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Labour HQ used Facebook ads to deceive Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign
- pasbesoin 8y agoPaywall stops me from getting past the top. But, just wow. If it accurately reflects what happened, well, they're going to have to designate a new category of shitstorm. One that, I hope, sucks in FB and forces some true accounting and reckoning, not just of this circumstance but as a fundamental part of the platform and business practices.
- superflyguy 8y agoIn many instances, such as here, they don't make you verify an email sign up. Always worth a try. For grins I always make up an email address at the site's own domain.
- sjclemmy 8y agoIs Jeremy Corbin on Facebook? Edit: it’s a serious question. He may have a presence but is it actually him?
- adamnemecek 8y agoProgramming people seems to be the next frontier of programming.
- mkempe 8y agoHasn't social engineering always been a common aspect of hacking?
- 52-6F-62 8y agoAbsolutely. There's a difference in scale and intent, however. Probably simplifying here... I think the hacking thing always had a bit more of a Robin Hood complex coupled with it. The lone renegades taking on powers and organizations much larger than themselves for entertainment, or acquiring status that they weren't otherwise bestowed. This is powers using it to manipulate other powers, where the price is paid by the people 'Robin Hoods' were never originally out to exploit.
- mygo 8y agocrooks and con men have been doing as such long before digital computers.
- adamnemecek 8y agoSocial engineering is more two sided. You are trying to get something out of these people, like something very concrete. This is more propaganda.
- enraged_camel 8y agoPropaganda also may try to get things out of people: consent, votes, etc.
- paulie_a 8y agoThose people generally don't put it on their resumes, having Facebook on your resume is now something that makes it end up in the trash.
- bryanrasmussen 8y agohuh we need a new version of the GDPR already it seems. Unfortunately it won't help Britain.
- detaro 8y agoWhat do you think should it regulate that currently isn't?
- albertgoeswoof 8y agoPerhaps we should be regulating marketing? It clearly doesn't serve the public interest to allow micro-targeting at this level, particularly in political situations.
- bryanrasmussen 8y agosorry didn't answer earlier, on vacation - but I don't think there is a provision that allows a company to sell access to profiles that end up micro targeting 1 individual or maybe a provision saying no sell of advertising can be written to target less than 100 people, only people employed by one employer, or in one location - location described as (some description that keeps you from targeting everyone in a particular building.)
- Raphael 8y agoWe don't need a new law. The schemers can be fired and rules can be written to guard against it.
- bryanrasmussen 8y agowhat do you think a rule to guard against it is - in my world that's a law.
- hellllllllooo 8y agoWow. We've seen people microtarget leaders and CEOs with ads on Facebook to get a job. http://twicsy-blog.tumblr.com/post/174063770074/how-i-targeted-the-reddit-ceo-with-facebook-ads-to http://twicsy-blog.tumblr.com/post/174063770074/how-i-target... This is a case where microtargeting the boss hopefully cost them their job. This is completely unethical.
- madrox 8y agoI don't disagree, per se, but it's interesting that we have no problem with leaders of corporations personalizing ads for individuals while we are bothered when the position is reversed.
- y4mi 8y agoThe goal is the problem. The leaders of the corporations try to convince you to waste your money or time. This time the goal was to discredit someone.
- notahacker 8y agoThe goal was to satisfy the boss that suggestions they didn't think would work were being carried out whilst spending the bulk of their ad budget on things they thought would work out. It's far closer to the case where workers send a board they think is clueless a link to some boilerplate code as the requested "blockchain" whilst continuing to implement the Postgres solution they're pretty convinced will work.
- yamakadi 8y agoPolitical parties are not companies though. The workers in your example will eventually be held responsible if their preferred solution fails even though they might not get the credit if it succeeds. In Corbyn’s case, as the Labour leader, he has to stand behind the messages disseminated under his leadership with his name. Any positive impact on votes by the wider campaign will likely result in voter deception, since Corbyn will believe his message is what worked. The most worrisome issue here is that Corbyn’s goals don’t align with his subordinates, yes, but deceiving a political leader isn’t just about that leader but the voters as well.
- andy_ppp 8y agoSo they ran ultra left wing ads micro targeted at Corbyn and similar supporters so these people thought everyone was seeing them. I really wonder if micro targeting should just be switched off for everyone during political campaigns. It allows political parties to do exactly this, be literally all things to all people rather than genuine in their messaging. How can we educate people this is happening? I’m certain it’s hugely effective and undermines democracy in a way newspapers or TV could never have dreamed of.
- wpietri 8y agoSwitching off microtargeting is a really interesting idea. I'd also love to see more disclosure. At least, "Why am I seeing this?" and "Who else is seeing this?" reports. But hopefully a full public dump of who's pushing what messages to whom.
- 734786710934 8y agoThat already exists. If you click the menu icon next to an ad on Facebook you can select "Why am I seeing this?". You can also see all the advertisers who have targeted you on https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/ https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/.
- ceejayoz 8y agoIt's kinda useless, though. They give you the most general of the targeting - all mine say stuff like "men in the United States" when they've clearly got additional very specific stuff enabled.
- elorant 8y agoSo how exactly microtargetting works? They target his interests? Or just import emails and hope they match the ones they provided?
- corobo 8y ago> micro-targeting Facebook adverts at the leader and his closest aides I'm guessing they created a new target list by uploading enough peoples' email addresses to get past Facebook's minimum list length. I don't know how many that is but when I last had a look at it a couple years back the minimum was 20
- Rjevski 8y agoI think they raised that limit recently, but again nothing prevents you from creating lots of fake profiles just to get past that limit, then targeting all those profiles + the real user you want to target.
- pertymcpert 8y agoWait, what? You can target someone using their email address?
- detaro 8y agoYes: https://www.facebook.com/business/a/custom-audiences https://www.facebook.com/business/a/custom-audiences
- ascorbic 8y agoI believe that the majority of political microtargeting uses custom audiences. It's the way they assemble these lists that is really dodgy, and is the thing Cambridge Analytica is in trouble for.
- elorant 8y agoWe should open a new thread some day with all the hacks you can do to target people on FB.
- keithpeter 8y agohttps://www.facebook.com/rsaeventsofficial/videos/1986125631409355/ https://www.facebook.com/rsaeventsofficial/videos/1986125631... The authors of the book mentioned in The Times article did a speech/interview at the RSA on Thursday, video above. I don't use Facebook and therefore can't log in, but I would imagine that Corbyn was aware of the campaign's general impact through wider relationships (trade unions, Momentum, family members, sparring partners in Parliament &c)
- mkempe 8y agoFrom a sporting (British?) point of view, it's a brilliant move. Other than that it's profoundly dishonest, and one has to wonder who they consider as their true enemy.
- mkempe 8y agoWhoever down-voted this does not understand sports, nor the British love of sports and betting. Maybe read some P.G. Wodehouse to understand and lighten up.
- trhway 8y agoi think microtargetting criteria should be disclosed the same way as who paid for the ad, be it commercial or political, doesn't matter. "This ad targeting filters: 'white, male, xenophobe', paid for by Russian government"
- alangpierce 8y agoI think this actually already happens (at least the criteria part) for Facebook ads. I just went to Facebook and went to the "..." menu for one of the ads that showed up and clicked "Why am I seeing this?". It said this: "You're seeing this ad because Freshly wants to reach people ages 18 and older who live or were recently in California. This is information based on your Facebook profile and where you've connected to the internet." So my impression is that Facebook already allows you to see the exact targeting criteria that went into any ad that shows up. Maybe if this was more prominent, especially in cases where the filter seems suspiciously like microtargeting, the trick wouldn't have worked.
- PunchTornado 8y agowhat makes you think white males are more likely to be xenophobes?
- detaro 8y agothey are not saying that.
- GreeniFi 8y agoThis is disturbing for the following reasons: 1. It alerts us to the possibility of fake political adverts. Do I (hypothetically)see an ad purporting to be a Tory ad promising something that will damage me, placed by a non-Tory actor? 2. Are unknown actors placing adverts which cause discord and dislike? 3. How do we solve this problem? Where FB is not regulated it will be impossible to knowingly audit the materials on its platform. 4. Given FB’s lobbying power, is regulation even possible?
- seanhandley 8y agoThis is why I left Facebook. The feasible subversion of democracy is pretty frightening.
- nannal 8y agoIsn't it more an argument that you should ensure that you ensure information you act on comes from credible sources. Subversion and deception are everywhere online now and we live in a perpetual psy-ops nightmare. By which I mean leaving facebook is a start, but there's a lot more to protecting yourself against false information.
- radicalbyte 8y agoThank goodness for adblockers :)
- Gargoyle 8y agoFake advertising for the purpose of creating discord is as old as political advertising. I had a friend run for state legislature in the 1990s, his opponent sent people around targeted neighborhoods passing out fake flyers for my friend's campaign. They used his name and photo, but attributed positions he did not hold to him. I imagine before cheap printing, it was gossip. I'm sure it's been the case since democracy started.
- eeeuo 8y agoPeople often suggest that the Internet is a problem in terms of disinformation, but I'd argue in many cases that the Internet actually helps. In pre-Internet days, it was difficult to get someone's views in their own words, especially in real-time. All information was filtered through various sources before being passed onto the consumer. Now, it's straightforward to check their website, or their twitter, or their youtube. This, of course, is not perfect and requires a root-of-trust involving Google and DNS, but I'd certainly take that tradeoff versus Guy On The Street asserting things.
- cozzyd 8y agoNext you'll have morning tv shows specifically targeting world leaders who watch them.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIf you want to get meta, John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight has bought ads during Fox And Friends to counter the show’s influence on the president. http://thehill.com/homenews/media/360076-john-oliver-to-sneak-info-to-trump-through-fox-friends-ads http://thehill.com/homenews/media/360076-john-oliver-to-snea... EDIT: Oof, tough croud.
- leoc 8y agoI can't imagine what ads will cost on the Gorilla Channel.
- vnchr 8y agoGorillions of dollars, I’m sure!
- AngryData 8y agoJust another example on why marketing and advertisement is a scourge upon society, it is far to easy to manipulate from the background without oversight or any ethical or moral considerations and is known to be highly effective at making people act against even their own self interests.
- andrepd 8y agoMy point exactly. Advertising is unethical/immoral, plain and simple.
- rankam 8y agoWhat if you are advertising to raise money/awareness for the poor/in-need? Is that unethical/immoral?
- contravariant 8y agoIf you were to ask Kant, yes. Assuming he'd agree that advertising was immoral, which he arguably would as advertising manipulates people in a way that might not be in their best interests, thereby using them as means and not as ends in and of themselves. It's an interesting case though as merely informing people is not immoral, far from it, you have a moral duty to spread information that you think would help others. The problem with advertising is that it's not furthering other people's goals, but instead uses them as means to further the advertisers goals, which violates Kant's principles.
- dibstern 8y agoYou’re just arguing from Kant’s authority here. In my view (and in the views of many others, including many renowned philosophers and many important legal systems) Kant’s views are deeply flawed (anyone can argue from some authority). But this is my view because there are many situations in which otherwise ‘bad’ actions may be easily justified. Sure, ethics is currently a matter of opinion, but I think the fact that some opinions on ethics are more easily lambasted than others suggests that their quality differs. And yours is certainly a minority opinion, a good thing in my view.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoI'm fascinated to see the apparently limitless efforts that both the media and his own party went to in order to brand Corbyn as an extreme and dangerous left winger and undermine his progress. His policies were comparable to, and sometimes to the right of, those of the SDP. The SDP being the right of the Labour party who split in the 1980s and later merged with the Liberals to give today's LibDems. He was more of the fringe in his youth. So were quite a lot of people, current politicians, even Blairites included. Peter Hain (anti-apartheid and gay rights) and David Blunkett (Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire[0]) spring to mind as having had far more activist and strident roots than Corbyn. Blunkett went on to be a Home Secretary the right of the Tory party would have been proud of. Edit: Nowhere am I advocating his policies, why the downvotes? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Republic_of_South_Yorkshire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Republic_of_South_Yo...
- noobermin 8y agoIn the spirit of current split in dominance between neoliberals and the far right, labor-ish politicians are well left of the current establishment.
- crdoconnor 8y agoMost of the Blairites had deep links to elite establishment institutions (think tanks, global nonprofits) and industry (media, PR, finance, etc.). That formed the mainstay of their power while Corbyn's power base was grass roots (e.g. Momentum), left wing activist networks and unions. Ultimately it wasn't really about policy for the rebel MPs, it was about seeing the main source of their power undermined. There isn't much of a career left for the Blairites under Corbyn. Lots of corporate groups allied with the PLP hate his policies though. Richard Branson with his rail franchise and attempts to set up an American style HMO is obviously no fan, for example.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoYou're entirely right, of course. It's the schadenfreude of watching everyone framing him as some sort of neo Trotskyite. Blairites have little career under any leader until memories have faded and there's another tipping point like Black Monday that brought them in in the first place. Brexit looks like it could easily cause one of those, going on current negotiations, so perhaps they won't be waiting too long.
- addicted 8y agoBtw, for all those who like to step in other aritcles about the concerns with social media, to tell us how it's just like TV was a few decades ago, this article shows why it absolutely is not. The persoinal targeting provided by FB and the like makes it an entirely different beast from past experiences.
- Eridrus 8y agoIt's not like TV, it's like mail advertising, which was starting to get attention for its lack of transparency before the 2016 cycle got everyone hyper attuned to Facebook's issues.
- ardy42 8y ago> It's not like TV, it's like mail advertising Exactly. Targeted advertising is the junk mail that stuffs your mailbox and the spam that stuffs your inbox (or would, without massive technical mitigations). It's not the ads you see in a magazine or while watching TV.
- frabbit 8y agoAnd also the telephone `robocall' e.g. the Canadian conservative party`s voter suppression attempts : https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/key-facts-in-canada-s-robocalls-controversy-1.2736659 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/key-facts-in-canada-s-roboc...
- Uhhrrr 8y agoCould one microtarget NSA and DHS employees in this fashion?
- Rjevski 8y agoYet another example of why advertising is cancer and should be eradicated.
- rossdavidh 8y agoWow, a left-of-center party more worried about change from within than they are about losing the election to the right. What a bizarre and unprecedented thing. Thankfully that could never happen in my home country, the USA.
- user982 8y agoIt helps that you do not have a real left-of-center party to begin with.
- shanghaiaway 8y agoAll political parties in the US are basically communist
- dang 8y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
- Sharlin 8y agoI presume the GP was being sarcastic and referred to Clinton vs Sanders.
- alecco 8y agoDemocrats turned hard left, recently. Sure, on banal stuff like identity politics while keeping ties with Goldman Sachs & co.
- mschuster91 8y ago> Wow, a left-of-center party more worried about change from within than they are about losing the election to the right. Being honorless to their ideals is actually something Social Democrats have a proven history - the German ones for example allowed the war bonds prior to WW1, prior to WW2 the SD leadership lacked the guts to oppose Hitler ("Preußenschlag", and a total underestimation of Hitler in the last months until the Machtergreifung), and modern Social Democrats went full scale neoliberal (most famously they gutted social security with the Hartz IV reforms). As a result, the neo-nazis of the AfD are the second most powerful party in both federal and bavarian polls, sharing the position with the Social Democrats...
- PunchTornado 8y agoI'm confused. Jeremy Corbyn could have clicked on the button "why do I see this ad" and find out he was targeted.
- raesene9 8y agoWhat makes you think that non-technical people would think to do that? It's not exactly common knowledge. Even the idea of that ads can be targeted this tightly isn't common knowledge outside of technical circles.
- ascorbic 8y agoHe'd see that he was targeted as part of a custom audience, which is exactly what he'd expect, as I'd assume that that's what most of the Labour Party ads used.
- downandout 8y agoFrom the article: ”When the leader of a political party can be tricked in such fashion by his own officials, voters themselves stand little chance.” This event does not support the conclusion that social media ads are effective at “tricking voters”. These ads weren’t even shown to voters. Employees simply microtargeted their boss to convince him that the ads were running. The idea that social media ads are somehow effective at brainwashing people into switching sides has been a clickbait staple among journalists the last few years, but it is wholly unproven. If they want to sell this narrative, they’ll certainly need do it more convincingly than they did here.
- yawaramin 8y agoI think it supports the conclusion very well. If you can microtarget ads at segments of voters, you can find a way to tell different types of people exactly what they want to hear. You can quite effectively prey on their fears and weaknesses, pit them against each other–divide and conquer. Facebook has long promised more visibility for users into ads, and that would go a long way to fighting this kind of trickery ... if it ever materialises.
- downandout 8y agoPeople don’t look to social media for content that changes their opinion. They look to it to confirm their already held opinions. It’s an echo chamber. Nobody is changing their opinion based on a random ad they see on Facebook. The genesis of these articles - the media’s quest to explain how it failed to manipulate our Presiential election in favor of their chosen candidate - is also based on a false premise. Russian Facebook ads didn’t get Trump elected. The choice by Democrats to run a candidate against him that much of the country disliked did.
- repolfx 8y agoAnd what makes you think you know the personal fears and weaknesses of every single voter, or that you can trivially flip votes by making ads about them? After all, in theory politicians are actually meant to implement manifestos, and if they are telling everyone different messages that'll get picked up immediately once people start debating the election down their local drinking hole. The idea that you can buy elections through advertising is a typical position of the left (and these days, by extension, of journalists). Recall the huge fuss Obama and the Democrats kicked up when campaign spending limits were removed by the Supreme Court? Obama was even talking about a constitutional amendment. Then Hillary outspent Trump 2:1 on advertising and still lost. They disproved their own thesis.
- mc32 8y agoThis pretty interesting, not only did his campaign fool him, they fooled the people voting for Corbyn —they made him appear more centrist than he actually was for, they feared, if they broadcast his real intended message to all, it might have turned voters away from his views.
- mark212 8y agoOne could very plausibly argue that the second point (making the candidate more electable / centrist) has been the entire point of political campaigning since the ancient Greeks. Politicians have been lying to voters (or more charitably, putting their best foot forward) since the very beginning of democracy. Usually the candidate is in on it. Remarkably, Corbyn isn’t or wasn’t so they had to pull this stunt.
- frabbit 8y agoThat`s one of the really interesting questions in this. But if you look at polls on the policies which were supposedly so left wing they would turn away voters then another conclusion can be reached: namely that Corbyn`s left-wing policies are more in tune with the electorate and that this sabotage by HQ may have cost Labour the last election. Someone should be going to jail for this.
- leoc 8y agoThis may be the second most cyberpunk thing to happen in the past short while, after the rise of virtual reality being impeded by people buying all the video cards to pan for virtual gold of course.
- nailer 8y agoImagine if it was the post. The campaign managers could post far left pamphlets to Jeremy Corbyn's house and select journalists, and send mainstream ones to most houses. Would we see this as an error in the postal system, or simply another issue of dishonesty?
- frabbit 8y agoHere is a non-paywalled report on the same topic from another source: https://inews.co.uk/news/labour-staff-deceived-corbyn-facebook/ https://inews.co.uk/news/labour-staff-deceived-corbyn-facebo...