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Comment by parasti | Hacker News Reader

As a EU citizen, I don't care? People are not swayed by political ads. They're swayed by influencers who push political agendas covertly.

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I would think this is naive to imagine that targeted ads do not have influence when used in large numbers. There is a reason why this market exists.

I am happy this law has an effect and potentially opens the doors to other players.

I think this comes from a us perspective in most of Europe political ads consist of a portrait image of the politician and a slogan that gets penetrated to death. We don't have attack ads here most of the time we don't even have ads that transport a message besides this is Dude A from Party A.

I can actually give a very specific real life example of political ads working because I have a friend who was part of the campaign. In Ohio there was a constitutional amendment on the ballot to legalize abortion. The orgs that spent millions of dollars getting it on the ballot were constantly polling to figure where they stand in terms of it passing. As a just in case they made a "break glass" ad campaign which talked about a 10 year old rape victim that had to be driven across state lines to get an abortion. At the 11th hour a few days before the vote they realized it wasn't going to pass. So they took that ad and blasted it across the state, you legitimately couldn't watch TV for more than 30 minutes and not see it at least twice. It covered every streaming service, youtube, facebook ads, tv. The polls went from 48-49% to almost 60% in favor and it passed.

Political ads definitely do sway people. Especially the shit-flinging ads are effective.

The ones where a political figure lays out the bare basics of their programmes don't make a lot of impact, but the shittier the party and the more manipulative their advertising, the more these ads have an effect.

The influencer problem is even bigger, of course.

Then why are they paying for them? They can literally see the exact CPC and CPA / CPM ratios that justify their spending

Ads influence people a lot. In particular the elderly generation.

My cousin says there should be a maximum voting age. She says if people can't vote for the first 18 years of their life, why should they be able to vote for the last 18 years (e.g. if retired or older than 65)?

I disagree, of course. I don't talk to this cousin anymore. Personally I think the very elderly contain the wisdom for future generations, and make the best decisions because of all that wisdom, so they should really be in charge of everything.

The elderly will die before they see the consequence of them voting in another conservative party that reduces climate goals and investments in public infrastructure. Young people have to deal with the fallout for much longer

What is your general opinion on the wisdom and decision-making of politicians and heads of state that are above the age of 80?

Anyone who is 81 or older is elderly, therefore they have a lot of wisdom, therefore their decisions are the best. My opinion completely aligns with this logic with no deviation.

Agreed. As a Frenchman, I can testify that the same logic allows anyone to take perfectly dreary 2022 Napa valley wine, and turn it to a beautiful 1942 Saint-Emilion. You just need to age it 80 years.

> elderly, therefore they have a lot of wisdom

That’s a hell of an assumption, though maybe this is missing a ‘/s’?

And the younger generation are influenced by influencers, which are also ads.

You are not immune to propaganda

I don't disagree but I feel like having spent a couple of decades filtering bad Linux advice on sketchy forums has honestly built up some resilience.

Europeans are famously immune to propaganda.

I agree, we should ban influencers from accepting any money from parties or other political actors (think tanks, foreign nations...). We can't and shouldn't ban them from expressing their honest opinions, but we should keep the debate genuine.

Influencers are a big problem indeed. The rules should be tightened quickly. Ads do work too, I'm afraid, so this is good

> People are not swayed by political ads.

That just means you are getting swayed, you just dont know it.

> People are not swayed by political ads

sure

Right? Who is that naive?

How come you think that said influencers are not paid?

As a world citizen, you're projecting. Most people are indeed swayed by political ads, as the numbers clearly bear out.

That's because you are a HN user, which selects for above average intelligence people (yes, even the webdevs). You are not the type of person who sways election results. Ads work. You don't need carefully crafted subliminal messages, you could write "vote for me" everywhere and it would have a noticeable effect on the election results

> That's because you are a HN user, which selects for above average intelligence people

This forum became a parody of itself

You may not like the way he put it, but he is correct.

Up to and including the snark at web devs. Every engineer I've met who thinks the web is somehow an easier form of software engineering couldn't write software worth a damn in general, let alone make a website. Universally incurious and dumb.

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