
Twitter’s multi-million dollar US election pitch to RT - robin_reala
https://www.rt.com/news/407919-twitter-multi-million-offer-rt/
======
f055
I know RT is not very trustworthy, but let me get this straight - Twitter was
inviting RT to spend advertising budget during the US elections, like any
other ad sales team would do (Facebook, Google etc.). Twitter got the budget,
and RT started making ads on Twitter. Probably controversial, since you want
to maximise CTRs etc. Then Trump won. Then everyone started wondering. Then
they pinpointed Russian media for making social media ads during the
elections. And now Twitter banned RT ads to get the "problem" off their
shoulders. Isn't this hysteria? Aren't we putting too much trust that social
media ads can really sway the election that much? Because it seems, as other
commenters here pointed out, ads weren't as big of a problem as bots and fake
accounts spreading propaganda tweets. Even more, how much respondents say that
their voting decision was made because of social media ads or social media
posts?

~~~
matt_wulfeck
> _And now Twitter banned RT ads to get the "problem" off their shoulders.
> Isn't this hysteria?_

I can’t help but feel everyone in Silicon Valley is desperate to believe every
narrative about the election except the version where Trump wins because he
was the only one promising prosperity to people not located in major cities.

~~~
Consultant32452
Your comment ties directly to the Democrat election strategy.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClytGvP_Qe4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClytGvP_Qe4)

"For every blue collar democrat we will lose in Western PA, we will pick up
two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia." ~Chuck Schumer

~~~
Akujin
Philadelphia is quickly gentrifying and this has caused massive lines in
voting districts in the recently gentrified neighborhoods. Where voting lines
used to be 15 minutes long they are now 2+ hours. We've been trying to get
them to split the voting district into two here in Northern Liberties for a
while but apparently it's falling on deaf ears. These are by the way "well-to-
do" young professionals so it's in the interest of both Republicans and
Democrats to fix this.

Meanwhile 10 minutes away at Temple University you have 2 hour lines at
polling close. If the dems want to win PA they need to get their voting
district shit together in the city.

It would not have made much off a difference. The spread in the entire state
was about 90k but when I saw the lines at the universities it made me wonder
about the entire state.

I used to live in the suburbs of Philadelphia in a new "rich" neighborhood and
the lines there are usually 15-30 minutes. Granted the population there
doesn't fluctuate much.

~~~
Qworg
This is the most common form of voter suppression in the US and we're doing
absolutely nothing about it.

------
pornel
I was surprised when Jack said they'd be returning ad money from RT/Sputnik,
because that's not really the election influence problem they have.

Political discussions on Twitter are flooded by obvious bot/content farm
accounts like "BaldEagleFreedom983428" shitposting memes how Hillary bought
CNN to take away your gunflags. Ban this crap.

~~~
awalton
Yeah but Reddit and Twitter both have realized their financial well-being
depends on Monthly Active Users, and bots look like active users. They simply
threw ethics away and gun straight for the capital.

The only reason Twitter did this was to make it look like they were doing
_something_ to improve the platform. Twitter won't notice $2M from their
balance sheets if it bumps their stock price a few cents, but they will notice
the dollars off their stock price when they decide to stop lying about how
much traffic from human beings they're actually servicing vs the massive bot
infestation.

~~~
Retric
Bots cost them money for zero direct benefit so they do hurt profitability.

~~~
rsynnott
Twitter is under immense pressure to show a growing user base. Getting rid of
the bots would likely cause month-on-month figures to actually fall, which
would presumably be a problem.

~~~
boxy310
They recently had a recalculation of MAU due to a misreporting -- users that
used to have organic posts, but were now only sending out pre-scheduled
messages, like ghosts in the machine.

How they handled that was to back-date all the reporting. Presumably bot
traffic does not generate any additional advertising value, so re-fitting the
number of MAU would increase the average ad reach/user value proposition. The
importance is the trend, not necessarily the overall level.

------
nathankunicki
I'm not sure I see what RT is attempting to say about Twitter here. That they
offered them promoted content, ad-buy discounts, custom emojis, etc, in
exchange for an ad-buy of a certain amount. This doesn't seem like anything
other than a partnership of some kind.

It doesn't say anything that RT should favour one candidate over another, in
fact the presentation specifically promotes unbiased content and news.

~~~
simonh
The 'unbiased' bit in the Twitter presentation is bullshit, how can they
determine how an organisation is going to use this system? It's wishful
thinking at best.

Otherwise, to be honest I'm with you. Suppose it was revealed Twitter had
offered the same deal to Fox News, CNN, PBS, the BBC, etc. In fact they
probably did.

Is it now illegal or immoral for US businesses to deal with RT? Should US
advertisers be banned from working with RT? US media organizations? US
telecoms companies? Maybe they should be, but it certainly wasn't back then.
We all know RT is a Kremlin propaganda tool, if we want to penalise RT then
lets do that directly and explicitly and not blame Twitter for just being
Twitter.

Now if subsequently Twitter has decided that RT violated Twitter's terms of
service, that's a different issues, but you can't expect Twitter to know
they're going to do that beforehand, or in general pre-emptively decide who
they will or won't accept on the platform like that.

Edit: See emodenrockt's reply below. Couldn't agree more. RT are toxic, but we
can't afford to twist our deomocratic and press freedoms in knots over them.

~~~
emodendroket
Personally I think we probably shouldn't throw out our fundamental protections
of the press because we don't like RT's angle, especially when you consider
that even if you're a liberal who hates RT you can be sure they'll turn around
and use whatever precedent is set against left-leaning sources too. We're
already seeing this with the hysteria about fake news being taken out on
sources like Naked Capitalism and Truthout.

~~~
tpm
being a liberal doesn't have anything to do with it. RT is state propaganda of
a dictatorship, not some legitimate news source with a left or right bias.

~~~
emodendroket
It is a legitimate news source though. If you're sorting news sources into
all-good and all-bad buckets and uncritically believing or disbelieving
everything they print then you're going to end up with a distorted view.

~~~
tpm
I have grown up in a communist totalitarian state and possibly as a result of
that always consumed media with a critical attitude. There are no sources in
the all-good bucket. The all-bad bucket is full of RT, Breitbart and other
sources, because they have only one purpose. And that purpose is to further
the agenda of their masters, not to inform their audience. That is the reason
why it is not a legitimate news source.

~~~
richardknop
I come from same background and have opposite opinion to yours. So you can see
this is all personal biases and saying RT is not legitimate news is comparable
to me saying CNN is state propaganda of US. Propaganda, by the way, is a tool
used by all governments, not just Russia and North Korea but also US, China
and so on. All have their own propaganda they are trying to push which favors
their interests.

~~~
tpm
"I come from same background and have opposite opinion to yours. So you can
see this is all personal biases" This is a nice example of a non sequitur.

"saying RT is not legitimate news is comparable to me saying CNN is state
propaganda of US" It is comparable, so let's compare - both are statements,
one of them is true and one of them is false. RT is not legitimate news,
because made up stories are not news. CNN is not state propaganda of the US,
because - as far as I know, please do correct me if I am wrong - it is not a
state-owned, state-run, state-financed news channel. There is no US
institution that sets the agenda of the CNN. Also, my impression from the
American media landscape is that the media do shovel loads of (well deserved)
abuse on president Trump - state propaganda would not allow that.

"Propaganda, by the way, is a tool used by all governments" Yes, but not all
governments have the same legitimacy and the same aims. If you are looking for
an American equivalent of RT, you won't find one; the closest you get is
probably Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, which were
instrumental for Eastern European dissent during the Cold War, but are not
very relevant anymore.

------
r721
Twitter's response (kind of):

>Asked to respond, a Twitter spokesperson said via email that the company
would not comment “on our private conversations with any advertiser, even a
former advertiser.” A source familiar with the company’s dealings with RT
said: “These kinds of conversations are industry standard pitching for any
potential advertiser. It’s the job of any ad sales team to aggressively
recruit and retain clients, and sometimes they use strong language in order to
do so.” The spokesperson also noted that only “a very small slice” of
Twitter’s communications with RT was being shown, adding that the Russian
network’s “motivations may not be full transparency of our advertising
relationship.”

[https://www.yahoo.com/news/twitter-cracks-ads-russian-
news-s...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/twitter-cracks-ads-russian-news-sites-
rt-sputnik-193434032.html)

------
djhworld
RT know how to troll.

Anyone who's visited, or is a resident of London recently might have noticed
these ads on the tube or in the stations

[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rt-adverts-london-
mout...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rt-adverts-london-mouthpiece-
tom-watson_uk_59e8615de4b0d0e4fe6d4ba6)

~~~
uhhhhhhh
Propaganda has got a lot more interesting with the growth of the private
sector.

~~~
rsynnott
RT isn't really private; it's a non-profit funded by the Russian state:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)#Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_\(TV_network\)#Foundation)

~~~
Consultant32452
Am I mistaken in understanding that BBC is similarly tied to the UK
government?

~~~
rsynnott
The BBC is funded by a government-mandated tax, but has editorial
independence. RT is explicitly a propaganda organ; its editor in chief has
said as much. It's also aimed at foreign markets. It's more similar to VOA
than the BBC.

~~~
makomk
Indeed, the BBC are of course totally editorially independent of the people
who decide whether they continue to exist and at what scale. Also, I have a
bridge in Westminster to sell you. (It's fairly well known here that they tend
to be a mouthpiece of the Establishment and whichever party's currently in
power.)

~~~
aldous
No it isn't. They are arguably currently at odds with the Conservative
government over a range of issues. Do you know how strict the BBC's editorial
guidelines are and the procedures they have in place to try and ensure
impartiality?

------
grabcocque
The Kremlin is nothing if not reliably vindictive to those that it believes
has crossed it.

Twitter better hope it has its story straight (and the paper shredders working
overtime) because this looks to me like Putin's minions have been ordered to
go right for Twitter's jugular.

I do hate to say this too, but maybe the Kremlin mouthpiece has a point here:
many media organisations use ad spending to try to crowbar themselves into
election narratives. The difference in the US is the sheer scale of it
compared to most western nations that have strict limits on election spending,
both domestic and especially foreign.

The US has limits of a sort but they're so huge and so porous this sort of
thing was practically inevitable.

~~~
kogepathic
_> Twitter better hope it has its story straight (and the paper shredders
working overtime) because this looks to me like Putin's minions have been
ordered to go right for Twitter's jugular._

But for what purpose/to what end?

Bringing Twitter down would remove Trump's favourite method of communication.

Or is this retribution for Trump not being the Manchurian candidate/lap dog
Putin wanted? If that were the case, I would expect Russia to expose whatever
they're holding over Trump (peepee tape?) to get him ousted.

Trump already won the election, so taking out Twitter would only serve to
reduce their ability to influence future elections.

I'm not denying this looks fantastically bad for Twitter, but the aim of
taking down Twitter isn't clear to me. There has to be a net positive to
taking down Twitter, but what is it?

~~~
cat199
> Or is this retribution for Trump not being the Manchurian candidate/lap dog
> Putin wanted? If that were the case, I would expect Russia to expose
> whatever they're holding over Trump (peepee tape?) to get him ousted

seriously?

if anyone is taking that level of master/puppet game seriously they probably
_need_ to watch as many non-us media sources as they can..

news flash:

not everyone agrees with US global neoliberal policy! you don't necissarily
need to have some shadowy organization behind those people deciding for
themselves to express themselves, organize, etc.

~~~
kogepathic
_> seriously?_

Well, no, the peepee tape part is tongue and cheek.

However I doubt it would be difficult to dig up dirt on Trump. I don't think
it's beyond Russia's ability to dig up incriminating financials on Trump/Trump
Org. We are talking about a candidate who has steadfastly refused to release
his tax returns.

------
lawlessone
Does this not make Twitter AND RT look bad? They've just proven something they
and Trump have been denying.

~~~
jdietrich
Good and bad are obsolete, there is only confusion. RT don't care about being
trusted, they don't care about credibility, they only want to undermine the
credibility of everyone else. If nobody is credible, if no information can be
trusted, then there is no truth and no lies, only gut feeling.

[https://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n20/peter-pomerantsev/putins-
raspu...](https://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n20/peter-pomerantsev/putins-rasputin)

~~~
emodendroket
Let's not get carried away

~~~
aldous
“they only want to undermine the credibility of everyone else”

It’s reasonable to assume this is indeed one of the objectives behind RT,
undermining western news media. In 2008 the Kremlin had TV-Novosti (RT is a
brand of TV-Novosti) on its list of core list of "core organizations of
strategic importance of Russia" for example. Just look at the guests they have
on there to perpetrate narratives against governments and cultures they see as
adversary.

From Liz Wahl who resigned from RT on air, blaming it for propaganda:

“They get these extreme voices on that have this kind of hostile toward the
West viewpoints towards the world, very extremist. These are the people that
they have on. And when I was on the anchor desk, they would instruct you to
egg on these guests and try to get them, you know, rallied up, to really fire
off their anti-American talking points. Listen, I'm all about exposing
government corruption. I'm all about being critical of the government. But
this is different. This is promoting the foreign policy of somebody that has
just invaded a country, has invaded the country and is then lying about it, is
using the media as a tool to fulfill his foreign policy interests. And RT is
part of Putin's propaganda network and it's very, very troubling in the wake
of what is going on in Ukraine today.”

~~~
emodendroket
I mean clearly they broadcast a lot of anti-American stuff and their coverage
of any story with Russia is suspect at best. But they have lots of real
reporting and they're not just making stuff up. And it's useful to have a
counterbalance to American papers, which are highly influenced by American
intelligence services.

~~~
aldous
I agree counter balance is indeed healthy and I think generally, in the west,
we are served a wealth of different viewpoints on any given issue, so much so
that we can take it for granted. My point above was that RT, in the Kremlins
own words, plays a core role in their wider global strategy and it absolutely
plays a part in undermining the west.

For my own reference, could you supply some links to support you assertion
that the American press is highly influenced by American intelligence? My
perception of the US press is that this type of manipulation is really not
prevalent on a large coordinated scale.

~~~
emodendroket
The topic is a hobby horse of Mark Ames, whose work I really admire. It's not
necessarily on a "large, coordinated scale," but it's a mistake to assume it
has to be to be influential.

~~~
aldous
Thanks for replying. I was however hoping for something more substantive
though.

------
thriftwy
I wonder why all the slides from this keynote show to be consisting of a
single (or is it the first) page?

It's in window title, (1 страница)

File name is same, there's one page to be displayed, but content is different.
Is it some feature of keynote where you have more than one screen's worth in
one page, or is it shopped?

~~~
heartbreak
I’d take anything from RT with a grain of salt, considering the context. I’m
not saying Twitter is in the clear, but it’s in RT’s best interest to make
themselves look better.

------
itronitron
TL/DR from one of the slides >>

    
    
       U.S. ELECTIONS PROPOSAL
    
       Limited offer for @RT_com.
    
       * Innovation: exclusive closed betas pending availability with Periscope, TweetDeck, and Moments.
    
       * Brand awareness and engagement: customized emoji, video, bespoke customized solutions (e.g. AutoResponse, ScratchReel, Conversational Video Ad).
    
       * Content strategy: strategic support with content management and best practices, vision and concept, tailor-made execution.
    
       * Dedicated team: Twitter experts to focus on LIVE (editorial and publishing), curate content and provide strategic and tactical support during the U.S. Elections.
    
       * Efficiency and measurement: customized research solutions (Nielsen // Milward Brown).

------
icu
RT == Roasting Twitter

Jokes aside, it seems to me that Twitter has gone from bastion of free speech
to global censor. This RT article is just another nail in the coffin of
Twitter's credibility.

I think that if Twitter's leaders don't articulate a corporate morality and
initiate a culture change at some point Twitter's investors are going to
realise that they are betting against freedom. This will obviously impact
share price and quite frankly a reason why I don't own any shares.

------
marioflach
I've been using Twitter exclusively for IT and tech over the last two years.
Never been following anything political there.

Today, for the first time, a political ad from @diraalwatan (official account
for Saudi ministry of defence) promoting war in Yemen sneaked into my feed:

[https://twitter.com/diraalwatan/status/924548374711463936](https://twitter.com/diraalwatan/status/924548374711463936)

I do and did tolerate the way Twitter takes actions in political ways lately,
blocking accounts they consider to be fake news, state propaganda, etc.
although I find it somehow controversive and very subjective. But having ads
promoting war in Yemen just shocked me badly!

How it this ad even entering my feed?

------
lancewiggs
Those discounts feel really light for adland. Did RT get a lousy deal or a
good one?

~~~
tryingagainbro
I think USA got a horrible deal, RT is a nation state, a million is nothing to
them. Their GDP (Googled it) is 1.283 trillion USD (2016).
[https://www.google.com/search?q=russia+gdp](https://www.google.com/search?q=russia+gdp)

Kudos to them for exposing twitter though.

~~~
chrisseaton
Sorry to be a bit pedantic, but ‘nation state’ is not just a technical
sounding alternative for ‘major country’. It has a specific definition around
national homogeneity, and in most people’s opinions Russia is not a nation-
state.

~~~
hidenotslide
Thanks, this is a pretty interesting distinction I never realized. Now I want
to go find a good modern political science book and learn more.

~~~
chrisseaton
Other examples of things that aren't nation states (it's a matter of opinion
but most agree) include the United Kingdom, and possibly the United States.

------
dowrow
RT is just Putin's propaganda machine and will act accordingly.

------
thisisit
"In marketing, there is war for attention. It's the only thing that matters.
Attention, not impression" \- @Garyvee

This should be expanded to - And the only way to grab attention is push the
most atrocious stories. People are nothing if not curious about stuff.
Specially the ones which align to their world view.

~~~
matt4077
Ahh, bullshit. People also love fatty, salty, and sweet food. Yet there's
still market for kale and cod.

Similarly, there has been tabloid journalism since the printing press was
invented. But there has always been, and still is, plenty of high-quality
journalism.

~~~
djmips
Americans are fatter than ever right now.

------
averagewall
Why does it matter if RT or Russia advertised for the US election? Doesn't the
US notoriously have no restrictions on who and how much advertising can be
done for elections? What's the difference between an American doing it vs a
Russian?

~~~
BeetleB
>Doesn't the US notoriously have no restrictions on who and how much
advertising can be done for elections?

I believe they have restrictions involving foreign ads for traditional media
(newspapers, TV, etc). Just not for the Internet.

Otherwise, to be frank, I totally agree with you. Instead of owning up to the
fact that most of the populace is really, really, easy to con, we seek blame
elsewhere. Banning foreign entities from advertising in elections will _not_
prevent a similar outcome in a future election.

------
smpetrey
This Twitter pitch deck looks suspiciously “off-brand Twitter.”

Why not release the PDF of the deck?

------
ShabbosGoy
Barring the political implications, this is an interesting window into how
much one can charge for advertising.

That's some serious market power.

------
ianamartin
I think the real takeaway here is that advertising on twitter doesn’t work for
shit.

------
gressquel
can HN ban RT.com please? I just flagged this story

~~~
giarc
Why? This is an interesting part of the twitter/US election story. This is the
source of this part of the story, linking to another site would be against the
HN "rule" of linking the original source.

~~~
FilterSweep
Agree - but there's middle ground here.

I would prefer a "do not link" or archived post for certain domains to prevent
clicks on their page.

------
celticninja
Guess this helped Twitter get into the black for the first time.

~~~
matt4077
The story about Twitter's black bottom line is about Q3 2017, so I doubt that
it's connected to the 2016 election.

~~~
celticninja
it all helps though, and I imagine that if they (RT) spent large for the
election and got their chosen candidate elected they would keep on spending to
support him, see the numerous russian bot accounts following Trump or those
that are being used to comment on BLM/flag protestors etc

[http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/](http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/)

~~~
mcintyre1994
Twitter have said they're going to donate all the RT ad money to external
research on use of Twitter for things like this. They said it's $1.9m. Also
the profit report seems to be based on a claim for next quarter, and
presumably they've either costed that donation in Q3 or factored it into their
Q4 prediction.

~~~
celticninja
RT and Sputnik are not the only way that Russian money is getting into
Twitter, either way my point stands that they received income from this
source, courted money from this source and have now become profitable in part
as a result of the money they have received from russian organisations.

------
learningram
I notice some bot/troll activity in the discussions. Mostly new accounts

~~~
dmix
[citation needed]

I see this claim constantly on Reddit. I'd love to see examples of these
'bots' and paid trolls that everyone is so privy to...

~~~
wu-ikkyu
> I'd love to see examples of these 'bots' and paid trolls that everyone is so
> privy to...

Here is a study with some examples:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock...](https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock_puppets_in_rnetsec_last_year_and_are/)

