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Okay, you can point out one extreme side of the continuum. What about the other extreme, where every political ad contains blatant lies because anyone who doesn

by baddox 7y ago

Okay, you can point out one extreme side of the continuum. What about the other extreme, where every political ad contains blatant lies because anyone who doesn't do that cannot possibly get elected? > I worry though: often the truthfulness of real world statements are difficult to determine. Even when truth is easy to determine, there are few arbiters of information that everyone alongside the aisle trust. This is true, of course, but why is this such a serious or novel concern? All criminal trials, for instance, require making a judgement on the truth about reality. Of course some cases are very hard, and sometimes we get the wrong outcome. But what else do you suggest? That no one ever attempt to determine anything about reality?

pmart123 7y ago
The cream should eventually rise to the top. Political ads are now archived for anyone to scrutinize. If a politician kept releasing ridiculous ads, voters and the general public would likely know about the existence at least. Censoring ads opens up a much larger can of worms IMO. "Republicans back the green deal" could mean: a. Congressional Republican majority b. Some elected Republicans c. A group of Republican voters If AOC ran that ad, it very well would be truthful for B and C, but should Facebook interpret the ad as describing A? There's way too much nuance to be the single arbitrator.
- cartoonworld 7y ago
  You mention that political ads are archived for anyone to scrutinize. I am not aware of this and my belief is that this is both not the case, and in fact very difficult to execute due to the ephemeral nature of internet advertising. For example, imagine my TIMECUBE PAC ponies up for 2500 targeted facebook micro-campaigns with very slight variations depending on the target demo with an ad spend of $20, $50K cost. Would it be actually possible for anybody to get Facebook to tell them who I was advertising at, or what those ads were?
  - vmlinuz 7y ago
    Do you mean something like this? It doesn't go into exact details, but it does exist... https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=political_and_issue_ads&country=US&impression_search_field=has_impressions_lifetime&q=green%20new%20deal https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_t...
    - pmart123 7y ago
      Yes, exactly. This is at least granular enough to see location, gender, type of message, etc. previously with TV or old media, we couldn’t access who politicians were targeting with ads. Now we can. I don’t see how this isn’t an improvement?
      - cartoonworld 7y ago
        Wow no! TV ads are broadcast and you can have one grad student check some boxes per market, they just need an extension cord and a bunch of TVs to watch. Internet ads can have a spend of one and they're gone, or behind this really slick infinite scroll. If 40 people see the ad really whats the likelihood of gleaning useful information? The Old World Mad Men style Ad is blasted from the antenna, printed, or plastered on a billboard. With Old Media you can tell easily who's being targeted because you can't narrow down based on "Likely to be Pregnant". A TV commercial is incapable of pranking your roommate[0], this stuff is a wholly new category, and its profitability is larger than Uber's 2019 Q2 posted losses. While this handy search page is for sure an improvement over Facebook's previously completely opaque ad market, I disagree that this is an improvement over the Old Media. I'd also imagine the Old Media ads have a lawyer or compliance person overseeing the business, and while I know FB has the lawyers I doubt anyone is motivated or empowered to hit the brakes. [0] https://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-my-roommate-with-targeted-facebook-ads/ https://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking...
        pmart123 7y ago
        You can still target ads based on the type of show, time of day, and billboard location. I still don't believe you could have grad students look at every political ad, especially across all local elections. While the content of the ad does not change much for TV, you still won't know exactly how much a politician was paying for each ad slot, and what demographic the politician was trying to target.
danans 7y ago
> What about the other extreme, where every political ad contains blatant lies because anyone who doesn't do that cannot possibly get elected? Basically an arms race of lies, where those willing to lie the most have the greatest advantage. What's worse is that the most insidious of the lies will appeal to the parts of the targets' psyches that wants very much to believe the lies, and therefore unlikely to proactively fact check (i.e Pizzagate). And as has been the trend of late, lies that are eventually publicly debunked will be minimized as being "just jokes".

by baddox 7y ago

pmart123 7y ago

The cream should eventually rise to the top. Political ads are now archived for anyone to scrutinize. If a politician kept releasing ridiculous ads, voters and the general public would likely know about the existence at least. Censoring ads opens up a much larger can of worms IMO. "Republicans back the green deal" could mean: a. Congressional Republican majority b. Some elected Republicans c. A group of Republican voters If AOC ran that ad, it very well would be truthful for B and C, but should Facebook interpret the ad as describing A? There's way too much nuance to be the single arbitrator.

cartoonworld 7y ago
You mention that political ads are archived for anyone to scrutinize. I am not aware of this and my belief is that this is both not the case, and in fact very difficult to execute due to the ephemeral nature of internet advertising. For example, imagine my TIMECUBE PAC ponies up for 2500 targeted facebook micro-campaigns with very slight variations depending on the target demo with an ad spend of $20, $50K cost. Would it be actually possible for anybody to get Facebook to tell them who I was advertising at, or what those ads were?
- vmlinuz 7y ago
  Do you mean something like this? It doesn't go into exact details, but it does exist... https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=political_and_issue_ads&country=US&impression_search_field=has_impressions_lifetime&q=green%20new%20deal https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_t...
  - pmart123 7y ago
    Yes, exactly. This is at least granular enough to see location, gender, type of message, etc. previously with TV or old media, we couldn’t access who politicians were targeting with ads. Now we can. I don’t see how this isn’t an improvement?
    - cartoonworld 7y ago
      Wow no! TV ads are broadcast and you can have one grad student check some boxes per market, they just need an extension cord and a bunch of TVs to watch. Internet ads can have a spend of one and they're gone, or behind this really slick infinite scroll. If 40 people see the ad really whats the likelihood of gleaning useful information? The Old World Mad Men style Ad is blasted from the antenna, printed, or plastered on a billboard. With Old Media you can tell easily who's being targeted because you can't narrow down based on "Likely to be Pregnant". A TV commercial is incapable of pranking your roommate[0], this stuff is a wholly new category, and its profitability is larger than Uber's 2019 Q2 posted losses. While this handy search page is for sure an improvement over Facebook's previously completely opaque ad market, I disagree that this is an improvement over the Old Media. I'd also imagine the Old Media ads have a lawyer or compliance person overseeing the business, and while I know FB has the lawyers I doubt anyone is motivated or empowered to hit the brakes. [0] https://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-my-roommate-with-targeted-facebook-ads/ https://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking...
      - pmart123 7y ago
        You can still target ads based on the type of show, time of day, and billboard location. I still don't believe you could have grad students look at every political ad, especially across all local elections. While the content of the ad does not change much for TV, you still won't know exactly how much a politician was paying for each ad slot, and what demographic the politician was trying to target.

danans 7y ago

> What about the other extreme, where every political ad contains blatant lies because anyone who doesn't do that cannot possibly get elected? Basically an arms race of lies, where those willing to lie the most have the greatest advantage. What's worse is that the most insidious of the lies will appeal to the parts of the targets' psyches that wants very much to believe the lies, and therefore unlikely to proactively fact check (i.e Pizzagate). And as has been the trend of late, lies that are eventually publicly debunked will be minimized as being "just jokes".