Reporter Posed as Cambridge Analytica To Run Political Ads on Facebook. Facebook, To No One's Surprise, Failed To Catch That They Were Frauds. (businessinsider.com) 81
From a report: Facebook's new political ad transparency tools allowed Business Insider to run adverts as being "paid for" by Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy that dragged Facebook into a major data scandal this year. The investigation demonstrates that political advertising on Facebook is still open to manipulation by bad actors, even with greater efforts at transparency. This is despite commitments from chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to solve the company's misinformation problem. Vice first reported last week that the Facebook political ads tool could be manipulated, with the publication securing approval to buy fake Facebook ads on behalf of US Vice President Mike Pence, terrorist group ISIS, and 100 US senators. Business Insider carried out a similar test, setting up false political ads that were captioned as being "paid for by Cambridge Analytica," the defunct political advertising firm which harvested Facebook data and weaponized it during the 2016 US election. Cambridge Analytica is banned from Facebook and has gone into administration.
I am spartacus (Score:2)
Oddly this finally an on topic comment
No, I am Captain Kirk (Score:2)
And I'm here to make your name Mudd
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And I'm here to make your name Mudd
. . . and Facebook says:
"I am Negan!"
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The problem isn't FB.
The problem is the people that MAKE it.
Social Media is a scourge on our world.
FTFY
Re: The problem isn't Facebook (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem isn't social media. Social media is great, allowing family and friends to keep in touch in ways not previously possible. The problem is people. People have always been the problem. The internet and social media have simply allowed both the good and bad things to be amplified. If it were never invented you'd still have people spreading lies for their own gain, stoking the fires of racism to give themselves power, and stomping on the poor to make themselves wealthier. This shit has always been aro
What are you expecting? (Score:3)
So what if they don't catch fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook is not law enforcement.
This is no different from most businesses... If you place a pickup order under your neighbor's name, then go to the restraurant to pick up your order and tell them it's your neighbor's name and pay for cash; there's nothing gonna detect that you used a fake name.
If you get caught doing this, then they may cancel your order or close your account, but that's about it.
Re:So what if they don't catch fraud? (Score:4, Interesting)
"...Facebook's new political ad transparency tools..."
It would seem that Facebook developed these 'transparency tools' for a purpose. If that was to ensure greater transparency, well, they are in the business of enforcing something, just not law. If not, well, was this an exercise in avoiding criticism and responsibility?
If indeed this is an example of the impossibility of guaranteeing the identity of these advertisers, well, stop pretending and drop the pretense of having 'new political ad transparency tools'. they either have none, they are ineffective, or they are playing us. Or some combination thereof.
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If that was to ensure greater transparency, well, they are in the business of enforcing something, just not law.
This is not enforcement, but Transparency. Sharing the information Facebook received
The burden for actually enforcing could be very high, since Facebook could not say for sure a person
signing up for an Ad is not an agent or 3rd party company working for the named person, politician,
or entity. Also, there is the matter of free speech, and persons have every legal right to conduct busin
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It would seem that Facebook developed these 'transparency tools' for a purpose. If that was to ensure greater transparency, well, they are in the business of enforcing something, just not law. If not, well, was this an exercise in avoiding criticism and responsibility?
The purpose was to avoid further government scrutiny. The situation kind of reminds me of this old Simpsons bit [youtube.com].
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Facebook is not law enforcement.
This is no different from most businesses... If you place a pickup order under your neighbor's name, then go to the restraurant to pick up your order and tell them it's your neighbor's name and pay for cash; there's nothing gonna detect that you used a fake name.
Maybe so, but what if the business is in the business of relationships?
Facebook's entire plan is to make money off of peoples' presentation, providing a platform for self-promotion and interconnection. Doesn't it become encumbent on Facebook to validate peoples' identities? Do you want to find out that your "Aunt May" that you've been sharing baby photos with is actually some middle-aged guy you don't even know?
If you agree with the above, then I believe it follows that advertisers should be held to the
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Do you want to find out that your "Aunt May" that you've been sharing baby photos with is actually some middle-aged guy you don't even know?
This is in theory very possible to happen. Facebook is on the internet, remember.... and they have no way of challenging your "Aunt May" to prove that she's really your real Aunt May --- besides that, multiple people have similar names.
What Facebook DOES provide to enforce their real names policy is when you find the Aunt May is fake, you can use a Report link to
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Users figure out the account is fake (usually after some attempted scam) and report, Or Facebook's bot catches some outlandish names and automatically bans them.
Well, sure. The question is, should this be the limits of Facebook's responsibility? If their business is representing people, should they be held to a higher standard?
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If their business is representing people, should they be held to a higher standard?
What do you mean "held to a higher standard"? The only standard you are entitled to hold a provider to is what's in the contract.
Or in Facebook's case the "user agreement" --- which, when you signed up for Facebook; you acknowledge and agree that --
Facebook themselves represents nothing about the accuracy of content or profiles you may find on their platform; If you
rely on that information and it turns out to be inco
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Bad example. If you are a billboard owner and you allow people to run illegal campaign ads under the name "Vladamir Putin" then you will very likely end up in court answering questions as to why you didn't question it.
Considering they signed up as Cambridge Analytica, Facebook's arch nemesis that recently cost them until millions of dollars and forced them to run an international advertising campaign trying to recover people's trust, at the very least it looks pretty bad for them.
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Considering they signed up as Cambridge Analytica.... at the very least it looks pretty bad for them.
Naw... It's surely kind of funny, but it's not illegal on FB's part. Again, Facebook has automated systems, where users sign up for their own accounts, and there's no requirement for Facebook to have systems that flag or require manual review or block or blacklist a new account based on name, even being the same or similar name as a company Facebook banned.
Anything that slows down advertiser signup wo
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Ads for political purpose are a different animal, as there are a series of laws that must be followed.
Bullshit. The only political ads that are allowed to be limited by the government are those ads actually commissioned by a political candidate Or donations directly to a political candidate, and compliance with the campaign financing rules are the responsibility of that politician's campaign.
From anyone else, Political advertising is protected speech: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission [britannica.com]
And und
Irony (Score:3)
Reporter Posed as Cambridge Analytica To Run Political Ads on Facebook. Facebook, To No One's Surprise, Failed To Catch That They Were Frauds.
This on the heels of previous slashdot article Reporters Posed as 100 Senators To Run Ads on Facebook. Facebook Approved All of Them [slashdot.org]. Tiny bit of irony there.
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Stay tuned for "Reporter Posed as Cowboy Neal to Run Political Ads on Facebook..."
the writers for this show are inept hacks (Score:1)
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Somewhat concerning (Score:2)
Symptom of the core problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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I call those people InstaTwitFaces.
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I think that companies have realized that ads aren't worth nearly as much as they once thought they were, or that there are far superior alternatives. If you look at what compan
Re: Symptom of the core problem (Score:1)
If advertising didn't work it wouldn't be one of the world's largest industries. That people don't think it works on them isn't a problem; in fact it works better when you don't think it's influencing you at all...
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Re:Don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
At least in the case of political ads, I don't care if the advertiser lies about their true identity unless the validity of the message itself depends on it (most often, it doesn't).
The attribution is part of the message. If the identity is misreported, then that's fraud.
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The attribution has to be a prominent part of the content for that to matter,
That is the case for every single political ad. Arguably, for all content ever produced, but that's another discussion.
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How can this be true? Consider any political statement you find true and imagine an ad that contains just this statement and nothing more.
Because intent is always relevant. The Russians spent money to show ads specifically to people who would not be receptive to them in order to get them riled up, because their purpose was not to influence political thought directly, but simply to sow discord because they believed that would have a specific effect.
We place additional controls on political advertising because of the relevance of their impact. I'd argue that all advertising should be more controlled than it is in the USA, where it is permitted
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Did they even look ? (Score:2)
The whole story assumes that Facebook actually bothered with anything more than being certain the payment processed.
As far as I can tell they don't give a crap about the message of people who are paying them. The only time they do seem to care is when people are making money using their service and they can take it off the table.
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Banned ad [foxnews.com] on Facebook because of content.
Was paid for by an actual GOP candidate, but she was a minority. We all know how liberals are racists, so I have to assume that was why. Perhaps these reporters were all white.
Why assume when even a skim reading of the article you link gives you the answer: her ad contained images from the Cambodian genocide that were considered to be against Facebook's ToS. Oh, and the reporter of the Business Insider article appears to be a woman of South Asian descent, just like the GOP candidate in your linked article. So there goes that theory. The Vice reporter's a white guy though. I would say nice attempt at a troll, but let's be honest, it wasn't.
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Did you mean to reply to another post ? One that actually linked to an article and a specific incident maybe ?
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Oops never mind didn't see the AC you were replying to.
"They trust me all their data - dumb fucks" - Zuck (Score:1)
well, there's that.
Funny, I see very few ad's on Facebook (Score:1)
And I am a conservative. Guess I must be smarter then the pussy liberals that seem to rant and rave about all of these ad's that I never see.
Did the check clear? (Score:3)
Hum. How do I put this nicely? (Score:1)
Cambridge Analytica (Score:2)
On the other hand, Business Insider's use of that name may very well constitute fraud as well as a trademark violation. What's up with that?
a question of curation (Score:1)
Most newspapers and weekly magazines are curated, though some better than others. Social media falls squarely in the "not" category. Yes, there attempts to find a middle ground (wikipedia), and Facebook and the like are trying very hard to find this middle ground, and failing hard.
When I buy a copy of a newspaper, I'm the customer and I expect the info to be curated. It's what I demand, it's what I pay for. A failure of curation means that I fin