
Facebook’s 2016 Election Team Gave Advertisers a Blueprint to a Divided US - tareqak
http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/facebooks-2016-election-team-gave-advertisers-a-blueprint
======
jparse
All in all, this is why there is no dislike button. The entire Facebook system
incentivizes division because division creates revenue. It's a perpetual loop.

Let's walk through how it works:

Step 1) A person posts, or shares, something incredibly divisive. Note: There
is no feedback button to let the poster know the content is hateful and that
broader society disapproves of it. There is also no consequence to posting it
most of the time.

Step 2) The content attracts likes. Since there is no dislike button, or
negative feedback, any likes received makes the poster feel good.

Step 3) The poster is emboldened and increases his/her frequency of posting
divisive or hateful content. This attracts a following and more engagement for
the original poster. The poster has no need to create inclusive content. They
are incentivized to find and highlight divisive thoughts from their life
because it rewards them with engagement and the Facebook system re-enforces
those thoughts.

Step 4) Repeat

Each subsequent post creates more comments, more engagement, more passion.
This is great for Facebook because it means more time on site and increased
usage frequency. The handout Facebook is giving advertisers is proof of that.
They are monetizing the system. Make no mistake, it is designed to work this
way and they are profiting from it.

~~~
intended
I disagree - reddit has a downvote button and it has zero Impact on the
outcome.

This isn’t Facebook making this happen.

This is human beings being human beings in an alien environment exposing the
difference between their stated preferences and unstated preferences.

It happened with forums, it likely happened with geocities.

You don’t need a like or dislike button, you just need the internet and text.

Anti Semitic forums were attacking Jewish forums before Facebook even showed
up.

Facebook is just absorbing the entire internet in that all the “forums” are
now just groups on Facebook. So it owns all the ad revenue everywhere - as
long as people stay on Facebook.

But there’s no special incentive for divisiveness - that’s just what happens
when people interact in a feature deficient, always on, text first, persistent
environment.

~~~
jparse
Reddit is a different beast. It is confined to a sub-reddit and the people who
judge it are the people who are part of that sub-reddit. Mods included.

Also, reddit doesn't spread the content if there is any uptick. It is all
pretty confined. Facebook does the exact reverse. It goes out of its way to
spread the content that is driving engagement.

~~~
intended
The thesis holds that a dislike button’s absence emboldens negative behavior.

This is not true, because if so Reddit’s and their subreddits would have a
very different history.

And as another user pointed out, the research shows that a dislike button
actually creates MORE engagement and content, not less.

My point is that this is the human mind on the internet; most human beings
have no clue about how they work, what their hidden biases are, and what
assumptions and fantasies they carry to deal with the world.

When those heuristics are treated to a system that assumes their best
behavior, it will fail to our more regular, normal behavior.

~~~
jparse
Referencing one research article isn't proof. There are several others that
argue otherwise.[1] On Reddit, a dislike button isn't meaningless. If your
post and comment karma go down endlessly, you start to lose privileges. So it
really does encourage behavior that is acceptable in the context of the
subreddit. The research paper, for example, talks more about rating scales in
context.

As I have mentioned, Facebook's problem is that a) There is endless spread for
bad content, like fake news. b) There is no way to have the crowd give
definitive negative feedback to the user where not only is a dislike recorded,
but the impact of the dislike is weighted based on the standing of the user
giving it. c) and even if there was, there is no way to degrade privileges.

[1] [http://www.rangevoting.org/sen-
recsys2011.pdf](http://www.rangevoting.org/sen-recsys2011.pdf)

------
thisisit
I remember reading about Obama's election and the use of "big data" and "data
science" to target voters: [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-
obamas-team-us...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-
used-big-data-to-rally-voters/)

The social media companies picked on that and ran with it. So, while Facebook
is not exactly the paragon of ethical behavior, this is just fodder for click
bait. If the same targeting had worked in someone's favor the article would
have been "gave advertisers an edge over traditional advertising" or
something.

~~~
sogen
Check Cambridge Analytica:

[https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2017/10/16/15657512/...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2017/10/16/15657512/cambridge-analytica-trump-kushner-flynn-russia)

~~~
tanilama
They helped Tory in this summer GE in UK, and they failed miserably.

~~~
sogen
uh? they were behind Brexit

------
Animats
This idea goes back a long way. See "The 480", from 1964.[1] Karl Rove got his
start doing such analysis. There's a famous picture of young Rove with a reel
of computer tape. Such data used to be used to target direct mail and phone
calls. It didn't help with TV and newspapers, though, and they were more
important.

The difference this time is that Facebook now has a big fraction of the news
business. Now this stuff has real traction.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_480](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_480)

------
Jun8
Here's a WaPo summary on the legality of "the Russians" buying Facebook ads:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
politics/wp/2017/09...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
politics/wp/2017/09/07/did-facebook-ads-traced-to-a-russian-company-violate-u-
s-election-law).

Basically, it all hinges on if the ads mention a candidate (illegal) or were
worded in a vague manner (gray zone).

~~~
lostboys67
Maybe all political advertising needs to have a named publisher like in the UK
get caught promoting a candidate without stating the publisher and their
election agent will get you in the election court.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
"Published by Americans for a Safer Tomorrow, inc."

------
tareqak
Techmeme summary: _Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed: Facebook provided political
advertisers 14 targeted categories from very liberal “youthful urbanites” to
very conservative “great outdoors” during 2016 election_

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pjc50
The implication of this is that the real "filter bubble" is not the one people
choose by their free association with other people, but the filters applied by
the platform for advertising purposes. Your neighbours are reacting to ads,
news and clickbait that you've never even seen and may not have the
opportunity to see.

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inopinatus
Neal Stephenson's _Interface_ (1994) has never been more relevant.

 _" The corresponding item on the list was highlighted, a bright purple box
drawn over it so that the user could see which category he was dealing with at
the moment. The hundred categories and names on the list were as follows:_

    
    
      IRRELEVANT MOUTH BREATHER
      400-POUND TAB DRINKER
      STONE-FACED URBAN HOMEBOY
      BURGER-FLIPPING HISTORY MAJOR
      SQUIRRELLY WINNEBAGO JOCKEY
      BIBLE-SLINGING PORCH MONKEY
      ECONOMIC ROADKILL
      PENT-UP CORPORATE LICKSPITTLE
      HIGH-METABOLISM WORLD DOMINATOR
      MIDAMERICAN KNICKKNACK QUEEN
    

..."

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digitalshankar
Reddit is different, you don't have public profile with you identity. The
upvote and down vote are true opinion of people.

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fapjacks
BAM! You've been _Buzzfed_!

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horsecaptin
Remember: If you're not the customer, then you are the product.

