5 ms·

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

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.
- makomk 8y ago
  I don't think anyone has managed to pull this off, simply because social media is also a very effective way of broadcasting the fact that someone is trying to do so. People get pissed off when they think someone is trying to pull a fast one on them, and they feel smart when they think they've outwitted them, and both of those things make for effective viral content. This even happens when the claim isn't true; for instance, there's a perennial viral news hoax about the Washington Post running opposite headlines in Trump-supporting and Clinton-supporting areas that keeps popping up despite having a Snopes debunking. If the social media networks clamp down on ordinary people's ability to spread political messages this might work. Which I guess could happen, given the pressure for them to do so. (The Trump campaign seems to have sensibly not even tried this and just used micro-targetting as a way of reducing the cost of getting their message in front of the people who're interested in it. If people outside the target group saw their message organically, well, that was basically just free advertising.)
  - andy_ppp 8y ago
    TFA is about abusing micro targeting to convince a group (in this case the Labour Leadership) of something that wasn’t true. I don’t see how you could have a more direct example of something you’re saying doesn’t exist.
    - makomk 8y ago
      TFA is about someone doing this to, what, probably a few dozen people? The more people you try a stunt like this on, the bigger the chance that one of the people receiving one message will talk to one of the people receiving the other message.
ScottBurson 8y ago
To expand on @andy_ppp's point: how can you hold a politician responsible for the promises they make you, when no one else knows what those were?
- fareesh 8y ago
  You can do this over email too. Who's to say I don't delete the email? If I keep the mail I can probably keep a screenshot too.
simplecomplex 8y ago
Don't even try to speak rationally about Facebook on HN. The atmosphere around it is hysterical. Advertising is evil according to HN, so therefor Facebook is evil. Evil mastermind Putin plugged directly into the consciousness of every conservative voter and magically made them vote for Trump. Fox News and friends disseminating constant vitriol and misinformation had no effect. It was evil Facebook and mastermind Putin. Oh and don't forget, Facebook is worse than heroin! The anti-FB circle jerk around here is comically ridiculous.
- dang 8y ago
  I'm sure you have a point, but calling names and blaming is not the way to make it here. Please comment more substantively. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
PhasmaFelis 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. The endgame of this notion is politicians promising each constituent exactly what they want to hear and concealing what they don't.
- mkempe 8y ago
  This is a deep threat to the founding values of representative government, worthy of reflection. Problem: Politicians thrive on buying votes by targeting individual voters with tailored promises of government money spent in personally attractive ways. Solution: Abolish the Welfare State, so there is nothing left to feed such promises. Short of that, we shall have to accept the stench of special-interest politics rotting into individually targeted political ads, at all levels of government. At some point it is likely to turn totalitarian, because not only do you not control what "ads" you are fed but you also do not control what "news" you are fed -- and then you have no reliable, reasonable basis for any of your social, economical, or political actions.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    Well, yes, a government that doesn't actually do anything for its citizens is likely to have less corruption. It's not much of a government, though.
    - mkempe 8y ago
      Taking from some citizens via taxes to give to others via welfare programs is not the sole extent of government activities, one would hope. I suggest studying the nature and extent of constitutionally limited governments before Bismarck introduced the Welfare State as we know it. My point is not that government is corrupt; it is that politicians under a Welfare State have increasingly corrupt and manipulative designs, and that the further these designs are enabled by information technology the closer we get to a totalitarian society.
      - 8y ago
titzer 8y ago
I think you completely missed the point of the article. Microtargeting was used to create a completely alternative view of around a single person. That's not "speaking to me one on one"; that's gaslighting.

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.
makomk 8y ago
I don't think anyone has managed to pull this off, simply because social media is also a very effective way of broadcasting the fact that someone is trying to do so. People get pissed off when they think someone is trying to pull a fast one on them, and they feel smart when they think they've outwitted them, and both of those things make for effective viral content. This even happens when the claim isn't true; for instance, there's a perennial viral news hoax about the Washington Post running opposite headlines in Trump-supporting and Clinton-supporting areas that keeps popping up despite having a Snopes debunking. If the social media networks clamp down on ordinary people's ability to spread political messages this might work. Which I guess could happen, given the pressure for them to do so. (The Trump campaign seems to have sensibly not even tried this and just used micro-targetting as a way of reducing the cost of getting their message in front of the people who're interested in it. If people outside the target group saw their message organically, well, that was basically just free advertising.)
- andy_ppp 8y ago
  TFA is about abusing micro targeting to convince a group (in this case the Labour Leadership) of something that wasn’t true. I don’t see how you could have a more direct example of something you’re saying doesn’t exist.
  - makomk 8y ago
    TFA is about someone doing this to, what, probably a few dozen people? The more people you try a stunt like this on, the bigger the chance that one of the people receiving one message will talk to one of the people receiving the other message.

ScottBurson 8y ago

To expand on @andy_ppp's point: how can you hold a politician responsible for the promises they make you, when no one else knows what those were?

fareesh 8y ago
You can do this over email too. Who's to say I don't delete the email? If I keep the mail I can probably keep a screenshot too.

simplecomplex 8y ago

Don't even try to speak rationally about Facebook on HN. The atmosphere around it is hysterical. Advertising is evil according to HN, so therefor Facebook is evil. Evil mastermind Putin plugged directly into the consciousness of every conservative voter and magically made them vote for Trump. Fox News and friends disseminating constant vitriol and misinformation had no effect. It was evil Facebook and mastermind Putin. Oh and don't forget, Facebook is worse than heroin! The anti-FB circle jerk around here is comically ridiculous.

dang 8y ago
I'm sure you have a point, but calling names and blaming is not the way to make it here. Please comment more substantively. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

PhasmaFelis 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. The endgame of this notion is politicians promising each constituent exactly what they want to hear and concealing what they don't.

mkempe 8y ago
This is a deep threat to the founding values of representative government, worthy of reflection. Problem: Politicians thrive on buying votes by targeting individual voters with tailored promises of government money spent in personally attractive ways. Solution: Abolish the Welfare State, so there is nothing left to feed such promises. Short of that, we shall have to accept the stench of special-interest politics rotting into individually targeted political ads, at all levels of government. At some point it is likely to turn totalitarian, because not only do you not control what "ads" you are fed but you also do not control what "news" you are fed -- and then you have no reliable, reasonable basis for any of your social, economical, or political actions.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Well, yes, a government that doesn't actually do anything for its citizens is likely to have less corruption. It's not much of a government, though.
  - mkempe 8y ago
    Taking from some citizens via taxes to give to others via welfare programs is not the sole extent of government activities, one would hope. I suggest studying the nature and extent of constitutionally limited governments before Bismarck introduced the Welfare State as we know it. My point is not that government is corrupt; it is that politicians under a Welfare State have increasingly corrupt and manipulative designs, and that the further these designs are enabled by information technology the closer we get to a totalitarian society.
    - 8y ago

titzer 8y ago

I think you completely missed the point of the article. Microtargeting was used to create a completely alternative view of around a single person. That's not "speaking to me one on one"; that's gaslighting.