Peter Thiel at Center of Facebook’s Internal Divisions on Politics

Re:Peter Thiel at Center of Facebook’s Internal Divisions on... by raisedbyninjas on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @12:22PM (#21815864)

The dollar amounts don't reflect the impacts of what the Russians purchased. Conventional lobbying is to get specific bills passed. Social media propaganda can get a few high profile candidates elected, sway general attitudes to justice, liberal democracy, objective truth, etc. It just so happens that it's very cheap to sway some voters. If Russia could get a particular energy bill passed with $10k of Facebook propaganda, it would do that. That's not to say that the shiny new foreign policy tool of social media influence doesn't receive out-sized attention.

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Re:Peter Thiel at Center of Facebook’s Internal Divisions on... by ameister14 on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @01:21PM (#21816735)

>It just so happens that it's very cheap to sway some voters.

You say this very matter-of-factly. Do you have any evidence to back that up? Could you isolate that audience? As someone that has run a lot of political and consumer ads over the last 10 years, I'd really like to figure out who those people I can get for 100k that I can't get for 81 million are.

Propaganda does work. Russian propaganda does not work nearly as well as Madison Avenue propaganda, and that's been shown for decades. I'll give the edge to the Madison Ave guys spending tens of millions, here, over the Russian troll farm and 100k.

>If Russia could get a particular energy bill passed with $10k of Facebook propaganda, it would do that

Sure. I don't believe it can, though, and nobody has provided evidence to the contrary. Attempts, sure, but no real success.

It is my belief that the US FBI had much more to do with swaying the 2016 election than Russia's $100k Facebook ad spend.

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Re:Peter Thiel at Center of Facebook’s Internal Divisions on... by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @05:07PM (#21819473)

There was something in the neighborhood of one billion dollars spent on the 2016 election cycle. If Russia managed to significantly influence it by spending $100,000, they're far more effective than either the Democrat or Republican campaign machines.

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Re:Peter Thiel at Center of Facebook’s Internal Divisions on... by um_ya on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @12:28PM (#21815966)

So you're saying a billion dollars spent by the Hillary campaign couldn't compete with Russia's $100,000 in targeted ads?

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Re:Peter Thiel at Center of Facebook’s Internal Divisions on... by sshumaker on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @12:45PM (#21816211)

Russia spent money on democrat positions too. Their intent was to sow discord in the US populace and increase polarization.

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