who is behind undecided8 ? Whois is private. Hosted on DigitalOcean in New Jersey. Don't know who registered it.pic.twitter.com/YSMkIEzk2n
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A brief thread on the Facebook ad and page problem (h/t to @TheLiberal_x and @TransparentRef) 1/ The day before Facebook introduced the new view ads feature in Ireland, this domain was registered:pic.twitter.com/uKEZHrE8Iy
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Website SSL cert registered the same day. Website has no details about who is behind the website, no about section, no transparency.pic.twitter.com/8maNmBw088
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500+ fans. First known post was the next day after website registration: April 25, 17.55.pic.twitter.com/dfRrH3djfW
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If the "view ads" option is unavailable in the menu, add "ad" to the URL as here. This lets you view the ads the page has been running.pic.twitter.com/fgEiFRQpV7
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Most recent ad on the list. Links to the website above. View ads won't let me see ad interactions such as comments/like count etc.pic.twitter.com/Y0gnQ2HHzp
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There are eight ad campaigns are variations of these. We don't know audience targeted (yet - FB have promised this). But I need to interrogate more than just "view ad". I need to see the ad interactions.pic.twitter.com/Lo1ZZ9Vgmw
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So summary so far: New website New Facebook page Facebook ad spend is happening We don't know who runs the Facebook page We don't know who registered the website We don't know who is paying for the ads
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Turning to the website itself: "Here are 8 unbiased facts"pic.twitter.com/hqg4dQrPxo
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This is pretty clearly a website setting itself as unbiased, but clearly not in favour of repeal.pic.twitter.com/DYmkNMGgqn
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If you think this is all ok and above board then we would strongly disagree. Facebook is facilitating this behaviour - whether they like it or not. The website won't get any traction without a Facebook page to promote it.
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Can we mandate by law that Facebook puts restrictions on this stuff, specifically within the context of a referendum. Yes we can. Facebook *won't like it* though - it creates barriers around anyone taking out ads *easily*. It regulates ads (at a minimum)
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Myself and
@TheLiberal_x are digging a little deeper here. Let's explore how Facebook *could* make it easy for you to link directly to the ads, but apparently choose not to...Show this thread -
Let's go to their most recent ad and, in Chrome, right click, inspect element. You see the number, 2433006.....pic.twitter.com/EcDLLW9cHi
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Copying that number and amending the page's url (as I highlight) you get the Facebook ad itself, including that 3 people liked it, and 5 people shared it. Facebook *could* have shown this, but decided to "grey out" links to the ad.pic.twitter.com/VwVxpKryKh
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This ad appears to have received the most interactions. 23 likes / 24 shares. Now if I go back to the first posted ad, see interactions and see first shares, I may be able to *infer* ownership to some degree. But only Facebook really knows.pic.twitter.com/EfgrOGXdCP
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Scanning through the ad interactions most accounts look Irish and legitimate (and pro retain the amendment). Comments are a mix of repeal/retain. But think about this: This page could easily have 5,000, or 10,000 or 100,000 fans. And we'd be none the wiser.
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I'm not sure people are getting the enormity of the consequences of stuff like this. It changes the entire information environment. As I have said for years now: only trust Facebook on what they do, not what they say. And what they're doing falls well short of what's needed.
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A brief addendum: I'm not sure people realise this but "view ads" doesn't appear to have just been launched in Ireland. I can see ads for all pages that I've checked. "Ads" is not in the UI, but amending the URL gives you the ads running for *any* page.pic.twitter.com/dykKCzX0VJ
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Of course if you were nosey: You'd built a list of pages, crawl the ads urls for the post IDs, and scrape the interaction counts to see how each ad is performing for any page. But that would be very nosey of you.
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I'd add another observation: this is one *brief* look into just *one* Facebook page buying ads related to
#repealthe8th. There are many others: and it's difficult to quantify the amount. There are many interconnected problems.Show this thread -
Our legislature needs to start taking this issue much, much more seriously than they have to date. Facebook has responsibilities too, but legislation is still needed. Unless you trust Zuckerberg with your democracy - then everything is just fine.
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Also: This is not limited to Facebook. This video ad just displayed on YouTube as pre-roll. We still don't know who is behind the ads.pic.twitter.com/m6A4oRM1Vg
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The YouTube account has 3 videos, with a combined 100k views in *one day*. No idea who is behind it. This channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZTDo9SvaHogEMiOJBvzgBA …pic.twitter.com/tnaZcrSjEp
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This one has 50k views in one day, which likely means lots of YouTube ads since yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVp-86v7gMQ …
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Ireland only has a couple of million voters folks. These ads are pre-roll, and we have no idea who is buying them. And - in reality - no meaningful law to oblige transparency or to regulate. They will be competing with
@RefCom_ie for ad space (and could be confused for them)Show this thread -
If politicians are not concerned about this, and if the Yes side are not concerned, they should be. These videos will potentially reach 1m views within days, at the current rate - targeted to Irish audiences.
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Eh there's a massive push going on right now: The view counts went up by 1,500-2,000 while I was writing these tweets.
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