A new study found that, on TikTok and Elon Musk's Twitter, nearly 3/4 of all partisan content being pushed algorithmically to German users favored the party best known for its ties to neo-Nazis.
This is an easy problem to solve. Denmark solved their right wing problem years ago. The centre left party adopted slightly tougher immigration policies and the right wing party last half their supporters almost overnight. Poll after poll across Europe finds the same: immigration is a major issue for voters. Get tougher on immigration and watch AfD disappear. It’s the easiest political win in history but so many parties refuse to do it. Bleating about social media influence is a losing battle. The internet is free and will remain free. It’s literally designed to work around censorship like it’s a damaged part of the network.
Hey boss, got rid of those nationalist xenophobes for you!
What did you do?
Oh, I just had to become a nationalist xenophobe! Now we cater to the widespread isolationist political demands manufactured by a few demagogues. But don’t worry, the demagogues didn’t get elected, so it’s alright!
“Hey boss I lost the election to right wing xenophobes.”
“Why?”
“I refused to give voters what they want in a democracy.”
Feel free to stay on your high horse. That doesn’t win election and I promise you, milquetoast immigration reform is better than what AfD is planning.
There are possibly a few things to unpack here, but I’m mostly concerned with the central implication I’m reading into this: Are you resigned to accepting that political power in modern democracies lies with those with the highest advertising budget and/or most ruthless advertising practices? That’s certainly an bleak and interesting thing to discuss, but I’m not entirely sure it’s what you meant. Is it, or am I reading this incorrectly?
No, but I don’t believe voters are mindless drones which vote for whatever they are told to. Do you? This contempt for voter agency is a major reason the AfD is polling so well.
What makes it tricky is, I think, that there are both kinds of voters so both viewpoints are kind of correct but piss the other side off with the implications.
E: typo
That’s probably a fair and nuanced take. Perhaps some voters are swayed by TikTok ads. I suppose I believe this contingent is small and inconsequential, while the person above believes it is large and consequential. Perhaps my perception is coloured by my belief in the principles of free speech. I think it is essential to the functioning of a democracy, and for science. Free speech only exists if we protect speech we don’t like. I grow very uneasy with equivocating over which political dissent is allowed. History has taught us that it is inevitably used for nefarious purposes eventually.
Popper’s paradox of tolerance gives in my view pretty clear guidelines on what to protect and what not to tolerate. I believe that if we held onto that, fascism would have a much harder time.
I am not an expert on political science, so I don’t know what the data tells us. The feeling I get from the world though is that the “impressionable” part is large enough to be consequential, in part because the “educated” part has already made up their minds.
It’s also not sufficient to talk specifically about ads in tiktok without considering them in the wider context of online messaging, all of which is going to be systemically tailored to feed into the same fears and shame.
Popper’s paradox of tolerance gives in my view pretty clear guidelines on what to protect and what not to tolerate. I believe that if we held onto that, fascism would have a much harder time.
Popper did make his line clear: physical violence.
“I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.”
So I agree with you. Tolerate up to the point of people using physical violence to enact their political aims.
I.e
I disagree; free speech only exists if we specifically reject speech that aims to suppress free speech, while accepting speech we don’t like but that doesn’t aim to suppress.
Can we do that? Can we draw the line? Why do so many believe there is no line to be drawn here?
No, but I don’t believe voters are mindless drones which vote for whatever they are told to. Do you?
No, I wouldn’t agree with that statement.
This contempt for voter agency is a major reason the AfD is polling so well.
Voters will vote in favor of addressing whatever issue is important to them. And whatever issue happens to be important to them can be influenced by advertising, just like the purchase decision of a customer. That’s why that 4-trillion-dollar industry, on par with the petrochemical sector, exists. That’s neither a secret nor an insult to individualism, but an academic and economic reality. Do you… not agree with that?
No. Advertising exists to inform people about products and services. I do not subscribe to the notion that advertising can convince an average voter to vote against their best interests or contra to facts. Not in a Western society in which one can easily obtain the facts on the internet. This might be true in a country like China where the internet is tightly controlled and facts aren’t easy to obtain.
In the West yes, people can obtain information on the internet… But will they?
With declining economy and increasing disinfo, we don’t have the time to sift through all the nonsense and obtain the actual facts. We might as well be living in China.
Did you follow what happened when a lot of American TikTok users made a trip to Rednote, a Chinese lifestyle app, to escape the looming ban earlier this year? The Americans discovered that a lot of what they knew about China was propaganda. The Chinese, to their horror, discovered what they knew about America, that they assumed to be propaganda, was correct…
I think you are falsely equating the choice not to seek out new knowledge with the belief that the adverts one sees on TikTok are all correct. I understand you believe the latter is a serious problem. I just do not. I have much more respect and faith in the average person.
One does really not have to believe such things at all to be influenced by such platforms, especially if there is intent behind controlling its algorithm. Do you understand how recommendation systems work ans why them being black boxes is so dangerous on a big platform like TT?
Wait, you’re both saying people voted for Brexit out of their own free will but also that advertising doesn’t persuade people? How do you explain Cambridge Analytica literally influencing millions of people to vote for Brexit? (a vote won by 2% margin btw) - like why would the right-wing establishment pay for ads if not to sway public opinion?
Do you really think neoliberals spent millions to inform people why Brexit is good for them actually because that was factual information people couldn’t have found otherwise?
I don’t know what you think you’re proving with that link. Do you think I’m arguing that political advertising isn’t real? Because I never argued that. Cambridge Analytica scraped a lot of Facebook data, and it is claimed they used that data to advertise to potential voters. So what? That’s how democracy works: convincing potential voters of the righteousness of your cause. Are you arguing that people should no longer be allowed to debate and inform each other in a democracy?
You’re equating Cambridge Analytica’s targeted psychological manipulation based on secretly harvested personal data with ordinary citizens debating each other. Do you really see no difference between billion-dollar campaigns using Al to exploit psychological vulnerabilities and regular people discussing politics? Who exactly is doing the ‘convincing’ in your version of democracy?
No. Advertising exists to inform people about products and services. I do not subscribe to the notion that advertising can convince an average voter to vote against their best interests or contra to facts.
Then I commend for your idealism and congratulate you further for never having had anything to do with the cancerous growth on humanity’s back that is the advertising industry. Keep it that way, you’re already making the world a slightly better place by staying away. But no, it unfortunately does not work as you describe it. Spending X on advertising will increase your product sales by Y. That’s the simple equation that justifies the industry’s existence - and it works. Helping consumers (or voters) to make informed decisions does not factor into it.
Not in a Western society in which one can easily obtain the facts on the internet. This might be true in a country like China where the internet is tightly controlled and facts aren’t easy to obtain.
You’d think that, yeah, it’s absolutely natural! But then you could also consider that even though a rural forest warden in the Harz mountains may hold and be entitled to opinions on, for example, both bark beetle control and foreign policy, he’ll only ever be able to make a truly informed decision on how one these issues should be handled in his best interest. For the other he’ll substitute a lifetime of proficiency with whatever is available. And that may or may not be in his best interest.
That’s how everybody does it. Spending your lifetime immersed in academic peace-and-conflict-studies for example might leave you to conclude that in a world of squabbling monkey tribes, transnational governing bodies with actual agency and legislative weight like the EU are, so far, humanity’s greatest and most unlikely achievement and that maintaining, growing and strengthening them while further eroding national borders is a reliable (and possibly the only) way to ensure sustainable peace and prosperity for everybody. And after reaching that conclusion you’d think “Why is this not obvious to everybody? The facts are freely available.” They are not. They are there, but in a complex world the cost to aquire them is high. Few will spend six months researching a tricky solution if they already got tricked by somebody else into believing that there’s an easy solution. That’s not on them though, that’s on the trickster.
And now I’ll probably dive into reading about bark beetles for a week because I’ve nerd-sniped myself. But that’s another thing: I can just do that. I have a well-paying job and plenty of spare time. In other words, I have a high budget to spend on informed decisions. That’s a bit of a tangent from the original topic but the gist is: If you wish to assume ideal voters then you quickly arrive at ultimate socio-economic and educational equality as a necessary prerequisite for a working democracy.
Spending X on advertising will increase your product sales by Y.
Because it exposes products to customers who were otherwise unaware of their existence or features, not because advertising has special brainwashing powers.
I think there is an implied argument you are making that unless people vote the “correct” way, they’re misinformed. I think some people just have different priorities. They care about different things and for this reason, consume different media. I was horrified to learn my wife clicks on ads when she’s shopping. Apparently that works for her. It doesn’t mean she’s wrong. Just that she’s not as rigorous about her selection process because she’s ultimately happy with the outcome.
Because it exposes products to customers who were otherwise unaware of their existence or features, not because advertising has special brainwashing powers.
I think there is an implied argument you are making that unless people vote the “correct” way, they’re misinformed. I think some people just have different priorities. They care about different things and for this reason, consume different media. I was horrified to learn my wife clicks on ads when she’s shopping. Apparently that works for her. It doesn’t mean she’s wrong. Just that she’s not as rigorous about her selection process because she’s ultimately happy with the outcome.
I personally wouldn’t make much of a distinction between “I remotely made a group of people do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done” and “I have special brainwashing powers”, but that’s beside the point. You can look into ‘persuasive technology’ if you’re interested in the current SOTA.
The more pertinent things in this context are the, as you put it, product’s “existence or features” - because their existence, quality or veracity of claimed features has no bearing on whether the advertising works. It just does. Convince others that you have the solution to their problem and they will buy it - whether it solves the problem or not. Or go for the good old industry tradition of creating your own market niche by manufacturing demand that previously didn’t exist: 1. Convince others that they have a problem and then 2. convince them to buy your solution to it.
We could make a distinction between terminal goals and instrumental goals (if you’re interested) but it’s not that important, for simplicity’s sake I can just agree with “different people having different priorities”. And while there’s a spectrum, there absolutely are incorrect purchase decisions. Products that don’t work, products that don’t exist, products that solve problems that you don’t have. You can see how this applies to advertising, political will and democratic elections?
I deliberately used the word “tricked” earlier, because I think “misinformed” still carries some connotation that there’s some onus on the informee here - there isn’t. The victim of a con artist is always just that, a victim.
Hey boss, got rid of those nationalist xenophobes for you!
What did you do?
Oh, I just had to become a nationalist xenophobe! Now we cater to the widespread isolationist political demands manufactured by a few demagogues. But don’t worry, the demagogues didn’t get elected, so it’s alright!
“Hey boss I lost the election to right wing xenophobes.”
“Why?”
“I refused to give voters what they want in a democracy.”
Feel free to stay on your high horse. That doesn’t win election and I promise you, milquetoast immigration reform is better than what AfD is planning.
There are possibly a few things to unpack here, but I’m mostly concerned with the central implication I’m reading into this: Are you resigned to accepting that political power in modern democracies lies with those with the highest advertising budget and/or most ruthless advertising practices? That’s certainly an bleak and interesting thing to discuss, but I’m not entirely sure it’s what you meant. Is it, or am I reading this incorrectly?
No, but I don’t believe voters are mindless drones which vote for whatever they are told to. Do you? This contempt for voter agency is a major reason the AfD is polling so well.
What makes it tricky is, I think, that there are both kinds of voters so both viewpoints are kind of correct but piss the other side off with the implications. E: typo
That’s probably a fair and nuanced take. Perhaps some voters are swayed by TikTok ads. I suppose I believe this contingent is small and inconsequential, while the person above believes it is large and consequential. Perhaps my perception is coloured by my belief in the principles of free speech. I think it is essential to the functioning of a democracy, and for science. Free speech only exists if we protect speech we don’t like. I grow very uneasy with equivocating over which political dissent is allowed. History has taught us that it is inevitably used for nefarious purposes eventually.
Popper’s paradox of tolerance gives in my view pretty clear guidelines on what to protect and what not to tolerate. I believe that if we held onto that, fascism would have a much harder time.
I am not an expert on political science, so I don’t know what the data tells us. The feeling I get from the world though is that the “impressionable” part is large enough to be consequential, in part because the “educated” part has already made up their minds.
It’s also not sufficient to talk specifically about ads in tiktok without considering them in the wider context of online messaging, all of which is going to be systemically tailored to feed into the same fears and shame.
Popper did make his line clear: physical violence.
So I agree with you. Tolerate up to the point of people using physical violence to enact their political aims.
I.e I disagree; free speech only exists if we specifically reject speech that aims to suppress free speech, while accepting speech we don’t like but that doesn’t aim to suppress.
Can we do that? Can we draw the line? Why do so many believe there is no line to be drawn here?
No, I wouldn’t agree with that statement.
Voters will vote in favor of addressing whatever issue is important to them. And whatever issue happens to be important to them can be influenced by advertising, just like the purchase decision of a customer. That’s why that 4-trillion-dollar industry, on par with the petrochemical sector, exists. That’s neither a secret nor an insult to individualism, but an academic and economic reality. Do you… not agree with that?
No. Advertising exists to inform people about products and services. I do not subscribe to the notion that advertising can convince an average voter to vote against their best interests or contra to facts. Not in a Western society in which one can easily obtain the facts on the internet. This might be true in a country like China where the internet is tightly controlled and facts aren’t easy to obtain.
In the West yes, people can obtain information on the internet… But will they?
With declining economy and increasing disinfo, we don’t have the time to sift through all the nonsense and obtain the actual facts. We might as well be living in China.
Did you follow what happened when a lot of American TikTok users made a trip to Rednote, a Chinese lifestyle app, to escape the looming ban earlier this year? The Americans discovered that a lot of what they knew about China was propaganda. The Chinese, to their horror, discovered what they knew about America, that they assumed to be propaganda, was correct…
I think you are falsely equating the choice not to seek out new knowledge with the belief that the adverts one sees on TikTok are all correct. I understand you believe the latter is a serious problem. I just do not. I have much more respect and faith in the average person.
One does really not have to believe such things at all to be influenced by such platforms, especially if there is intent behind controlling its algorithm. Do you understand how recommendation systems work ans why them being black boxes is so dangerous on a big platform like TT?
Wait, you’re both saying people voted for Brexit out of their own free will but also that advertising doesn’t persuade people? How do you explain Cambridge Analytica literally influencing millions of people to vote for Brexit? (a vote won by 2% margin btw) - like why would the right-wing establishment pay for ads if not to sway public opinion?
Do you really think neoliberals spent millions to inform people why Brexit is good for them actually because that was factual information people couldn’t have found otherwise?
I don’t know what you think you’re proving with that link. Do you think I’m arguing that political advertising isn’t real? Because I never argued that. Cambridge Analytica scraped a lot of Facebook data, and it is claimed they used that data to advertise to potential voters. So what? That’s how democracy works: convincing potential voters of the righteousness of your cause. Are you arguing that people should no longer be allowed to debate and inform each other in a democracy?
You’re equating Cambridge Analytica’s targeted psychological manipulation based on secretly harvested personal data with ordinary citizens debating each other. Do you really see no difference between billion-dollar campaigns using Al to exploit psychological vulnerabilities and regular people discussing politics? Who exactly is doing the ‘convincing’ in your version of democracy?
Then I commend for your idealism and congratulate you further for never having had anything to do with the cancerous growth on humanity’s back that is the advertising industry. Keep it that way, you’re already making the world a slightly better place by staying away. But no, it unfortunately does not work as you describe it. Spending X on advertising will increase your product sales by Y. That’s the simple equation that justifies the industry’s existence - and it works. Helping consumers (or voters) to make informed decisions does not factor into it.
You’d think that, yeah, it’s absolutely natural! But then you could also consider that even though a rural forest warden in the Harz mountains may hold and be entitled to opinions on, for example, both bark beetle control and foreign policy, he’ll only ever be able to make a truly informed decision on how one these issues should be handled in his best interest. For the other he’ll substitute a lifetime of proficiency with whatever is available. And that may or may not be in his best interest.
That’s how everybody does it. Spending your lifetime immersed in academic peace-and-conflict-studies for example might leave you to conclude that in a world of squabbling monkey tribes, transnational governing bodies with actual agency and legislative weight like the EU are, so far, humanity’s greatest and most unlikely achievement and that maintaining, growing and strengthening them while further eroding national borders is a reliable (and possibly the only) way to ensure sustainable peace and prosperity for everybody. And after reaching that conclusion you’d think “Why is this not obvious to everybody? The facts are freely available.” They are not. They are there, but in a complex world the cost to aquire them is high. Few will spend six months researching a tricky solution if they already got tricked by somebody else into believing that there’s an easy solution. That’s not on them though, that’s on the trickster.
And now I’ll probably dive into reading about bark beetles for a week because I’ve nerd-sniped myself. But that’s another thing: I can just do that. I have a well-paying job and plenty of spare time. In other words, I have a high budget to spend on informed decisions. That’s a bit of a tangent from the original topic but the gist is: If you wish to assume ideal voters then you quickly arrive at ultimate socio-economic and educational equality as a necessary prerequisite for a working democracy.
Because it exposes products to customers who were otherwise unaware of their existence or features, not because advertising has special brainwashing powers.
I think there is an implied argument you are making that unless people vote the “correct” way, they’re misinformed. I think some people just have different priorities. They care about different things and for this reason, consume different media. I was horrified to learn my wife clicks on ads when she’s shopping. Apparently that works for her. It doesn’t mean she’s wrong. Just that she’s not as rigorous about her selection process because she’s ultimately happy with the outcome.
I personally wouldn’t make much of a distinction between “I remotely made a group of people do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done” and “I have special brainwashing powers”, but that’s beside the point. You can look into ‘persuasive technology’ if you’re interested in the current SOTA.
The more pertinent things in this context are the, as you put it, product’s “existence or features” - because their existence, quality or veracity of claimed features has no bearing on whether the advertising works. It just does. Convince others that you have the solution to their problem and they will buy it - whether it solves the problem or not. Or go for the good old industry tradition of creating your own market niche by manufacturing demand that previously didn’t exist: 1. Convince others that they have a problem and then 2. convince them to buy your solution to it.
We could make a distinction between terminal goals and instrumental goals (if you’re interested) but it’s not that important, for simplicity’s sake I can just agree with “different people having different priorities”. And while there’s a spectrum, there absolutely are incorrect purchase decisions. Products that don’t work, products that don’t exist, products that solve problems that you don’t have. You can see how this applies to advertising, political will and democratic elections?
I deliberately used the word “tricked” earlier, because I think “misinformed” still carries some connotation that there’s some onus on the informee here - there isn’t. The victim of a con artist is always just that, a victim.