If you read the sentence before the one you very selectively quoted, or even just completed the very sentence you quoted, it becomes clear the sentence is talking about the US presidential election, not the German one: "That’s a paltry sum for Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who finds himself in the greatest crisis of his career over the company’s role in Russia’s meddling with the U.S. election. While the Russian episode involved ads bought under false identities by people with Kremlin ties, the AfD campaign was completely different—the party literally walked through Facebook’s front door and introduced itself, a strategy Harris Media intends to repeat."

I messed up, thanks for catching it. My mistake. Upvoted.

> Democracy was about educated voters, I thought.

So trying to convince voters is undemocratic because voters are supposed to be educated before they become potential voters (and therefore don't require convincing)? Or is it just that you shouldn't try to convince them with simplified messages that don't reflect the actual complexity of the universe? Or that you shouldn't do it via Facebook?

> because voters are supposed to be educated before they become potential voters

yes, in that they make up their own minds rather than be open to influence by those with most money.

> Or is it just that you shouldn't try to convince them with simplified messages that don't reflect the actual complexity of the universe?

Such messages tend to be of the form 'vote X! Y is crap!'. Or outright lies (qv. certain leaders) That's not even a simplified messages, the first is pure tribalistic emotive, the second, well, it misrepresent reality (aka 'wrong' or 'deceitful' or 'lie').

If the were factually based and told both sides I guess I'd be OK with it.

> Or that you shouldn't do it via Facebook?

No, facebook is just a tool. How that tool is used is what makes it right or wrong.

I think here American and German sentiment differ. From the American perspective the informed general public comes as a result of every ambitious group of people trying to pull you in their direction and you using as much of that input as possible to create a model that you can use for your personal gain. In sum of all the selfish actions a more objective result is achieved than with previous political models. So nobody is responsible to educate you but yourself. And it is assumed that everybody tries hardest to improve their own life independent of the General Good.

That's at least how I understand the Americans.

I've heard similar regarding how they do things in the US, though your expression is more extreme. If true that has to be the most inefficient and corrosive way of improving anything.

> yes, in that they make up their own minds rather than be open to influence by those with most money.

The entire point of profiling is to spend less money, or spend their money more efficiently, by only advertising to a smaller part of the population.

If you have tons of money, you can just carpet bomb the entire population with your message.

"Spending less" was not really what happened there:

"Although Canter gave up on getting the display ads approved, he did keep paying for the Google search term “Angela Merkel,” which it linked to the Oath Breaker site. The Merkel campaign could’ve paid Google more money to displace the ad, but, to Canter’s disbelief, it never did. “We’ve been running search on Merkel’s name, calling her ‘Oath Breaker,’ and pointing to a very ugly website about her,” Canter said, laughing. “If it was us, we’d say, ‘You need to invest to get that ad bumped down.’ ”

For US Americans this might not be anything out of the ordinary, after all, "money=speech" and political campaigns mostly focusing on tearing down the opposition have been the norm for decades.

But for the German political landscape, where political parties are publicly funded to ensure a somewhat level playing field (at least in theory) this is a complete perversion.

Particularly the change in tone in the political discourse, it's become extremely toxic, apparently in no small parts due to the introduction of US American campaign tactics.

> But for the German political landscape, where political parties are publicly funded to ensure a somewhat level playing field (at least in theory) this is a complete perversion.

Public funding is only a part (about ~30%), donations and member fees contribute far more.

As for that being totally new, I don't think so. The AfD is the only new addition in recent years which changed a lot and still takes adjustments (though I don't know if it's actually that different from the Greens way back when - only they aren't conservative, so they wouldn't have used the patriotism angle and websites weren't a thing).

> The entire point of profiling is to spend less money

This totally misses my point.

> If the were factually based and told both sides I guess I'd be OK with it.

Do you have an example of a message that you'd be okay with?

I'm a brit and I suppose I'd describe myself as a remainer. That is itself a label which I don't like, but let it ride.

So an example message I'd be OK with is if bojo (boris johnson) had said that the uk gives 160 million (or 199 million[0]) a week to the EU, instead of his claim that it was £350 million a week (which deliberately and dishonestly ignored the rebate), I'd be OK with that.

I fear that tribalism is a disease that's damaging both the UK and the US at the moment; make your point with facts as far as possible.

[0] dependng on how you count, I've heard both figures

I guess that would quickly end up being a judgement call, since there are barely any things that aren't connected to other things, so mentioning a single fact without mentioning the others could be said to be deliberately ignoring the other.

And since we typically vote on our shared expectations, "no false claims" would probably mean everybody has to shut up. That might be a good thing, I don't know. I don't believe in the power of elections to bring about change (whatever party wins will have very little room for maneuvering), so maybe removing the loud and divisive parts of them might be helpful. Basically: if they don't help, we can at least make them less harmful.

Lies are lies. Some are more evident than others. This was blatant. If you do not care about facts and truth then don't complain about the world you're allowing to be created by liars. Don't complain about shoddy products sold as good quality, don't expect contracts to mean anything, don't complain when politicians are dishonest. Do expect a race to the bottom, that bottom being a very ugly place.