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Are political ads labeled / presented any differently than regular ads on Facebook? The main issue I have with this is how Facebook strategically blends advert
by cj 7y ago
Are political ads labeled / presented any differently than regular ads on Facebook?
The main issue I have with this is how Facebook strategically blends advertisements (which is often political during election cycles) together with organic non-sponsored content.
Anecdote: My 84 year old grandmother spends 1-2 hours per day scrolling through Facebook's news feed. When I watch her do it, she pays ZERO attention to why she's seeing a specific piece of content (to her, there's no difference between a post that's labeled "Sponsored" versus an organic post from a family member). In other words, for my grandmother, Facebook has not done an effective job at informing her when she's viewing a paid advertisement vs. organic non-sponsored content. This is a clear form of user manipulation that needs to stop.
Even when I scroll through Facebook, I often don't notice the "Sponsored" label on posts until after I've already read most of the post.
To me, the primary issue is that Facebook does not adequately differentiate organic content from sponsored content.
At least when watching television, it's absolutely clear when you're watching paid-for commercials - it's harder to manipulate someone's beliefs when they know they're watching a commercial. But with Facebook, a huge percentage of users don't know when they're interacting with an advertisement vs. organic content - this is the problem that I think needs solving.
> Zuck: "Instead, I believe the better approach is to work to increase transparency. Ads on Facebook are already more transparent than anywhere else."
In what way is Facebook transparent? Do they mean they simply disclose political ad spend? Or do they legitimately think they're doing a good job at properly labeling paid-for content?
- WhompingWindows 7y agoWhy can't FB charge a minimal subscription fee? For 2-3 bucks a year, wouldn't they keep the vast majority of users and simultaneously remove their dependence on shadowy advertisement dollars?
- qroshan 7y agoha ha, classic arm-chair expert who has run ZERO business in their lives.
- pengstrom 7y agoNow that's just rude and uncalled for. Why not write a few lines and explain why you think he's wrong?
- sidr 7y agoBecause price stickiness is real, and the stickiness at free is very very strong. Being a service whose appeal derives entirely from the network effect, they will never ever give their users an exogenous push to leave the platform.
- callalex 7y agoTheir average revenue per active user faaaaar exceeds $2-3/yr in the US at least.
- yourself92 7y agoBecause they've determined they can make more money by not doing that
- whiddershins 7y agoThe people who would pay it are the exact same people who are worth the most to advertise to. This is why you can’t pay to get a version of The NY Times that has no ads.
- greenshackle2 7y agoAnd yet I can pay to not see ads on Youtube and Twitch. Is there something different about video vs written content?
- BetaDeltaAlpha 7y agoI don't know about twitch, but YouTube hemorrhages money and couldn't exist independently of Alphabet.
- knzhou 7y agoBecause in practice a negligible fraction of people is willing to pay even a nominal fee for something they think they can get for free. Just a few days ago we had an article full of outrage that Google asked people to pay a small fee once their extremely generous Gmail storage filled up, because they were used to thinking email was free.
- scottmf 7y agoBecause they make more money from ads than they could charge users to remove ads
- ankit219 7y agoI did a back of the paper calculation as to how much fb would earn via me as a user. I noticed a user like me spends about 15 mins a day on facebook and see around 6 sponsored posts. Internally FB ads are all CPM based, at about $4-5 per CPM, no matter the optimization advertisers choose. In a year he would have seen about 2000 impressions, and hence minimum price would be around $10 per year. (There are many users who spends a lot more time and hence the revenue multiple will be higher) But there is more revenue than just that. FB allows advertisers to reach specific audiences, and even create lookalikes, so overall, there will be a %age of the users seeing more ads than me, potentially personalized for them, and average revenue per user would be higher.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoI think your numbers are pretty far off if you look at Facebook financial statements, and a more accurate cost would be around $200/yr for a daily user [1]. US & Canada had 189 million daily users and a quarterly Ad revenue of 8.487 Billion dollars. That is $45 per user per quarter. [1] https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2019/q3/Q3-2019-Earnings-Presentation.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2019/q3...
- ankit219 7y agoYou might be right. I was replying to the parent comment which said facebook should have a ad free subscription product at $2-3 per year. Just tried to say that the Revenue per user is more than that. Also, the numbers you posted include all the inventory - facebook news feed, ads on the side right on desktop, instagram, messenger ads, stories ads, instant articles, and even the ad network. According to facebook (read somewhere) 70% of their ads are on the ad network.
- nidificate 7y agoFacebook makes more than $5 per user but the average is brought down by lower revenue in Asia/Pacific. For users in US/Canada the revenue per user is over $20. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/facebooks-revenue-topped-5-per-user-for-the-first-time.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/facebooks-revenue-topped-5-p...
- knzhou 7y ago> To me, the primary issue is that Facebook does not adequately differentiate organic content from sponsored content. This is a classic isolated demand for rigor. “Sponsored” is exactly as prominent on Facebook as “op-ed” is on newspapers and “advertisement” is on whole sponsored segments of magazines. In all cases that word is there at the top in a normal font. What else are they supposed to do, make it flashing and rainbow colored? Why not complain about newspapers not doing that?
- dominostars 7y agoThe content on Facebook is intentionally made to look like a post from your friend. Advertising in newspapers was always clearly differentiated or even sectioned off.
- knzhou 7y agoNo it doesn't. In both Facebook and in newspapers there are a few words at the top. Sure, this can be misunderstood or go unnoticed, but it does in both cases.
- dominostars 7y agoCan you give examples of newspaper ads that are made to look like just another article on the same page?
- knzhou 7y agoThis is not a new or rare phenomenon. I noticed it many times when growing up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertorial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertorial
- mszkoda 7y agoI work in the publishing industry; we publish several industry trade magazines. We often get sponsored articles that are labeled specifically as ads and are created to look exactly like any other article in our magazines. Most of the time they are extremely clear to the reader based simply on the content compared to other articles, but they are also marked directly as advertisements on the page... though not in a super obvious way.
- nbanks 7y agoThis isn't a new phenomenon. I've also read magazines with advertisements disguised as articles, except for the small "advertisement" label at the top.
- cj 7y agoI agree it’s not a new phenomenon that people in advertising have tried to sneak in advertisements without people noticing. The reason it’s different with Facebook (even though it’s been going on in Magazines forever) is the scale of it. Magazines are ubiquitous but the average American does not spend 1-3 hours per day on reading magazines (minutes at most). But Facebook... it’s at a whole other level in terms of the magnitude of people reached and the magnitude of attention being captured. What might not matter in Magazines May very well matter for Facebook based on the scale of the impact.
- jcranberry 7y agoI don't paid for articles necessarily have to be labeled.
- PAGAN_WIZARD 7y ago>At least when watching television, it's absolutely clear when you're watching paid-for commercials That is not true, product placement can be very subtle and even when it's not, it's not like the actors look at the camera and say "This show brought to you by X" even when it really is.
- hellllllllooo 7y agoPolitical advertising is very clear on television. Isn't that the context of this discussion?
- bryan_w 7y ago> Are political ads labeled / presented any differently than regular ads on Facebook? Yes. It has a "Paid for by ____" header in addition to the sponsored designation
- shaftway 7y agoYeah, but it's never "Paid for by Oil Companies Trying to Pollute the Environment". It's always some meaningless name that serves the underlying cause, like "Paid for by Citizens Concerned About Jobs"
- xmprt 7y agoThat's a broader issue with PACs and whether lobbying of this form should be allowed.
- xmprt 7y agoI now understand how to differentiate between the two but how would anyone in the right mind think that the average person would realize that "Paid for by" implies it's political. At least when they say it in TV ads, it's very clearly a political ad based on the abundance of context clues.