Brexit Thread 3 - Project Reality

[Moggy]

Advertising is a soft influence, including Facebook ads. That's not to say that they dont have an impact- they clearly do, which is why almost every major corporation does online advertising - but the impact isn't necessarily any greater than using TV, radio, magazine, etc, ads would be.

Social media itself can be problematic in helping to spread conspiracy theories and malicious viewpoints but that's separate from the above viewpoint on advertising.

I don't think that's true, especially with Cambridge Analytica. They micro-targeted the ads directly at the prejudices people had. It's not like seeing an advert on TV for a chocolate bar, it's something almost tailor made for the individual.

Propaganda on Facebook also gets shared around. People are far more likely to believe something their family and friends are sharing than some advert they see in a magazine.

It's interesting. There's a growing body of evidence that micro-targeting is actually more ineffective at changing behaviour, reflected by a number of large advertisers beginning to move away from that model.

The issue from a propoganda point of view becomes one of social salience. If I see Stormfront advertising on billboards, papers, primetime TV, etc. I can be sure that others have also seen them. So, if they position themselves well as friendly and, I dunno, a low tax party, I can confidently mention to others that maybe they aren't so bad - after all, we've all seen their smiling faces and nice pledges.

If, on the other hand, they only micro target me, I have no such confidence. There's no confidence in mind that I can go to the pub with randoms and mention SF seem cool as they may well have no idea who I'm talking about, or may only know them from other things.

Targeting ads is also extremely difficult to get right and companies such as Google typically are less accurate about you than you'd think. (You can search and see your Google profile - mine has even the basics like the my age range wrong). Think about all the gooseberry fool ads you're served throughout social media - are these tightly targeted to you? The majority still rely on the same insights as CA, so they should be incredibly accurate if we think that was a deciding factor.

Social media in general is certainly problematic in this area in general, and I'm not saying advertising isn't effective - it absolutely is. Just these methods employed by various political campaigns are far from the be all and end all that some now seem to think.

(As a quick note, Obama and others were micro targeting ads long before CA - these weren't new tactics).

Tell that to the Rohingya people.

[Rocsteady]

strawberry float me, thanks for the insightful comeback. Can you dispute anything I said?

[Errkal]

They didn’t use targeted ads to change minds.

The used targeted ads to confirm people’s prejudices and egg make them certain to vote leave or if you were on the fence nudge you the “ right” way by confirming this prejudices.

No one that supported remain would have been switched by targeting, but that wasn’t the point it was about confirm the racists and nudging the nearly racists into being full racists.

[Moggy]

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.

[Cuttooth]

The most powerful thing you can give an insecure, bitter, bigoted fool is the reassurance that other people feel the same way as them.

Unfortunately, there are huge numbers of these people, pocketed all around the country, connected by social media and online interactive news outlets.

I don't think it's useful to see this as pockets of isolated bigotry or the result of social media when Euroscepticism and different flavours of xenophobia and racism have been mainstream in traditional media and right-wing politics for decades. Brexit is primarily a middle-class, English revolt against foreigners that we knew was always there but didn't want to see or believe could bring widespread harm.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

The most powerful thing you can give an insecure, bitter, bigoted fool is the reassurance that other people feel the same way as them.

Unfortunately, there are huge numbers of these people, pocketed all around the country, connected by social media and online interactive news outlets.

I don't think it's useful to see this as pockets of isolated bigotry or the result of social media when Euroscepticism and different flavours of xenophobia and racism have been mainstream in traditional media and right-wing politics for decades. Brexit is primarily a middle-class, English revolt against foreigners that we knew was always there but didn't want to see or believe could bring widespread harm.

Oh sure, my point was really that social media has emboldened these people, previously shut out from the news by simply having to watch/listen/read it and wonder if anyone felt the same way about it they did. Now they can read thousands and thousands of opinions, posted by people they think are just like them, and add their own voice to it all. If you hate something, but can't shaking a nagging feeling that you might be in the wrong for hating it, it must be very reassuring to find thousands of people just like you, sharing the same opinion.

[Rocsteady]

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.

[Cuttooth]

The most powerful thing you can give an insecure, bitter, bigoted fool is the reassurance that other people feel the same way as them.

Unfortunately, there are huge numbers of these people, pocketed all around the country, connected by social media and online interactive news outlets.

I don't think it's useful to see this as pockets of isolated bigotry or the result of social media when Euroscepticism and different flavours of xenophobia and racism have been mainstream in traditional media and right-wing politics for decades. Brexit is primarily a middle-class, English revolt against foreigners that we knew was always there but didn't want to see or believe could bring widespread harm.

Oh sure, my point was really that social media has emboldened these people, previously shut out from the news by simply having to watch/listen/read it and wonder if anyone felt the same way about it they did. Now they can read thousands and thousands of opinions, posted by people they think are just like them, and add their own voice to it all. If you hate something, but can't shaking a nagging feeling that you might be in the wrong for hating it, it must be very reassuring to find thousands of people just like you, sharing the same opinion.

But that's my point, right wing newspapers have already emboldened people to feel their bigotry is justified for decades because of the authority and legitimacy newspapers are afforded. Facebook groups may help with concentrating that hatred in some way but that impact will pale in comparison to the influence the Daily Mail and Sun had. If those right wing papers are already close enough to your own voice on why immigration is bad and that the EU is forcing laws on the UK, you're already well assured that you're doing the correct, popular thing by voting to leave.

Maybe targeted Facebook groups were one of the things that put Leave over the top and won in 2016, people say much the same about the working class and Lexit voters. They all helped with Leave winning but the base of voters was always older middle-class people, and it wasn't years of Facebook adverts that gave them the idea that leaving the EU was a good idea.

[Rocsteady]

The most powerful thing you can give an insecure, bitter, bigoted fool is the reassurance that other people feel the same way as them.

Unfortunately, there are huge numbers of these people, pocketed all around the country, connected by social media and online interactive news outlets.

I don't think it's useful to see this as pockets of isolated bigotry or the result of social media when Euroscepticism and different flavours of xenophobia and racism have been mainstream in traditional media and right-wing politics for decades. Brexit is primarily a middle-class, English revolt against foreigners that we knew was always there but didn't want to see or believe could bring widespread harm.

Oh sure, my point was really that social media has emboldened these people, previously shut out from the news by simply having to watch/listen/read it and wonder if anyone felt the same way about it they did. Now they can read thousands and thousands of opinions, posted by people they think are just like them, and add their own voice to it all. If you hate something, but can't shaking a nagging feeling that you might be in the wrong for hating it, it must be very reassuring to find thousands of people just like you, sharing the same opinion.

But that's my point, right wing newspapers have already emboldened people to feel their bigotry is justified for decades because of the authority and legitimacy newspapers are afforded. Facebook groups may help with concentrating that hatred in some way but that impact will pale in comparison to the influence the Daily Mail and Sun had. If those right wing papers are already close enough to your own voice on why immigration is bad and that the EU is forcing laws on the UK, you're already well assured that you're doing the correct, popular thing by voting to leave.

Maybe targeted Facebook groups were one of the things that put Leave over the top and won in 2016, people say much the same about the working class and Lexit voters. They all helped with Leave winning but the base of voters was always older middle-class people, and it wasn't years of Facebook adverts that gave them the idea that leaving the EU was a good idea.

Completely agree with this.

Digital is a great activation tool - you lay the groundwork with a multi channel approach, then throw millions into digital at the point when you need people to act. The Leave campaign and Trump in 2016 did this to great effect, unfortunately.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

The most powerful thing you can give an insecure, bitter, bigoted fool is the reassurance that other people feel the same way as them.

Unfortunately, there are huge numbers of these people, pocketed all around the country, connected by social media and online interactive news outlets.

I don't think it's useful to see this as pockets of isolated bigotry or the result of social media when Euroscepticism and different flavours of xenophobia and racism have been mainstream in traditional media and right-wing politics for decades. Brexit is primarily a middle-class, English revolt against foreigners that we knew was always there but didn't want to see or believe could bring widespread harm.

Oh sure, my point was really that social media has emboldened these people, previously shut out from the news by simply having to watch/listen/read it and wonder if anyone felt the same way about it they did. Now they can read thousands and thousands of opinions, posted by people they think are just like them, and add their own voice to it all. If you hate something, but can't shaking a nagging feeling that you might be in the wrong for hating it, it must be very reassuring to find thousands of people just like you, sharing the same opinion.

But that's my point, right wing newspapers have already emboldened people to feel their bigotry is justified for decades because of the authority and legitimacy newspapers are afforded. Facebook groups may help with concentrating that hatred in some way but that impact will pale in comparison to the influence the Daily Mail and Sun had. If those right wing papers are already close enough to your own voice on why immigration is bad and that the EU is forcing laws on the UK, you're already well assured that you're doing the correct, popular thing by voting to leave.

Maybe targeted Facebook groups were one of the things that put Leave over the top and won in 2016, people say much the same about the working class and Lexit voters. They all helped with Leave winning but the base of voters was always older middle-class people, and it wasn't years of Facebook adverts that gave them the idea that leaving the EU was a good idea.

I disagree. I really believe the ability to directly interact, in real-time, with thousands of 'lay-people' is a significant factor that you are downplaying somewhat.

But... I don't have any studies etc to back me up. That's either because I haven't looked or because they don't exist due to this belief being incorrect – as the first one is true, I can't confidently guard against the latter .

[Moggy]

I wouldn't doubt that the likes of the Mail or the Sun have a massive impact on brainwashing the country. They directly lead to the anti-EU feelings.

But they weren't enough to push those beliefs into the majority. Decades of them printing stories about "bendy bananas" led to deeply held beliefs of euroscepticism but there was never a point that polls showed 50% of the country wanted to leave the EU.

Of course many people would have not really thought much about it and the referendum forced them to consider that leaving was possible.

But I think the likes of Facebook were what allowed the Leave side to win. Simple things like anti-EU memes or anti-EU conversations really allow things to gain ground in peoples heads. Suddenly it's not a Sun journalist tutting over banana shapes, it's your friends and family telling you directly that the EU is about to have a border with Iraq. Seeing a few mates saying that has a really powerful effect on people that might not pay too much attention to politics/current affairs.

And then we have groups like Cambridge Analytica. Micro-targeting propaganda to directly hit the prejudices that people have. And blasting it right at them in the middle of their wall, inbetween photos of their niece and their sister's chocolate cake recipe.

Instead of the Sun headline of "bloody immigrants eh! What sponging bastards", they get an advert that directly references their fear of a specific group, "bloody Muslim immigrants in Yate eh! They're taking over the leisure centre demanding halal swimming pool water".

The mainstream media has a MASSIVE impact on the country in a generalised way. The social media has a massive impact on finely targeting radicalisation to a specific group. Both mainstream and social media feed off of each other, but I think the social media is the area that will really start (it's already started) to increase hate groups, radicalisation and domestic terrorism.

[Meep]

I'm seriously considering leaving NI now. It would be strawberry floating awful to have to leave everyone I know behind but do I really want to spend the next fifty years in an economic basket case? I may be better getting out sooner rather than later.

Words cannot describe how much I loath this government. They are destroying everything they touch. If any member of the cabinet got cancer I would just laugh.

[<]:^D]

so much for the tolerant left!

[Hexx]

twitter.com/BBCSimonJack/status/1318578813681438723

[Dual]

[Photek]

twitter.com/LBC/status/1318884907142316032

[Tomous]

I hate seeing other countries with competent politicians who actually care

[Jenuall]

Those aren't politicians, they're just unelected bureaucrats!

[Moggy]

I hate seeing other countries with competent politicians who actually care

We have competent politicians who actually care.

Trouble is we elect the incompetent ones who don't care.

[Cuttooth]

Labour Lords appear to have abstained on backing rights for EU citizens in the UK (for EU citizens to have physical proof of a right to remain, which would avoid another Windrush scenario) and rights for UK citizens in the EU to move with a partner back to the UK without having to earn a minimum threshold to support them.

What the strawberry float is this party playing at?