5 ms·

I find it kind of ironic to see the WSJ essentially publish an ad for Facebook disguised as an article. Still, it is probably true to some extent. Is Facebook

by gersh 8y ago

I find it kind of ironic to see the WSJ essentially publish an ad for Facebook disguised as an article. Still, it is probably true to some extent. Is Facebook just a fancy machine for auctioning off the electorate to the highest bidder? Should we think of as the means of modern slavery?

liftbigweights 8y ago
> Is Facebook just a fancy machine for auctioning off the electorate to the highest bidder? Yes. Just like TV, radio or newspapers are. Who decided elections in the past? TV, radio and newspapers/journalists. Today, those old platforms still matter but social media is muscling out its own "sphere of influence". > Should we think of as the means of modern slavery? Modern slavery started long before facebook.
johnchristopher 8y ago
I am still not buying the idea that Facebook ads can decide the outcome of any elections. If I could be convinced then I would have a lot of questions about our society, specie and civilization. Isn't it more likely Facebook is just the designated scapegoat for everything going wrong in elections and politics ?
- Invictus0 8y ago
  The ad industry is worth over 200 billion dollars. You really think it just doesn't work at all?
- en-us 8y ago
  Do you think that newspapers, radio, or TV have decided elections in the past? And do you understand microtargeting? For me the answer is yes and yes, and I would be surprised if Facebook does not have a major effect on elections.
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    > Do you think that newspapers, radio, or TV have decided elections in the past? Newspapers, radio and TV believe they have that power (we have been studying that since the 30's) but it's really not that simple. Last I checked it's still word-of-mouth and close IRL peer influence that works. > And do you understand microtargeting? Unfortunately, yes.
    - yorwba 8y ago
      > Last I checked it's still word-of-mouth and close IRL peer influence that works. It works, and it probably has the largest effect, but that doesn't prevent other things from working. If you factor in that IRL influence is hard to manufacture, whereas you can just buy ads on various platforms and show them to lots of people, mass advertising can easily come out ahead in terms of cost.
      - johnchristopher 8y ago
        IRL peer influence is really hard to manufacture. Now, don't get me wrong. Selling cigarettes or other things through influencers, social network ad campaigns and social network campaigns work for some products. Elections ? I'd like to see the numbers and I'd be happy (and scared) to change my opinion.
- yorwba 8y ago
  If Facebook ads have any effect at all, then they can decide the outcome of elections. If you need 10,000 votes to beat your opponent and Facebook ads can get you those votes, not using them could be the deciding factor resulting in a loss. Of course there are also hundreds of other factors deciding the outcome, so Facebook isn't special in any way.
  - en-us 8y ago
    It's special because with microtargeting you can target exactly the 10000 voters that you need, giving each one a personalized message crafted to fit that individual's personality and views, and the messages will be seen by those individuals alone. So it's perfectly possible to feed 10000 voters their personally crafted propaganda and have nobody else even aware that it is happening.
    - johnchristopher 8y ago
      Still not buying it. 1. You'd have to know that 10 000 votes is missing. 2. You'd have to know how to target those 10 000 missing voters (criteria). 3. You'd have to craft very specific messages based on your criteria to determine who they are. 4. Now, hoping that those criteria are fit you have to hope that the message you crafted is going to be seen and noticed by your prospects. 5. Message noticed ? Good, how did you craft a message that would make up many voter's mind without being obvious ? 6. Who cares, you just have to convince the team running the campaign that social network marketing converts. That's the real skill.
      - Ascendency 8y ago
        That isn’t too hard with half-way decent models.
        Spivak 8y ago
        I mean if you really believe you can do it you probably should and cash in easy multimillion dollar cheques from campaigns looking for this service.
gus_massa 8y ago
I think the ironic part is that they could have written an article with the title "Buy Ads on Newspapers or Risk Losing the Election". They just don't like the competition. [Also "Buy Ads on TV or Risk Losing the Election" is a good title. I wonder if they have already published that article a few decades ago.]
crazy1van 8y ago
>Is Facebook just a fancy machine for auctioning off the electorate to the highest bidder? Doesn’t the 2016 presidential election disprove this? The candidate who spent the most lost the election.
- gotocake 8y ago
  Although that candidate did get a few million more votes. I’m not trying to make some bitter comment, just that if you consider Facebook as selling votes, the highest spender did get the most.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    One important factoid that goes against this view is that Clinton's margin of victory in California was substantially greater than her entire margin of victory in the popular vote. The reason I mention this is because you spend where you need to spend. California was never even remotely in contention and so it's safe to say that Clinton was not spending to try to win by millions in California. In other words, it's unlikely that her spending produced the votes she was trying to 'buy'.
    - gotocake 8y ago
      That’s roughly in line with Obama’s last election in which he won CA by about 3 million votes. In the 2008 election the margin was about the same. Clinton won CA by 4 million popular votes, so I doubt the total of her 3 million excess can be explained there. It’s also, if you’ll forgive my pedantry, a factoid rather than a fact because even in states she lost you have to consider how much more she would have lost by without the ad spend. We don’t have access to the information that would allow us to make thst determination.
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        I agree with you, but I don't see how this goes against what I'm saying? In 2008 Obama won California by 3 million. He won in the rest of the nation, excluding California, by 7 million. In 2016 Clinton won in California by 4 million. She lost in the rest of the country, excluding California, by a million. I completely agree that without excessive spending her margin of defeat, outside of California, would likely have been greater. But this also shows that the spending alone does not, in current times, map strongly to votes. And I hope this will continue to be a thing. In my opinion, people are overestimating the significance of the centralized internet forces, such as Facebook, and discounting the significance of decentralized internet forces - such as discussions perhaps not dissimilar to the one you and I are sharing. There's no doubt that advertising has a significant effect, but I think it's perhaps less than ever before largely because people half way around the world from one another can chat and have far more relevant conversations than any sort of 'Hi, I'm Bob. My opponent's an asshole. Vote for me!' piece, or even the more refined. 'Hi, I'm Bob. My meta-analytics indicate that you like broccoli. Omg, I do too. My opponent doesn't. He hates broccoli and all it stands for. Also, he's an asshole, like anybody who wouldn't like broccoli amirite!? Vote for me!' Even outside of the presidential consider things like Sanders. Yes at some point he was competitive in fund raising, but his success was not because of the fund raising. Rather his fund raising came as an effect, rather than a cause, of his success. And again that success was something that was driven by the decentralized and oft difficult to predict, let alone control, forces of internet communication.
azernik 8y ago
Study of American politics generally disproves the idea that money buys elections. There's a certain table stakes you need to reach to get your message in front of voters, but diminishing returns set in quite quickly. (Which means money makes the most difference in small elections - i.e. the better-funded candidate has a very large advantage in things like ballot measure races and local government races where an opponent may not have the money to buy a basic level of advertising.)
bilbo0s 8y ago
Well it's not the means to modern slavery, that's for sure. Slaves actually have to do work.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Is Facebook just a fancy machine for auctioning off the electorate to the highest bidder? No, it's just a currently-useful advertising channel. Advertising has been critical to US election campaigns for some time; to the extent that is a mechanism of slavery (or, perhaps more precisely, plutocracy), it's not something dependent on Facebook.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I think the thing that enables Facebook is also the thing that obsoletes it. If we imagine Facebook 30 years ago when mass media was still a tightly constrained venture comprised of relatively little more than television, print, and radio, then I think your point would be extremely valid. Reaching an extremely micro-targeted demographic of immense scale, in real time, and for relatively low cost? I mean yeah, Facebook would be what would decides elections. But we don't live 30 years ago. We live today. And billions of people are, in some form or another, doing exactly what you and I are doing right now. Discussing and debating ideas while influencing each other in various ways that are extremely difficult to quantify. We, in turn, are probably somewhat influenced by advertisements and the such still - but I think that people are starting to influence people more than any sort of advertising is. The one thing that has typically predicted elections success in the US is money. Whoever spends more, wins. If they spend a lot more they tend to win by wide margins. In the most recent election, one candidate spent vastly more and were relatively highly praised by the media. The person that was greatly outspent and alternatively vilified or mocked by the media in a 24/7 loop for months leading up to the election, won. For that matter even look at Bernie Sanders. A 73 year old man who refers to himself as a democratic socialist. That word polled somewhere south of cancer not that long ago. But times have changed as the internet can redefine the rules, zeitgeist, and overton window of society - in a flash. Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and full of some interesting quotes, defeated a deeply entrenched representative going on to his 10th term who was still serving as the chair of the house democratic caucus. These things are not happening because any of the cliches that have been blamed. They're happening because the internet has usurped control of dialogue away from any given behemoth. And now what happens is being decided by a collective of individuals that, if nothing else, have shown themselves to be rather less than predictable.

by gersh 8y ago

liftbigweights 8y ago

> Is Facebook just a fancy machine for auctioning off the electorate to the highest bidder? Yes. Just like TV, radio or newspapers are. Who decided elections in the past? TV, radio and newspapers/journalists. Today, those old platforms still matter but social media is muscling out its own "sphere of influence". > Should we think of as the means of modern slavery? Modern slavery started long before facebook.

johnchristopher 8y ago

I am still not buying the idea that Facebook ads can decide the outcome of any elections. If I could be convinced then I would have a lot of questions about our society, specie and civilization. Isn't it more likely Facebook is just the designated scapegoat for everything going wrong in elections and politics ?

Invictus0 8y ago
The ad industry is worth over 200 billion dollars. You really think it just doesn't work at all?
en-us 8y ago
Do you think that newspapers, radio, or TV have decided elections in the past? And do you understand microtargeting? For me the answer is yes and yes, and I would be surprised if Facebook does not have a major effect on elections.
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  > Do you think that newspapers, radio, or TV have decided elections in the past? Newspapers, radio and TV believe they have that power (we have been studying that since the 30's) but it's really not that simple. Last I checked it's still word-of-mouth and close IRL peer influence that works. > And do you understand microtargeting? Unfortunately, yes.
  - yorwba 8y ago
    > Last I checked it's still word-of-mouth and close IRL peer influence that works. It works, and it probably has the largest effect, but that doesn't prevent other things from working. If you factor in that IRL influence is hard to manufacture, whereas you can just buy ads on various platforms and show them to lots of people, mass advertising can easily come out ahead in terms of cost.
    - johnchristopher 8y ago
      IRL peer influence is really hard to manufacture. Now, don't get me wrong. Selling cigarettes or other things through influencers, social network ad campaigns and social network campaigns work for some products. Elections ? I'd like to see the numbers and I'd be happy (and scared) to change my opinion.
yorwba 8y ago
If Facebook ads have any effect at all, then they can decide the outcome of elections. If you need 10,000 votes to beat your opponent and Facebook ads can get you those votes, not using them could be the deciding factor resulting in a loss. Of course there are also hundreds of other factors deciding the outcome, so Facebook isn't special in any way.
- en-us 8y ago
  It's special because with microtargeting you can target exactly the 10000 voters that you need, giving each one a personalized message crafted to fit that individual's personality and views, and the messages will be seen by those individuals alone. So it's perfectly possible to feed 10000 voters their personally crafted propaganda and have nobody else even aware that it is happening.
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    Still not buying it. 1. You'd have to know that 10 000 votes is missing. 2. You'd have to know how to target those 10 000 missing voters (criteria). 3. You'd have to craft very specific messages based on your criteria to determine who they are. 4. Now, hoping that those criteria are fit you have to hope that the message you crafted is going to be seen and noticed by your prospects. 5. Message noticed ? Good, how did you craft a message that would make up many voter's mind without being obvious ? 6. Who cares, you just have to convince the team running the campaign that social network marketing converts. That's the real skill.
    - Ascendency 8y ago
      That isn’t too hard with half-way decent models.
      - Spivak 8y ago
        I mean if you really believe you can do it you probably should and cash in easy multimillion dollar cheques from campaigns looking for this service.

gus_massa 8y ago

I think the ironic part is that they could have written an article with the title "Buy Ads on Newspapers or Risk Losing the Election". They just don't like the competition. [Also "Buy Ads on TV or Risk Losing the Election" is a good title. I wonder if they have already published that article a few decades ago.]

crazy1van 8y ago

>Is Facebook just a fancy machine for auctioning off the electorate to the highest bidder? Doesn’t the 2016 presidential election disprove this? The candidate who spent the most lost the election.

gotocake 8y ago
Although that candidate did get a few million more votes. I’m not trying to make some bitter comment, just that if you consider Facebook as selling votes, the highest spender did get the most.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  One important factoid that goes against this view is that Clinton's margin of victory in California was substantially greater than her entire margin of victory in the popular vote. The reason I mention this is because you spend where you need to spend. California was never even remotely in contention and so it's safe to say that Clinton was not spending to try to win by millions in California. In other words, it's unlikely that her spending produced the votes she was trying to 'buy'.
  - gotocake 8y ago
    That’s roughly in line with Obama’s last election in which he won CA by about 3 million votes. In the 2008 election the margin was about the same. Clinton won CA by 4 million popular votes, so I doubt the total of her 3 million excess can be explained there. It’s also, if you’ll forgive my pedantry, a factoid rather than a fact because even in states she lost you have to consider how much more she would have lost by without the ad spend. We don’t have access to the information that would allow us to make thst determination.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      I agree with you, but I don't see how this goes against what I'm saying? In 2008 Obama won California by 3 million. He won in the rest of the nation, excluding California, by 7 million. In 2016 Clinton won in California by 4 million. She lost in the rest of the country, excluding California, by a million. I completely agree that without excessive spending her margin of defeat, outside of California, would likely have been greater. But this also shows that the spending alone does not, in current times, map strongly to votes. And I hope this will continue to be a thing. In my opinion, people are overestimating the significance of the centralized internet forces, such as Facebook, and discounting the significance of decentralized internet forces - such as discussions perhaps not dissimilar to the one you and I are sharing. There's no doubt that advertising has a significant effect, but I think it's perhaps less than ever before largely because people half way around the world from one another can chat and have far more relevant conversations than any sort of 'Hi, I'm Bob. My opponent's an asshole. Vote for me!' piece, or even the more refined. 'Hi, I'm Bob. My meta-analytics indicate that you like broccoli. Omg, I do too. My opponent doesn't. He hates broccoli and all it stands for. Also, he's an asshole, like anybody who wouldn't like broccoli amirite!? Vote for me!' Even outside of the presidential consider things like Sanders. Yes at some point he was competitive in fund raising, but his success was not because of the fund raising. Rather his fund raising came as an effect, rather than a cause, of his success. And again that success was something that was driven by the decentralized and oft difficult to predict, let alone control, forces of internet communication.

azernik 8y ago

Study of American politics generally disproves the idea that money buys elections. There's a certain table stakes you need to reach to get your message in front of voters, but diminishing returns set in quite quickly. (Which means money makes the most difference in small elections - i.e. the better-funded candidate has a very large advantage in things like ballot measure races and local government races where an opponent may not have the money to buy a basic level of advertising.)

bilbo0s 8y ago

Well it's not the means to modern slavery, that's for sure. Slaves actually have to do work.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Is Facebook just a fancy machine for auctioning off the electorate to the highest bidder? No, it's just a currently-useful advertising channel. Advertising has been critical to US election campaigns for some time; to the extent that is a mechanism of slavery (or, perhaps more precisely, plutocracy), it's not something dependent on Facebook.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

I think the thing that enables Facebook is also the thing that obsoletes it. If we imagine Facebook 30 years ago when mass media was still a tightly constrained venture comprised of relatively little more than television, print, and radio, then I think your point would be extremely valid. Reaching an extremely micro-targeted demographic of immense scale, in real time, and for relatively low cost? I mean yeah, Facebook would be what would decides elections. But we don't live 30 years ago. We live today. And billions of people are, in some form or another, doing exactly what you and I are doing right now. Discussing and debating ideas while influencing each other in various ways that are extremely difficult to quantify. We, in turn, are probably somewhat influenced by advertisements and the such still - but I think that people are starting to influence people more than any sort of advertising is. The one thing that has typically predicted elections success in the US is money. Whoever spends more, wins. If they spend a lot more they tend to win by wide margins. In the most recent election, one candidate spent vastly more and were relatively highly praised by the media. The person that was greatly outspent and alternatively vilified or mocked by the media in a 24/7 loop for months leading up to the election, won. For that matter even look at Bernie Sanders. A 73 year old man who refers to himself as a democratic socialist. That word polled somewhere south of cancer not that long ago. But times have changed as the internet can redefine the rules, zeitgeist, and overton window of society - in a flash. Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and full of some interesting quotes, defeated a deeply entrenched representative going on to his 10th term who was still serving as the chair of the house democratic caucus. These things are not happening because any of the cliches that have been blamed. They're happening because the internet has usurped control of dialogue away from any given behemoth. And now what happens is being decided by a collective of individuals that, if nothing else, have shown themselves to be rather less than predictable.