6 ms·

Facebook ads targeted black audiences for voting “deterrence”

66 points by apsec112 6y ago

mdoms 6y ago
In 2016.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  The linked article says it was published on 28 Sep 2020
  - TheHypnotist 6y ago
    There are tons of reports from 2016 as well.
  - mdoms 6y ago
    It's an article about 2016.
vkou 6y ago
Look, I'm as happy to complain about Trump and Facebook as the next liberal, but this is a rubbish article, since no examples of these ads from the 2020 campaign were given. Examples from 2016 ads of Hillary referring to black youths as super-predators[1] were provided, but nothing for 2020. [1] Has the DNC considered that perhaps, it actually needed to work for the black vote, instead of feeling entitled to it, before nominating her?
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  The article is about 2016 ads, yes. Doesn't make it "rubbish." As far as being "entitled," that IS a rubbish argument as Black people vote in the primary, and Biden (for instance) became the nominee in large part due to support from the Black community (to say nothing of his running mate who is also part of the Black community). Arguing that communities don't have any agency when they, in fact, have a disproportionately large role in primaries shows a lack of knowledge of the Democratic party. And generally speaking, ignoring the primary process is an unfortunately common problem with our political discourse. I think both major parties would be better if people paid more attention to the primaries (and nominated better people).
  - derision 6y ago
    When Kamala was elected to Congress she was reported to be the first Indian woman in Congress. Now she's black?
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      Most people have two biological parents. So yes, she can be both Indian and Black. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/us/kamala-harris-parents.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/us/kamala-harris-parents....
    - evan_ 6y ago
      her father is Black and her mother was Indian.
    - djsumdog 6y ago
      She's a descendant of an Indian and of a Jamaican. She's "black" but not ADOS (descendant of slavery). Honestly I see these identifications to a political ends as very problematic. Your political beliefs and policy decisions should stand on their own, absent a person's identity.
      - tome 6y ago
        > She's "black" but not ADOS (descendant of slavery). How not? Surely most black Jamaicans are descendants of slaves.
    - nirav72 6y ago
      Not sure why that is an issue - She's of mixed-race/mix-ancestry. When she won her senate seat, she was not the first person of African ancestry to be elected to the senate. But she was indeed the first one of Indian ancestry. Now that she's a VP candidate,she is the first woman of African ancestry to be picked for that position.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Let's not pretend that the candidates that make it to the primary ballots exist in a vaccum. There was a lot of institutional momentum behind Hillary, which turned out to be entirely misplaced. She got picked over Sanders - okay, I get it, people voted. (And he isn't exactly a darling of that demographic.) But why was she the DNC front-runner, to begin with? And when the actual election happened... It resulted in a low voter turnout among the African American community. TFA blames the Trump campaign for it, without stopping for even a moment to think 'Maybe the democratic campaign should have found a better candidate'. Remember 2008, when, despite the wishes of the DNC, a candidate that did energize the African American community won the primaries?
andrew_ 6y ago
I'd like to see the documents mentioned that support the claims in the article. Uncited, this is little more than Uncle Fred's facebook posts.
tehwebguy 6y ago
That the same campaign that did this in 2016 is allowed to be on any ballot at any time after is absolutely incredible.
mikece 6y ago
This is the kind of content that makes the top Facebookers fall into split personality disorders. For the business of Facebook, controversial and even hateful content is a massive boon for business as engagement and sharing is an order of magnitude or more than for "fact checked true" stories. So does Facebook allow this to go on and rake in the huge sums of advertising money spent on their platform or risk being accused of Nazi-like censorship by banning such content (and losing all of that ad revenue)? Quite the conundrum.
netik 6y ago
Isn't this the same multi-terabyte leak from 2017? https://fortune.com/2017/06/19/deep-root-analytics-voter-data-exposed/ https://fortune.com/2017/06/19/deep-root-analytics-voter-dat... Or is this another one?
tome 6y ago
One of the charges seems to be that the proportion of black voters chosen for "deterrence" is about twice as large as proportion of black voters in the general population. Given that 92% of black voters voted for a candidate other than Trump[1] and about 50% of all voters voted for a candidate other than Trump, it seems that simply selecting "Democrats" for deterrence explains the outcome, nothing to do with race at all. Am I missing something here, or is this just a huge misunderstanding of statistics? [The fact that this database exists and is used at all might be suspect but that seems orthogonal to how the numbers are reported in this story.] [EDIT: Changed "The charge seems to be" to "One of the charges seems to be". The article contains plenty of charges (the existence of the database at all, for example), besides the statistical aspects.] [1] https://www.mic.com/articles/159402/here-s-a-break-down-of-how-african-americans-voted-in-the-2016-election https://www.mic.com/articles/159402/here-s-a-break-down-of-h...
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > In one confidential document seen by Channel 4 News, Cambridge Analytica admitted the Trump campaign did target “AA” (African Americans) with what it called the “Predators video” – spending $55,000 USD in the state of Georgia alone.
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    That's not a revelation either. The ad[1] is a series of remarks made by HRC ostensibly denigrating multiple groups, and each remark is labeled with its target: "African-American youth", "millenial voters" [this one was about Bernie supporters], and "Trump voters". It seems pretty obvious to me (and anyone who saw it?) that an ad like this would be targeted towards the blocs that it's about, which would include black voters and young Bernie supporters, to prevent them from voting Hillary. [1] https://www.politico.com/video/2016/10/trump-campaign-releases-anti-clinton-predators-ad-060992 https://www.politico.com/video/2016/10/trump-campaign-releas...
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      The parent comment said "it seems that simply selecting 'Democrats' for deterrence explains the outcome". The article makes it clear that's not the case.
djsumdog 6y ago
Is it possible to get this leaked dump? The article says it's from 2016, and I have a few empty 4TB hard drives, so it'd be interesting to load up the data and look through it myself. On the surface though, if the article is accurate (and I'd want to personally verify it, if the data is available), the idea of labeled a subset of people you advertise to as 'Deterrence' because you have information leading you you believe they'd vote against you, isn't problematic in and of itself. The article tries to claim there's a link between that label and black voters, but what if they just had selection criteria that assigned that label, and they just happened to be black based on lots of other criteria? What if there are tons of black people that were marked with a positive label for getting positive ads, because they are black republicans (e.g. they classified them based on posting links to Thomas Sowell, Officer Tatum, Candice Owens, et. al.)
johneth 6y ago
Why is this flagged?
insickness 6y ago
I call bull all the way around on this. How do you 'target' people to not vote? Seriously, what did they tell them, that the election wasn't happening? That's a giant hole in this story. What kind of ads would you serve those people?
- voisin 6y ago
  There is historical precedence for billboards and other advertising in black communities giving the wrong date of the election, or telling people only a passport will be taken as ID, etc. It isn’t telling them not to vote but is effectively discouraging or misinforming.
  - insickness 6y ago
    If they had told people the wrong date, or given misinformation about voting requirements, that would have been the headline. But it wasn't. Again, what specifically did they tell these people to deter them from voting? Nothing. Or there would have been a headline about it. This is just speculation.
- rudasn 6y ago
  "vote. It's not going to change anything."
  - insickness 6y ago
    Is that what they said? No. If they had said this, that would have been the headline. It's pure speculation that they were trying to deter these people from voting.

66 points by apsec112 6y ago

mdoms 6y ago

In 2016.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
The linked article says it was published on 28 Sep 2020
- TheHypnotist 6y ago
  There are tons of reports from 2016 as well.
- mdoms 6y ago
  It's an article about 2016.

vkou 6y ago

Look, I'm as happy to complain about Trump and Facebook as the next liberal, but this is a rubbish article, since no examples of these ads from the 2020 campaign were given. Examples from 2016 ads of Hillary referring to black youths as super-predators[1] were provided, but nothing for 2020. [1] Has the DNC considered that perhaps, it actually needed to work for the black vote, instead of feeling entitled to it, before nominating her?

Robotbeat 6y ago
The article is about 2016 ads, yes. Doesn't make it "rubbish." As far as being "entitled," that IS a rubbish argument as Black people vote in the primary, and Biden (for instance) became the nominee in large part due to support from the Black community (to say nothing of his running mate who is also part of the Black community). Arguing that communities don't have any agency when they, in fact, have a disproportionately large role in primaries shows a lack of knowledge of the Democratic party. And generally speaking, ignoring the primary process is an unfortunately common problem with our political discourse. I think both major parties would be better if people paid more attention to the primaries (and nominated better people).
- derision 6y ago
  When Kamala was elected to Congress she was reported to be the first Indian woman in Congress. Now she's black?
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Most people have two biological parents. So yes, she can be both Indian and Black. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/us/kamala-harris-parents.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/us/kamala-harris-parents....
  - evan_ 6y ago
    her father is Black and her mother was Indian.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    She's a descendant of an Indian and of a Jamaican. She's "black" but not ADOS (descendant of slavery). Honestly I see these identifications to a political ends as very problematic. Your political beliefs and policy decisions should stand on their own, absent a person's identity.
    - tome 6y ago
      > She's "black" but not ADOS (descendant of slavery). How not? Surely most black Jamaicans are descendants of slaves.
  - nirav72 6y ago
    Not sure why that is an issue - She's of mixed-race/mix-ancestry. When she won her senate seat, she was not the first person of African ancestry to be elected to the senate. But she was indeed the first one of Indian ancestry. Now that she's a VP candidate,she is the first woman of African ancestry to be picked for that position.
- vkou 6y ago
  Let's not pretend that the candidates that make it to the primary ballots exist in a vaccum. There was a lot of institutional momentum behind Hillary, which turned out to be entirely misplaced. She got picked over Sanders - okay, I get it, people voted. (And he isn't exactly a darling of that demographic.) But why was she the DNC front-runner, to begin with? And when the actual election happened... It resulted in a low voter turnout among the African American community. TFA blames the Trump campaign for it, without stopping for even a moment to think 'Maybe the democratic campaign should have found a better candidate'. Remember 2008, when, despite the wishes of the DNC, a candidate that did energize the African American community won the primaries?

andrew_ 6y ago

I'd like to see the documents mentioned that support the claims in the article. Uncited, this is little more than Uncle Fred's facebook posts.

tehwebguy 6y ago

That the same campaign that did this in 2016 is allowed to be on any ballot at any time after is absolutely incredible.

mikece 6y ago

This is the kind of content that makes the top Facebookers fall into split personality disorders. For the business of Facebook, controversial and even hateful content is a massive boon for business as engagement and sharing is an order of magnitude or more than for "fact checked true" stories. So does Facebook allow this to go on and rake in the huge sums of advertising money spent on their platform or risk being accused of Nazi-like censorship by banning such content (and losing all of that ad revenue)? Quite the conundrum.

netik 6y ago

Isn't this the same multi-terabyte leak from 2017? https://fortune.com/2017/06/19/deep-root-analytics-voter-data-exposed/ https://fortune.com/2017/06/19/deep-root-analytics-voter-dat... Or is this another one?

tome 6y ago

One of the charges seems to be that the proportion of black voters chosen for "deterrence" is about twice as large as proportion of black voters in the general population. Given that 92% of black voters voted for a candidate other than Trump[1] and about 50% of all voters voted for a candidate other than Trump, it seems that simply selecting "Democrats" for deterrence explains the outcome, nothing to do with race at all. Am I missing something here, or is this just a huge misunderstanding of statistics? [The fact that this database exists and is used at all might be suspect but that seems orthogonal to how the numbers are reported in this story.] [EDIT: Changed "The charge seems to be" to "One of the charges seems to be". The article contains plenty of charges (the existence of the database at all, for example), besides the statistical aspects.] [1] https://www.mic.com/articles/159402/here-s-a-break-down-of-how-african-americans-voted-in-the-2016-election https://www.mic.com/articles/159402/here-s-a-break-down-of-h...

ceejayoz 6y ago
> In one confidential document seen by Channel 4 News, Cambridge Analytica admitted the Trump campaign did target “AA” (African Americans) with what it called the “Predators video” – spending $55,000 USD in the state of Georgia alone.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  That's not a revelation either. The ad[1] is a series of remarks made by HRC ostensibly denigrating multiple groups, and each remark is labeled with its target: "African-American youth", "millenial voters" [this one was about Bernie supporters], and "Trump voters". It seems pretty obvious to me (and anyone who saw it?) that an ad like this would be targeted towards the blocs that it's about, which would include black voters and young Bernie supporters, to prevent them from voting Hillary. [1] https://www.politico.com/video/2016/10/trump-campaign-releases-anti-clinton-predators-ad-060992 https://www.politico.com/video/2016/10/trump-campaign-releas...
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    The parent comment said "it seems that simply selecting 'Democrats' for deterrence explains the outcome". The article makes it clear that's not the case.

djsumdog 6y ago

Is it possible to get this leaked dump? The article says it's from 2016, and I have a few empty 4TB hard drives, so it'd be interesting to load up the data and look through it myself. On the surface though, if the article is accurate (and I'd want to personally verify it, if the data is available), the idea of labeled a subset of people you advertise to as 'Deterrence' because you have information leading you you believe they'd vote against you, isn't problematic in and of itself. The article tries to claim there's a link between that label and black voters, but what if they just had selection criteria that assigned that label, and they just happened to be black based on lots of other criteria? What if there are tons of black people that were marked with a positive label for getting positive ads, because they are black republicans (e.g. they classified them based on posting links to Thomas Sowell, Officer Tatum, Candice Owens, et. al.)

johneth 6y ago

Why is this flagged?

insickness 6y ago

I call bull all the way around on this. How do you 'target' people to not vote? Seriously, what did they tell them, that the election wasn't happening? That's a giant hole in this story. What kind of ads would you serve those people?

voisin 6y ago
There is historical precedence for billboards and other advertising in black communities giving the wrong date of the election, or telling people only a passport will be taken as ID, etc. It isn’t telling them not to vote but is effectively discouraging or misinforming.
- insickness 6y ago
  If they had told people the wrong date, or given misinformation about voting requirements, that would have been the headline. But it wasn't. Again, what specifically did they tell these people to deter them from voting? Nothing. Or there would have been a headline about it. This is just speculation.
rudasn 6y ago
"vote. It's not going to change anything."
- insickness 6y ago
  Is that what they said? No. If they had said this, that would have been the headline. It's pure speculation that they were trying to deter these people from voting.