Most Americans have never heard of the far-right neoconservative nonprofit that ran the ads. It has no employees and no volunteers, and it’s run out of the offices of a Washington, D.C. law firm. More importantly, most voters never saw the ads.
And that was by design.
The group, a social welfare organization called Secure America Now, worked hand in hand with Facebook and Google to target their message at voters in swing states who were most likely to be receptive to them.
2 Likes
1 Like
Feck! I just did a periodic check for Facebook cookies, and found one a few minutes old. That shouldn’t be possible with the blocking I have at the router and in hosts.
Now I’m going to waste time figuring out how that got in. (I could set no facebook cookies allowed, but that’s not the point. I don’t want them on my Internet.)
2 Likes
1 Like
1 Like
1 Like
the offices of political campaigns to offer support ahead of elections, as it did with U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2016 race.
The company and other major online ad sellers including Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) have long offered free dedicated assistance to strengthen relationships with top advertisers such as presidential campaigns.
Brad Parscale, who was Trump’s online ads chief in 2016, last year called onsite “embeds” from Facebook crucial to the candidate’s victory. Facebook has said that Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton was offered identical help, but she accepted a different level than Trump.
Google and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests to comment on whether they also would pull back support.
So… Trump had some kind of mushroom power-up? 
I can’t think of why an established social media company would do that, except in hopes of currying favor with the winners. “Here’s your standard campaign account. Hire some Facebook expert contractors. Ciao!”
1 Like
2 Likes
Sadly thats one of those things where someone has to do it but should be well compensated and given all the support possible.
1 Like
1 Like
1 Like
1 Like
The ban on false information about voting methods, set to be announced later on Monday, comes six weeks after Senator Ron Wyden asked Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg how Facebook would counter posts aimed at suppressing votes, such as by telling certain users they could vote by text, a hoax that has been used to reduce turnout in the past.
The information on voting methods becomes one of the few areas in which falsehoods are prohibited on Facebook, a policy enforced by what the company calls “community standards” moderators, although application of its standards has been uneven. It will not stop the vast majority of untruthful posts about candidates or other election issues.
2 Likes
Well, I’m certainly placated!
It worked pretty well when NYC banned car-honking, which freed them up to solve all of the serious crimes (which, after all, are also banned).
2 Likes
The fake Facebook accounts originating in Iran mostly targeted American liberals, according to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, a thinktank that works with Facebook to study propaganda online.
2 Likes
