Moggy wrote:Rocsteady wrote:strawberry float me, thanks for the insightful comeback. Can you dispute anything I said?
strawberry float me you're going on the attack a lot in this thread lately. Read up on what happened to the Rohingya and how Facebook was used to ferment hatred. It's terrifying.
I'd already disputed your arguments as well. Micro targeting people directly hits people where they are likely to be vulnerable to propaganda. And people share, like and comment which enables them to share it amongst their friends/family.
I never mentioned Google ads either so that whole section of your post was irrelevant.
Oh yeah I know what happened with the Rohingya and don't dispute that Facebook need to do more to stop hatred fermenting on their platform.
I mentioned Google as some like to think sophisticated mass one-to-one targeting is possible at a wide level when actually, even the most advanced company in the world in that field is barely competent at it.
All I'm disputing is that media like Facebook is a more effective propaganda tool than traditional media - with the right strategy it can be equally so, but just because they can personalise your ads a little more than ITV, doesn't make them more effective. Their role in Myanmar is being highlighted because the other forms of mass propaganda are essentially out of the West's immediate control (local TV and radio stations, press, etc). Populations like in Rwanda have been driven to commit genocide without social media targeting - it's a new tactic that from a high level perspective can be used instead of or as well as the traditional ones, but that's all it is.
Admittedly on a personal level - moving down from Cambridge Analytica ads and the like - the amount of misinformation that is shared is hugely problematic and doesn't then compare to traditional media as easily. But that's stepping away from the CA involvement - ads very rarely have any substantial shared reach beyond their paid boundaries. It's far more likely your racist uncle is sharing some organically created bullshit content than something Dominic Cummings dreamed up and spaffed onto Facebook.