Facebook Quietly Hid Webpages Bragging of Ability to Influence Elections (theintercept.com) 83
Sam Biddle, reporting for The Intercept: When Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Facebook had influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, the founder and CEO dismissed the notion that the site even had such power as "crazy." It was a disingenuous remark. Facebook's website had an entire section devoted to touting the "success stories" of political campaigns that used the social network to influence electoral outcomes. That page, however, is now gone, even as the 2018 congressional primaries get underway.
In the wake of a public reckoning with Facebook's unparalleled ability to distribute information and global anxiety over election meddling, bragging about the company's ability to run highly effective influence campaigns probably doesn't look so great. Facebook's "success stories" page is a monument to the company's dominance of online advertising, providing examples from almost every imaginable industry of how use of the social network gave certain players an advantage. "Case studies like these inspire and motivate us," the page crows.
In the wake of a public reckoning with Facebook's unparalleled ability to distribute information and global anxiety over election meddling, bragging about the company's ability to run highly effective influence campaigns probably doesn't look so great. Facebook's "success stories" page is a monument to the company's dominance of online advertising, providing examples from almost every imaginable industry of how use of the social network gave certain players an advantage. "Case studies like these inspire and motivate us," the page crows.
Duh (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course they are falling-over-themselves power hungry. They're just still fuming sour grapes because that guy won and their gal lost. If the outcome was different the response would be quite the opposite. They are hypocrites, really.
Facebook and Twitter don't seem to get it (Score:5, Insightful)
The bigger they get, the less they get to hide behind that "hey it's our platform, don't like our bias? Build your own" bullshit. At some point people who care about election integrity and things like that are going to wake up to the fact that allowing a seriously biased company like Facebook to play power broker in one moment and go John Galt on the other is just straight up poisonous for our society.
At some point, their "standards" are going to have to start resembling that of common carriers and the "mistakes" where somethings like a total annihilation of conservative content (with no comparable loss elsewhere) will have to be treated as an obviously intentional propaganda act.
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Just curious, who do you think was unbiased in their reporting of the last few election cycles?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone other than myself (and I was only unbiased because I disliked everyone pretty much equally (of the candidates I was allowed to vote for)).
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There is a world of difference between "Dem candidate is a shithead" and pizzagate.
I saw a helluva lot more "Trump is a RAAAACIS Nazi!" on Facebook and Twitter than I saw of the "Dem candidate is a shithead" ilk.
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I thought is was this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] that did a lot of damage and nothing but the words out of her own mouth and her own behaviour, this produced after calling a large number of voters deplorables.
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...I disliked everyone pretty much equally (of the candidates I was allowed to vote for)
Who did you support that you weren't allowed to vote for? Foreigner? Criminal? Too young? The candidate I voted for didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but I was allowed to cast my vote for him.
Re:Facebook and Twitter don't seem to get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Single Sign-on
Facebook is the only way to log into some applications and mobile apps, Spotify was that way for months, they removed your login and you had to use your facebook.
Seeing google SSO pop up, but facebook seems to be the king of SSO.
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It's funny to see Spotify mentioned. Last week I looked at my bank balance, and found out someone charged a Spotify subscription to my debit card. Must be for a year because it was $119 and change. Went right to my bank and reported it. Thankfully I don't subscribe to any of those services, so could state clearly it wasn't maybe some old auto-renew I had forgotten about. The bank just finished removing the charge from my account today.
Re:Facebook and Twitter don't seem to get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Facebook and Twitter don't seem to get it (Score:1)
I'm guessing you are a resident of the USA.
You do realise that on most of the planet your Democratic Party is considered a party of the right?
From the extreme end of the right, looking along the spectrum, I'm sure it looks to you like them Dems, social democrats, Christian Democrats, Labour and darn commies are all in a bunch together. If you think that, it means you are way too far to the right that your world view is corrupted.
Meantime, from somewhere near the middle of the spectrum, a viewer looking in y
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The bigger they get, the less they get to hide behind that "hey it's our platform, don't like our bias? Build your own" bullshit.
Gotta call bullshit where I see it. Websites are private, except government/state run sites. You are a guest on someone else's infrastructure, if you don't like how they do things, go somewhere else. Period. The moment any fuck like this poster suggests regulating and telling websites how to operate can walk in front of the nearest speeding bus.
I don't like Facebook or Twitter. My choice: I don't use those sites. Period. If you don't like them, then fucking stop using them. Not difficult.
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I personally don't like either site and don't use them. :^)"
But it is perfectly right to call out companies on their two-faced bullshit. The conversation can be more nuanced than "regulate them" or "just don't use them
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I personally don't like either site and don't use them. :^)"
But it is perfectly right to call out companies on their two-faced bullshit. The conversation can be more nuanced than "regulate them" or "just don't use them
You're joking right? There is no conversation. These two sites, Twitter and Facebook have done more damage to civil behavior than any other singular entity in modern history. They are blights, plagues, and probably evil. They do nothing good. They sell advertisements, and their only goal is get your EYEBALLS on their ads. They don't give a flying fuck about anything else. Raising hell and making mountains out of mole hills? Right on, as long as it gets more eyeballs looking at our ads.
If these were
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The more an internal brand policy is used to support one side of US politics.
The more users encounter a brand policy of reduced visibility.
The more content will be supported by really great brands that understand freedom of speech and freedom after speech.
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At some point, their "standards" are going to have to start resembling that of common carriers and the "mistakes" where somethings like a total annihilation of conservative content (with no comparable loss elsewhere) will have to be treated as an obviously intentional propaganda act.
If you're proposing banning propaganda, I think you're going to find some first amendment issues with that plan.
So you trust Facebook now? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course Facebook is going to have pages touting how successful messaging is on Facebook.
Why should you believe them, any more than you believe using Axe Body Spray is going to land you dates with hot models?
In reality, how many times has Facebook, or anything you saw on Facebook, changed YOUR mind? It's a place where people do not go to change minds, theirs or anyone else's.
Re:So you trust Facebook now? (Score:5, Insightful)
In reality, how many times has Facebook, or anything you saw on Facebook, changed YOUR mind? It's a place where people do not go to change minds, theirs or anyone else's.
The key issue is radicalization. You might have started thinking that democrats are well-meaning but ultimately untrustworthy to govern people. Then you joined a Facebook group that keeps you busy with all kinds of alternative facts and you end up believing in Pizzagate, Agenda 21, and other out-there stuff.
Sure, you still have not changed how you voted. However, your GOP candidate now is full Trumpster and you are willing to overlook recent white robes and a mistress, because other side in your mind is the devil. A decade ago it was small government fiscal conservative family values you voted for, now you RINO such guys.
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Just for grins, I signed up to a lot of right-wing pages and groups because I wanted to screenshot and make fun. People mentioning Pizzagate, Agenda 21, NWO are laughed at, or are warned off as potential trolls, so they don't make others look bad. Hell, they even dropped Snopes on people who decided to post brain dead stuff.
Of course, there are the obviously insane groups, but in general, they did a lot to police themselves and get rid of the trolls in their midst. Mainly because if they step out of line
safe, cliche uber meme (Score:2)
The degree to which this lunacy rubs off on other people is proportional to how close their positions are to those listed above.
What I'm hearing you say: Gotta flush some batshit 11s, so that we don't look bad as batshit 10s.
The whole reason that pizzagate became a cross-spectrum meme is because it's a handy batshit 11, where the pizzagate meme-dropper doesn't need to know a
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Conspiracy theories (Score:2)
I just googled agenda 21 and it looks like an actual UN action plan. Why is that lumped in with pizzagate? Are UN documents also conspiracies?
When researching this kind of stuff, remember to also double the search by running the exact same keywords [duckduckgo.com], but this time adding "conspiracy" [duckduckgo.com] at the end (or any other similar keyword that is likely to show up in conspiracy theorists' title - 'plot', 'evil', 'truth' might also work too).
Basically :
Agenda 21, the normal outlook - Well a set of recommendation by the UN, in the hopes that maybe we won't completely fuck up our planet and it environment. Written at some ecological conference a couple of decades a
Radicalization is not Modification (Score:2)
The key issue is radicalization. You might have started thinking that democrats are well-meaning but ultimately untrustworthy to govern people. ... and then you kept on believing that, only a little moreso... it's not changing what they think. I don't even think it's radicalizing people especially much, because at least on Facebook you see other opinions to some degree whereas if you were off Facebook, you would just read websites that reenforced your opinion otherwise. As people age, a form of radicali
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It could be code for anything, drugs, male or female prostitutes, child prostitutes maybe, or perhaps there is no code and Obama really did spend $60k on a hotdog party.
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Anyway, it could be anything, drugs, male or female prostitutes, child prostitutes maybe, or perhaps Obama really did spend $60k on a hotdog party for his frien
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It's a good thing they're going to use Snopes and co to vet the news and tell us which people are wrong. How dare anyone un-American talk about an American election on a site like Facebook! I'm sure that many people, like that Saudi prince who owns Twitter is aghast that Russians might have spread lies on their services and they'll be sure to work with the Democrats to ensure that such people can't speak out again. We really need to ensure that America only gets its news from Trusted sources and censor a
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Of course Facebook is going to have pages touting how successful messaging is on Facebook. Why should you believe them,
Interesting, I just got through the part of "What Happened" where Hil was praising O for his use of social media.
In reality, how many times has Facebook, or anything you saw on Facebook, changed YOUR mind?
Social media is not for changing minds. It is for motivating those who already believe what you say into action. People who agree with you but don't care enough to vote will "change their minds" about the latter.
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I hope that's sarcasm. There's always been hucksters trying to convince you of nonsense. There always will be hucksters. It's the same game, just with ever so slightly different rules -- and the marks are easier to find.
Common sense and critical thinking cannot be legislated -- how can having mommy government step in and protect us help in the long run? All it'll do is further erode the very things that got us to this point in the first place (critical thinking and common sense)
If things like Facebook an
Cambridge analytica (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cambridge analytica (Score:4, Informative)
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"American media giving trump 6 billion dollars of free air time" hissing and spitting on him the whole time. Even Fox News, for those who think it supported Trump.
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I just watched the video. Thank you for the link.
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I just watched the video. Thanks for the link.
Disingenuous. (Score:2)
Who is responsible for election results? (Score:1)
One of the interesting (but not unprecedented!!) things about this story, is that most of us are pointing our fingers at Facebook and/or the people who bought the ads, rather than pointing at the voters who decide who to vote for based on random ads, even though everyone knows that ads can say whatever, and don't necessarily tell you anything true or useful. Yet your biggest civic contribution, you throw it away on whatever an ad told you to do.
But like I said, it's precedented. Many of us are also not con
You can't blame them (Score:1)
Those "success" stories mean they were able to influence elections where Democrats were elected. They don't considers Trump's election a "success".
There is nothing wrong with this. At all. (Score:1)
You'd have to be under the age of three to not understand that Facebook is an ADVERTISING platform.
Literally the entire media world runs on advertising. Shoot, if you have cable TV or go to the movies these days, you will not only have to sit through advertisements, you'll have the pleasure of PAYING while you do so.
So how could this possibly be wrong for Facebook when it is acceptable for every other media company? It's a free country, no one forces you to look at their service. If you don't like it, don't
Fakebook strikes again (Score:4, Informative)
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They were selling politica ads (Score:2)
I'll still be voting for Bernie in my primary in 2 years.