
Facebook finally hands over leave campaign Brexit ads - MariellaVernic
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/26/facebook-finally-hands-over-leave-campaign-brexit-ads/
======
kodablah
Starting reading an article on some info handed over, ended up reading a
politicized article. Can someone link me the source this article is using for
the new news? I'm having a hard time finding it in the inline links of the
text.

EDIT: Via [0], I found the docs at [1]. Tech Crunch is a shameful, op-ed joke
of a site.

0 -
[https://twitter.com/DamianCollins/status/1022437025667014656](https://twitter.com/DamianCollins/status/1022437025667014656)
1 - [https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-
committees/cultu...](https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-
committees/culture-media-and-sport/Fake_news_evidence/Ads-supplied-by-
Facebook-to-the-DCMS-Committee.pdf)

~~~
RubenSandwich
Wow, quite a few of these are very xenophobic. Very much playing off of an
anti Middle East sentiment.

I'd specifically like to highlight these ads in this document:
[https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-
committees/cultu...](https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-
committees/culture-media-and-sport/Fake_news_evidence/Vote-Leave-50-Million-
Ads.pdf).

2924.jpg

2966.jpg

2968.jpg

~~~
rayiner
What is "xenophobic" about those three images? Turkey is currently undergoing
a very public internal war between western secularism and Islamic
fundamentalism. Why would a western country want to enter into democratic
union with such a country at this stage?

Not every judgment regarding other countries is "xenophobic." Imagine if
Alabama or Mississippi were trying to join the U.S. today. Would it be
"xenophobic" of Californians to be skeptical of the impact that would have on
shared democratic institutions?

~~~
bob_bob_bob
Getting people to vote leave because they don't like some foreigners (Turkey
or Syria) is quite literally the definition of xenophobia. This is especially
true when Turkey is not even close to joining the EU.

~~~
rayiner
But the ads are not about “not liking foreigners.” They are about a country
with very different beliefs and attitudes joining a bloc where they will have
voting rights in bodies that have legislative power over people in the UK.
That is a completely different thing. And Turkey applied to the EU in 1987,
has been a full candidate EU member since 1999, and since then has been in
active negotiations to join.

~~~
tormeh
That's a process the UK, as a member state, used to have veto over. Not sure
if they have lost it yet, but now or in the near future they'll just have to
live with whatever the rest decide. That is, unless they want to leave the
single market, which doesn't look very likely.

------
derriz
This isn't the only shenanigans surrounding the leave campaign. Here's another
example of dodgy Leave Campaign funding - [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-
northern-ireland-44624299](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-
ireland-44624299) \- where the DUP, a Northern Irish party, was given $600,000
to campaign for Leave by a shell company and spent most of it on
advertisements in media that wasn't even available in Northern Ireland.

But it's not surprising really. There has been a persistent anti-EU propaganda
campaign running in the UK for years if not decades. I really like this site -
[https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-
index/](https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/) \- as it
contains links to the original "fake news" stories along with references which
refute them.

~~~
growlist
Why do you think these stories have traction in the UK? Do you think the UK
has no legitimate grounds to question EU membership?

~~~
derriz
To answer your second question, of course it has.

I don’t understand your first question? Those anti-EU stories were lies pure
and simple - all the references are provided on the linked site. Are you in
favour of the media publishing lies in order to advance a political viewpoint?

~~~
growlist
If the EU were not already loathed by some the stories would find no audience,
is my belief. For example, I met a plasterer who said that immigrants were
destroying his livelihood by working for peanuts. If I were him I'd probably
blame the EU also. But I also think the result was seen as an opportunity to
send a general two fingered FU to the establishment, both UK and EU - I don't
think the coordinated FUD and Obama etc did Remain any favours whatsoever.
Surely better to take the high ground and rhapsodise our fantastic future in
the EU? Remain chose not to do that.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Outside of regular hit pieces in the Daily Mail and Telegraph there's little
real awareness of the EU in the UK. The EU haven't been especially good at
getting the message about their successes out. The little we do see is an
occasional news piece about a joint venture or a little EU flag on some
region's signage because they received development funding.

The irony that some of the most resounding leave votes were in regions heavily
supported by EU funds was not lost on me. Clearly the UK governments hadn't
been doing enough for the people in those regions or they'd not have have been
eligible for that support. Clearly the message that the EU was trying to help
didn't get to the people concerned.

 _Both_ sides lied, both sides ran terrible negative campaigns. No one
anywhere seemed to promote the EU as being good in any respect - just it's
least worst. Only leave chose to pander to xenophobics, closet racists and
suggest a FU to the establishment at every opportunity.

~~~
growlist
To an extent I think the whole thing is borderline unknowable and inseparable
from political leanings, so I bid you goodnight Sir.

------
maym86
Can someone please explain the argument against passing laws forcing all
adverts on advertising platforms like Facebook and Google to be searchable and
transparent so we can see who is purchasing them, the parameters used for
targeting the advert and what they are publishing? I can't see a downside for
the majority of people.

~~~
dillondoyle
Perhaps because 1st Amendment gives right to anonymous speech:
[https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity](https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity)

Perhaps because it gives established players a big leg up in terms of
compliance costs (imagine being a small news site having to create this
searchable system etc)

~~~
lumberjack
The 1st Amendment is just US law. What would be the argument elsewhere?

~~~
NeonVice
Retaliation by employers for funding certain speech. Violent retaliation for
funding certain speech.

------
defertoreptar
I'm trying to understand the article's premise. Is all political advertising
immoral? Is it something about the way the ads were distributed that make them
immoral? Is it just immoral because the politics itself was "wrong"?

~~~
untog
The leave campaigns were recently found to be in violation of election law, so
no, this isn't just a "moral" issue:

> the Electoral Commission found that the youth-focused campaign, BeLeave, had
> been joint-working with the official Vote Leave campaign — yet the pair had
> not jointly declared spending thereby enabling the official campaign to
> overspend by almost half a million pounds. And that overspend went straight
> to Aggregate IQ to run targeted Facebook ads.

More broadly, we're in a new era of political advertising that we haven't
fully grappled with yet. It used to be that all of your advertising was
public, so it was possible to see what promises are being made, what kind of
terminology is being used, etc. etc. In the Facebook era you can hyper-target
your ads to only show to a small subsection of people, without anyone knowing
what you're saying. Facebook's recent moves have meant that advertisers have
to publicly disclose all the ads they are showing to avoid this issue, but it
wasn't retroactive. This data is from before Facebook disclosed that
information.

~~~
brandonmenc
> It used to be that all of your advertising was public, so it was possible to
> see what promises are being made, what kind of terminology is being used,
> etc. etc. In the Facebook era you can hyper-target your ads to only show to
> a small subsection of people, without anyone knowing what you're saying.

If say, before the 1990s, a national candidate sent out targeted mailers to
some little town in flyover country, no one would have ever seen them.

We're in a similar but imo potentially not much worse situation because if
anything it's easier to publicize that it happens.

It seems strange to you because the person getting a targeted ad is in the
next room over instead of next voting district, but it's the same principle.

~~~
wadkar
No, I don’t suppose we’re in a similar situation. In your example, the mailer
would leave a paper trail or more importantly one would expect such a mailer
to disclose who’s sending them.

Secondly, the scale and efficiency with which one could target was rather
limited. Specifically, the candidate would have a hard time not only
“targeting” the right audience but also find it rather impossible to customize
the content of the mailer to individual recipient.

It is not based on the same principle - one involves human actors and
associated inefficiencies and “unscalability” while other involves mindless
robots over zealously bombarding “targeted” audience with deception and lies.

------
travisporter
Can someone parse this sentence?

~~~
pas
"Leave" was the slogan and the name of the "Let's leave the EU" group who
advocated (and still do) for voting for leaving the EU.

------
fareesh
These laws, though well intentioned, seem to sometimes struggle in the modern
context.

In this case, President Obama flew over to London in April 2016 and advocated
very publicly, that Britain should remain in the EU. This act by a foreign
leader was converted into headlines, videos, tweets, etc. which were shared
roughly a bajillion times.

President Obama is an extremely popular man. In any list of the world's most
popular and influential leaders he ranks in the top 10, probably the top 5.
His endorsement, if equated to USD or GBP, would equal roughly several
bajillions.

As far as I am aware, existing campaign finance laws do not address this kind
of "free media", and that is a problem. Sometimes you need to be able to
muster the resources to advocate your position with equal reach to that of
your opponent, and that costs money.

~~~
jonhendry18
Except it's really easy to discount his statement if you're so inclined,
because you know who it's coming from.

A lot of these Facebook ads had no information about the source.

~~~
fareesh
An ad is by default the same kind of statement. The source is necessarily
someone who has a vested interest, like President Obama. Why will a neutral
person pay for an ad?

There are plenty of mega corporations whose interest span the entire world, so
those are all technically foreign agents.

------
Havoc
They all seem pretty manipulative to me & not in a subtle way

------
aaroninsf
Nothing like being down a quarter of your value to shake things up.

~~~
pc86
18% is not a quarter.

~~~
LinuxBender
Looks like 20.02% currently. [1]

[1] - [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB)

~~~
ummonk
Still only a fifth...

~~~
AnimalMuppet
But when you're down to the bottom of the fifth...

Sorry, I'll get my coat...

------
morsma
What about the effect Obama had, when he supported UK remaining in the EU? How
many percent did his endorsement move?

~~~
clort
AFAIK Obama didn't break the law so his contribution is not under question

I think your questions could be seen as whataboutism[0], but as an answer I do
know somebody who was furious that Obama was "telling us what to do" and
subsequently voted leave. I don't know anybody who voted remain but was
obviously swayed by Obama. Sample size is small but thats what I know.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism)

~~~
fareesh
Justice is about equality before the law. It is unjust for one party to do
something and be punished, while another party does something that is
principly the same, and is not punished.

Citing "whataboutism" does not make this go away, it is the essence of the
argument.

If Joe is disqualified from his hockey tournament for throwing his stick, but
Mike receives an eye-roll from the same referee, it should not be criticized
as whataboutism to say "What about Mike?" \- it is a legitimate complaint,
because there is injustice in the way both incidents are dealt with.

~~~
untog
The situation you just described is one where two people do the same thing,
one is punished and one is not. Justifiable to question that.

The situation the OP was describing compared illegal, unreported campaign
overspending with a foreign politician expressing an opinion. They're not in
any way similar.

~~~
fareesh
The reason I used the word principly is because they are the same thing in
principle, the current law is insufficient to treat the issue appropriately,
which is what makes it unjust.

A foreign politician who is popular will generate free advertising showcasing
the merits of his endorsed position through news media coverage of his
statements.

Take money out of the equation entirely. I am a rich filthy corrupt CEO who
owns a giant media corporation. I contribute 0 dollars to your campaign, but
my TV channel has reporters singing your praises daily. My newspapers write
about you in positive terms. My interns spend time on social media defending
you from critics.

Everything I have done for you has helped get you elected. My news channel and
publications are read by millions. You now owe me.

Similarly, a politician from another place who is very popular in your
constituency shows up and campaigns for you. You pay nothing for it, but
thousands show up to listen to him. His speech is aired to millions in your
constituency.

Eventually you are elected, now you owe him.

Not accounting for some money is principly the same as not accounting for an
endorsement by the President of the United States. The same negative outcomes
that are associated with money in politics can be applied to endorsements too.

Existing laws do not address this, and are thus unjust because they are
outdated in the context of how news and discourse works in 2018

------
HumanDrivenDev
It's really interesting coming to HN and watching the indignant 'stabbed in
the back' theories about why the establishment lost the Brexit referendum and
2016 US presidential election. 2 years on and it still stings that the people
didn't vote the way they were supposed to. There is _definitely_ a classist,
privileged undertone to the discourse as well - ironic but not surprising
coming from many self-described socialists.

~~~
laurentl
With the hindsight of these 2 years, do you believe that this was a good
thing? (Genuine question. I’m European so from my perspective those were two
terrible election results, and events since then have amply confirmed this
fact, but I’m wondering if this is so clear-cut for other sensibilities)

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
I don't know. It's really hard to imagine what a Hilary Clinton presidency
would have been like. She might have been impeached at this point. Likewise,
it's really hard to tell what the _long term_ effects of Brexit will be. I
think history will be in a better position to judge it 10 years down the line.

But I really think people need to get over both results. It's been two years
now. The remoaners are much worse than their american equivalents. But on the
other hand - how many variations on the same joke are Stephen Colbert and
Trevor Noah going to do? And - more to the point - how many post mortems is
Hacker News going to have? No to mention the constant "I'm so woke gaiz" quips
about it. Imagine if between 2008-2016 HN had been full of one liners about
how Obama had no birth certificate. It would get so tiresome.

~~~
pjc50
> She might have been impeached at this point

Why?

> need to get over both results

The results deliver real harm to real people. The separated immigrant children
are probably never going to get over it, for example. And I'm not going to get
over a result while I'm still worrying about stockpiling food.
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/no-deal-
brexi...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/no-deal-brexit-blood-
medicine-stockpile-nhs-health-secretary-matt-hancock-a8462531.html)

> Imagine if between 2008-2016 HN had been full of one liners about how Obama
> had no birth certificate

Those were obviously false and therefore often flagged to oblivion or deleted
by the mods, but they did turn up when he was mentioned.

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
_She might have been impeached at this point_

Because she was incredibly corrupt. Seems likely that foreign intelligence
agencies had even more information they could leak.

 _The separated immigrant children are probably never going to get over it,
for example._

It's unfortunate their parents decided to break the laws of the United States
and enter the country illegally. Maybe their plight will discourage others
from doing the same.

 _And I 'm not going to get over a result while I'm still worrying about
stockpiling food._

That seems like more of an issue with paranoia, then anything happening in
reality.

~~~
pjc50
> incredibly corrupt

Compared to the _Trump administration?_

------
billysielu
What about Remain Campaign ads?

~~~
untog
The Remain campaigns weren't found to be in violation of election law.

~~~
drak0n1c
Remain campaigners were found to have violated laws as well, and they were
fined.

[http://www.cityam.com/277767/electoral-commission-has-
fined-...](http://www.cityam.com/277767/electoral-commission-has-fined-lib-
dems-and-remain-campaign)

~~~
untog
I stand corrected.

But still, "massively overspending" and "failing to report correct levels of
spending correctly" are quite different rule breaches. It's not difficult to
see why Leave ads are being examined and Remain ones aren't.

~~~
repolfx
Remain massively overspent but simply did it in a way that exploited loopholes
in the law. The advertising mailshot alone cost more than their entire allowed
budget. They also had the entire civil service working for them, the cost of
which is essentially incalculable it's so high.

The idea that Remain spent less than Leave is clearly ludicrous if you simply
look at what happened. Funding wise there was no competition. The fact that
parts of the government are trying to argue otherwise is just another aspect
of their attempts to undo the vote by any means possible.

------
to_bpr
It's disappointing, but not surprising, that the focus seems to be entirely on
the "wrong" side of the "desired" outcome.

At this point it amounts to fighting very hard to find _any_ reason to undo a
democratically determined result.

~~~
dane-pgp
If just 1% of the population of the UK changed their voting intention (from
Remain to Leave) because of illegally bought or misleading advertising, then
undoing that effect would mean that Remain would have won.

Invoking the "democratically determined result" is begging the question, since
we don't really know whether the result would have been the same if the Leave
campaign hadn't broken the rules:

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/04/vote-l...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/04/vote-
leave-cheated-will-people-mps-electoral-commission)

When someone wins a sporting competition, and is found to have cheated by
using banned substances, they don't get to keep their title by claiming "Well
I still would have won even if I didn't cheat".

~~~
lostlogin
I think the overriding point is that a simple majority is completely the wrong
format for descisions like this. I’d have suggested a two thirds majority
requires for change. There is also the argument about them stifling debate.

There is an intersting criticism of the format in the below link from Chris
Patten

“I think referendums are awful. The late and great Julian Critchley used to
say that, not very surprisingly, they were the favourite form of plebiscitary
democracy of Mussolini and Hitler. They undermine Westminster. What they
ensure, as we saw in the last election, is that if you have a referendum on an
issue, politicians during an election campaign say: "Oh, we're not going to
talk about that, we don't need to talk about that, that's all for the
referendum." So during the last election campaign, the euro was hardly
debated. I think referendums are fundamentally anti-democratic in our system,
and I wouldn't have anything to do with them. On the whole, governments only
concede them when governments are weak.”

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum)

~~~
walshemj
And there is a LOT of uk case law /precedent on this ie 2/3 or even 75% to
make changes to the rules or organisation or to pass some types of motions at
company AGM's is common.

Personally I think the CBI and Directors Institute lost the plot and let a few
"bad apples" fuck the economy up - should have done what the TUC did in the
50's

~~~
makomk
I don't think there's any precedent for requiring such a supermajority in this
case. Actually joining the EU required the support of 0% of the population in
a referendum - there was no referendum on joining, the 1975 referendum was
merely on whether we should remain in. The same arguments against leaving were
made back then too, and if leave had won there'd probably have been exactly
the same kind of pressure against following through on it.

~~~
walshemj
Citrine and any parliamentary based system (even the local allotment society )
plus the fact that every listed UK company AGM follows the same 2/3 /3/4 rule
for major votes

