November 1, 2017 • 6 mins
It's obvious now that social networks like Facebook became targets of foreign agents aiming to influence the 2016 election in the United States. What happens next?
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Between June two thousand fifteen and May two thousand seventeen,
four hundred seventy Facebook accounts purporting to be legitimate American
organizations flooded Facebook with political ads. The big problem these
profiles linked back to Russia. I'm John and Strickland and
this is tech stuff Daily. Let's start at the beginning.
(00:27):
In two thousand fifteen, as the road to the election
was solidifying, political ads and related content found their way
on all major forms of media. That includes everything from
billboards on the side of the highway up to expensive television.
Add time, social networks like Facebook were also popular platforms.
An ongoing investigation into the ten election and the possibility
(00:50):
that foreign powers interfered with it uncovered an issue with
some of those ads. A collection of them on Facebook,
numbering more than three thousand ads in tow total, came
not from legitimate sources in America, but rather from Russian accounts.
Those three thousand ads may have reached as many as
ten million people and yet cost only one thousand dollars.
(01:13):
That's a pretty big reach for relatively small investment, and
considering the goal was to influence the outcome of a
major election, it's a real wake up call. But wait,
it gets worse. According to the Pew Research Center, of
Americans get their news from Facebook rather than from traditional
sources like newspapers or television, and researchers have been looking
(01:36):
into how clickbait sites use tools like Facebook's early ads
spending to get widespread notice. By spending some money on Facebook,
you can boost a post's reach to hit a larger audience.
Numerous clickbait sites, which exists solely to rack up as
many page views as possible, use these tactics to entice
people into clicking on various articles, and both the Russian
(01:58):
ads and the clickbait articles tend to rely heavily on
some ugly tactics. The ads, for example, didn't focus so
much on specific candidates. Perhaps this was the Russian actor's
attempts to create a plausible distance between Russia and the
specific people running for office. Instead, the ads focused on
divisive issues, including ones about racial equality, gay rights, gun control, immigration,
(02:23):
and similar subjects. Most of the ads didn't point at
a specific candidate to support or oppose, but implied very
heavily a support for Donald Trump as president. And so
we now have an investigation looking at Facebook as well
as other online platforms including Google and Twitter, to see
how foreign agents may have used those platforms in order
(02:43):
to sway the American public to support or oppose particular candidates.
The evidence seems to suggest that this sort of hanky
panky was definitely happening. The extent of its effectiveness is
still up for debate. Facebook's chief operating officer, Cheryl san Berg,
has said the company apologizes for its permissive ad policies.
(03:04):
She also says that people at Facebook are sad and
angry that their tools have been used to manipulate voters.
According to some x Facebook employees who spoke with Variety
on the subject, many feel a deep sense of regret
for having developed the tools in the first place. To
be a little fair to Facebook, the company is a business.
It's a business that makes its revenue from advertising. Add
(03:25):
companies pay Facebook to serve ads up against the social
media content on the site. From a purely financial standpoint,
Facebook had little incentive to look too closely at any
particular ad. After all, that was money coming into the company.
Why look a gift horse in the mouth. In the
wake of this scandal, Facebook is taking steps to make
sure similar scenarios don't play out in the future. There's
(03:47):
another election coming up in eighteen in the United States,
and Facebook doesn't want to repeat of sixteen. To that end,
the company is hiring one thousand people to help hand
review ads that are political in nature or ones that
target issues like racial equality. The reviews will attempt to
determine the real origin for such ads and make sure
foreign entities aren't meddling in the political affairs of the
(04:10):
United States. Facebook's chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, has said
that the company's goal is to create automated technical solutions
to this problem. Facebook is an enormous platform that serves
more than a billion people. At that scale, reviewing everything
by hand isn't really feasible or practical, but the company
needs to make sure that the automated approach is a
(04:30):
really reliable approach before handing over the controls. Meanwhile, Russia
has denied all allegations that any state agents were responsible
for meddling, and Donald Trump's administration has dismissed any suggestion
of collusion, and Facebook's general counsel is preparing to stand
in front of an investigative panel acting on behalf of
the United States House of Representatives. The panel also expects
(04:53):
to hear from representatives from Google and Twitter on the matter,
and that will all begin on November one. You as
politicians have started to formulate demands that social networking sites
disclose who is actually funding online political advertising. The industry
is mobilizing efforts to put lobbyists and lawyers in place
to help shape any potential legislation and presumably minimize the
(05:16):
financial impact the companies would encounter as a result of
new laws. The bottom line is that while the Internet
continues to play an increasingly important role as a source
of information, there are not nearly as many measures in
place to guide how that information is funded and rolled
out to an audience. The question now is will social
media companies find ways to address this problem that will
(05:37):
stave off regulatory legislation. That's all for today. To learn
more about the power of social media and everything else
tech related, subscribe to the Tech Stuff podcast. I'll see
you again soon.
Between June two thousand fifteen and May two thousand seventeen,
four hundred seventy Facebook accounts purporting to be legitimate American
organizations flooded Facebook with political ads. The big problem these
profiles linked back to Russia. I'm John and Strickland and
this is tech stuff Daily. Let's start at the beginning.
(00:27):
In two thousand fifteen, as the road to the election
was solidifying, political ads and related content found their way
on all major forms of media. That includes everything from
billboards on the side of the highway up to expensive television.
Add time, social networks like Facebook were also popular platforms.
An ongoing investigation into the ten election and the possibility
(00:50):
that foreign powers interfered with it uncovered an issue with
some of those ads. A collection of them on Facebook,
numbering more than three thousand ads in tow total, came
not from legitimate sources in America, but rather from Russian accounts.
Those three thousand ads may have reached as many as
ten million people and yet cost only one thousand dollars.
(01:13):
That's a pretty big reach for relatively small investment, and
considering the goal was to influence the outcome of a
major election, it's a real wake up call. But wait,
it gets worse. According to the Pew Research Center, of
Americans get their news from Facebook rather than from traditional
sources like newspapers or television, and researchers have been looking
(01:36):
into how clickbait sites use tools like Facebook's early ads
spending to get widespread notice. By spending some money on Facebook,
you can boost a post's reach to hit a larger audience.
Numerous clickbait sites, which exists solely to rack up as
many page views as possible, use these tactics to entice
people into clicking on various articles, and both the Russian
(01:58):
ads and the clickbait articles tend to rely heavily on
some ugly tactics. The ads, for example, didn't focus so
much on specific candidates. Perhaps this was the Russian actor's
attempts to create a plausible distance between Russia and the
specific people running for office. Instead, the ads focused on
divisive issues, including ones about racial equality, gay rights, gun control, immigration,
(02:23):
and similar subjects. Most of the ads didn't point at
a specific candidate to support or oppose, but implied very
heavily a support for Donald Trump as president. And so
we now have an investigation looking at Facebook as well
as other online platforms including Google and Twitter, to see
how foreign agents may have used those platforms in order
(02:43):
to sway the American public to support or oppose particular candidates.
The evidence seems to suggest that this sort of hanky
panky was definitely happening. The extent of its effectiveness is
still up for debate. Facebook's chief operating officer, Cheryl san Berg,
has said the company apologizes for its permissive ad policies.
(03:04):
She also says that people at Facebook are sad and
angry that their tools have been used to manipulate voters.
According to some x Facebook employees who spoke with Variety
on the subject, many feel a deep sense of regret
for having developed the tools in the first place. To
be a little fair to Facebook, the company is a business.
It's a business that makes its revenue from advertising. Add
(03:25):
companies pay Facebook to serve ads up against the social
media content on the site. From a purely financial standpoint,
Facebook had little incentive to look too closely at any
particular ad. After all, that was money coming into the company.
Why look a gift horse in the mouth. In the
wake of this scandal, Facebook is taking steps to make
sure similar scenarios don't play out in the future. There's
(03:47):
another election coming up in eighteen in the United States,
and Facebook doesn't want to repeat of sixteen. To that end,
the company is hiring one thousand people to help hand
review ads that are political in nature or ones that
target issues like racial equality. The reviews will attempt to
determine the real origin for such ads and make sure
foreign entities aren't meddling in the political affairs of the
(04:10):
United States. Facebook's chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, has said
that the company's goal is to create automated technical solutions
to this problem. Facebook is an enormous platform that serves
more than a billion people. At that scale, reviewing everything
by hand isn't really feasible or practical, but the company
needs to make sure that the automated approach is a
(04:30):
really reliable approach before handing over the controls. Meanwhile, Russia
has denied all allegations that any state agents were responsible
for meddling, and Donald Trump's administration has dismissed any suggestion
of collusion, and Facebook's general counsel is preparing to stand
in front of an investigative panel acting on behalf of
the United States House of Representatives. The panel also expects
(04:53):
to hear from representatives from Google and Twitter on the matter,
and that will all begin on November one. You as
politicians have started to formulate demands that social networking sites
disclose who is actually funding online political advertising. The industry
is mobilizing efforts to put lobbyists and lawyers in place
to help shape any potential legislation and presumably minimize the
(05:16):
financial impact the companies would encounter as a result of
new laws. The bottom line is that while the Internet
continues to play an increasingly important role as a source
of information, there are not nearly as many measures in
place to guide how that information is funded and rolled
out to an audience. The question now is will social
media companies find ways to address this problem that will
(05:37):
stave off regulatory legislation. That's all for today. To learn
more about the power of social media and everything else
tech related, subscribe to the Tech Stuff podcast. I'll see
you again soon.
TechStuff Daily News
Host
Jonathan Strickland
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.