Dear Felix Stalder, On Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:43 AM Felix Stalder <fe...@openflows.com> wrote:
> [Throughout the day, I was wondering whether a new service offered by a > company called "The Spinner" was real or satire. Their pitch is the > following: > > > The Spinner* is a service that enables you to control articles > > presented to your wife on the websites she usually visits, in order > > to influence her on a subconscious level to initiate sex. > > https://www.thespinner.net > > This hits so many button about how toxic online ad-tech, and start-up > tech culture more generally, has become, that I was leaning towards > seeing this as satire, I thought it is likely to be a satire, looked at the spinner webpage, didn't leave any information, but a spinner image maliciously replaced my phone's screen saver. Not sure what other controls could be optained by code, if malicious, just when someone merely clicks on a URL. Sivasubramanian M but then it was revealed that Labour Party > campaign also ran a campaign targeting an individual, the party leader > Jeremy Corbin (and his closest associates) trying to warp his perception > of what the party itself was doing. The whole story is below, and most > likely not satire. Felix] > > > Facebook ad micro-targeting can manipulate individual politicians > Anonymous Labour Party official to Tom Baldwin > > > https://theoutline.com/post/5411/facebook-ad-micro-targeting-can-manipulate-individual-politicians > > Caroline Haskins > Jul—16—2018 11:42AM EST > > > At least one political party is avoiding negotiating by using > micro-targeted Facebook ads focused on just the politician and their > inner circle, and the same tool could be used to manipulate people with > major influence on public opinion. During the 2017 U.K. general > elections, Jeremy Corbyn, the incumbent 69-year-old leader of the Labour > Party, wanted to invest heavily in digital ads encouraging voter > registration. Labour Party campaign chiefs thought it was a waste of > money and so decided to trick the incumbent leader of their own party. > > They spent £5,000 on voter registration Facebook ads that met Corbyn’s > demands, but here’s the catch: only Corbyn and his associates could see > them. According to a forthcoming book from Tom Baldwin, a former Labour > communications director, they were individually-targeted, hyper-specific > ads made possible through Facebook’s advertising tools, reports The > Times and The Independent. “If it was there for them [Corbyn and his > associates], they thought it must be there for everyone,” an unnamed > Labour Party official said to Baldwin. “It wasn’t. That’s how targeted > ads can work.” > > Using Facebook’s Custom Audience advertising tool, businesses and > campaigns can “sniper target” people by individually submitting > information that matches Facebook profiles — like names, email > addresses, phone numbers, date of birth, and gender. The tool cannot > target down to a literal individual and requires at least a couple dozen > people for a campaign to run. > > Since a number of political situations have unfolded in the last couple > of years that, in retrospect, were heavily influenced by Facebook, the > company started a political ad archive and significantly raised the bar > on what it will approve as a political ad. But it put these measures in > place only a few weeks ago, and it’s limited to ads targeting areas in > the U.S., meaning that we don’t currently have a side-by-side comparison > of what ads Corbyn and his inner circle were served as opposed to the > general public. The book, Ctrl Alt Delete: How Politics and the Media > Crashed Our Democracy, purports to provide specific examples of what > Corbyn would have seen. > > > On one hand, this is a strange story about how a baby boomer politician > and his closest political buddies did not know what ads were being > served on behalf of their own campaign. (Granted, the structure of the > U.K. government means that party elections have astronomically low > financial stakes. £4.3 million was spent across all U.K. political > parties for the 2017 election; compare that to the $10 billion > advertising price tag for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.) But more > importantly, it illustrates how Facebook’s “sniper targeting” > advertising tools can be used to infiltrate the thoughts of major public > figures and their closest allies, and in a successful scenario, > manipulate their thinking. As of May, Facebook has new thresholds for > political ads, which broadly includes anything related to a candidate, > election, vote, legislative issue. But anything that doesn’t fit into > that definition of “political” will remain relatively unregulated. > Clearly, this has huge implications for businesses and companies > struggling with internal division. > > Or, say one has the email addresses and phone numbers of Donald Trump > Jr. and a few of his buddies (t...@theoutline.com). Don Junior is > extremely active on social media and frequently likes and interacts with > targeted ads. If one wanted to get a message to Don, a Custom Audience > and some carefully-chosen text over a picture of a luxury yacht or > smoked piece of meat would do the trick. (These are, to the best of our > knowledge, real Instagram ad interests of Donald Trump Junior, as > unveiled by a Slate investigation.) > > This is a facetious example, but the tool could be used to generate real > harm if put into the hands of people with the power to spread conspiracy > theories, such as Alex Jones or Roseanne Barr. Anyone with a penchant > for chaos could sow the seed of a dangerous disinformation campaign just > by getting information of powerful public figures and a few associates > that’s linked to their Facebook accounts. > > > > -- > |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| http://felix.openflows.com > |OPEN PGP: https://pgp.key-server.io/search/0x0BBB5B950C9FF2AC > > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
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