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Russians used Facebook tool to ID and influence U.S. voters

K

KSweeley

Member
WaPo just reported that Russians used a powerful Facebook tool that's used within corporate America to identify and influence U.S. voters and people caught up in this web of tracking and disinformation would have had no indication that they had been singled out or that the ads came from Russians: https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...isrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%2Beconomy&wpmk=1

Russian operatives set up an array of misleading Web sites and social media pages to identify American voters susceptible to propaganda, then used a powerful Facebook tool to repeatedly send them messages designed to influence their political behavior, say people familiar with the investigation into foreign meddling in the U.S. election.

The tactic resembles what American businesses and political campaigns have been doing in recent years to deliver messages to potentially interested people online. The Russians exploited this system by creating English-language sites and Facebook pages that closely mimicked those created by U.S. political activists.

The Web sites and Facebook pages displayed ads or other messages focused on such hot-button issues as illegal immigration, African American political activism and the rising prominence of Muslims in the United States. The Russian operatives then used a Facebook “retargeting” tool, called Custom Audiences, to send specific ads and messages to voters who had visited those sites, say people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details from an ongoing investigation.

People caught up in this web of tracking and disinformation would have had no indication that they had been singled out or that the ads came from Russians.

One such ad featured photographs of an armed black woman “dry firing” a rifle — pulling the trigger of the weapon without a bullet in the chamber — the people familiar with the investigation said.

Investigators believe the advertisement may have been designed to encourage African American militancy and, at the same time, to stoke fears within white communities, the people said. But the precise purpose of the ad remains unclear to investigators, the people said.

Another showed an image of Democrat Hillary Clinton behind what appeared to be prison bars.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on Russia’s exploitation of the Custom Audiences system. Facebook officials have previously said that they were caught off guard by the Russian propaganda campaign because the accounts, pages and ads appeared to be legitimate.

In addition to Custom Audiences, Russian operatives used other Facebook tools to target groups by demographics, geography, gender and interests, according to the people familiar with the investigation. The Custom Audiences tool differs because it allows advertisers to feed into Facebook’s systems a specific list of users they want to target.

“These are the same methods and sophisticated tools that the pharmaceutical companies were using, that big oil companies were using,” said Philip N. Howard of Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project. “This was regular ad technology that regular advertisers use.”

The revelation about the use of Facebook’s Custom Audiences tool, which has not been previously reported, adds to an emerging picture of a Russian effort to shape the U.S. election and sow division using tools built by American technology companies.

And it makes clear that Russians used Facebook to direct their influence campaigns to voters whom they already had tracked and to find new ones wherever they browsed the Internet — even if they used multiple devices such as a smartphone for work or a tablet at home.

Targeted people might also have directed that same disinformation — whether intentionally or not — to people linked to them on social networks, such as their friends on Facebook.

“This means that any American who knowingly or unknowingly clicked on a Russian news site may have been targeted through Facebook’s advertising systems to become an agent of influence — a potentially sympathetic American who could spread Russian propaganda with other Americans,” said Clinton Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Every successful click gives them more data that they can use to retarget. It feeds on itself and it speeds up the influence dramatically.”
Click to expand...
 
J

jellies_two

Member
If the russians used it now imagine how the trump campaign got the red carpet treatment as they spent their entire online budget on Facebook ads picking off sub groups with data help from Peter thiel.
Custom audiences is available to anyone with a credit card. How does facebook help you if you walk in with a 200 million dollar budget ?
 
M

MIMIC

Banned
Any tool that made you think Donald Trump was a viable candidate clearly violates the Geneva Convention.
 
R

RumblingRosco

Member
You know, a year ago, I would have considered Zuck a reasonable candidate for a political office (not necessarily the Presidential office).

Now? Nah. Zuck messed up hard by letting this go for so long, then denying it, then seemingly covering it up with misinformation, and only now finally turning over ad records to the Senate etc. It's too late now for Zuck to try and redeem himself.
 
S

Shadybiz

Member
Oh god, I remember the one with Hillary behind bars. Someone in one of my actual friend's threads posted that picture, and seemed to think that she was actually in jail in real life. I asked them if they thought that maybe a story like that would be on EVERY NEWS SITE EVER at the moment if that were true. ...They then deleted the post. Fucking idiots.
 
N

norinrad

Member
That is a brilliant way to undermine democracy when said owner of the platform utilized to do so only cares about money.

In the near future organizations should not be allowed to get too big. It actually hurts societies.
 
J

johnsmith

remember me
silicon-valleys-top-startup-factory-once-funded-a-company-because-the-founder-looked-like-mark-zuckerberg.jpg
 
R

RDreamer

Member
The article kind of glosses over this, but I use this tool a lot and presumably it could or would be most potent not for a remarketing effort like they describe from their own site but possibly after being fed a voter list either sourced from some willing group or hacked.

There have been other news stories about voter databases being hacked by Russia. Yeah, this is probably what they did with those lists. I’d put money on it.
 
W

WedgeX

Banned
RDreamer said:
The article kind of glosses over this, but I use this tool a lot and presumably it could or would be most potent not for a remarketing effort like they describe from their own site but possibly after being fed a voter list either sourced from some willing group or hacked.

There have been other news stories about voter databases being hacked by Russia. Yeah, this is probably what they did with those lists. I’d put money on it.
Click to expand...

Yep. The relatively low amount of money they used suggests they had access to a likely voter list. Curious how that will pan out.
 
S

Slime

Banned
I'll be so pissed if the media + white yuppie Democrats deify Zuckerberg and he ends up being an actual political contender.
 
M

MIMIC

Banned
NobleXenon said:
A lot of dummies on Facebook, including its creator. ��
Click to expand...

This. If you can be persuaded by an ad to eat a pile of dog shit then.....I dunno what to tell you. Feels like there's a bigger underlying problem here (i.e. the electorate is insanely stupid)
 
Z

zou

Member
lol, so retargeting is a powerful facebook tool now. love it when reporters without any technical knowledge whatsoever try on report on it.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
zou said:
lol, so retargeting is a powerful facebook tool now. love it when reporters without any technical knowledge whatsoever try on report on it.
Click to expand...

I mean, retargeting is pretty powerful to be sure.

But the tool is actually powerful in a different way. Input your own list and Facebook will match it to those users and allow you to advertise to them. That's what's scary about the Russians using this tool after reports of them hacking voter databases. I dunno how the reporter missed that in the article.
 
C

Chuck Norris

Banned
Um, every advertiser in the world has access to the same technology. The article makes out likes they have access to some sophisticated tools nobody else does

If the Clinton campaign weren't doing exactly the same thing with their ads then they are fools.
 
S

Stoop Man

Member
Chuck Norris said:
Um, every advertiser in the world has access to the same technology. The article makes out likes they have access to some sophisticated tools nobody else does

If the Clinton campaign weren't doing exactly the same thing with their ads then they are fools.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this article is really just confirming what MGS2 told us.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
Chuck Norris said:
Um, every advertiser in the world has access to the same technology. The article makes out likes they have access to some sophisticated tools nobody else does

If the Clinton campaign weren't doing exactly the same thing with their ads then they are fools.
Click to expand...

Sure, but other countries don't, generally speaking, have access to any other advertising technologies here with regards to our politics. Political ads have laws. You won't see Russia buying up TV ads just like the Clinton campaign. That's why this is getting articles. People want to know what exactly this other country did. Again, if Russia themselves funded TV ads it'd be like an article saying they ran ads in swing districts. You might say "No duh, Clinton did, too," which is true, but ... uh... this is Russia.

And, again, the big news is that they were also reported to have possibly hacked some voter databases which they could put into this tool. As far as I understand it, I'm fairly certain Clinton wouldn't have access to voter databases. They would have their own lists, sure, but not databases directly from the state.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Chuck Norris said:
Um, every advertiser in the world has access to the same technology. The article makes out likes they have access to some sophisticated tools nobody else does

If the Clinton campaign weren't doing exactly the same thing with their ads then they are fools.
Click to expand...

The Clinton Campaign isn’t a hostile foreign nation legally forbidden from doing this. And Facebook is a US company.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
Stinkles said:
The Clinton Campaign isn’t a hostile foreign nation legally forbidden from doing this. And Facebook is a US company.
Click to expand...

Clinton campaign also didn't hack voter databases to grab information to use in advertising. As far as we know anyway. She is pretty devious :p
 
S

Stoop Man

Member
RDreamer said:
Sure, but other countries don't, generally speaking, have access to any other advertising technologies here with regards to our politics. Political ads have laws. You won't see Russia buying up TV ads just like the Clinton campaign. That's why this is getting articles. People want to know what exactly this other country did. Again, if Russia themselves funded TV ads it'd be like an article saying they ran ads in swing districts. You might say "No duh, Clinton did, too," which is true, but ... uh... this is Russia.

And, again, the big news is that they were also reported to have possibly hacked some voter databases which they could put into this tool. As far as I understand it, I'm fairly certain Clinton wouldn't have access to voter databases. They would have their own lists, sure, but not databases directly from the state.
Click to expand...

He's not saying it isn't a bad thing. He's saying we should have seen this coming.
 
J

jellies_two

Member
Chuck Norris said:
Um, every advertiser in the world has access to the same technology. The article makes out likes they have access to some sophisticated tools nobody else does

If the Clinton campaign weren't doing exactly the same thing with their ads then they are fools.
Click to expand...

Facebook themselves estimate 10 million people saw the ads Russia created.

In an election that was pretty close that is enough to estimate it could have changed the result. Especially if there was the smallest link of communication between what the russians found successful in their little game (what went viral) and what trump decided to spend his 200 million on..
 
T

theWB27

Member
Chuck Norris said:
Um, every advertiser in the world has access to the same technology. The article makes out likes they have access to some sophisticated tools nobody else does

If the Clinton campaign weren't doing exactly the same thing with their ads then they are fools.
Click to expand...

Key word here is Russian.
 
S

ShdwDrake

Banned
RDreamer said:
I mean, retargeting is pretty powerful to be sure.

But the tool is actually powerful in a different way. Input your own list and Facebook will match it to those users and allow you to advertise to them. That's what's scary about the Russians using this tool after reports of them hacking voter databases. I dunno how the reporter missed that in the article.
Click to expand...

That's how advertising works on the internet. Its not a Facebook thing. This is all Russians and Trump. The only way to get rid of tools like these would be to get rid of advertising on the internet.

I say more power to you with that one because it's a tough road.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
RDreamer said:
I mean, retargeting is pretty powerful to be sure.

But the tool is actually powerful in a different way. Input your own list and Facebook will match it to those users and allow you to advertise to them. That's what's scary about the Russians using this tool after reports of them hacking voter databases. I dunno how the reporter missed that in the article.
Click to expand...

The reporter has no proof that's what they did so they can't really say it, all they could do is let the reader put that together themselves.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
B-Dubs said:
The reporter has no proof that's what they did so they can't really say it, all they could do is let the reader put that together themselves.
Click to expand...

Not saying the reporter should say they definitely used it, but it should be pointed out that it's the normal functionality of said tool.

ShdwDrake said:
That's how advertising works on the internet. Its not a Facebook thing. This is all Russians and Trump. The only way to get rid of tools like these would be to get rid of advertising on the internet.

I say more power to you with that one because it's a tough road.
Click to expand...

I know that's how advertising works. I work in advertising and use Facebook ads every day :p

I'm not saying get rid of the tools. I'm saying Facebook didn't do diligence that other advertising networks have had to do for years. The Russians didn't buying TV ads on CBS to promote Trump for a reason. They couldn't buy radio ads to promote Trump for a reason. They bought Facebook ads because Facebook didn't notice them doing it and/or didn't care.
 
V

Version 3.0

Member
Hey GOP: the worst parts of the Russian government is doing its best to get you elected. Maybe pause a moment and ponder WHY.
 
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