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Facebook reverses on paid influencers after Bloomberg memes
- appleflaxen 7y agoIt's increasingly clear that Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp are applications that every technologist should shun, and advocate against in their personal lives and in their workplace based on the actions of the corporation that owns them.
- raz32dust 7y agoOk, so you're a "technologist" I guess. What is your solution?
- munk-a 7y agoMaybe just send your buddies an email every once in a while? Before the modern era we got by on letters and phone calls.
- standardUser 7y agoAnd maybe just ride a horse when you wan to go visit your grandmother, who by the way is dying of smallpox.
- MadWombat 7y agoI looked at other options a few times. I do not see how I can convince my whole social circle to use anything else. Especially in the absence of any feature complete alternative.
- coldpie 7y agoI deleted my FB account a while back. I still use Instagram though, I find it genuinely useful and interesting. I have never seen any political or controversial content on there, including ads. I have mixed feelings about supporting FB by using Instagram, but it feels to me like a healthier ecosystem, so I haven't stopped using it (yet).
- duhi88 7y agoI use the web app version of Instagram, and I see no ads whatsoever, and I spend less time on it overall.
- sedachv 7y ago> I have never seen any political or controversial content on there, including ads. One of the reasons I deleted my Instagram account in 2017 was that their recommendation algorithm started showing me neo-Nazi posts. I suspect this was because I followed a bunch of motorcycle and custom/vintage truck hobbyist accounts. Turns out a lot of these IG bikers and truck bros were neo-Nazis. Definitely not something I want from my hobbies.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago> recommendation algorithm started showing me neo-Nazi posts Really? That seems... unlikely. Is it possible that your bar for “Nazi” is screwed to include things someone right of center would think are just normal values? Because I’m guessing you saw BUILD THAT WALL posts and AR-15 Competition pictures and not swasticas and lynched black men.
- sedachv 7y agoSounds like you just got triggered. Sorry about that. I saw some of the symbols featured on this page: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2006/look-racist-skinhead-symbols-and-tattoos https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/... And some symbols on this page: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/08/12/flags-and-other-symbols-used-far-right-groups-charlottesville https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/08/12/flags-and-oth... A lot of it was from European neo-Nazis about European issues (threats directed towards refugees, Muslims, Communists).
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoNot triggered at all. Called you out on your likely “everything i don’t like is a Nazi” and you post from a literal hate group as proof. SPLC is a bad org.
- tathougies 7y agoIt's not increasingly clear at all. Why is it wrong for someone running for elected office to put their message out? EDIT: By the lack of responses and the litany of downvotes, I'm guessing no one can actually articulate a response, but it's just bad because feel feels.
- salawat 7y agoNo one is really arguing that it is. What people object to is the proposition that it is a tenable state of affairs to allow finances to act as a proxy for outreach via disparity in the accessibility of cash. Get your message out by all means, however, our government is too important to be left to the whims of the free market in terms of deciding who amongst us is going to be running it. There cannot be an equal opportunity platform when everything degenerates to "the richest guy wins the contest for mindshare". If everyone were working out of the same pool, and using the same avenues for outreach, you'd have a much easier time of it regulating the current wild west of mass media outreach for political purposes, and purportedly a much more effective one-stop shop where people could actually go to become informed on what can auditable be sourced to a campaign. Least that's the drift I'm picking up.
- tathougies 7y ago> There cannot be an equal opportunity platform when everything degenerates to "the richest guy wins the contest for mindshare" I mean there are all kinds of disparities in terms of likeability and attractiveness. Certainly, those who are rich have an easy way to advertise -- by spending money -- and thus to be seen. However, some people are naturally louder than others. Some, more outgoing. Some are extroverts. Some not, etc. Our government is formed from people who are able to convince others to vote for them. This is not about ideas, or the 'best ideology'. It is ultimately about likeability, which differs already from person to person. I don't understand why money makes a difference. Anyway, as we've seen money doesn't make a difference. In the last election, it bought Clinton only a narrow margin in the popular vote despite spending twice as much. And of course it cost her the election. I don't see much indication that -- at the highest levels of office -- money makes much difference. Perhaps it can at a local level, and of course buying votes outright should be outlawed, as it is. But I do not understand the moral outrage here.
- Marsymars 7y agoThe problem with getting rid of WhatsApp, for me, is that in many cases the choice is between E2E encryption and a desktop app, or SMS. As long as the app remains ad-free and E2E encrypted, it's not clear to me that WhatsApp is yet worse than plain SMS.
- htsh 7y agosignal? the desktop apps are available now on mac/windows/linux and are pretty good. the tougher thing for me has been the network effect and getting folks to make the jump since _everyone_ is on whatsapp.
- Marsymars 7y agoYes, Signal is my preferred messaging app. I'm saying that in many cases, due to the network effect, if I don't use WhatsApp, I'll be communicating to people via SMS.
- starpilot 7y agoBut I have friends who work at those companies. They're brilliant, they post here on HN, and have families that they take care of. They are active in their local communities. Are you saying they're the bad guys? Should I distance myself from them?
- appleflaxen 7y agoHow do you look at people who spent a career at Exxon? Do they deserve to be judged in 2020 for decisions they made 30 years before the clear effects of global warming were visible? I would argue that yes, they do.
- iamaelephant 7y agoYes, absolutely.
- Frondo 7y agoI would like to expand on this, because I think it's a nice quip but the answer should be more nuanced. If Facebook is generally considered harmful (i.e. to society), and if they know that it's considered harmful, and they continue to work there, putting their limited time on earth to growing, enhancing, improving a service that is harmful, then they are bad people. They can be good family people, good for their communities, but bad for society at large. Being good mothers and fathers, volunteering for neighborhood garbage cleanups, helping out in their church or mosque, that doesn't make their day job work not bad, or make them not bad for doing the harmful day job work. They can be both. I for one couldn't look my children in the eye each night and say, "I did something harmful for society today, that is what afforded you a new Switch."
- iamaelephant 7y ago> the answer should be more nuanced. Not it shouldn't. We know that these companies are morally corrupt. When you sell your time to help grow these companies you are also morally corrupt. Simples.
- standardUser 7y ago"...based on the actions of the corporation that owns them" By that metric, there are several thousand other companies that are more worthy of our boycott, by virtue of literally ravaging the planet, poisoning human beings and propping up brutal dictatorships.
- appleflaxen 7y agoYes, I agree.
- tschellenbach 7y agoMost complaints addressed to those 3 sites also apply to the internet as a whole.
- takeda 7y agoThose 3 sites are the same company. Twitter for example did the right thing and simply ban all political ads.
- gowld 7y agoInteresting case. Is Facebook or any platform expected to be the police of all their users' private contracts? That the legitimacy of content is based on how profitable is for the poster and who paid them?
- kraig 7y agosetting a policy and policing that policy are very different things, this argument assumes that their users will deliberately break their advertising rules
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dieselerator 7y agotl;dr my read is: Rather than paying for direct ads candidate Bloomberg paid "social media influencers" to post his message. Apparently it would be difficult to enforce a rule preventing that, so Facebook has decided to allow it.
- huherto 7y agoThanks for the tl;dr Probably candidates and influencers should disclose if they are being paid. After all once you are getting paid, you ARE in the advertisement business.
- mc32 7y agoI think that’s fair. But they should do that for all their peddling.
- luckylion 7y agoWe kind of have that in Germany regarding Youtube and promotional content ("Schleichwerbung" in German, literally "sneaky/sneaking ads"). The problem is that rules are vague so you get endless "this video contains ads"-infos even for those that don't because producers want to be on the safe side when they talk about or show a product. That diminishes the value of the message, because "it's on every video, whatever", just like people react to cookie consent banners. If you make it too narrow, he'll gift them plane tickets, if you make it to wide, is google giving you free hosting on blogger already something you need to disclose on every post?
- 7y ago
- umeshunni 7y agoOk boomer
- themagician 7y agoBoomers are the majority on Facebook now. You’ve got it kind of backwards. Nice try though.
- m_ke 7y agoIt's crazy to me that we allow politicians to run targeted ad campaigns. I randomly looked up Andrew Yang on good a few days ago on my phone and had ads from two billionaires take up my whole screen. https://imgur.com/a/Ke3aWBH https://imgur.com/a/Ke3aWBH Without campaign finance regulation majority of the billions donated to campaigns is going directly into pockets of Google, Facebook and cable monopolies. We're letting billionaires buy the election. > What has Bloomberg been spending on? Per the Federal Elections Commission data through the end of 2019, the two biggest costs have been television advertising ($132 million) and digital outreach ($20 million). Some of the costs reflect a late entry to the campaign—buying lists of voters to contact ($3.2 million), hiring people to gather signatures to get his name on the ballot ($373,441), and hiring recruiters to bring onboard staff ($107,000). https://qz.com/1802367/detailing-mike-bloombergs-unprecedented-2020-campaign-spending/ https://qz.com/1802367/detailing-mike-bloombergs-unprecedent... How are we supposed to trust the media when they're on track to get a billion dollars from a single candidate?
- raz32dust 7y agoI think that is ok, as long as it is not promoted to the top. The problem with ads is (a) the extreme targeting, and (b) too much incentive for the publishing platform to show more of them. This whole problem would be way more manageable if they did not allow political ads, or at least disallow specific targeting other than coarse-grained ones like may be zip code.
- vertig0h 7y agoBloomberg has little organic support compared to the hundreds of millions he is spending. 2016 was clear evidence that money does not buy elections (Clinton outspent Trump 2:1) and this election cycle will demonstrate the same as Bloomberg loses the primary.
- behringer 7y agoIf history demonstrates anything, it's that money can buy you the democratic nomination. Bloomerg may well ruin the party and allow Trump to win the election.
- tathougies 7y agoIt is neither the job of Facebook nor the government to ensure the continued survival or viability of the Democratic or any party
- vertig0h 7y agoUnfortunately Facebook and other tech companies have strong incentives to do just that, given the politics of the large majority of their employees and the power they have over information and elections by extension.
- Eire_Banshee 7y agoUh, isn't a "paid message" just a politically correct way to refer to an Ad?
- scarejunba 7y agoSay I pay you to walk into a pub and tell your friends about my favourite candidate. Your pub generally disallows advertising. But they can't really detect this. So they don't actively do anything about it the way they do some guy walking in with a sign. That's the situation.
- m_ke 7y agoSolution: As a pub you have users sign a terms of service before letting them in, stating that you don't allow this type of behavior and reserve the right to ban the advertiser and the messenger from entering the establishment. Then you make it easy to report solicitation of any activity that's against your terms. A single person might be able to slip by, but anyone trying to brainwash your patrons at scale is very likely to get caught.
- kaibee 7y ago> A single person might be able to slip by, but anyone trying to brainwash your patrons at scale is very likely to get caught. Sure, but a slight correction here. You're implying that once they're caught, they lose. But that's not what happens. To continue the bar analogy, the bartender now has to start banning his customers. He can't do anything to the guy that's bribing them. Bloomberg got "caught" but that doesn't matter at all to him.
- m_ke 7y agoIn this case the guy bribing people is also a regular at the only two pubs in town and getting kicked out of one of them would tank his venture because it's a source of a large portion of his audience. Bloomberg getting kicked off of the Facebook ad platform would be a huge blow to his campaign. Facebook is huge for political campaigns because it allows them to micro target their audience and spam them with ads without any intent on the receiving end. EDIT: Anyways, my main point is, if Facebook wanted to solve this problem they would.
- raister 7y agomoney money money, money! lyrics to their ears to hell with doing the good to the people, let's get rich first!
- Seenso 7y ago> to hell with doing the good to the people, let's get rich first! The real sad thing is that some people don't seem to know the difference. They've convinced themselves that whatever they do to make money means they must be doing good, otherwise the "market" wouldn't reward it.
- raister 7y agowhere is my post that was here?
- raverbashing 7y agoThis will probably run afoul of some advertisement regulations in some countries (not that fb cares, of course). (for those who didn't RTFA - it's referring to "sponsored posts" or "branded content")
- Zenst 7y agoWho knew 1984 was a business model.
- tathougies 7y agoThis is literally the opposite of 1984 because it lets anyone put a political message up, rather than just the governing party. 1984 would be Facebook disallowing paid ads and thus the only organization with enough reach to spread its message would be the government, which would end up meaning the executive branch
- pier25 7y agoWhat's the difference between a 'paid message' and an 'ad'?
- penagwin 7y agoI'd say an "advertisement" is a form of a "paid message". For example I can pay Facebook to put "I LOVE PENGUINS" on everyone's screen - it's not technically an advertisement, just a statement or message. But yeah in the case of political campaigns they're effectively the same thing IMO.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- djrogers 7y agoVery misleading headline - they are allowing ads, they're just not ads that Facebook is being paid for. An Instagram influencer being paid to say something nice about a politician is an ad - full stop.
- KoftaBob 7y agoThis isn't directly related to political ads on social media, but I think it's absurd we ever created a system where elections became a fundraising arms race. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that system inevitably leads to bad incentives. Every election in the US should require a publicly funded pool that's equally divided between the top ____ candidates using polling numbers to determine who those are. Any funding outside of that public fund should be banned. This way, candidates focus their time and energy on catering to the largest number of voters, not the largest sources of donations. No donations whatsoever should be allowed, full stop.
- sys_64738 7y agoBan all political ads. Simple as.
- gambler 7y agoIt was blatantly obvious that social networks are ideal tools for corporate and political propaganda. It was obvious from the very beginning, where people sung praises to Web 2.0 and "collective intelligence". Moreover, real technologists wrote about it, extensively, at the time: https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maoism-the-hazards-of-the-new-online-collectivism https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maois... If some "technologist" acts surprised by this turn of events now, I see only two possibilities: 1. They are genuine, but absolutely suck at analyzing how technology actually works in society. 2. They are liars who knew the dangers of such systems, but didn't find them objectionable because it suited their goals at the time. What seriously disturbs me is that almost everyone from academia or big tech who engage in public discourse on this issue right now - almost all of them do act surprised.
- vertig0h 7y agoOf course the answer is #2. When Obama ran in 2008 and 2012, media, academics and technologists fawned over his campaign's then novel use of technology and Facebook advertising. I remember clear as day reading articles and analysis about his campaign methods without noting a single hint of concern or animus. I've lost a significant amount of faith in people's integrity since 2016 not because of Trump, but because of people's responses to Trump.
- knzhou 7y agoThanks. I have to make this point on HN just about every time Facebook ads come up. It absolutely blows my mind that something so prominent can be intentionally forgotten so quickly. I was very young in 2008 and even then I easily noticed this.
- Phanyxx 7y agoVery good point. Social media platforms were held up a shining example because Obama's message was largely positive, but few stopped to think about the flip side of the scenario... until 2016.
- 7y ago
- dpix 7y agoWhy is it that paying influencers to push agendas (business or political) not considered advertising. I can understand that facebook shouldn't be held accountable for legitimacy of this type of advertising but if an instagram or facebook account has a large enough following they should be treated as advertisers themselves and scrutinized accordingly
- sdoering 7y agoAt least in Germany we have regulations in place that state that ads like this need to be clearly marked as advertising.
- zaroth 7y agoThe issue is not about restricting people from making a political statement, or even restricting people from being paid to make a political statement. But if you are being paid to make an advertising or political statement, you should be required to disclose that you were paid to make the statement. Not surprisingly, we already have laws which require this for advertisements through FTC regulation. The FEC is working on something similar for political ads, and there's even a bipartisan bill from Klobuchar and Graham no less; > Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced the 2019 Honest Ads Act, which would mandate disclosure of those paying for online political ads and create a publicly available database of political ads that appear on major online platforms such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Snapchat and Twitter. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1356/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/135...
- ajoy 7y agoWe have build a chrome extension that block political ads on facebook (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-factual-news-evaluato/clbbiejjicefdjlblgnojolgbideklkp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-factual-news-e...). The extension also rates credibility of news articles you read. Facebook should stop allowing micro-targeting for political ads. Period.
- firethief 7y ago> The extension also rates credibility of news articles you read. So we can just meta-trust "The Factual" (and its what, neural net?) to tell us what's true? I don't see anything about transparency on the website. Granting that you have the best intentions to begin with, isn't that a massive moral hazard once you get popular?
- ajoy 7y agohttps://www.thefactual.com/static/extfaq.html https://www.thefactual.com/static/extfaq.html We try to be transparent. You should form your own opinion. We provide a tool. Use this tool as just another data pt. Posting here so people don't have to click away: * Why should I trust The Factual Credibility grade for articles? The Factual automatically calculates the probability that an individual article is credible. This is based on four factors: - The diversity and quality of its sources - The factual tone of the article's writing style - The expertise of the journalist on the topic based on their article history - The site reputation based on historical scores of every article on the site Because the calculation is automated and devoid of human involvement, criteria are consistently applied across articles and sources. Also, because grades are specific to an article and not a publication, scores vary within a publication. Our algo/tech can tell if something is good, rather than saying if something is surely bad. Check out our news site that we built using our rating system, if you have time: https://www.thefactual.com/news https://www.thefactual.com/news More relevant to the thread : https://story.thefactual.com/news/story/229376-Mike-Bloomberg https://story.thefactual.com/news/story/229376-Mike-Bloomber...
- tqi 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ryanschneider 7y agoI was personally a fan of Yang’s platform position where every citizen received an annual $100 credit that could be transferred to candidates. Instead of trying to restrict what can and can’t be said, give the citizens enough aggregate buying power to over shadow the lobbyists. https://www.yang2020.com/policies/democracydollars/ https://www.yang2020.com/policies/democracydollars/
- w-ll 7y agoIsn't this like voting, but with more steps?
- cfors 7y agoYes, with the added bonus of tax money going into advertiser’s pockets!
- kamikaz1k 7y agoIt is like voting, maybe with more steps, but with way more normalizing power because you can be very flexible in how you vote. As opposed to voting where you have to have the ability to actually exercise that right in a very narrow time constraint. And on top of that you're diminishing* the influence of people with much more money, since you're playing the game with the same tools. *and I do mean diminish, not eliminate.
- 0x5f3759df-i 7y agoPoliticians often work in the interests of their donors, not just their voters. It's a way to adjust the system so that the voters are also the donors.
- tfehring 7y agoMoney is more fungible than votes. If you live in a very red or very blue state, it's probably more impactful to buy $100 worth of political advertising for your candidate of choice in swing states than it is to actually vote in a nationwide general election. (For what it's worth, I'd bet this is still true if you replace $100 with $1.)
- 7y ago
- jshowa3 7y agoAnyone who has done a social media ad for Bloomberg has some serious integrity issues to sort out.
- giarc 7y agoPlease explain? Facebook has said politicians can run ads that are false, I'm not sure why paying influencers is all of a sudden a problem.
- jshowa3 7y agoThere's a lot of problems. You may be advertising for a candidate you don't support just for the money. Most of the advertising has nothing to do with policy positions. The money paid isn't disclosed. It manipulates people easily because it's fad chasing and the candidate often isn't even in it. It promotes rampant consumerism, validation, and group pressure. Then again, there's a big problem with Facebook in general. But that's a whole other can of worms.
- cortesoft 7y agoDo you feel that all the people who work at Facebook have the same integrity problem? Anyone who works for a company that either makes money from or provides services to companies who make money from advertising?
- jshowa3 7y agoI believe it is some of the people that work there not all obviously, but it's mostly the system that's the problem. Ads nowadays are specifically designed to track you and harvest personal data about you at zero expense to you. They are often deceptive in that they advertise a product always as a cure all for everything and they use proven psychologically manipulative tactics to get you to buy the product instead of demonstrating what the product can do. Obviously, Facebook has skin in the game to keep this system going. Which is why they're doing a poor job of fact checking ads and would rather not do them at all.
- golemiprague 7y agoI don't understand this appeal for facebook to be politics babysitter, if anything I would want them not to do anything or interfere in any way. Let people speak their minds and leave me alone to decide.
- toberemoved11 7y agoPeople don't realize that this very platform is controlling your discussion. I'll be auto deleted by the wise HN algo it 'impartial' and godly mods
- krn 7y ago> Facebook said it is asking the influencer accounts that posted the Bloomberg memes to retroactively use the tool meant for such posts. After this happens, the posts will be labeled as a "paid partnership" with Bloomberg. > Campaigns that avoid using the tool, as Bloomberg had, risk having their accounts suspended. I don't see how this is a bad thing. Facebook made the right decision here.
- takeda 7y agoThe thing is that they only make the "right decision" when it benefit one party, those things aren't issues for them when it benefits the other side.
- AndrewKemendo 7y agoAdvertising is absolutely a malignant tumor on society. It's unstoppable and impossible to know where it's going to show up and how. Legitimately creative geniuses will find every possible way to try and influence you to buy their thing or vote for their person, and I really don't know if it's possible to stop it.
- demadog 7y agoCould actually be a way to avoid Russian influence since we know they don’t know how to create English ads with a sense of humor.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dmode 7y agoIt is nuts that two 100 year old billionaires are trying to become president by out-meming each other. Can’t wait to wake up from this alternate reality