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So 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 targe

So 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 ago
Switching 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 ago
  That 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 ago
    It'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.
    - cm2012 8y ago
      It's usually really precise IME (speaking as someone who does online ads and checks this all the time).
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        So, as an example, I just got an ad for a "personalized women's fashion" retailer (I'm male, and Facebook knows that for certain), that stated "You're seeing this ad because eShakti wants to reach people aged 23 to 56 who live or have recently been in the United States. This is information based on your Facebook profile and where you've connected to the Internet." Now, I'm fairly certain that they're not casting that wide a net. Those filters may be in their targeting specs, but I can guarantee you there are more specific than that, especially as it started showing up after my wife went looking for women's dresses recently.
        cm2012 8y ago
        looking again, you're right. i think they nerfed the tool.
        andy_ppp 8y ago
        You were probably in a bucket...
- pasbesoin 8y ago
  This is also something that lends itself to regulation. You can determine/define a minimum group size, and regulation that prohibits finer-grained targeting. This is something that happens in many other fields, for example to prevent insurance policies from becoming individualized cost-spreading (with front-loading) plus profit-margin. (Or, should be happening. And this is one of the battles around regulation. When people see their costs skyrocketing, they should ask themselves whether that is the "cost of regulation", or rather the cost of its absence.) It can become quite difficult to micromanage through regulation. Sometimes, that's necessary, e.g. with pollutants whose individual effects vary dramatically. But sometimes, it's possible to observe boundaries beyond which negative effects become quite pronounced with escalating proclivity. You draw the line there, or a bit on the safe side, and say, "Thou shall not pass." If people get the choice, as opposed to being dictated to, I think that they are going to find that in most domains, they don't want to be micro-targeted. And maybe, we will come up with laws and regulations to stop it -- or substantially hinder it, at least. It can even feed into a healthy society. How will you ever learn of, and possibly experience, anything new and "out of your comfort zone", if you are constantly being algorithmically channeled back into it?
  - djrogers 8y ago
    > This is also something that lends itself to regulation. That may be the case in many countries, but in the US, the idea of restricting political speech is nearly universally prohibited. Looking at the history of related Supreme Court cases, I sincerely doubt a law like that would stand.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      Giving the increasingly capital-friendly supreme court, it's hard to say. But we're talking a neutral restriction on all advertising, which is much more likely to pass a first amendment test.
lumberjack 8y ago
Neither Google nor Facebook are going to give away that power so easily.
fareesh 8y ago
If you can speak to me one on one and tell me why I should vote for you, and you convince me - then you deserve my vote. Microtargeting allows you to do that at scale. If I care about a certain issue and you advertise to me in a way that matches up to the things I care about, and present ideas that I agree with, then you are campaigning correctly. If a politician saw that I cared about the environment and argued for upholding the Paris agreement - that would not win my vote, because I don't think the Paris agreement is a good solution to that problem. In this case, they lose my vote. If they see that I care about income inequality but tell me that they will solve it by taxing the rich, I don't agree with that either - so they lose my vote. Microtargeting is a tool just like the newspaper op-ed or the campaign commercial or the stump speech. Banning it because people are using it well is like taking away the stairs because some people use wheelchairs.
- andy_ppp 8y ago
  What seems to constantly happen is that we are instead served up the porridge that’s specifically for us while we don’t see the whole picture and what all the other people have also been promised. What I’m saying is that the narrative of a manifesto or even what a political party stands for is corrupted by being “all things to all people” in their messaging.
  - fareesh 8y ago
    Is there any example of this? In American politics and British politics (where much of the current drama stems from), the issues and candidates are promising opposite things in many ways. Hillary Clinton was not promising the return of coal jobs. Donald Trump was not promising a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Jeremy Corbyn was not promising leaving the EU. These were all very polarized issues and perspectives. Yes in theory you can promise to be all things to all people but microtargeting is not happening in a vacuum, and it's unlikely that politicians will have success with promising contradicting binary things.
    - andy_ppp 8y ago
      Donald Trump actually says contradictory things every 5 minutes in order to appeal as broadly as possible (and if you think the Super PACs aren’t running ads that are contradictory you’re plain wrong) and the article is about successfully conning a microtargeted group to believe something that wasn’t true. Facepalm.
CaptainSwing 8y ago
> ultra left wing ads That might be pushing it a bit. We're talking Jeremy Corbyn here, not Amadeo Bordiga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-leftism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-leftism

wpietri 8y ago

Switching 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 ago
That 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 ago
  It'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.
  - cm2012 8y ago
    It's usually really precise IME (speaking as someone who does online ads and checks this all the time).
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      So, as an example, I just got an ad for a "personalized women's fashion" retailer (I'm male, and Facebook knows that for certain), that stated "You're seeing this ad because eShakti wants to reach people aged 23 to 56 who live or have recently been in the United States. This is information based on your Facebook profile and where you've connected to the Internet." Now, I'm fairly certain that they're not casting that wide a net. Those filters may be in their targeting specs, but I can guarantee you there are more specific than that, especially as it started showing up after my wife went looking for women's dresses recently.
      - cm2012 8y ago
        looking again, you're right. i think they nerfed the tool.
        andy_ppp 8y ago
        You were probably in a bucket...
pasbesoin 8y ago
This is also something that lends itself to regulation. You can determine/define a minimum group size, and regulation that prohibits finer-grained targeting. This is something that happens in many other fields, for example to prevent insurance policies from becoming individualized cost-spreading (with front-loading) plus profit-margin. (Or, should be happening. And this is one of the battles around regulation. When people see their costs skyrocketing, they should ask themselves whether that is the "cost of regulation", or rather the cost of its absence.) It can become quite difficult to micromanage through regulation. Sometimes, that's necessary, e.g. with pollutants whose individual effects vary dramatically. But sometimes, it's possible to observe boundaries beyond which negative effects become quite pronounced with escalating proclivity. You draw the line there, or a bit on the safe side, and say, "Thou shall not pass." If people get the choice, as opposed to being dictated to, I think that they are going to find that in most domains, they don't want to be micro-targeted. And maybe, we will come up with laws and regulations to stop it -- or substantially hinder it, at least. It can even feed into a healthy society. How will you ever learn of, and possibly experience, anything new and "out of your comfort zone", if you are constantly being algorithmically channeled back into it?
- djrogers 8y ago
  > This is also something that lends itself to regulation. That may be the case in many countries, but in the US, the idea of restricting political speech is nearly universally prohibited. Looking at the history of related Supreme Court cases, I sincerely doubt a law like that would stand.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Giving the increasingly capital-friendly supreme court, it's hard to say. But we're talking a neutral restriction on all advertising, which is much more likely to pass a first amendment test.

lumberjack 8y ago

Neither Google nor Facebook are going to give away that power so easily.

fareesh 8y ago

If you can speak to me one on one and tell me why I should vote for you, and you convince me - then you deserve my vote. Microtargeting allows you to do that at scale. If I care about a certain issue and you advertise to me in a way that matches up to the things I care about, and present ideas that I agree with, then you are campaigning correctly. If a politician saw that I cared about the environment and argued for upholding the Paris agreement - that would not win my vote, because I don't think the Paris agreement is a good solution to that problem. In this case, they lose my vote. If they see that I care about income inequality but tell me that they will solve it by taxing the rich, I don't agree with that either - so they lose my vote. Microtargeting is a tool just like the newspaper op-ed or the campaign commercial or the stump speech. Banning it because people are using it well is like taking away the stairs because some people use wheelchairs.

andy_ppp 8y ago
What seems to constantly happen is that we are instead served up the porridge that’s specifically for us while we don’t see the whole picture and what all the other people have also been promised. What I’m saying is that the narrative of a manifesto or even what a political party stands for is corrupted by being “all things to all people” in their messaging.
- fareesh 8y ago
  Is there any example of this? In American politics and British politics (where much of the current drama stems from), the issues and candidates are promising opposite things in many ways. Hillary Clinton was not promising the return of coal jobs. Donald Trump was not promising a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Jeremy Corbyn was not promising leaving the EU. These were all very polarized issues and perspectives. Yes in theory you can promise to be all things to all people but microtargeting is not happening in a vacuum, and it's unlikely that politicians will have success with promising contradicting binary things.
  - andy_ppp 8y ago
    Donald Trump actually says contradictory things every 5 minutes in order to appeal as broadly as possible (and if you think the Super PACs aren’t running ads that are contradictory you’re plain wrong) and the article is about successfully conning a microtargeted group to believe something that wasn’t true. Facepalm.

CaptainSwing 8y ago

> ultra left wing ads That might be pushing it a bit. We're talking Jeremy Corbyn here, not Amadeo Bordiga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-leftism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-leftism