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Signal Tries to Run the Most Honest Facebook Ad Campaign Ever, Gets Banned
- jariel 6y agoThis is lesson in media, PR, liars, spin, misrepresentation, attempts to explain, yada yada. There are hardly any good actors here: Signal for misrepresenting, the press for turning a blind eye, Facebook for collecting too information etc.. This is a really bad look for tech.
- medstrom 6y agoCui bono: who benefits? This seems an asymmetric affair in favour of increasing Signal's visibility (infamy is still fame) and in reducing people's trust in big tech. A win for privacy team, even if you can debate whether it's a win for Signal in particular.
- sp332 6y agoFacebook is pushing back on these claims: https://twitter.com/Kantrowitz/status/1389735736644091906 https://twitter.com/Kantrowitz/status/1389735736644091906 "These ads were never rejected because they were never set by Signal to run. The ad account has been available since early March"
- threatofrain 6y agoI'm glad that both FB and Signal have both made clear claims which may be proven or disproven. That makes everything much easier for onlookers. As both parties have made strong plays, time will adjudicate this matter.
- medstrom 6y agoKarl Popper rests peacefully.
- neltnerb 6y agoWow, that sounds like a response made without input from their PR department. They basically obligated themselves to show these ads now if Signal tries to run them (even taking at face value their claim that they were never set to run). So, they never ran the ads as a publicity campaign, caused some Facebook exec without enough PR experience to promise they will be run, and now they run... a publicity campaign... seems like Signal is winning twice here to me.
- threatofrain 6y agoIt's not obvious to me. If FB's claims turn out to be true, then it will look very bad for Signal — that they staged evidence to create a fake story about FB, and went on record to double-down on their dishonesty.
- invalidname 6y agoYes but do you honestly believe Facebook over Signal? Facebook literally lied to Congress... Signal is about transparency. I seriously doubt Signal lied. They have no incentive to lie here, if the ad would have run they would have won, it didn't they're winning. It's a win-win for them.
- anonymousab 6y agoIt is possible that neither of them are lying and that Signal just misinterpreted what the Facebook ad system was telling them and jumped the gun a bit.
- barnaclejive 6y agoSignal is pushing back on these claims: https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1389767227570798595 https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1389767227570798595
- amanzi 6y agoAnd then Facebook pushed back again: https://twitter.com/Kantrowitz/status/1389773302160297985 https://twitter.com/Kantrowitz/status/1389773302160297985 The screenshots Signal posted showed they were from early March and show no ads rejected. I never thought I would say this, but so far I'm leaning towards believing Facebook over Signal.
- lordlimecat 6y agoFacebook would not push back on this unless they were very sure of their position, because the spotlight is going to be on them harder.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- fingerlocks 6y agoInteresting. After reading the back and forth between Signal and Facebook, I think Facebook’s argument is stronger. It sounds plausible that Signal’s account was briefly suspended due to a payment issue, and someone in Signal’s marketing is simply mistaken, confused, and/or inexperienced at using Facebook’s ad campaign tools.
- shoto_io 6y agoThese tools get more and more complicated by the day, so that could very well be
- NoPicklez 6y agoLooking at the screenshot provided by Signal it's pretty clear that the account is disabled due to some sort of payment dispute and/or account balance problem.
- SheinhardtWigCo 6y agoThey have plausible deniability because FB bans are well known to be totally opaque. They don't like to tell you what you did wrong.
- NoPicklez 6y agoThe image they posted clearly has a statement on it next to the account disable banner which relates to an account balance problem. It also has 0 rejected ads against the campaign. Doesn't seem to be totally opaque to me.
- toast0 6y agoDisclosure: I worked at FB, but my only exposure to ads was in an advisory role on an ads product that as far as i know hasn't launched and doesn't seem to be launching soon and my advice wasn't taken anyway. Looking at the big modal style box in the middle of the screenshot it says: "Ad Account Disabled This ad account, its ads and some of its advertising assets are disabled. You can't use it to run ads." And there's a see details button. Maybe the see details indicates a fixable problem, and some of the text behind seems to maybe indicate a fixable payment problem, but it's not clear at all from the text of the big box that the problem is fixable. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that when Facebook says you can't use this account to run ads, it means you can't use that account to run ads, end of story. There's not a call to action to contact customer support or fix the payment or anything, just disabled, you can't run ads. I'm looking at this image https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59fWEAI9HcX?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59fWEAI9HcX?format=jpg&name=...
- SheinhardtWigCo 6y agoIt looks like: 1. Signal planned this as a PR stunt, anticipating that Facebook would reject the ads. 2. After setting up their ad account, the account or payment method was flagged for additional verification, triggering the dialog they showed in the screenshot in their blog post. 3. That dialog has a big red padlock that says "Ad Account Disabled". That's perfect for Signal's needs, so they stop here and don't even bother getting the actual ads reviewed and rejected. Signal's post is careful not to say that the ads were rejected, only that their account was banned. In response to the pushback, on Twitter, they posted another screenshot showing that the account was restricted, but still no evidence that they actually attempted to run the ads.
- maram 6y ago> Signal planned this as a PR stun I would say both Signal + Facebook. I only use iMessage. In Apple I trust =)
- NoPicklez 6y agoYou only use iMessage up until the point you need to SMS a device that isn't an Apple device. Then its not in Apple's ecosystem anymore.
- mosselman 6y agoHow do you know that they aren’t using iMessage to only send iMessages?
- NoPicklez 6y agoI don't but my point still stands, Signal and Messenger are software agnostic (to a degree). There is every possibility that when I send a person an SMS, it will fall outside of the iMessage ecosystem. If I send someone a message on Signal or Messenger, it will only come through to them via that platform. With iMessage you cannot guarantee that.
- newgradhire 6y agoVery disappointed this was a sham LOL.
- NullPrefix 6y ago>our advertising policies prohibit ads that assert that you have a specific medical condition or sexual orientation Are there any grammy-like awards for corporate speak performances? This is gold.
- gnicholas 6y agomostly a dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27040470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27040470
- cyansmoker 6y agoEvery single word in his headline comes as no surprise to me. What about you?
- NoPicklez 6y agoWell, it looks like Facebook did not ban the ads. But that Signal have confused their ads being rejected for a payment dispute with their account.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- londons_explore 6y agoNot the first time someone has tried this technique... Remember: Want to buy black hole on eBay? Cheap black hole available to buy now! Those ads just stuffed every dictionary word permutation into the ad API. Can you imagine how much load that put on ad systems? I can totally imagine Facebook deactivating an advertiser who tries to upload and activate 1 trillion+ ad creatives and sets of targeting criteria, especially if their total spend was low.
- ljlolel 6y agoThese systems are highly scalable and ad buyers commonly use programmatic ad buying to test many combinations
- londons_explore 6y agoProgrammatic ad buying still requires each creative be approved on most ad networks. This technique would require billions of creatives, most of which would never even be used. I can see how ad networks may not want to take on that...
- londons_explore 6y agoThey aren't that scalable though. For example, every ad system I've worked on requires every ad creative in RAM. Having an ad creative with each combination of a life event, job title, interest, and city might be 100 bytes * 10 life events * 1000 job titles * 1000 interests * 1000000 towns/cities = 1000 TB of RAM. That needs duplicating in every ad serving datacenter. (say 20 for facebook) Will facebook be dedicating 20000TB of RAM to signals ad campaign? Thats $86 Million for the hardware alone. I think not...
- pseudalopex 6y agoWhere did anyone say Signal intended to target every possible combination of criteria?
- codelord 6y agoIt's funny that if you look at the background of the image Signal posted you see pretty clearly their account was disabled due to some unusual account activity not ad violation. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59fWEAI9HcX?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59fWEAI9HcX?format=jpg&name=... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59bXIAMn5hr?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0lx59bXIAMn5hr?format=jpg&name=...
- franklampard 6y agoThe screenshots literally showed their were no rejected ads. smh signal
- a254613e 6y agoAnd you can see that the screenshots are from March 4th.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> if it's not clear exactly why the account is disabled, it is irresponsible of Signal to create a blog post blaming it on Facebook I trust HN’s opinion on this. But speaking as a layman, nothing in those images screams “easy solution here” to me. Facebook isn’t Google when it comes to service. But I can totally see someone well meaning at Signal interpreting that messaging, and the lack of any call to action other than “see details” in the error box, as a permanent and irrevocable (without a Twitter or front-page-on-HN tantrum) ban. Hell, the second image even calls out "not complying with [their] Advertising Policy or other standards."
- bawolff 6y agoI don't have a lot of sympathy for facebook here. If you disable people's account you need to be clear about why or you are going to suffer blowback.
- NoPicklez 6y agoRight, but when your ad campaign shows no rejected ads and you don't actually know if it was due to the ad campaign. Then I would be reluctant to spread Twitter posts and Blog posts regarding that being the reason. If signal investigated and came back with a legitimate Facebook response, then absolutely. It's not the benefit of the doubt, its conjecture. Based on the information I can see I have no reason to believe that the campaign was rejected by Facebook, the screenshots show that the campaign did not even run, nor were any of the ads rejected. I'm not trying to defend anyone however the profession I work in, I cannot raise observations unless they're validated and I don't think Signal have validated enough the reason why the account was disabled. I also don't think the photos they have provided directly point to it either as it is highly plausible that the deactivation is related to something completely legitimate.
- hiisukun 6y agoI am surprised to hear that commenters consider a person with a closed Google/Facebook/Amazon account of being able to clearly know why it was closed and how to remedy that situation. I have read many HN articles and pleas for help describing the exact opposite - a cancelled/blocked account and no proper explanation. Of course in this gamed scenario, both parties claim the above! Ludicrous.
- anonymousab 6y agoBut this is not a case of the account staying locked and Signal being left with no recourse but to assume the worst (a reasonable approach to megacorps). At least, according to Facebook, it was only locked for a few days and at no time after clearing up the payment issue did Signal actually setup and attempt to schedule the ads to run. Well, according to Facebook. Whose logging could be wrong for all we know.
- NoPicklez 6y agoIn this scenario you can see on the screenshots posted by Signal that it looks to be related to a payment dispute or account balance problem. Its also silly given that it says there are no rejected ads, yet Signal said the ads were rejected. It's one thing to not know why your account is suddenly disabled, but it's another to attribute that to Facebook simply not liking the campaign you wanted to run. Perhaps if Signal followed up and were provided with concrete evidence that it was due to the campaign being taken down, then it would bolster their story. The problem is that plenty of news articles have already reported on Facebook banning the account due to the campaign. So it seems like Signal have got what they wanted, however from my point of view this is a scummy move by Signal and makes them seem more nefarious rather than open and transparent.
- gtsop 6y agoOk, so if Signal was banned for different reasons and facebook claims the ad campaign wasn't the problem... it means that Signal can create another account and run the same campaign again, Facebook shouldn't block them for that in the future. Let's see what happens.
- daemoon 6y agoIn that case they will get banned, because Facebook does not allow advertisers to let the targeted group know why they were targeted. https://twitter.com/dmarti/status/1389737052091027460/photo/1 https://twitter.com/dmarti/status/1389737052091027460/photo/...
- OldGoodNewBad 6y agoIs there any way that you can sign up without a phone number?
- esarbe 6y agoThey are working on it.
- OldGoodNewBad 6y agoThey said that like 3 years ago though…
- diveanon 6y agoIn asia phone number is really the only viable default registration option if you want to go mass market.
- OldGoodNewBad 6y agoI’m afraid that doesn’t make any sense at all. Can you try again?
- diveanon 6y agoSeems pretty clear, what don't you get? Registration via email isn't nearly as popular here as it is in the west. If you are going to choose a registration option to initially support, phone number is the correct choice.
- usr1106 6y agoDubious story. While Facebook is one of the worst examples of surveillance capitalism the evidence is very questionable in this case. Screenshots saying 0 ads run(?)/rejected(?)