Can Google Ads Change Your Beliefs? (nytimes.com) 194
The New York Times ran a disturbing opinion piece about Google by the founder of search engine marketing consulting firm Berlin SEM. In it he discusses counter-messaging ads offering "redirection", where marketers "swerve your monetizable desperation. But we can also swerve something bigger: your beliefs, convictions and ideology."
There are advertisers in the digital marketing industry who want to find out how effective this new form of social engineering is. One of those advertisers is Google. Redirect Method was a Google-incubated project that used redirect ads to deradicalize would-be extremists. In the first eight weeks of 2016, some 320,000 people -- all of whom were believed to harbor sympathy toward the Islamic State -- clicked on ads designed to reflect an interest in extremist content. Instead of arriving at a page that supported their views, Islamic State sympathizers who clicked the ads found themselves directed to a playlist of videos debunking the terror group's recruitment narratives. Most of the visitors stuck around. Together, they watched more than half a million minutes of video.
After the ISIS campaign ended, Google left behind a blueprint.
The blueprint shows, step by step, how you can create your own redirect ads to sway any belief or opinion -- held by any Google user, anywhere in the world -- of your choice. You don't have to be a marketer with years of experience to do this. You just need to follow the instructions and put up a credit card (a few hundred bucks will suffice). Recently, I followed the blueprint and created a redirect campaign of my own... The goal of my first redirect campaign was to sway the ideology of suicidal people.
Nearly one in three apparently suicidal searchers who viewed his ad then dialed his hotline number -- which then forwarded the calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. But he expressed surprise that Google "let me run the ads with no issue... I didn't need qualifications to be a conduit of peoples' fates." He later tried creating another campaign for prospective school shooters, "but the conversion rates were low. These prospective shooters were reluctant to speak with someone."
Yet one study found that more than 50% of people using Google couldn't distinguish between ads and "organic" results on Google [see page 151] -- and with this experiment, that raises a very important issue. "With the ISIS campaign, Google decided what a radical view was, who seemed to hold those views and who should be able to view them. It's hard to be cynical about an initiative that deters extremism.
"But entering the domain of social engineering is a slippery slope. The standard of what needs to be deradicalized is adjustable..."
After the ISIS campaign ended, Google left behind a blueprint.
The blueprint shows, step by step, how you can create your own redirect ads to sway any belief or opinion -- held by any Google user, anywhere in the world -- of your choice. You don't have to be a marketer with years of experience to do this. You just need to follow the instructions and put up a credit card (a few hundred bucks will suffice). Recently, I followed the blueprint and created a redirect campaign of my own... The goal of my first redirect campaign was to sway the ideology of suicidal people.
Nearly one in three apparently suicidal searchers who viewed his ad then dialed his hotline number -- which then forwarded the calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. But he expressed surprise that Google "let me run the ads with no issue... I didn't need qualifications to be a conduit of peoples' fates." He later tried creating another campaign for prospective school shooters, "but the conversion rates were low. These prospective shooters were reluctant to speak with someone."
Yet one study found that more than 50% of people using Google couldn't distinguish between ads and "organic" results on Google [see page 151] -- and with this experiment, that raises a very important issue. "With the ISIS campaign, Google decided what a radical view was, who seemed to hold those views and who should be able to view them. It's hard to be cynical about an initiative that deters extremism.
"But entering the domain of social engineering is a slippery slope. The standard of what needs to be deradicalized is adjustable..."
Oh hell, *YES* ! (Score:5, Funny)
I once was a Hindu, and then Google bombarded me with advertisement filled with The Love Of Christ now I become a Muslim.
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That might have been the intended outcome of the advertising campaign. The same thing has been done in political ads for years.
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Notably, the first round of Russian trolling of Facebook specifically involved showing liberal troll messages to conservatives, to get them to work harder to counter it.
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Sounds like trump. He repeatedly and zealously trolls liberals to get them to expend energy on every little battle while making headway on all kinds of things his constituents actually want, because the Democrats in congress spend all kinds of time and money scrutinizing every detail ... at least 50% or more is straining a gnats. Trump eats it up the attention and uses every scream to his advantage.
Consider all the time and energy put into seeing his tax returns. Is there anything criminal there? nobody
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OK, if you say so, so where is the impeachment? The lack of actionable evidence being exactly my point and really the only thing that matter where trump is concerned.
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Vote icon (Score:1, Insightful)
Related: A recent study found that people (randomly selected) shown a "vote!" icon in the days leading up to an election were more likely to go out and vote.
The study suggested what this might be used for, as for example Google or Facebook could put "vote" icons in the pages viewed by Democrats (and not Republicans), thus swaying an election to their chosen candidate.
Both Google and Facebook have the identifying information on their viewers to determine their likely voting preference, and have expressed str [projectveritas.com]
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First on all, "Hollywood, the mainstream media, and marketing agencies everywhere" have not existed for centuries. Therefore it is completely and utterly impossible that they have been "re-programming people's minds for centuries."
Secondly, Google cannot use Algorithmic Inference (AI) algorithms (isn't that a bit of a redundant redundancy) to target me with specially crafted ads because I do not permit my computing resources to be used to display Google (or anyone elses) advertizements.
If they wish to rent
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And just how is it supposed to work on those of us who don’t use any Google services? No search, no gmail, no YouTube, no Google maps, no Google translate, , no Google Chrome, no Google Newsno whatever , and no Android?
It’s the same with social media - no Facebook, no Twitter, no WhatsAoo, no instagram, not an influencer in sight.
I want to *get social* I’ll walk my dogs to the dog park or volunteer. You know, real-world interaction. If I just want to watch a failed campaign for a pr
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Ignoring the Veritas BS for a moment, they probably do influence more Democrats to vote than Republicans simply because of the demographics of those voters. Democrats are more likely to be younger, to have active social media accounts, and to be using Google/Facebook services.
Yeah, Facebook might be mostly old people now, but they also own Instagram and WhatsApp.
Overall it's probably cancelled out by the fact that older people tend to vote more often anyway.
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The study suggested what this might be used for, as for example Google or Facebook could put "vote" icons in the pages viewed by Democrats (and not Republicans), thus swaying an election to their chosen candidate.
There's no way that would fly at Google. Yes, the company is predominantly Democrat, but there are enough Republicans around who would raise hell, and as we've seen repeatedly, Google cannot effectively silence its employees. For that matter, I think a significant percentage of people on both sides of the aisle value democracy enough to oppose such a move.
Google has, however, promoted voting to all of its users many times over the years. That probably benefits Democrats more than Republicans, because Re
I remember hearing (Score:5, Insightful)
Individually no, adverts are changing minds. The goal is to move the needle on a debate enough to win elections. Most electoral systems are designed to be winner take all + representative democracy (vs direct democracy) in order to favor the establishment. That way your ad blitz just has to shift a few votes in one direction to win. Mix in some gerrymandering and a few other structural tricks (like a judicial branch appointed for life) and meaningful change becomes nearly impossible.
Re:I remember hearing (Score:5, Insightful)
The goal is to move the needle on a debate enough to win elections.
Absolutely. And by the same token you also need to only move the needle on a debate long enough to win elections, not longer. Putin said that about propaganda (not verbatim, this is from memory): it doesn't have to be believable enough to sway opponents, you only need to sway the doubters. And your propaganda can be a blatant lie, as long as people believe in it long enough before it is debunked. By the time you are exposed as the liar that you are, it will no longer matter and no one will care.
Re: move the needle long enough (Score:1)
> you also need to only move the needle on a debate long enough to win elections, not longer.
Exhibit A: Brexit
For those who were not following this train wreck, the Leave campaign promised £350 million a week for the National Health Service. It was their main promise, and painted on the side of their campaign bus. It swayed just enough people to barely scrape through the vote to leave. As soon as they won the vote they began to back track on promises. And it did not matter that they lied: the me
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I think you overestimate people's reasoning skills, and indeed their general level of conviction of their own beliefs. You yourself seem to be strongly of the opinion that we should leave Europe, perhaps so much so that you've ignored several critical reports at the £350m figure, which have concluded that at the very least, it's an "embroidery of the truth", and at worst, it's flat-out misleading. Indeed, your beliefs on this matter seem so strong that you've concluded things that aren't actually ment
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Secondly, if it was true that no one would have been persuaded by the figure why would they bother getting it plastered across the side of the vehicle and quote it constantly? Is it your contention that the people involved i
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Not exactly. The judge said that the figure was the gross amount, so the statement was a lie, but that it wasn't a crime and that there were other mechanisms in place for dealing with politicians lying.
In any case, it was just one lie among many, and the bigger issue now is that Parliament won't allow a no-deal crash which certainly wasn't on offer during the referendum. The official Leave campaign said we would negotiate a deal before triggering Article 50 - clearly they didn't understand the process of le
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And your propaganda can be a blatant lie, as long as people believe in it long enough before it is debunked. By the time you are exposed as the liar that you are, it will no longer matter and no one will care.
This sounds like a summary of the Russian collusion narrative. It worked for the House in 2018. Well, that and ballot harvesting in the Peoples Republic of California.
Re:I remember hearing (Score:5, Interesting)
Ads are old hat though, the influences are all moving to other formats.
Take Prager U, for example. They pretend to be a crowd funded effort (they have donation buttons on their site) but actually almost all of their money comes from a few billionaires who set their agenda and pay for very specific messages supporting their businesses.
It's an evolution of the old "buy a TV news network or newspaper" technique, but worse because it's much easier to hide who is behind the message.
Re:I remember hearing (Score:5, Interesting)
"that a 6 week ad blitz is all it took to change the public at large's mind on any issue you care to name."
The 'Rule of three' has also been demonstrated pretty well ... rather than a blitz, a constant stream of dis-information across multiple media type (e.g. TV, radio, web, magazines, newspapers), with the intent to get YOUR idea firmly implanted FIRST. Studies have repeatedly shown that people subject to this program are highly averse to changing their opinion, despite being shown the actual facts later. And, yup, this has been one of the primary tactics of the whole right/GOP for quite some time.
When you look at the dominance of ClearChannel (highly conservative) on the radio, Fox News, and the slew of astro-turf companies putting out rabidly pro-right messages & memes on social media, it's no wonder so many people voted for a serial adulterer with obvious dementia.
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Yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)
I’ll believe it when a Google tells me to believe it.
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Google Ads (Score:5, Funny)
"People who bought this B.S. also bought .... "
320K people in 6 weeks....... (Score:1)
.....expressed an interest in ISIS and its activities : that is interesting in its own right.
Can't Change my Beliefs (Score:5, Insightful)
If I can't even see the ads!
God bless adblockers and their developers!
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Amen
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Re:Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't have the technology. I am sure if the USSR managed to stay intact for 20 more years, it would have been like China is now (well, most likely not as rich though).
China is leading in this - filtering of information, "good citizen", mass surveillance with face and walk recognition etc. The USSR did not have this. Yes, anyone could be tracked by the KGB, however, it was impossible to track everyone all the time, so some people were left alone. Yes, the KGB could listen in to any phone conversation, but it was impossible to run all phone conversations trough voice recognition and have a computer pick out the "interesting" conversations for listening by a human agent. Same with paper letters then vs e-mail now.
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No... (Score:1)
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And people who don't use an adblocker are the ones who get swayed.
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this is the plot of Inception (Score:3)
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It makes a fun movie plot for Christopher Nolan, and Google wants this to be true. Everyone engaged in advertising wants this to be true, because if it is not true then the value of advertising is demonstrably nil.
The value of advertising is demonstrably greater than nil since I've gone and bought stuff or even simply become aware of the existence of a business after seeing an ad. I just think the success rate is pretty low, kind of like trying to knock out tanks by carpet bombing. The problem with targeted ads is basically that for all the surveillance and tracking they do the matching sucks. I went on Amazon to take a look at folding bikes the other day. Turns out the shipping will cost me more than the bike costs
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it depends how anchored those beleif are (Score:2)
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Intelligent people are on the fence about everything. It is usually the fools who are so entrenched in their position to disregard any new information.
Not quite (Score:2)
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Starving the beast (Score:2)
I've apparently managed to starve the google pretty well. Every few weeks they decide I am interested in something, and I'll see hundreds of copies of the same ad for a while. I keep ignoring it and it eventually goes away, but at some point they decide on a new one. The random ads in between have been remarkably irrelevant, which is still surprising me.
Not sure how I'm doing it.
You mean you actually read them? (Score:2)
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For people with a soft head, sure (Score:3)
As these are many, I expect ads can have a massive effect. For me personally, no way in hell.
Against the AdWords TOS? (Score:1)
Isnâ(TM)t it against the AdWords TOS to be disingenuous with your advertising like this?
Attack the real problems in the culture (Score:1)
Ads changed my beliefs? (Score:2)
200 hours (Score:1)
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Almost certainly, if they're given the right prodding.
It used ot be like this, back in the 50s, government used such types of propaganda to persuade people to be patriotic and in favour of their country.
then in the 70s a new wave of "its just about me" appeared and that led to people to think that not just was the government was out to control them (it was, but for good reasons I guess) but that they should destroy the government for it, and thus we have all the self-destructive nonsense that we get today.
S
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I wonder if this could be used to wake up the far right though. They are so deep inside the matrix of wacky radical thought that they actually believe crazy things like a gay agenda and that there's rampant election fraud by illegal immigrans. Maybe a few redirects to sites with logic could cure America's ills?
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There aren't any politicians with my beliefs. This is because politicians are beholden to their party and in the US modern age dissent is not allowed. This is true even for third parties. This eliminates centrist and inclusive views. Ideals almost don't exist anymore in political parties, because you're expected to abandon them immediately if the party leadership changes. Political parties are a great evil because they're focusing on creating a fictitious fight between the righteous movement for goodnes
Re: NO!!! (Score:2)
I look for the little Google ad block and keep scrolling til I find the same website.
Why because. I hate ads and refuse to click on one if I can avoid it at all costs.
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That's counterproductive. By doing that you:
- Give out a free click to the company that posted the ad, making their advertising campaign cheaper.
- Make ads less relevant. If you are seeing ads, might as well have them point to sites you actually want to visit.
- You are reducing Google revenue. It may be what you want but think about it. You are using Google, and clicking the ad rather than the organic link costs you nothing, but makes Google money (at the expense of the company that posted that ad). That mo
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If you hate ads, not clicking on an ad link of where you actually already wanted to go is literally the nicest thing you can do for the advertiser.
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