How Facebook Helps Shady Advertisers Pollute the Internet
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Not satisfied with sticking to the important story of FB's monstrous track record with personal data, the news media must turn each cycle into a full on character assassination. Regardless of how I feel about FB, I'm more disturbed by the media pattern.
No, it's called public interest journalism. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal it's quite logical that the public has an interest in knowing more about the inner working of of an opaque and powerful entity.
>"the news media must turn each cycle into a full on character assassination."
A "character assassination " by its very definition is an attack on a singular individual. You can not have a character assassination on a corporation.
>"Regardless of how I feel about FB, I'm more disturbed by the media pattern."
I'm more disturbed by your labeling something as "propaganda" simply because you yourself didn't feel it merited reporting on.
There is a world of difference between objective reporting and biased propaganda.
I hate facebook. I never signed up for facebook. But when news organizations are actively attacking facebook, it isn't reporting, it is propaganda. When news organizations are pushing #deleteFacebook, it isn't reporting, it isn't journalism, it is propaganda.
If you want, use the waybackmachine and check HN's frontpage. For the last year, there has been anti-FB propaganda on it every single day. Today, there are 6 anti-FB stories. Yesterday, I counted 4.
Just because you don't like facebook doesn't mean you have to like propaganda/anti-FB spam.
I wish HN would allow us to opt out of topics. I already know FB is rubbish. I don't need constant spam from the news media and their social media team to tell me what I already know.
Talk about polluting the internet. The likes of bloomberg and their social media team are just as guilty of it as facebook.
So lets examine the "propagandist" here - Bloomberg News. Selecting just a single Bloomberg tech reporter's(Sarah Frier) coverage of FB in the last year.[1]
We see stories such as:
"Sheryl Sandberg Calls for U.S. Policy Changes to Aid Working Mothers"
"Facebook Is Determined to Build Ties With Automakers"
"Facebook Hires Apple Veteran to Run Oculus VR Hardware"
"Facebook's Strategy for Augmented Reality Starts With Phones"
None of these stories contain any negative portrayal of FB. So clearly Bloomberg is not an anti-FB propagandist.
So a news organization can be a part-time propagandist then? In other words they are only producing propaganda when the story contain unflattering details about a subject?
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AP-41JG4_zk/sarah-frier
Of course.
> In other words they are only producing propaganda when the story contain unflattering details about a subject?
No. They can be producing propaganda when they are pushing a flattering narrative as well. Like what foxnews does with trump.
And it isn't just bloomberg. It's much of the media. As I said, there hasn't been a day without some propaganda about FB the past year. If you doubt it, do as I suggested. Go spend some time on the waybackmachine.
Yes. What do you think #deleteFacebook is? We don't really have news anymore. We have agenda. Foxnews has an agenda. CNN has an agenda. The entire media has an agenda. The days of objective journalism is long gone. I think that's obvious to anyone paying attention. I'm not holding my breath on it returning anytime soon.
> None of those things are part-time considerations.
Sure they are. Bloomberg doesn't have to spend 24/7 on facebook. But they along with the rest of the media can.
Anyways, this is pointless. The evidence is right there for you to see. You can choose not to accept it if you want. Maybe it makes sense to you that we get 24/7 propaganda about facebook. Doesn't make sense to me.
And nowhere in the article is "#deleteFacebook" used. You seemed to have lost site of the context - i.e this article and the OP's assertion that it is propaganda.
Im a techie working in finance and the reaction from most of the non-tech folks here is along the lines of "jesus, the amount of data they have on people is scary! Why do they have all of it? And what's this about android phones being used to send my call history to FB??".
Most folks outside tech use FB for the convenience and have absolutely zero idea of the scale of telemetry being gathered on them. Articles like this are written for the non technical people in our midst and the volume of them reflects the scale of education required for the general public on this issue.
On a personal note I'd say that on the whole people developing a healthy skepticism of just arbitrarily sharing personal details on social media or the internet in general is a positive thing for every society and journalists shedding light on that fact are not doing anyone a disservice.
There is little to no "public interest journalism" anymore, only click interest journalism.
> You can not have a character assassination on a corporation.
This is metaphor for the pattern of behavior. They are taking the same methods they use for the news cycle's "horrible person of the week" and turning it on Facebook.
> I'm more disturbed by your labeling something as "propaganda"
Considering the media's hyper focus on how the RNC used FB with the CA story, and an almost complete omission of how the DNC did the same thing, and more, with CTR, I'm comfortable sticking with "propaganda".
What an incredibly uninformed and naive statement to make. Just because inferior sources of something are abundant does not mean that quality alternatives don't exist. This is as absurd as drawing the conclusion that fine dining doesn't exist any more and pointing to the prevalence of fast food restaurants as evidence of this.
There is no shortage of quality public interest journalism or entities committed to it. Here are some examples - The Marshall Project, First Look Media and ProPublica.
>"Considering the media's hyper focus on how the RNC used FB with the CA story, ..."
There was no mention of the RNC in the news piece being discussed here.
You don't get a free pass on hosting deceptive ads because your platform is automated. Just like you don't get a free pass on any other crime by automating it. Further, when it's clear your staff is very aware of the illegal practice and is encouraging it by taking meetings with the people committing the crime, that removes any defense that the behavior is incidental to legal behavior.
But yes, clearly this is all just a character assassination planned by the lizard people. Definitely the only reason at play here.
What was wrong with this piece? I thought it was well-researched and, speaking as someone with little knowledge of digital advertising, pretty fascinating.
The author was pretty clear that this isn't Facebook's problem entirely; he was just as hard (if not harder) on the affiliate-side guys who are running the scam. He just noted that FB didn't mind the fraudulent ads as much about 5 years ago, which seems like a fair point to include.
Indeed it was just under 3,500 words, the journalist also conducted two separate interviews with the main subject Mr Gryn. And those interview took place in both Berlin and Santa Monica, CA. That would be considerable effort to put forth for both journalist and publisher for "click bait."
/s
Facebook has accrued great power, but when faced with taking responsibility for any of that power has simply shrugged its shoulders. The same goes for Google.
It has nothing to do with the validity of the article. This is a "character assassination" because of singling Facebook out. I understand putting Facebook in the headline will get you clicks right now, but why not paint a more full picture?
> Google banned Voluum over cloaking concerns, but that didn’t derail the company—Facebook was where the action was.
vs.
> It’s not just affiliates who think Gryn is at the pinnacle of the industry. In June, just before the conference, Facebook’s newly installed executive in charge of fighting shady ads, Rob Leathern, had invited him to the company’s London office to explain the latest affiliate tricks.
This feels like responding "Of course Harvey Weinstein's been creepy to young women, people has been saying he's creepy for years."...
Don't underestimate how well this works for the traditional media. It both help undermine one of their biggest competitors and it creates traffic by keep sensationalizing what is really completely normal practice and have been for as long as there have been advertising.
Shady advertisers, pollute... those aren't the media reporting thats the media shaming what they themselves do all the time.
Yes, the old media are being hypocrites and are seemingly dragging their big rivals down with them.
For the standpoint of the average person with no financial investments in these companies, why is this so problematic?
Of course, a lot of these articles are going to be good old fashioned self-serving opportunism, but another possibility might be behind the scenes coordination. Impossible? Has there ever been a coordinated propaganda initiative in the history of the world?
A coordinated propaganda campaign rarely has anything to do with the underlying business of the various media outlets being used to run it.
Facebook's shutting down of organic reach was devastating for publishers: http://www.adweek.com/digital/after-facebooks-algorithm-chan.... Now, just weeks later, it seems like all of media has turned on Facebook. We've known about the Cambridge Analytica scandal for over a year, but suddenly it's cover story material again. This is an article on it from last May: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great.... It just seems like the media is dumping on whatever it can at this point.
My cynical view on how this ends would be that FB comes to some compromise on organic reach and the media begins to cool down on all the FB hoopla. FB gets some sort of slap on the wrist fine from the FTC or some other governing agency, and nothing genuinely changes in terms of consumer privacy.
That doesn't change the fact that Facebook is a cancer on society that sucks every piece of data it can get from its victims in exchange for an, at this point, poor end-user experience. I'd welcome a world where people have given up on Facebook, so I'm all for this push. Something something the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I guess.
Facebook makes algorithm changes to reduce unpaid reach and squeeze more money out of business entities on the platform regularly, almost as soon as the complaints from the last round of changed have died down; it may be a contributor to background frustration especially by small businesses (for big businesses with established brands, its a barrier to their competition) but it'd probably not as big of a contribution to the present controversy as direct political features of that controversy, where the left is upset at the impact and therefore everyone involved, the right wants the political focus on Facebook rather than the other parties, and privacy advocates are angry at everyone involved, but particularly Facebook as the direct custodian of the data, about the mechanisms which allowed it to happen, which leaves everyone mad at Facebook for one reason or another.
"The Berlin conference was hosted by an online forum called Stack That Money, but a newcomer could be forgiven for wondering if it was somehow sponsored by Facebook Inc. Saleswomen from the company held court onstage, introducing speakers and moderating panel discussions. After the show, Facebook representatives flew to Ibiza on a plane rented by Stack That Money to party with some of the top affiliates."
So Facebook sends representative to a conference of known scammers?
Doesn't sound like character assassination for me.
When a scandal erupts the media starts digging around to search for more skeletons.
Sure, it would have been nice to see this anti-FB outrage spread out over time, but that's just not how human social networks work.
FB has had advertisers for 10 years now, and they've always used your info for targeting, nothing has changed.
It's pretty scary how all these media centers just seem to jump on the same bandwagon.
I agree. But I think this should go on for a while. Not out of hate for Facebook. But it ll help more people to realize the kind of thing, the kind of exploitation and manipulations and they might be subjected to, both online and offline..
And I think that is about time people had a good taste of the reality that is going on with these things..
> It is a weird type of projection or something like that -- a denial of responsibility.
There's denial of responsibility at every level. What's funny is that Facebook has absolutely taken on the responsibility of censoring content - blocking nudity and certain other topics. But at the same time has denied responsibility for misleading or fraudulent ad content that gets on its site. I think the difference is that one is cheap to do (object classification via machine learning) and the other would require some real manpower.
People refuse to accept it, but there's a reason there used to be millions of spam messages sent out each day 10 years ago and there's probably even more sent today, we just don't see it as much. Shady business brings a lot of money. Heck, entire (smaller) countries kick-started their wealth by collecting from shady people.
I have no doubt, but am very curious to read more if you've got any examples.
Malta seems to be doing something similar.
Switzerland was quite prosperous but it upped its level by 1 notch by being neutral (and therefore both safe from destruction and a safe haven during 2 world wars) and also through some “minor” dirty banking: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jewish_Congress_lawsui...
Basically every banking center our there hasn’t really had any qualms with money laundering until international organizations put the squeeze on them. Panama, Seychelles, Curacao, etc.
Advertising has already been regulated for a long time, and for the same reason: scams, misinformation, and outright fraud.
The main issue is that the same standards that have been applied to TV, radio and print have not yet come to the digital world. That probably explains how ridden the industry is of shady practices...
Come on. If you think FB is not responsible for people using it for bad purposes, then what is the difference between Voluum, the tracking tool he created and FB advt suite?
If a company builds a multi-billion dollar business by showing people what to buy and how to behave(/vote), it is a basic ethical responsibility to make sure, the users are not outright scammed out by bad actors.
And just because Facebook isn't picking advertisers and approving the ad copy doesn't mean Facebook has zero responsibly that people are scammed.
There is plenty of responsibility to go around. You may allocate it how you wish, but to lay none of it at the feet of Facebook is highly suspect.
> Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography, or interests. Now Facebook does that work for them. The social network tracks who clicks on the ad and who buys the pills, then starts targeting others whom its algorithm thinks are likely to buy. Affiliates describe watching their ad campaigns lose money for a few days as Facebook gathers data through trial and error, then seeing the sales take off exponentially. “They go out and find the morons for me,”
Targeted advertising that employs manipulative or otherwise dishonest methods is damaging to Capitalism and free markets.
1) The people themselves don't know how easily they are manipulated.
2) Facebook analyses this about them, and helps other businesses to use this against them.
3) They do not know Facebook helps other businesses to use this against them.
That's problematic. At the very least, #3 should be solved ie. they should be informed beforehand because then at the very least they're informed about the malpractices. You can then make a case about it being allowed, or not. But you cannot make any informed case if you don't even know it is occurring.
No one is forced to use FB as far as I know.
It really depends on scale and proportions. In this case the exact boundary when something becomes recognized as evil doesn't really exist. The more efficient you will become on finding out weaknesses of other humans and using them, the more people will consider your actions to be evil. Displaying a picture of happy family drinking coke won't shock anybody, but suggesting discount on alcohol to alcoholic might come as wrong to many people.
> No one is forced to use FB as far as I know.
With facebook actively scraping phones for contacts, calls and messages, embedding widgets on third party sites and what-not. in a way we all really are forced to be facebook users.
This is one of my biggest concerns. Facebook has shadow profiles on people that aren't users, including my kids. It's gross.
There is increasing pressure to use Facebook in order to fit in and be included in things. For example many people are contacting only through facebook and ignoring other channels.
If I put a gun to your head and ask you nicely to take the pill or die, I'm essentially forcing you to take the pill as it's unreasonable for most to choose the die option.
>If I put a gun to your head and ask you nicely to take the pill or die, I'm essentially forcing you to take the pill
One of these things is not at all like the other.
Let's look at the 70s, 80s, and possibly even the 90s. During these periods it was acceptable for most people to not know how to type, as usage of typewriters and keyboards were limited. But as society more and more adopted—and then relied on—computers and keyboard, it became increasing a necessity to be able to type. Back then you could get a job without typing skills, these days, it would be increasingly difficult to do so and you'd definitely be hampered by your inability to operate a computer. If you can't find a job, you'd be an outcast, and thus society has now developed a reliance on being able to type and use a keyboard (and thus a computer).
As with Facebook, if society continues to rely on it for social engagements and developing connections with people, it will soon become a necessity to use facebook in order to participate socially or keep in touch with people. That's the trend at least. The difference with Facebook however is that it relegates a big part of society to a single company, and cedes control of social interaction to a black box of software and algorithms.
So the slow progress of Facebook towards necessity is thus like the slow physical progression of my gun to your head: they're both making something become a necessity by limiting your options, whether it's taking a mysterious pill in my hand or becoming a social outcast.
This isn't even touching on the capability of nation states of nefarious groups manipulating populations on a large scale like Cambridge Analytica have likely done, which uses the exact same data advertisers use.
x1: How much the product improves my life (judged based on how much I would be willing to buy it, asked after I acquired it)
y1: How much the product costs
x2: How much expendable income I have
y2: How aware I am of how advertising influences my buying decisions
Depending on where the marketed products/services and the targeted consumers land on these charts the answer to your questions may turn out very differently.
I'm now curious if Facebook reports what market segments their ad revenue comes from? Like what percentage is pill pushers?
/s
That's a little simplistic. In the social media space there are no widely-used competitors to Facebook. Companies that could be called competitors in scale - Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, Snapchat - target different demographics and use-cases[1]. You're not likely to find too many older family members on Snapchat for example. Even so, Facebook also owns several former such competitors like WhatsApp and Instagram.
I try to avoid Facebook like the plague, but it gets harder every year. Just about my entire extended family currently uses WhatsApp for messaging and phone calls to save money on overseas phone bills. I'm trying to push them towards Signal - but it's like pushing a boulder uphill because all of their friends use WhatsApp also.
[1] None of these vet their ads with any rigor either, by the way. If I'm looking for a company that uses personal information and displays ads carefully and ethically such a beast doesn't exist.
Due to hangouts we are all connected in a social media like but private environment anyway. This only works because nobody i know has a iPhone anymore tho.
Literally the only reason I used facebook were low effort marketing actions. However they widely lost their effect the last years.
Tldr: from my point of view it never was easier to not use Facebook.
And I highly believe everyone can just not use it if they actually wanted to.
I do agree that the easiest thing is to delete your account there is a lot more to it than what you engage with on their products.
Except the social media market share Facebook does not hold any monopolies and even that is wobbly.
They'll get regulated at some point, assuming the politicians are awake enough to understand what is going (that's not at all clear). At least I hope they do.
Welcome to the wonderful world of advertising. You think bloomberg is any different. The news/tv show kids soda and candy ads all day. FB isn't doing anything revolutionary.
It definitely seems like there's a media circus about Facebook right now, but that's mostly because for the first time, journalists are realizing there's a large audience for negative articles about Facebook. So this is probably months or years of articles that didn't get sign-off that are finally getting the green light by editors because there's actually a clear audience now (and maybe the media was afraid to step on Facebook's toes before?).
There is the FTC (in the US) and guidelines for TV, radio, print work well enough along with the natural time and effort barriers, but digital advertising has far greater reach, scale, and precision with almost 0 oversight. This must be fixed with actual consequences (as in prison time for offenders who run scams and malware) otherwise nothing will change.