The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[NurembergVillan]

The important thing for us to note here is the idea of "advertising" is very different when we're considering social media.

I'm sure we've all had stuff appear in our timelines "Like and Share if you think the Lee Rigby killers should be hung", "Share this if you thing skinning dogs alive is barbaric", etc.  It's usually originated from Britain First and been shared by someone you wouldn't consider a BF "fan".

Using this method, though, Britain First is (so I read) the largest political entity on Facebook.  They have almost 2,000,000 likes.  It's bonkers.

A study (Tone - I dunno of how many people!) showed that most people don't read beyond the headline of something shared on FB before sharing it themselves if they agree with the sentiment.  With that sort of attitude, it's easy to see how bollocks "fake news" becomes real.

We're a society that now thinks in snippets and eschews context, analysis and insight.  As horrible as it may seem, Gove was right when he said this country was tired of experts.

[blandy]

45 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

As horrible as it may seem, Gove was right when he said this country was tired of experts.

I think he was wrong, Rob. I think if he'd have said "much of this country is unable due to time and due to the nature of all kinds of media, to distinguish between what has come from an expert and what has come from a blowhard" then he'd have more of a point.

When faced with a mass of posts and twits and facebooks saying one thing, and a mass saying another thing, it's hard to be able to get the time to even try and work out what's what, never mind doing the actual analysis.

There's both a deliberate and accidental effort to effectively swamp expertise. The deliberate is like the Big-Oil and Koch brothers  funded Global warming denial lot, and then there's just the way everyone can "have their say" via the inter webs and talk shows and whatever.

But underneath all that noise, I think there's still a genuine curiosity and desire to seek out the voices and views and advice of people who might actually know, who might actually be able to see a way...

Then there's the politicians, often compounding the noise and sweeping aside the expertise.

[NurembergVillan]

I disagree Pete.  I think a lot of folk are become lazy when it comes to information.

If I saw an article with the headline that said "Massive asteroid sit to hit Earth next week", I'd think it was likely a load of old tosh and so would want to get more context.

Said article was a real thing, was indeed a load of tosh, and spread far and wide (c. 360k shares) on Facebook last summer.  The aim was to highlight the study showing that people would read a headline, and then just share it - thus spreading the "news" like a digital Chinese whisper (is that racist these days?).

59% of links shared on social media aren't clicked first.  It's like the ultimate example of the braindead consumption of news and facts.

Quote

Scientists say giant asteroid could hit Earth next week, causing mass devastation

http://yackler.ca/blog/2016/07/09/scientists-say-giant-asteroid-hit-earth-next-week-causing-mass-devastation/

1 hour ago, blandy said:

But underneath all that noise, I think there's still a genuine curiosity and desire to seek out the voices and views and advice of people who might actually know, who might actually be able to see a way...

There's also a lot of people who believe "it's my opinion and I'm entitled to it" and so aren't interested in hearing anything that might challenge that.  I believe echo chamber is the popular term.

[OutByEaster?]

In fairness, when you have countries run by and for oligarchs, the nationality of the oligarchs that want to have an influence isn't particularly important. It's less true I think of Brexit than it is of the US election, but in practice, Putin and Russia's uber-rich aren't really interfering with these things, they're contributing - if anything, it's voters that are interfereing.

 

[peterms]

1 hour ago, NurembergVillan said:

If I saw an article with the headline that said "Massive asteroid sit to hit Earth next week", I'd think it was likely a load of old tosh and so would want to get more context.

That's exactly the kind of complacency that did for the dinosaurs.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, NurembergVillan said:

I disagree Pete.  I think a lot of folk are become lazy when it comes to information.

If I saw an article with the headline that said "Massive asteroid sit to hit Earth next week", I'd think it was likely a load of old tosh and so would want to get more context.

Said article was a real thing, was indeed a load of tosh, and spread far and wide (c. 360k shares) on Facebook last summer.  The aim was to highlight the study showing that people would read a headline, and then just share it - thus spreading the "news" like a digital Chinese whisper (is that racist these days?).

59% of links shared on social media aren't clicked first.  It's like the ultimate example of the braindead consumption of news and facts.

http://yackler.ca/blog/2016/07/09/scientists-say-giant-asteroid-hit-earth-next-week-causing-mass-devastation/

There's also a lot of people who believe "it's my opinion and I'm entitled to it" and so aren't interested in hearing anything that might challenge that.  I believe echo chamber is the popular term.

Oh, sure. You've got a good point. I've been fooled before by a "fake news" story (it wasn't an asteroid, mind). But I initially thought it true, till la friend pointed out it was bollex. I retweeted it and that's how Paul alerted me to it being crap. But I don't think that was "had enough of experts" it was just "got fooled by fake news, as I was inclined to believe some (made up) story about the benefits system hurting someone.

You're dead right about an echo chamber, I take the point. I still don't think that's "I've had enough of experts" either - it's just the nature of people and social media.

The last comment you make, again, I agree - everyone is entitled to their opinion. They're not entitled to have it taken seriously if they're a divot, though. The "listen to me as much as professor smith, our opinions are equal" is a bonkers attitude and needs to be challenged.

Yet still, in my experience people do want (away from the noise) to know the truth. Whether they (we) can handle it, though....

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, peterms said:

That's exactly the kind of complacency that did for the dinosaurs.

I don't know anything about palaeontology, cosmology, geology, history, astronomy or biology, but I think they weren't really wiped out, and it's a leftard conspiracy.

[/Stewart Lee]

[NurembergVillan]

56 minutes ago, blandy said:

I don't know anything about palaeontology, cosmology, geology, history, astronomy or biology, but I think they weren't really wiped out, and it's a leftard conspiracy.

[/Stewart Lee]

With elements of the US conservative right being such bible-thumping, flat Earth simpletons I'd imagine they wouldn't even think the dinosaurs ever existed.

[HanoiVillan]

6 hours ago, blandy said:

Well, yes and no.

For selling Cars or widgets or whatever, sure. But for political matters, where there's not a finaical exchange, but a voting thing at stake, the social media internet thingummy has consistently been the driver for results since Obama first got in. Obama, twice, Trump, Brexit, Scottish Indie Ref, there's been a huge social media affected impetus behind those things. It works, not because it's "adevertising pay for our product" but because it's espousing "we'll make your life better and we have the same views as you". Different deal altogether.

This gets a [citation needed] from me. 

You've essentially named a number of different elections and asserted that 'social media has consistently been the driver of results'. So Obama won because of Twitter? Or did he win because Bush had an approval rating of 25%, the economy had just collapsed and his opponent was running with Sarah Palin? Noting that elections have happened since social media became more important is not the same as proving social media was 'the driver for results'. 

On the issue at hand, it remains the case that political advertising is less, not more, efficient than commercial. In both commercial and political advertising, there is wastage as people receive the message who were going to buy the product anyway. The difference is that this wastage is much greater for political advertising and messaging, which is mostly shared within an echo chamber of like-minded believers who would never have considered voting in any other way. To believe that Russia swung the referendum, or even got close, we have to believe that they successfully targeted those who weren't partisans for either side, but genuinely on the fence, with laser precision and in great enough numbers to swing the election. Given the amount of the budget that will have been wasted on the true believers, that once again suggests a degree of successful targeting thousands of times greater than any commercial social marketing. 

EDIT: Reading this post back, it sounds a bit belligerent, which isn't what I was intending, so sorry for that. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by HanoiVillan

[LondonLax]

I would say though that in a voluntary voting system you don't necessarily need to only target swing voters, preaching to the converted in their echo chamber is also very useful.

It is often these energised voters who actually get out and vote and encourage their friends/neighbours also.

Not saying I have any stats on these things but I can understand why the Russians thought it would be useful to get the more rabid members of the electorate riled up before an important vote.   

[HanoiVillan]

'People who were going to vote anyway' were by definition going to vote anyway. And it still seems to me pretty unlikely that the final break from apathy for a statistically-significant number of voters came via a tweet from a Russian chat bot or a meme on Facebook. 

[blandy]

7 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

This gets a [citation needed] from me. 

You've essentially named a number of different elections and asserted that 'social media has consistently been the driver of results'. So Obama won because of Twitter? Or did he win because Bush had an approval rating of 25%, the economy had just collapsed and his opponent was running with Sarah Palin? Noting that elections have happened since social media became more important is not the same as proving social media was 'the driver for results'. 

On the issue at hand, it remains the case that political advertising is less, not more, efficient than commercial. In both commercial and political advertising, there is wastage as people receive the message who were going to buy the product anyway. The difference is that this wastage is much greater for political advertising and messaging, which is mostly shared within an echo chamber of like-minded believers who would never have considered voting in any other way. To believe that Russia swung the referendum, or even got close, we have to believe that they successfully targeted those who weren't partisans for either side, but genuinely on the fence, with laser precision and in great enough numbers to swing the election. Given the amount of the budget that will have been wasted on the true believers, that once again suggests a degree of successful targeting thousands of times greater than any commercial social marketing. 

EDIT: Reading this post back, it sounds a bit belligerent, which isn't what I was intending, so sorry for that. 

There’s something strangely familiar about your line of argument. I dunno, is it.....mmmm.....The planet is not warming....ok, it is warming, but humans aren’t the cause....ok humans are the cause, but there’s nothing we can do now, so let’s just carry on burning fossil fuels. 

The russians aren’t meddling.....ok ,they are, but it doesn’t work....ok ,it does work, but we can’t review the results....

unfair, perhaps, but you started it

Russia definitely views what they’ve been doing as successful, and as a consequence they’ve expanded it and widened it out. Behaviouralists and psychologists say that the technique works. Post election studies and analysis have revealed the impact and effect of social media. sure not all of the analysis has been empirical, some is in essence theory based around known responses and behaviours. Maybe Russia, Momentum, the alt right, Trump, Obama et al are mistaken and it doesn’t work....

[HanoiVillan]

40 minutes ago, blandy said:

There’s something strangely familiar about your line of argument. I dunno, is it.....mmmm.....The planet is not warming....ok, it is warming, but humans aren’t the cause....ok humans are the cause, but there’s nothing we can do now, so let’s just carry on burning fossil fuels. 

The russians aren’t meddling.....ok ,they are, but it doesn’t work....ok ,it does work, but we can’t review the results....

unfair, perhaps, but you started it

Russia definitely views what they’ve been doing as successful, and as a consequence they’ve expanded it and widened it out. Behaviouralists and psychologists say that the technique works. Post election studies and analysis have revealed the impact and effect of social media. sure not all of the analysis has been empirical, some is in essence theory based around known responses and behaviours. Maybe Russia, Momentum, the alt right, Trump, Obama et al are mistaken and it doesn’t work....

The thing the alternate line of argument most reminds me of is Arsene Wenger moaning about some refereeing decision or other which 'cost them the game' after losing 4-0 away at Man City or something, but hey ho. 

If there are British people who have taken payments from foreign powers to take particular positions, or who are acting in some other provably treasonous way, then I'm definitely interested. I want to know more about what Nigel Farage was doing at the Ecuadorian embassy, about what Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica are up to, and I'm happy to wait for Carole Cadwalladr to file the next stage of her investigation into those links, which she seems to be doing an admirable job of. 

I'm just not impressed or persuaded by the argument that Russian bots swung the referendum. 

[snowychap]

10 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

This gets a [citation needed] from me. 

You've essentially named a number of different elections and asserted that 'social media has consistently been the driver of results'. So Obama won because of Twitter? Or did he win because Bush had an approval rating of 25%, the economy had just collapsed and his opponent was running with Sarah Palin? Noting that elections have happened since social media became more important is not the same as proving social media was 'the driver for results'. 

On the issue at hand, it remains the case that political advertising is less, not more, efficient than commercial. In both commercial and political advertising, there is wastage as people receive the message who were going to buy the product anyway. The difference is that this wastage is much greater for political advertising and messaging, which is mostly shared within an echo chamber of like-minded believers who would never have considered voting in any other way. To believe that Russia swung the referendum, or even got close, we have to believe that they successfully targeted those who weren't partisans for either side, but genuinely on the fence, with laser precision and in great enough numbers to swing the election. Given the amount of the budget that will have been wasted on the true believers, that once again suggests a degree of successful targeting thousands of times greater than any commercial social marketing. 

EDIT: Reading this post back, it sounds a bit belligerent, which isn't what I was intending, so sorry for that. 

 

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

The thing the alternate line of argument most reminds me of is Arsene Wenger moaning about some refereeing decision or other which 'cost them the game' after losing 4-0 away at Man City or something, but hey ho. 

If there are British people who have taken payments from foreign powers to take particular positions, or who are acting in some other provably treasonous way, then I'm definitely interested. I want to know more about what Nigel Farage was doing at the Ecuadorian embassy, about what Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica are up to, and I'm happy to wait for Carole Cadwalladr to file the next stage of her investigation into those links, which she seems to be doing an admirable job of. 

I'm just not impressed or persuaded by the argument that Russian bots swung the referendum. 

I think there's a little too much concentration on not being impressed by the 'it's the Russians wot won it' line.*

I've quoted both posts because the comments that you've made about CA and the things like the Cadwalladr piece(s) highlight that there's a lot being talked about (and looked in to) that seem to suggest that the political (and military) may well be seriously in advance of the commercial in this area. If this is so then a traditional view of advertising and its returns would be similarly outdated.

On the mostly shared within an echo chamber line, that may be obviously true on the surface but echo chambers are no longer sealed-off units not only because of social media but also because of other media outlets use and reporting of social media. The noise in one echo chamber bleeds in to another; the louder something is shouted in one group of like-minded believers or the more provocative it is to other groups of like-minded believers then the more it will be shared amongst those other groups (as an example of what they don't believe in) which, necessarily, extends the reach of the original message and likely overplays the 'following' over the original message and its initiator. Whilst the 'wastage' here may be huge, that is rather unimportant. There are no costs associated with it (for the purposes of analysing any returns) and thus any marginal gain (e.g. from those accidently in receipt of this indirect marketing and vulnerable to its message who may not have been so enthused as to have been in an original echo chamber of true believers)  is a 100% win (or as close as).

So, whilst there may be a great deal to discover about the targetting of people on the fence that may have come about from the data mining and analysis of the data that CA (and others) have done - we'll have to wait and see the details if they actually do come out - in order to be able to take a view on how succesful this political nudging was or could be, I think there's a lot of secondary stuff beyond that. I'm not sure that it doesn't help, too, that this indirect stuff would be further from the original message.

Edited November 16, 2017 by snowychap
Edit:*In the same way as your post, this wasn't meant to be belligerent - just to draw some small parallel with the old 'Sun wot won it' headline and discussion.

[HanoiVillan]

That's an interesting reply @snowychap, will try to reply later when I have more time. 

[bickster]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm just not impressed or persuaded by the argument that Russian bots swung the referendum. 

I’m not aware that anyone has actually made that claim.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

..I'm just not impressed or persuaded by the argument that Russian bots swung the referendum... 

That's fine. It's also not what I was really trying to say anyway. My point/ 2 points are the initial one which is that this kind of political false news social media thing is more effective than "advertising", and secondly that I think the intention perhaps of much of it isn't/wasn't necessarily to "swing the result", but instead to create the conditions where the arguments of the likes of Trump/Farage/ etc are given more credence than might have otherwise been the case - to create the conditions, the lack of faith in the System, where others can swing the argument and the result.

[Chindie]

Social media has become a breeding ground for those 'bloke down the pub' style stories designed to outrage and poke at hot button topics, which is what the Russians have been doing. Those kind of 'came over here and got given a mansion cus he's Muslim innit?' style stories, the kind of thing the Sun thrived on for donkeys years. They work - the story is simple, it hooks in and the story never dies - there's still daft stories about the EU that get rattled out that have been debunked over and over. Now those stories and little comments can get to a vast audience at a click.

[Chindie]

It would be interesting to see if the Russian activity mirrored their actions in the US, where they played both sides of the coin (there's evidence of Facebook spending to appeal to both the Right and Left and gunning for anything that sowed dissent and disunity).

Although obviously that election is a little different so may have affected the strategy.

[choffer]

3 minutes ago, Chindie said:

It would be interesting to see if the Russian activity mirrored their actions in the US, where they played both sides of the coin (there's evidence of Facebook spending to appeal to both the Right and Left and gunning for anything that sowed dissent and disunity).

Although obviously that election is a little different so may have affected the strategy.

That's an interesting thought. I guess most people perceive this issue as just Trump being Putin's lapdog but I guess it would make more sense for Russia to play the long game and create a wider chasm between the two political factions.