Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion
ad.watch
ad.watch
This isn’t the most intuitive viz on the planet. But dear smart tech people and data scientists with a strong public interest streak: Please keep doing this and get it online. At least for me, when I see it, I’ll put it in front of other journos on social. We compete but help each other out by sharing tips like this through professional orgs and journalism boards like Y Combinator (which I’ve followed closely for years).
Many of us are particularly keen on helping young journalists become natural investigators, and the next generation has a huge amount of data smarts already. Let’s put it to work for justice and fairness and all that mushy human freedom and better leadership stuff.
The enormous (and I've personally witnessed enough to suit the use of that term) reduction in editorial and arts staff at major outlets has stretched the surviving teams pretty thin. It gets harder and harder to source and confirm this kind of data, and then present it, within the timelines available.
Just seeing that kind of thing makes me immediately question the accuracy and precision of the data if the creators didn't even conduct that rather basic due diligence. Which is also related to my inherent general concern regarding the data because it seems that everyone simply just accepts that data is not only accurate and precise, but that it has also not been manipulated and tampered with, even though currently there is very little way to verify the integrity of the data, let alone have it certified as accurate or even honest. What is considered a political ad? Is there any skullduggery going on where Facebook and others classify things they don't like incorrectly in order to manipulate things? etc
It's not like that is an unfounded concern and really should be a basic measure of journalistic integrity whether the data was evaluated or provenance was certified. There are some obvious and intentional distortions manipulative and abusive distortions that come to mind, ironically the most prominent one from the A D L that classified all manner of unrelated incidents as "right wing white supremacist extremism" in testimony to Congress an in general in public; including classifying two black people as white supremacists, classifying a domestic dispute as white supremacist, a murder of a cheating spouse as white supremacist, etc. all in order to pump up and manipulate data and impressions for political purposes. The A D L propaganda was discovered rather easily because their data set was rather limited and could be reviewed in mere seconds, but how do you have any confidence whatsoever in the data of this type of site, regardless of any kind of specific intention, let alone even unintentional manipulation and corruption of data?
* Who is paying for their political propaganda?
* How much was spent?
* What were the ads?
* How was it paid?
Not being able to track ad spending by political parties, governments or individuals opens opens a huge opportunity for political corruption.
I like this idea tbqh
Besides, the world is drowning in ads. Any downside for advertisers is an undiluted upside for society at large.
Okay, but why? Are you implying that it gives people some sort of advantage? If so, how is it any different to all the myriad other things that people could do that can effectively push or platform a campaign/political opinion? E.g. Biased reporting, speeches, skilled orators, organized rallies and their funding, etc.
And also, what is your definition of "political corruption"? Also, how is all this different to "campaigns", activism and general spending that is targeted at altering public opinion at the early childhood level? I.e. at primary and secondary schools.
I guess where I'm getting at is where do you draw the line, if any. We are, after all, part of a democratic society and one of the big supposed benefits is that it's marketplace of ideas where the best one effectively gets translated by the elected officials. Advertising/promoting such ideas should be part and parcel of such a marketplace.
Personally, I draw the line at propaganda and such aimed at developing minds. Till the past decade, I'd say the biggest movement that was doing this was the climate/pollution one. It's been heavily promoted and pushed at children way past the point of trying to foster environmentally-conscious and behaved adults that understand the consequences of some of their actions on the environment.
In my humble opinion, your home page should be the interactive map part - show people the good stuff as quickly as possible. Those who want to read about the project will find their way to the info.
Also, the map should be a little more intuitive to use. Don't make people dig for the gold.
Mobile accessibility would also help get this information in front of more eyeballs. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the site on my phone.
It includes all sorts of global regions and even "(null)" when it should simply list US states and territories.
Yes because political adverts don't run anywhere apart from the U.S.
Where is the pressure for google to do the same?
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (literally the top of the list alphabetized by first name) spent $1.5 million on 9,576 ads, garnering 60 million impressions, mostly for fundraising, and it all started after she assumed office? And the ads are spread out across the country with California edging out her home state of New York?
What a weird coincidence - both Ocasio Cortez and Cory Booker placed more ads in California than their home states (New York and New Jersey), but Kamala Harris put more ads in New York than her home state California.
I don't know what this data means, I'm uncomfortable with Facebook getting heat when other tech companies aren't (because people think Facebook helped Trump), but this is a really interesting data set if you start to play around with it.
These ads are probably for fundraising purposes. Congresspeople face re-election every two years and thus spend a lot of time fundraising. Also, if she raises extra money she can put it into a PAC and use it to support/oppose candidates in other races. This is a practice that was perfected by Lyndon Johnson who used campaign cash from his friends in the oil industry to bolster support for his policies amongst his peers.
>> What a weird coincidence - both Ocasio Cortez and Cory Booker placed more ads in California than their home states (New York and New Jersey), but Kamala Harris put more ads in New York than her home state California.
This is because they already built donor/supporter bases in their own states where their name ID is strongest. Rather than advertise at home where they are already household names it make sense to take out ads in other states which they want to win.
For instance, if we select "Browse per country" and then "France", you can see political ads, with their political party, their content, their settings, etc.
Why is it different for political organisations to manipulate the population using those tools than it is for multinationals?
Ever seen they live? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8AMRbqY6w
(great that https://www.adbusters.org/ thanks!)