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We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

• citilife 8y ago
  Could this not be considered identity theft?
  • Isamu 8y ago
    § 11.432 Impersonating a public servant. A person commits a misdemeanor if he or she falsely pretends to hold a position in the public service with purpose to induce another to submit to such pretended official authority or otherwise to act in reliance upon that pretense to his or her prejudice.
    • housingpost 8y ago
      That wouldn’t hold up in this case, because of that very important word “purpose”. They weren’t trying to get anything due to authority. In fact they were trying to make sure that Facebook was only approving ads by the actual authority.
      • rconti 8y ago
        Which is what I think parent was pointing out. Even if they ran ads saying "vote for me", it probably wouldn't fall under that language. They'd have to be inducing action in their official capacity, not as a candidate.
  • rchaud 8y ago
    Vice didn't actually run the ads. They received approval from FB to do so.
• forgottenpass 8y ago
  By telling Facebook to gatekeep what gets advertised better, there is a tacit admission that adverting is manipulative in a way that can not be defended from by the viewer, but simultaneously fine to expose the public to as long as we control that the manipulation happens in the ways editors at the large news organs agree with.
  • ohithereyou 8y ago
    Better tooling here might be good - products could have a list of advertisers that you're willing to accept ads from. Of course, if they had that, and you chose 'no advertisers', then that would destroy their ad model.
  • soared 8y ago
    That is a tautology and you could make the same claim about anything that is regulated.
    • sincerely 8y ago
      Well, advertising is a little different than e.g. alcohol or cigarettes because it's not something you make a conscious choice to consume.
  • prostoalex 8y ago
    Don’t think there’s any grand conspiracy theory behind this - certain types of advertising (alcohol, cigarettes, guns, political campaigns) are regulated. As long as one plays within the regulatory framework, they’re free to pitch the general public.
• josefresco 8y ago
  "In announcing new transparency efforts or tools to combat foreign influence, Facebook included a caveat. “These changes will not prevent abuse entirely. We’re up against smart, creative and well-funded adversaries who change their tactics as we spot abuse,” Leathern wrote. But we believe that they will help prevent future interference in elections on Facebook. And it is why they are so important.” But posing as 100 senators didn’t require being smart, creative, or even particularly well-funded. " Ouch. "There was one “Paid for” disclosure that Facebook didn’t approve in our latest test. They denied, just a couple minutes after we submitted it: Mark Zuckerberg." Double ouch.
  • mrguyorama 8y ago
    I wonder how many times "Zuckerberg" is in the code verbatim
    • warent 8y ago
      I imagine one time. Then everything else imports the `MZ_CONST` file which then references the `MK` or `ZBERG` variables.
      • evgen 8y ago
        Nah, things just refer to him as fbid 4.
        • Implicated 8y ago
          Who are 1, 2 and 3?
          • tylerhou 8y ago
            Test accounts which ended up getting deleted before (presumably) auth worked.
            • hawkice 8y ago
• Bucephalus355 8y ago
  I’ve noticed on AWS I can sign up for and get an AWSGov account from my plain old personal account. It fully works, I can run EC2 Servers, get a weird style government bill that I have to pay, etc. Also, can anyone really believe Facebooks first attempts on this would be any kind of successful? Just a year ago their fake news plan was to link to verification about articles to facts on WIKIPEDIA. Do they not know how the internet works?
  • dylz 8y ago
    Isn't the only thing required for govcloud to be US address + card?
  • newnewpdro 8y ago
    Does that mean your instances are sharing the same underlying infrastructure as real government customers?
  • toomanybeersies 8y ago
    That seems like an intended feature. I think that AWS GovCloud isn't designed for classified information, or for Government use only. From the advertising page: > The region is operated by employees who are U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. The region is only accessible to vetted U.S. entities and root account holders, who must confirm they are U.S. Persons to gain access to this region. As long as you've proved you're a US Entity, it seems like you should be able to use GovCloud. GovCloud seems like it's just some box-checking activity to ensure that there aren't any foreigners interacting with the system. Other than that, it's not any different from normal AWS regions.
    • duskwuff 8y ago
      Two words: "government contractors". Restricting GovCloud to government entities would leave contractors in the awkward position of being unable to use AWS for government contracts.
    • astura 8y ago
      >GovCloud seems like it's just some box-checking activity to ensure that there aren't any foreigners interacting with the system. This is exactly it; it's a compliance thing. GovCloud is compliant with various regulations that the government has for its data handling and storage GovCloud is used by private entities that are doing business with the government - for example, contractors.
• rchaud 8y ago
  I'd like to see more of this type of 'stress testing' of adtech networks, conducted by third parties, with the methodology and results made available to the public. Programmatic advertising is a black box as far as ad buyers and ad viewers are concerned. And it is exactly for this reason that companies can claim to have "machine learning based fraud detection systems" or whatever and have those claims go unchallenged.
  • taurath 8y ago
    Or maybe you know, identity verification might be a good feature if you want to keep your ad platform.
• 40acres 8y ago
  Facebook would not be where it is today if their programmatic advertising tools were not friction-less, it's going to be interesting to watch them balance ease of use for customers while securing their system vs. bad actors.
  • Ensorceled 8y ago
    It is generous of you to assume that they will Secure their ad network against paying bad actors.
  • 734786710934 8y ago
    You have to give Facebook a copy of your ID, your SSN and wait for them to snail-mail you a code before you can get as far as Vice did. There's nothing friction-less about it.
    • testvox 8y ago
      Well normal ads you do not need to do any of that, you just need to have an account and a credit card. But yes for political ads you are supposed to go through their "Identity Confirmation and Authorization" process https://www.facebook.com/business/m/one-sheeters/ads-with-political-content-us https://www.facebook.com/business/m/one-sheeters/ads-with-po...
    • taurath 8y ago
      And apparently, after you do that, you can post as whomever you want. Maybe you'll have a little personal liability (after the election, if someone can find any law enforcement that actually cares), but thats what the campaign war chest is for.
  • sonnyblarney 8y ago
    It's not frictionless - all ads are approved. It takes some time and I don't think image and video approvals are entirely automated. I read in fact that a human being checks out every single one.
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
• throwaway2048 8y ago
  I'm sure they will tell everyone that they have to do better, and that in the future things will be different.
• stevespang 8y ago
  Fakebook will take the money anyway it comes - - until public outrage finally makes the politicians uncomfortable enough to pass some laws with TEETH that will bleed$$$ Fakebook for each infraction.
• INTPenis 8y ago
  It's definitely a case of hanlon's razor for Facebook but it does show how easy someone with the right resources can exploit social networking sites to manufacture consent for example.
  • eiaoa 8y ago
    > It's definitely a case of hanlon's razor for Facebook but it does show how easy someone with the right resources can exploit social networking sites to manufacture consent for example. It doesn't even look like you need the right resources, just the motivation and willingness to exploit it.
• draw_down 8y ago
  Jeez, come on.
• ungzd 8y ago
  Do they have premoderation in ad system? I see lots of outright money scam and gambling ads in Instagram every day (in Russian language) (AFAIK, Instagram uses the same ad system as Facebook). Most of ads that I see in Instagram have pornsite-grade quality.
• andrewflnr 8y ago
  People need to think very carefully about the consequences of any policy they propose to curb this sort of behavior. Do we really want Facebook making judgment calls about the content of political ads? Do they need to do thorough real-life identity verification of people buying any ads, or any ads that may be construed as political? Then the real kicker: does every ad provider need to do this, or just the ones that are too big to fail? Requiring that level of effort would quash small ad providers in the same way that onerous copyright verification laws would quash small content hosts. Not doing so has its own obvious problems. I see no good solutions.
  • RosanaAnaDana 8y ago
    People need to think very carefully So let me stop you right there...
    • andrewflnr 8y ago
      Yeah, well, I didn't say I was making a prediction. sigh
      • jacobush 8y ago
        Or stopped to think carefully... badaboom! Try the veal.
  • tracker1 8y ago
    How much better would life be if there had to be an in-person verification for advertisers... along the lines of an EV cert. Man, how much crappy advertisements, scam, malware ads would just disappear if this were a requirement all around.
    • andrewflnr 8y ago
      Hmm. Maybe small players could outsource verification to specialists with economies of scale. It would let some crap through, but it might be worth it overall.
• hadrien01 8y ago
  The best solution, and currently in effect as law in many European countries, would be to stop political ads altogether on Facebook and the Web. No more "hey who is paying for that anti-XXX political ad?", they just wouldn't exist anymore. Plus, less money raised and spent by political campaigns. Also, this article comes just one week after that one: "Facebook’s political ad tool let us buy ads “paid for” by Mike Pence and ISIS" [0] [0] https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wj9mny/facebooks-political-ad-tool-let-us-buy-ads-paid-for-by-mike-pence-and-isis https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wj9mny/facebooks-politic...
  • thejerz 8y ago
    America has a 1st amendment which protects free speech. Implicit in that covenant is the responsibility on the recipient, not the transmitter, to determine truthfulness. If you care whether Mike Pence actually paid for that ad, go research it -- and if you can't, don't rely on it being true.
    • JabavuAdams 8y ago
      This covenant is based on an outdated and incorrect model of how the brain works. You are largely not in control of your responses. You do things because you want to do them but why do you want what you want? Advertising works. Propaganda works. If they cause social ills, it's valid to discuss how to avoid those ills.
  • foolfoolz 8y ago
    +1. i know government TV channels have scary connotations, but i’d rather see a website or tv channel or radio set up where each candidate gets a bunch, but equal number, of campaign ads. play them on repeat all day for free. and remove paid political ads from all other sources
    • skookumchuck 8y ago
      Who decides who gets to be a candidate?
  • 8y ago
• artichokeheart 8y ago
  Facebook are sorry and they will endeavour to apologise again next time.
• Quarrelsome 8y ago
  Speaking of Facebook ads seeing as there is no way to contact them: Do the engineers at Facebook realise the level of ad that their networks are now throwing out? It is at the level that warez and cracks site were in the early 90s. Granted they're not pop-ups or porn but they _are_ scams. Out of sheer interest I've been checking them out recently and my highlights have been: * Cypto-scams stealing HTML and CSS from legitimate newsites and pretending to be articles on how much money someone made crypto-trading using their product. * A vaguely sophisticated Asian brides website where all of the users are bots that try to get you to spend money to use the website. When I was fifteen years old, I knew the risk of going to those sorts of sites but Facebook is used by Grandparents and children. The sort of ads that Facebook is currently serving is genuinely _not_ cool and I encourage anyone near to that problem to step up and sort it out. I've seen these ads in my feed and since reporting them now they only appear in the right hand pane as "sponsored ads" but I can't report them when they appear there for some reason. Here's a link to what I considered to be the most egregious example: https://imgur.com/VBfECGE https://imgur.com/VBfECGE That advertiser cycles their domain(s) every week or so as well.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• tracker1 8y ago
  Did they pose as third party candidates? Haven't read TFA, but do know several third party candidates that were petitioning for ballot support that had huge issues with getting ads approved, even for pages/accounts that were approved.
  • dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Did they pose as third party candidates? Well, independent candidates at least, since they posed as all 100 current Senators, which includes 2 independents.
• o0-0o 8y ago
  Facebook is for losers !!
• zallarak 8y ago
  Unpopular opinion: who cares? I think the business is gross, and I have not had a Facebook account for 10 years. If you disapprove of it, just don't use it. Complaining about Facebook's actions is like complaining about sugar being unhealthy. Don't force sugar to change its molecular composition, just stop eating it.
  • thejerz 8y ago
    100% agree. No reasonable person browsing the internet has an expectation of truth. When someone says, "But Facebook told me this ad was paid for by Nancy Pelosi," the answer isn't to pass regulations forcing Facebook to verify advertisers, the answer is to reply to that person, "And why did you believe them?"
    • lucasmullens 8y ago
      I think most reasonable people think that a Facebook ad that says it's paid for by Nancy Pelosi is in fact paid by her. Facebook shouldn't have a "paid for by" feature if they can't stand behind it.
  • lucasmullens 8y ago
    Hacker News is a discussion forum. What do you mean "who cares?" The whole point is to talk about stuff.
  • abootstrapper 8y ago
    Facebook is a medium for spreading propaganda. In your analogy, everyone that eats sugar is exposed to propaganda and then votes having been influenced by that information. As a non sugar-eater, this still affects me.
• jandrese 8y ago
  Seems to me they didn't test the whole path. They never bought the ads, so they may have declared success before the actual check happens.
• hsnewman 8y ago
  This is why I am not a part or participate in Facebook.
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    What do you want, a medal?
• amichal 8y ago
  I am appalled at how bad Facebook did here but buried at the very end of the article Vice does indicate that they needed to provide a valid traceable drivers license and last four of a (maybe?) matching SSN. This means that had they intended to actually publish the ads they would have put some real person on the hook (assuming the submitted data is actually checked against something). Still too easy but for the first 90% of the article I thought there was absolutely zero verification
  • dymk 8y ago
    Weird how Vice would run such an intentionally misleading article, isn't it?
  • Zyst 8y ago
    >In order to run a “Paid for by” disclosure on Facebook, you must first submit the name to the company for approval, along with an image of a valid driver’s license and the last four digits of your Social Security number. Paragraph in question. Are the driver's licences they used not the ones of the Senators? Or maybe they photoshopped them, or something along those lines? I'm a bit unhappy at the lack of elaboration on the methodology they used to test this out.
    • TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
      That they say a valid driver's license makes it sound like it doesn't have to be the senator in question's.
      • bryanrasmussen 8y ago
        Hi, my name is John Validdriver and I work for senator Schmuck's office!
    • waisbrot 8y ago
      Yes, it's difficult to follow exactly what they did. This: > We used 10 fake Facebook pages with no content, and changed the “paid for” disclosure after each senator was approved. Makes it sound to me like they got approval using a real identity and then changed the now-approved account to use a different name. Methodology aside, though, Facebook shouldn't be showing that they verified the identity if they did not verify the identity. Unless the methodology was "we stole the identities of some senators" or "we cracked their passwords", this is a failure a another breach of trust on Facebook's part.
• jabagonuts 8y ago
  > VICE News did not buy any Facebook ads as part of the test; rather, we received approval to include "Paid for by" disclosures for potential ads. Playing devil’s advocate here, but maybe Facebook doesn’t waste time on people who don’t actually buy ads? Would be a much more compelling argument if the were actually able to purchase and run ads, and would be curious to see if the actual act of payment triggered a real review from Facebook. This kind of feels like me as a software developer saying my code works in production! Disclaimer: I never actually deployed it, I only got approval to deploy it.
  • jjeaff 8y ago
    The fact that the Zuckerberg ad was rejected seems to indicate that they really were being put through a vetting process. It's possible they are vetted again after payment is received but that seems unlikely.
    • happertiger 8y ago
      No it only proves they reject ads from the founder of the company. That’s the only proof you can establish based on the facts. There is no evidence they are vetting anything, and in fact it’s more likely they just filter out zuck.* than the implication that a larger system is at work (Occams razor).
      • dibstern 8y ago
        Hahaha my god dude. First, he said it seems to indicate, not prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Second, you think it’s more likely that they filter every single request specifically for Zuckerberg, but do all of the other filtering later on in the pipeline? It’s much more likely that all the filtering happens at the one time, especially at a place like Facebook where most engineers seem to focus on optimising something for performance gains. Occam’s Razor - it’s knocking on your door, asking to not be quoted when you’re not actually using it.
        • josefresco 8y ago
• Jonanin 8y ago
  This article is a clickbait smear at best. They didn't actually get to run any ads, because you need a valid SSN and Driver's license to do so. The only thing they demonstrated is their ability to break federal laws by impersonating senators.
• ridgeguy 8y ago
  Perhaps we could mandate a shutdown of Facebook and Twitter 1 week prior to elections. This wouldn't impede citizens' ability to exercise their first amendment right to speak, as there are many, many other outlets for citizens' speech. This would temporarily remove two channels through which manipulators can scale damage instantly. That would help. I think the benefit of doing something like this would be so useful that I'd be glad to give Facebook & Twitter a tax break on their lost revenue. I mean, neither Facebook nor Twitter will adopt any effective measure that hits their revenues. We have to do it for them.
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    If we're going down that route we should shut down the tabloid press too.
• html5web 8y ago
  Shame on you Facebook!
• diogenescynic 8y ago
  This seems criminally negligent. Especially so given all the other election as I ssues in the last election... Why isn’t Facebook taking this more seriously? We seriously cannot expect corporations to do the right thing. We need to regulate political ads and have campaign finance reform. Our democracy is beginning to rot.
• dillondoyle 8y ago
  I buy political ads as a big part of our business. This cycle, FB is FAR easier to work with than Google. I get the sense that FB simply wants to pass off the liability to ad buyer (who signed an affidavit to run those paid for ads... and Vice broke that contract but also probably the law). Whereas Google is giving huge problems for basically all our clients because they seem to be doing manual DD. Not focusing on whether or not FB should take on this DD, as an ad buyer FB's approach and process is at least 10x smoother - at least for us. I'm not joking. can only think of one odd compliance issue we had with mismatched IG and FB profile names. Google on the other hand... problems every time. Problems in the approval process to get personally approved (ux and process is horrid) and then they constantly reject ads we submit as unapproved for politics, despite going through this process many many times.
  • r_singh 8y ago
    It's interesting to hear your thoughts as a person whose work requires to interface with the political-ad-vetting process of web giants. If you were a representative of the public (with interests in safeguarding the authenticity of information promoted to individuals of the public), would you endorse a difficult google like vetting process or a superficial, lenient vetting process adopted by Facebook?
    • dillondoyle 8y ago
      I can understand the public interest. I wouldn't mind a vetting process that works; google's just doesn't at least for us. The time not up with ads === censoring political speech IMHO and to me political speech is sacrosanct. The tradeoff isn't worth it. But also I have probably an extreme view out of the norm for most here. I view politics as almost capitalistic (not just in that I make money doing it) but that it's a competition of ideas, attention, advertising etc. So despite being pretty strong D I value an 'open arena' even if open to abuse. I feel the same for non-paid content. Attempts to 'vet' or label content as factual or biased seem to all have problems or are game-able and for me personally I don't think it's worth the trade off. Though in my 'theory' of political competition I acknowledge it's very hard to fight back against 'fake' and nation-state opponents. Again, I'm probably extreme here but I do understand the public interest argument.
• dollar 8y ago
  Meanwhile, they randomly disapprove our ads all the time and refuse to tell us why.
• r_singh 8y ago
  In the capitalist world that we live in, such things shouldn't surprise us at all. Cigarette shops sell kids cigarettes without checking for ID. Heck doctors sell questionable products to helpless patrons. Facebook sells ads to politically motivated buyers without cross-checking who's buying. The only thing that surprises me about this is that this leniency in vetting buyers potentially has an effect on who will remain in power and so should be a priority for the govt. to fix or require stricter regulation. Prods me think whether they're actually benefitting from this or just don't have time and are turning a blind eye due to coincidental reasons.
• dandare 8y ago
  The brutality of torture in Chinese prisons in unimaginable. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=falun+gong+torture&atb=v128-4_f&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=falun+gong+torture&atb=v128-4_f&ia... Of course, it is not just China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and many others still use brutal medieval torture.
• dschuetz 8y ago
  I don't understand. What is expected from Facebook concerning political ads? Should Facebook do the work of fact checking on behalf of viewers, instead of users fact checking on their own? Why is it that actual fact checking is being outsourced to social media companies (due to fear of foreign influence)? Should we also outsource voting too then?
  • cal5k 8y ago
    Apparently Facebook, a company, is expected to prevent election meddling from Russia, a state actor. Where is the NSA in all of this?
  • the_duke 8y ago
    Well, if FB is not interested in doing any actual verification, they should not have introduced a "Paid for by" feature. These tests made it clear that the whole thing was just paying lip service to appease the public without any real intent to do the actual work.
• lr4444lr 8y ago
  Has there actually been any research showing significant impact on voting preference based on seeing paid Facebook ads? In my experience, most people are putting credence in content specifically shared by their like-minded network, not paid targeted ads.
• gopher2 8y ago
  What percentage of ad revenue for Facebook is 'political' ads?
• vladsanchez 8y ago
  Just watch Frontline's The Facebook Dilemma https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/facebook-dilemma/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/facebook-dilemma/
• giarc 8y ago
  Why even allow a "Paid For By" as an option to everyone. I imagine for all senators, Facebook has an ad rep that has been assigned to their media strategy team. That rep could then assign a user or group of users that are known ad buyers for the senator and flip a switch in the background that adds the "Paid For By" message.
• crudbug 8y ago
  This is Journalism !
• dimillian 8y ago
  I hate the US system because more money = more exposure. This is broken at so many level. This is hell.
• dpatrick86 8y ago
  Interesting journalistic experiment, however, ads like these are irrelevant unless they can push the amount of exposure that shifts elections. That's going to take a lot of money. The question, then, becomes not whether they can get ads approved, but whether they stay approved even as dollars are poured in. A more expensive experiment to run, in that case.
• caseysoftware 8y ago
  It's almost like it's Facebook's business model to accept ads from anyone for anyone.. damn the consequences. The advertising business model is so broken.
• znpy 8y ago
  "An advertising-fueled company accepts to publish ads for money. No one is impressed." -- I can already see the headline on a certain website I am not supposed to mention.