
Ad.watch – Breaking open Facebook's machine of political persuasion - p4bl0
https://ad.watch/
======
GWSchulz
I’ve been an investigative reporter for a long time, and data like this are
essential for reporting on campaign activity in the digital age. Only looking
at contributions and expenditures in disclosure reports isn’t enough anymore.

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.

~~~
52-6F-62
Thanks for saying this. I'll add, just as general observation from within the
industry, that because of the shrinking profits and massive budget cuts
insisted upon by a lot of corporate parent companies many outlets are short-
staffed.

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.

~~~
GWSchulz
Word is born.

~~~
codyb
I believe it’s word is bond implying your word is your honor.

~~~
GWSchulz
I’ll leave it up to Run DMC.
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=word%20is%20...](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=word%20is%20born)

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helloguillecl
This is something that Facebook and ad-serving companies should be fully
transparent about.

* 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.

~~~
deogeo
There's a problem in how do you classify ads into political and non-political.
But then, why not make _all_ ad spending public? What benefit is there to
society in keeping the source of ads secret?

~~~
isostatic
Facebook does - at least in the UK. Try to run a "political" ad and there's a
lot of hoops to jump through.

~~~
ris
Right, but again, what is "political"? A research group trying to sell their
new whitepaper which just happens to have a provocative title and abstract?
Commercial, surely? Any such definition will be worked around.

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dawg-
I love the idea, but the interface needs some work.

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.

~~~
oliveshell
Agreed.

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.

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eternalny1
There is a major problem with the "Region" selection when viewing the United
States data.

It includes all sorts of global regions and even "(null)" when it should
simply list US states and territories.

~~~
isostatic
> 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.

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ISNIT
Seems quite similar to [https://whotargets.me/en/](https://whotargets.me/en/)

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Ambele
This is a fantastic website and I'm excited to see how it will look in 2020!
It seems to be missing some political actors though which makes it appear like
some democratic candidates aren't spending money on ads which isn't the case.
Some candidates are being tracked; others aren't.

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thatthing
Didn't Facebook make this data available months ago?

Where is the pressure for google to do the same?

~~~
michaelaiello
[https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-
ads/region/U...](https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-
ads/region/US)

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lamb_duh
It's unbearably slow

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_edo
I'm not sure if I'm understanding the map correctly:

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.

~~~
epiphanitus
>> 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?

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.

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oriettaxx
I am not able to understand what it is: can somebody help?

~~~
altharaz
From my understanding, it's a dataviz of Facebook ads linked to politics.

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.

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thedonkeycometh
Really don't fully understand why facebook is being accused of creating this.
And the AD and PR agencies are being let off scott free? Granted, facebook are
culpable ethically for not appreciating that the manipulation afforded to
advertisers could be utilised towards political persuasion. Why, then, if the
tools are so powerful, are we not examining the power of the advertising
industry for utilising the latest studies in psychology and anthropology?
Making us request specific drugs from our doctors, or beer for our fridge, or
thinking that some items may make us happy? None of which may be the best
choice for us, or actually work.

Why is it different for political organisations to manipulate the population
using those tools than it is for multinationals?

~~~
52-6F-62
It's not different, and advertising has been a focus of many since the 80's.

Ever seen they live?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8AMRbqY6w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8AMRbqY6w)

[https://www.adbusters.org/](https://www.adbusters.org/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n7GfVFC6K8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n7GfVFC6K8)

~~~
oriettaxx
ah, no I got it: "They live", by John Carpenter

(great that [https://www.adbusters.org/](https://www.adbusters.org/) thanks!)

