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Google Advertising

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..."
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Can Google Ads Change Your Beliefs?

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07, 2019 @11:48PM (#58888446)

    I once was a Hindu, and then Google bombarded me with advertisement filled with The Love Of Christ now I become a Muslim.

    • That might have been the intended outcome of the advertising campaign. The same thing has been done in political ads for years.

      • 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.

        • 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

  • 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]

    • Study reveals most people are mere automatons with zero integrity.
    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      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.

    • by RobinH ( 124750 )
      Facebook isn't a branch of government so they don't really have to be "fair" any more than the entertainment channels of Fox and CNN have to be fair. If they were trying to influence one group of people *not* to vote, then I'd say that's evil, but we all expect organizations to try to motivate "their" side to go out and vote. The fact that some have more influence than others is understood. Ultimately each person still has the freedom to go and vote, and it's a secret ballot so they can vote for whoever
    • 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)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday July 07, 2019 @11:58PM (#58888466)
    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.

    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.
    • by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @04:14AM (#58888972) Journal

      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.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        > 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

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • 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.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @05:58AM (#58889150) Homepage Journal

      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.

    • by lrichardson ( 220639 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @11:07AM (#58890238) Homepage

      "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.

    • What's scary is its all subconscious, making the only way to avoid it to stop using google altogether which is nearly impossible
  • Yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @12:07AM (#58888484)

    I’ll believe it when a Google tells me to believe it.

  • Google Ads (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @12:09AM (#58888488)

    "People who bought this B.S. also bought .... "

  • by Anonymous Coward

    .....expressed an interest in ISIS and its activities : that is interesting in its own right.

  • by DatbeDank ( 4580343 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @12:21AM (#58888546)

    If I can't even see the ads!

    God bless adblockers and their developers!

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re:Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pentium100 ( 1240090 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @01:30AM (#58888716)

      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.

  • To think there are people on this planet that don't use an ad blocker. Unbelievable.
  • by at10u8 ( 179705 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @01:38AM (#58888734)
    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.
    • 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

  • If you are on the fence or near it enough, your opinion *might* be changeable. But takes something too deep and chance is that the ad may actually reinforce them rather than fight those belief. And how many on the "fence" would recognize the manipulation , have instead an emotional response and are pushed toward the side of the fence you don't want them on ? I see they pretend half a million minutes watched means anything. But reality is that you would need a questionaire before and after to check the effe
    • 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.

      • Rational people are not on the fence on everything (not intelligent, intelligent people can rationalize everything as study shows, even healing crystal, ghost, and religion). This would be a 50/50 fallacy. What happens is that you should be anchored the side the science tells you the most likely explanation, BUT that anchorage should be able to be shifted as knowledge shift, with evidence proportional to the claim. e.g. Flat earth that anchorage should be very firm on the globular earth camp, but for more e
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • 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.

  • In answer to the question, no. I don't look at them. So how could they change my opinion.
  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday July 08, 2019 @08:54AM (#58889562)

    As these are many, I expect ads can have a massive effect. For me personally, no way in hell.

  • Isnâ(TM)t it against the AdWords TOS to be disingenuous with your advertising like this?

  • Like, oh, say White Supremacy, White Tribalism, Objectivism, Religionism
  • I have never in my whole life, which is half a century old now, bought anything because of an ad that I saw. Not even a roll of bog paper. I just find advertising completely stupid and above all annoying. If I want to buy something, I'll research it myself and buy it. I don't need a nanny to tell me what I should buy.
  • It takes 200 hours to become a close friend https://www.theatlantic.com/ma... [theatlantic.com]

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