Meta Bend the Knee

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted this on the other thread and wanted to move it here.

I've run FB ads for the last 5 years and have trained under some of the top in the industry. As part of the curriculum, often we'd look at what Trump did during the 2016 election - which was brilliant from a marketing and persuasion standpoint but highly unethical.

Cambridge Analytica harvest data from nearly 100 million FB users without consent and used that data for Trump's campaign in the 2016 election and build a psychologic and demographic profile for each voter - not just their political beliefs, but other beliefs, interests, even behaviors (like we can tell if someone likes to watch videos, click on links, write comments, etc and design ads catered to those behaviors).

They then used this data to run tens of thousands of ads *per day* to see what messages work with which groups. Often we tweak images, headlines, wording, etc. Even to the point where they'll take 20 different actors, have them give the same message, and see which actor people like best.

This is called micro targeting and A/B testing. They're standard practice in digital marketing, but obviously to get to the point where you are running tens of thousands of ads per day, you need insane amounts of money, which is where campaign financing and donations come in (because the average person can't do this).

And obviously, somebody who has the ability to raise this amount of money will very easily be able to get a large voter base from Facebook because of the way they slowly use propaganda to persuade people.

In marketing terms we call this a funnel, but it works the same. You align with somebody over a belief they already have, then slowly send them more and more content that starts to shape their beliefs in other things. This is why there are such strong pipelines from health, finance, relationships, etc to the far right: You start with a reasonable belief (XYZ diet is healthy, here's how to lose weight and get healthy, etc) then slowly introduce other ideas such as anti-vaxx (if you eat this diet you're so healthy you don't need vaccines!), introduce the concept of Big Pharma is out to get you, and so on.

Zuckerberg had to testify before Congress because of the illegal data harvesting, and FB put things like fact-checking and stricter data access in place to cover his butt. But ads are FB's source of revenue - they made $800 million from political ads in 2020 alone - so obviously they want to continue political ads even though it's highly unethical.

Now that Trump is in office, I suspect Zuck is being offered protection in exchange for other right-wing campaigns to have "free speech". Or at the very least, knows that a conservative-controlled government won't come after him. Which is extremely scary, because a massive amount of the right's campaign strategy is to spread misinformation and create outrage over things that aren't actually problems.

Sadly the average American doesn't stand a chance. Marketing is a trap that is intentionally set for you and there's no real way around it. Add in AI-generated images and it's terrifying; I see AI-generated images on FB daily where thousands of people comment not realizing it's fake.

Very scary time to be in the U.S.

Eventually the mind-control/disinformation billionaires like Zuckerburg will be regarded as Josef Mengele was after WW2, using science to destroy humanity. And hopefully they'll get the same fate.

And hopefully before they ruin the world.

[Anonymous]

Getting rid of 230 protection should be a bipartisan issue.
You can have free speech, but there are still consequences.
Social media sound clean up their act immediately if 230 protections were gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be deleting my account this week.

Me too and I’m republican. Zucks a lizard and just kowtowing to the changing winds of new party. He’s full of sh*t and never should have censored covid information.

[Anonymous]

People being so angry just get off FB and swear off social media as a whole as much as possible. That's the best and only option to protest. It's money from Meta which is the best thing to do to hurt Zuckerberg's business. No angry sentiments will change anything, only actions that impact FB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted this on the other thread and wanted to move it here.

I've run FB ads for the last 5 years and have trained under some of the top in the industry. As part of the curriculum, often we'd look at what Trump did during the 2016 election - which was brilliant from a marketing and persuasion standpoint but highly unethical.

Cambridge Analytica harvest data from nearly 100 million FB users without consent and used that data for Trump's campaign in the 2016 election and build a psychologic and demographic profile for each voter - not just their political beliefs, but other beliefs, interests, even behaviors (like we can tell if someone likes to watch videos, click on links, write comments, etc and design ads catered to those behaviors).

They then used this data to run tens of thousands of ads *per day* to see what messages work with which groups. Often we tweak images, headlines, wording, etc. Even to the point where they'll take 20 different actors, have them give the same message, and see which actor people like best.

This is called micro targeting and A/B testing. They're standard practice in digital marketing, but obviously to get to the point where you are running tens of thousands of ads per day, you need insane amounts of money, which is where campaign financing and donations come in (because the average person can't do this).

And obviously, somebody who has the ability to raise this amount of money will very easily be able to get a large voter base from Facebook because of the way they slowly use propaganda to persuade people.

In marketing terms we call this a funnel, but it works the same. You align with somebody over a belief they already have, then slowly send them more and more content that starts to shape their beliefs in other things. This is why there are such strong pipelines from health, finance, relationships, etc to the far right: You start with a reasonable belief (XYZ diet is healthy, here's how to lose weight and get healthy, etc) then slowly introduce other ideas such as anti-vaxx (if you eat this diet you're so healthy you don't need vaccines!), introduce the concept of Big Pharma is out to get you, and so on.

Zuckerberg had to testify before Congress because of the illegal data harvesting, and FB put things like fact-checking and stricter data access in place to cover his butt. But ads are FB's source of revenue - they made $800 million from political ads in 2020 alone - so obviously they want to continue political ads even though it's highly unethical.

Now that Trump is in office, I suspect Zuck is being offered protection in exchange for other right-wing campaigns to have "free speech". Or at the very least, knows that a conservative-controlled government won't come after him. Which is extremely scary, because a massive amount of the right's campaign strategy is to spread misinformation and create outrage over things that aren't actually problems.

Sadly the average American doesn't stand a chance. Marketing is a trap that is intentionally set for you and there's no real way around it. Add in AI-generated images and it's terrifying; I see AI-generated images on FB daily where thousands of people comment not realizing it's fake.

Very scary time to be in the U.S.

Obama did the same in 2012. Facebook knew about it and looked the other way. Liberals celebrated the sophistication of the Obama campaign, then complained when Trump did similar things and made Cambridge Analytica to be a villain.

[Anonymous]

Knowing how algorithms work, anyone who continues to use FB is a chump. I mean, it's a for profit business with billions in income. Of course they wield untold power and influence. They got there with your help. And now you want to leave it. I never joined. It's like Alexa - of course Amazon is using it to spy on you. It's more money from you for them. I would never use any of that crap. I use a lot of other technology but it's pretty obvious when big business can use you for their own interests and if you don't want to be used, you should stay away completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted this on the other thread and wanted to move it here.

I've run FB ads for the last 5 years and have trained under some of the top in the industry. As part of the curriculum, often we'd look at what Trump did during the 2016 election - which was brilliant from a marketing and persuasion standpoint but highly unethical.

Cambridge Analytica harvest data from nearly 100 million FB users without consent and used that data for Trump's campaign in the 2016 election and build a psychologic and demographic profile for each voter - not just their political beliefs, but other beliefs, interests, even behaviors (like we can tell if someone likes to watch videos, click on links, write comments, etc and design ads catered to those behaviors).

They then used this data to run tens of thousands of ads *per day* to see what messages work with which groups. Often we tweak images, headlines, wording, etc. Even to the point where they'll take 20 different actors, have them give the same message, and see which actor people like best.

This is called micro targeting and A/B testing. They're standard practice in digital marketing, but obviously to get to the point where you are running tens of thousands of ads per day, you need insane amounts of money, which is where campaign financing and donations come in (because the average person can't do this).

And obviously, somebody who has the ability to raise this amount of money will very easily be able to get a large voter base from Facebook because of the way they slowly use propaganda to persuade people.

In marketing terms we call this a funnel, but it works the same. You align with somebody over a belief they already have, then slowly send them more and more content that starts to shape their beliefs in other things. This is why there are such strong pipelines from health, finance, relationships, etc to the far right: You start with a reasonable belief (XYZ diet is healthy, here's how to lose weight and get healthy, etc) then slowly introduce other ideas such as anti-vaxx (if you eat this diet you're so healthy you don't need vaccines!), introduce the concept of Big Pharma is out to get you, and so on.

Zuckerberg had to testify before Congress because of the illegal data harvesting, and FB put things like fact-checking and stricter data access in place to cover his butt. But ads are FB's source of revenue - they made $800 million from political ads in 2020 alone - so obviously they want to continue political ads even though it's highly unethical.

Now that Trump is in office, I suspect Zuck is being offered protection in exchange for other right-wing campaigns to have "free speech". Or at the very least, knows that a conservative-controlled government won't come after him. Which is extremely scary, because a massive amount of the right's campaign strategy is to spread misinformation and create outrage over things that aren't actually problems.

Sadly the average American doesn't stand a chance. Marketing is a trap that is intentionally set for you and there's no real way around it. Add in AI-generated images and it's terrifying; I see AI-generated images on FB daily where thousands of people comment not realizing it's fake.

Very scary time to be in the U.S.

Obama did the same in 2012. Facebook knew about it and looked the other way. Liberals celebrated the sophistication of the Obama campaign, then complained when Trump did similar things and made Cambridge Analytica to be a villain.

Both sides do it. Come on, this stuff is not a question if who but if how much and to what extent. Cheating and unethical actions is what you do to win elections in the big leagues and anyone who doesn't believe that is naive and a fool. And this is why there are a few in society who are major players. They use the stupidity of the masses to control them. People can't help themselves to join FB, IG, et al but at the heart of their business is data and anyone who collects big data has a lot of power. If you can't appreciate that and contribute to that power, please stop complaining. You made them successful.

[Anonymous]

You aren’t moving to Canada

You’ll continue to use Meta platforms.

Amazon boxes will continue to pile up on your porch.

You’ll keep driving your Teslas.

Here’s the information directly from The Zuck’s mouth. If you don’t want to listen to the entire 15 minutes then jump to the 7 minute mark.

https://youtu.be/nONHwzt7fCk?si=PY1Yo7Vq6DW8axun

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Knowing how algorithms work, anyone who continues to use FB is a chump. I mean, it's a for profit business with billions in income. Of course they wield untold power and influence. They got there with your help. And now you want to leave it. I never joined. It's like Alexa - of course Amazon is using it to spy on you. It's more money from you for them. I would never use any of that crap. I use a lot of other technology but it's pretty obvious when big business can use you for their own interests and if you don't want to be used, you should stay away completely.

+1 If you know how algorithms work, you are far more mathy than I am, so I can only signal my agreement with you by a humble arithmetic function.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted this on the other thread and wanted to move it here.

I've run FB ads for the last 5 years and have trained under some of the top in the industry. As part of the curriculum, often we'd look at what Trump did during the 2016 election - which was brilliant from a marketing and persuasion standpoint but highly unethical.

Cambridge Analytica harvest data from nearly 100 million FB users without consent and used that data for Trump's campaign in the 2016 election and build a psychologic and demographic profile for each voter - not just their political beliefs, but other beliefs, interests, even behaviors (like we can tell if someone likes to watch videos, click on links, write comments, etc and design ads catered to those behaviors).

They then used this data to run tens of thousands of ads *per day* to see what messages work with which groups. Often we tweak images, headlines, wording, etc. Even to the point where they'll take 20 different actors, have them give the same message, and see which actor people like best.

This is called micro targeting and A/B testing. They're standard practice in digital marketing, but obviously to get to the point where you are running tens of thousands of ads per day, you need insane amounts of money, which is where campaign financing and donations come in (because the average person can't do this).

And obviously, somebody who has the ability to raise this amount of money will very easily be able to get a large voter base from Facebook because of the way they slowly use propaganda to persuade people.

In marketing terms we call this a funnel, but it works the same. You align with somebody over a belief they already have, then slowly send them more and more content that starts to shape their beliefs in other things. This is why there are such strong pipelines from health, finance, relationships, etc to the far right: You start with a reasonable belief (XYZ diet is healthy, here's how to lose weight and get healthy, etc) then slowly introduce other ideas such as anti-vaxx (if you eat this diet you're so healthy you don't need vaccines!), introduce the concept of Big Pharma is out to get you, and so on.

Zuckerberg had to testify before Congress because of the illegal data harvesting, and FB put things like fact-checking and stricter data access in place to cover his butt. But ads are FB's source of revenue - they made $800 million from political ads in 2020 alone - so obviously they want to continue political ads even though it's highly unethical.

Now that Trump is in office, I suspect Zuck is being offered protection in exchange for other right-wing campaigns to have "free speech". Or at the very least, knows that a conservative-controlled government won't come after him. Which is extremely scary, because a massive amount of the right's campaign strategy is to spread misinformation and create outrage over things that aren't actually problems.

Sadly the average American doesn't stand a chance. Marketing is a trap that is intentionally set for you and there's no real way around it. Add in AI-generated images and it's terrifying; I see AI-generated images on FB daily where thousands of people comment not realizing it's fake.

Very scary time to be in the U.S.

Obama did the same in 2012. Facebook knew about it and looked the other way. Liberals celebrated the sophistication of the Obama campaign, then complained when Trump did similar things and made Cambridge Analytica to be a villain.

PP. You’re not wrong - Obama also harvested data through an app in 2012.

But 2012 Facebook and 2025 FB are completely different beasts. The algorithm, targeting, data collection, everything is much more advanced.

What scares me is now social media will be completely unregulated. And not only for politics - we’re going to see more people scammed out of their money from people who claim they made a million dollars in crypto or whatever. The FTC has a hard enough time regulating social media and now it’s going to be even harder. And since FB is primarily older demographics, the elderly are going to get scammed a LOT.

I think it’s fine for us to say that we let it happen in the past, it was a mistake, and moving forward we need tighter regulations on social media the way we do other media and products. Because it’s just going to get worse and worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's like Alexa - of course Amazon is using it to spy on you. It's more money from you for them.

Do you own a smart phone? A tablet? A laptop? An E-ZPass? Use Waze?

Welcome to the party pal.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why a subscription-based competitor to Facebook never arose. Surely many, many people would rather pay a couple of bucks a month to not see ads or have their data sold…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why a subscription-based competitor to Facebook never arose. Surely many, many people would rather pay a couple of bucks a month to not see ads or have their data sold…

Because they make more selling your data than people would pay for a subscription.

Everyone who uses Facebook knows their data is being used for marketing. But facebook’s algorithm radicalizing you by steering you to join groups and view viral fake news is a different animal. And they need to be held accountable for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why a subscription-based competitor to Facebook never arose. Surely many, many people would rather pay a couple of bucks a month to not see ads or have their data sold…

Because they make more selling your data than people would pay for a subscription.

Everyone who uses Facebook knows their data is being used for marketing. But facebook’s algorithm radicalizing you by steering you to join groups and view viral fake news is a different animal. And they need to be held accountable for that.

Right, but other subscription based companies are profitable enough - think Netflix, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why a subscription-based competitor to Facebook never arose. Surely many, many people would rather pay a couple of bucks a month to not see ads or have their data sold…

Because they make more selling your data than people would pay for a subscription.

Everyone who uses Facebook knows their data is being used for marketing. But facebook’s algorithm radicalizing you by steering you to join groups and view viral fake news is a different animal. And they need to be held accountable for that.

Right, but other subscription based companies are profitable enough - think Netflix, etc.

They are also collecting your data. You both pay for the service and they track you.