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> that says more about the media they watch than it does about her According to my family member who notices such things (and is not MAGA or conservative), Tru

by csa 2y ago

> that says more about the media they watch than it does about her According to my family member who notices such things (and is not MAGA or conservative), Trump controlled most streaming ads/narratives, while Harris had more of the broadcast ads/narratives, especially for sports (minimally political). I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this as a media silo issue.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
That sounds exactly like a media solo issue. Except the fact that it's billionaire new media choose who gets to see what ad. I would be surpsied if part of big tech's choices on ads wasn't based on the leaders' own preferences. Especially in swing states
- disgruntledphd2 2y ago
  That would require a massive, massive conspiracy that would be difficult to hide.
  - vkou 2y ago
    Why would it? It's not that people are forced to say things that they don't want to say. It's people who say the things that shouldn't be said don't get hired in roles where they can speak. Do you really think that, say, CNN, or WAPO will ever pay people to broadcast views that are actually, credibly threatening to the financial well-being of their owners? Or ones that will make their viewers uncomfortably challenged? The marketplace of ideas in American mass media has always been quite narrow and orthodox in its offerings. Sure, you can say anything you want, but it takes the support of someone with power to be able to say it in a place you will be heard. And the more media consolidates, the smaller and less diverse that field of patrons gets.
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      > Do you really think that, say, CNN, or WAPO will ever pay people to broadcast views that are actually, credibly threatening to the financial well-being of their owners? Or ones that will make their viewers uncomfortably challenged? I too have read Manufacturing Consent, so now. We're talking about social media though, which is mostly smaller independent actors trying to make a buck. And the ads/ranking systems for Meta are really really large and complicated, and to tune them for or against a particular political candidate would be a huge effort which would most likely be done by a bunch of SF based left wing engineers and data scientists, so it seems unlikely that this would have happened without leaks (given that everything leaks for FB/Meta lately).
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Why would they need to hide it? Has anything of consequence happened to Meta from 2016? Their stance is just a private company running ads. EU probably reacted stronger to them from Brexit, but I've heard nary a peep on the US side over such issues.
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      > Has anything of consequence happened to Meta from 2016? Their stance is just a private company running ads. I worked at Meta on ads from 2013 to 2018. Fundamentally, Cambridge Analytica and their "psychographic profiling" was absolute garbage designed to hide their real business model (getting your opponents caught with hookers and blow). Like, at various times, we tried both using the Big 5 traits and hyper local targeting for ads, and neither of them worked (in terms of things we could measure or optimise for). Fundamentally, Trump's success on FB in 2016 was a fundraising story, he was able to raise absurd amounts of money from small donors because (presumably) they liked his message. > EU probably reacted stronger to them from Brexit, but I've heard nary a peep on the US side over such issues. Again, the likelihood that shadowy propaganda swayed the Brexit referendum is low (I'm Irish and have been following this closely since before the vote). The real driver was twenty years of nonsense from the right wing newspapers, couple with the refugee crisis and austerity. I get that it's easier to blame outside actors for political things you don't like, but that's rarely the right answer.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        I wasn't necessarily saying that FB single handedly manipulated an entire nation into making huge swings on a national election. But it doesn't need to. When an election is decided by some 6-7 swing states with extremely slim margins, targeting ads to those regions can change the result. A few thousand votes swung would barely register in any mass analysis as effective (nor would it be in any other proper ad campaign. It'd in fact be a gross failure of you spent millions to get maybe a few thousand buyers), but still change the result. I'll admit I haven't researched brexit's margins enough to see if that same theory sticks, so I won't comment much further on that example. Now even ignoring all that: I feel the intent is the real damming part, not necessarily the success or lack thereof. As a recent example: Musk's campaign in Germany for the afd party failed overall, but it's still very bad taste for an outside party to try an influence a national election that is not representing them. >I get that it's easier to blame outside actors for political things you don't like, but that's rarely the right answer. There is very rarely one single issue that affects political things. But I feel it's important to point out all attack vectors and try to at least attempt to make sure policies work as intended. The ultimate issue in all of this is people ignoring their best interests and falling for lies and misinformation (from all sources), but this chain was focused on media ads, so that's what I discussed.
intended 2y ago
It is 100% a media issue, and it’s not even a silo issue. America has been part of an information war orchestrated by private media entities as part of… the dumbest most successful culture war we have seen. You do not have a functional market place of ideas - it is not an issue of bias. IT is an issue of a monopolist on one side defining the narrative for everyone else, and ensuring no diversity of thought or narratives exist other than the ones that make political hay for the Republicans. I know this, because it’s more than studied, it’s been replicated around the world.

by csa 2y ago

johnnyanmac 2y ago

That sounds exactly like a media solo issue. Except the fact that it's billionaire new media choose who gets to see what ad. I would be surpsied if part of big tech's choices on ads wasn't based on the leaders' own preferences. Especially in swing states

disgruntledphd2 2y ago
That would require a massive, massive conspiracy that would be difficult to hide.
- vkou 2y ago
  Why would it? It's not that people are forced to say things that they don't want to say. It's people who say the things that shouldn't be said don't get hired in roles where they can speak. Do you really think that, say, CNN, or WAPO will ever pay people to broadcast views that are actually, credibly threatening to the financial well-being of their owners? Or ones that will make their viewers uncomfortably challenged? The marketplace of ideas in American mass media has always been quite narrow and orthodox in its offerings. Sure, you can say anything you want, but it takes the support of someone with power to be able to say it in a place you will be heard. And the more media consolidates, the smaller and less diverse that field of patrons gets.
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    > Do you really think that, say, CNN, or WAPO will ever pay people to broadcast views that are actually, credibly threatening to the financial well-being of their owners? Or ones that will make their viewers uncomfortably challenged? I too have read Manufacturing Consent, so now. We're talking about social media though, which is mostly smaller independent actors trying to make a buck. And the ads/ranking systems for Meta are really really large and complicated, and to tune them for or against a particular political candidate would be a huge effort which would most likely be done by a bunch of SF based left wing engineers and data scientists, so it seems unlikely that this would have happened without leaks (given that everything leaks for FB/Meta lately).
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Why would they need to hide it? Has anything of consequence happened to Meta from 2016? Their stance is just a private company running ads. EU probably reacted stronger to them from Brexit, but I've heard nary a peep on the US side over such issues.
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    > Has anything of consequence happened to Meta from 2016? Their stance is just a private company running ads. I worked at Meta on ads from 2013 to 2018. Fundamentally, Cambridge Analytica and their "psychographic profiling" was absolute garbage designed to hide their real business model (getting your opponents caught with hookers and blow). Like, at various times, we tried both using the Big 5 traits and hyper local targeting for ads, and neither of them worked (in terms of things we could measure or optimise for). Fundamentally, Trump's success on FB in 2016 was a fundraising story, he was able to raise absurd amounts of money from small donors because (presumably) they liked his message. > EU probably reacted stronger to them from Brexit, but I've heard nary a peep on the US side over such issues. Again, the likelihood that shadowy propaganda swayed the Brexit referendum is low (I'm Irish and have been following this closely since before the vote). The real driver was twenty years of nonsense from the right wing newspapers, couple with the refugee crisis and austerity. I get that it's easier to blame outside actors for political things you don't like, but that's rarely the right answer.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      I wasn't necessarily saying that FB single handedly manipulated an entire nation into making huge swings on a national election. But it doesn't need to. When an election is decided by some 6-7 swing states with extremely slim margins, targeting ads to those regions can change the result. A few thousand votes swung would barely register in any mass analysis as effective (nor would it be in any other proper ad campaign. It'd in fact be a gross failure of you spent millions to get maybe a few thousand buyers), but still change the result. I'll admit I haven't researched brexit's margins enough to see if that same theory sticks, so I won't comment much further on that example. Now even ignoring all that: I feel the intent is the real damming part, not necessarily the success or lack thereof. As a recent example: Musk's campaign in Germany for the afd party failed overall, but it's still very bad taste for an outside party to try an influence a national election that is not representing them. >I get that it's easier to blame outside actors for political things you don't like, but that's rarely the right answer. There is very rarely one single issue that affects political things. But I feel it's important to point out all attack vectors and try to at least attempt to make sure policies work as intended. The ultimate issue in all of this is people ignoring their best interests and falling for lies and misinformation (from all sources), but this chain was focused on media ads, so that's what I discussed.

intended 2y ago

It is 100% a media issue, and it’s not even a silo issue. America has been part of an information war orchestrated by private media entities as part of… the dumbest most successful culture war we have seen. You do not have a functional market place of ideas - it is not an issue of bias. IT is an issue of a monopolist on one side defining the narrative for everyone else, and ensuring no diversity of thought or narratives exist other than the ones that make political hay for the Republicans. I know this, because it’s more than studied, it’s been replicated around the world.