I think I've heard an egregious story in late 2016 but can't find a reference. For something less concrete, see RT's complaint against Twitter [1]. And a few other equally less-than-concrete report regarding Facebook[2] and others [3]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/27/russias-rt-reveals-twitters-pitch-to-sell-millions-of-dollars-in-2016-election-ads https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/27/russias-rt-rev... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/06/facebook-political-ads-russia-us-election-trump-clinton https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/06/facebook-... [3] https://www.recode.net/2017/10/6/16419388/facebook-google-twitter-russia-ads-2016-election-president-donald-trump https://www.recode.net/2017/10/6/16419388/facebook-google-tw...
- eganist 9y ago
  The conclusion I've reached is that this is a control against footgunning yourself as a foreign agent.
bemmu 9y ago
They need to show that they are doing something to combat this problem, and this is something.
pmorici 9y ago
There is a whole industry of companies that exist to give mail forwarding from a US address to foreign countries. They are mostly services used to buy stuff off ebay from sellers who won't ship outside the US due to higher chances of fraud.
- threeseed 9y ago
  I use them all the time. I have not seen any that will ship letters abroad without a notarized 1583 form. https://about.usps.com/forms/ps1583.pdf https://about.usps.com/forms/ps1583.pdf And of course it is possible that Facebook simply won't post letters to them (there are only a few of them around).
  - DrScump 9y ago
    What "letters" would they need to ship? Scenario: A: open credit or debit card account (can be stolen ID) B: choose e-statements C: when card arrives, reshipper just relays the card data (number/expiration/code) via email or text Nothing physical need be shipped overseas. As long as the account stays paid up, the genuine ID holder won't know without getting and carefully reading his credit report.
ggg9990 9y ago
What you’re missing is that Facebook doesn’t really want to solve this problem — dollars from Russians are still green. They just want the news story to go away.
- adventured 9y ago
  They generated $20 billion in operating income last year. They have $41 billion in cash. There's zero chance they're interested in the $2 million ad buy from Russian propaganda agents.
  - ggg9990 9y ago
    It’s not these ads in particular — it’s that culturally, Facebook believes that it should be able to sell whatever the hell ads it wants to whomever it pleases, and when someone questions that, Facebook’s instinctual response is “shut up please.”
- threeseed 9y ago
  This is just nonsense. Facebook absolutely wants to solve this problem. It harms their brand, they are attracting scores of negative media and worst of all every day of inaction gets them closer to media-style regulation. And they are unquestionably making changes from News Feed algorithm updates to more rigid rules around buying ads to additional factor authentication in this case.
- ewjordan 9y ago
  Facebook leans left AF, as do most places in the Bay (whether people like it or not) apart from special cases like Palantir. From the bottom to the top of the chain of command they are as upset as anyone that they were used to nudge things to the right. They want the news story to go away, but they also want to stuff it all down Putin's throat, and Trump's as well. Russian trolls did not make up even a small percentage of their ad profits last year, I wouldn't assume they're protecting them in the name of a very small amount of money.
ad_hominem 9y ago
It's purely a PR damage control move. Foreign agents would certainly know how to buy a PO box and/or incorporate an LLC.
- threeseed 9y ago
  Sure but don't you need to be a US Resident in order to get those ? Which means that if they were caught working on behalf of the Russians whilst on US soil then they would be looking at decades of jail time. Also at least there would be a physical, independent paper tail back to specific individuals. IMHO Facebook should just ban all political advertising but baring that this isn't actually a bad idea.
  - ryanhuff 9y ago
    Identity theft. The real person won't find out until the election is long over.
    - threeseed 9y ago
      But then the difficulty/cost shifts from basically zero to having to procure stolen identities as well as setting up PO Box/LLC. And since Facebook is likely to be restricting numbers/types of ads per account this could definitely make it prohibitive for a wide spread assault on Facebook ad system.
      - stevenwoo 9y ago
        Based on the recent Mueller indictments for among other things - identity theft, that is not a huge impediment for motivated users.
duxup 9y ago
They already were buying US identities / bank information in order to seem like US citizens.
jpalomaki 9y ago
Foreign entity engaging in this kind of action probably would not like to have a direct link from the campaign to their embassy or consulate. There's ways to get a few fake addresses, but it gets more complicated if you want thousands. If you run spend significant amounts of money for campaigns and run through just few accounts your activities are easy to detect.

ejstronge 9y ago

> I mean...... were foreign agents so obviously involved that they were buying election ads on foreign cards/wires with foreign billing addresses? Yes. I think I've heard an egregious story in late 2016 but can't find a reference. For something less concrete, see RT's complaint against Twitter [1]. And a few other equally less-than-concrete report regarding Facebook[2] and others [3]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/27/russias-rt-reveals-twitters-pitch-to-sell-millions-of-dollars-in-2016-election-ads https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/27/russias-rt-rev... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/06/facebook-political-ads-russia-us-election-trump-clinton https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/06/facebook-... [3] https://www.recode.net/2017/10/6/16419388/facebook-google-twitter-russia-ads-2016-election-president-donald-trump https://www.recode.net/2017/10/6/16419388/facebook-google-tw...

eganist 9y ago
The conclusion I've reached is that this is a control against footgunning yourself as a foreign agent.

bemmu 9y ago

They need to show that they are doing something to combat this problem, and this is something.

pmorici 9y ago

There is a whole industry of companies that exist to give mail forwarding from a US address to foreign countries. They are mostly services used to buy stuff off ebay from sellers who won't ship outside the US due to higher chances of fraud.

threeseed 9y ago
I use them all the time. I have not seen any that will ship letters abroad without a notarized 1583 form. https://about.usps.com/forms/ps1583.pdf https://about.usps.com/forms/ps1583.pdf And of course it is possible that Facebook simply won't post letters to them (there are only a few of them around).
- DrScump 9y ago
  What "letters" would they need to ship? Scenario: A: open credit or debit card account (can be stolen ID) B: choose e-statements C: when card arrives, reshipper just relays the card data (number/expiration/code) via email or text Nothing physical need be shipped overseas. As long as the account stays paid up, the genuine ID holder won't know without getting and carefully reading his credit report.

ggg9990 9y ago

What you’re missing is that Facebook doesn’t really want to solve this problem — dollars from Russians are still green. They just want the news story to go away.

adventured 9y ago
They generated $20 billion in operating income last year. They have $41 billion in cash. There's zero chance they're interested in the $2 million ad buy from Russian propaganda agents.
- ggg9990 9y ago
  It’s not these ads in particular — it’s that culturally, Facebook believes that it should be able to sell whatever the hell ads it wants to whomever it pleases, and when someone questions that, Facebook’s instinctual response is “shut up please.”
threeseed 9y ago
This is just nonsense. Facebook absolutely wants to solve this problem. It harms their brand, they are attracting scores of negative media and worst of all every day of inaction gets them closer to media-style regulation. And they are unquestionably making changes from News Feed algorithm updates to more rigid rules around buying ads to additional factor authentication in this case.
ewjordan 9y ago
Facebook leans left AF, as do most places in the Bay (whether people like it or not) apart from special cases like Palantir. From the bottom to the top of the chain of command they are as upset as anyone that they were used to nudge things to the right. They want the news story to go away, but they also want to stuff it all down Putin's throat, and Trump's as well. Russian trolls did not make up even a small percentage of their ad profits last year, I wouldn't assume they're protecting them in the name of a very small amount of money.

ad_hominem 9y ago

It's purely a PR damage control move. Foreign agents would certainly know how to buy a PO box and/or incorporate an LLC.

threeseed 9y ago
Sure but don't you need to be a US Resident in order to get those ? Which means that if they were caught working on behalf of the Russians whilst on US soil then they would be looking at decades of jail time. Also at least there would be a physical, independent paper tail back to specific individuals. IMHO Facebook should just ban all political advertising but baring that this isn't actually a bad idea.
- ryanhuff 9y ago
  Identity theft. The real person won't find out until the election is long over.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    But then the difficulty/cost shifts from basically zero to having to procure stolen identities as well as setting up PO Box/LLC. And since Facebook is likely to be restricting numbers/types of ads per account this could definitely make it prohibitive for a wide spread assault on Facebook ad system.
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      Based on the recent Mueller indictments for among other things - identity theft, that is not a huge impediment for motivated users.

duxup 9y ago

They already were buying US identities / bank information in order to seem like US citizens.

jpalomaki 9y ago

Foreign entity engaging in this kind of action probably would not like to have a direct link from the campaign to their embassy or consulate. There's ways to get a few fake addresses, but it gets more complicated if you want thousands. If you run spend significant amounts of money for campaigns and run through just few accounts your activities are easy to detect.