SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook said it would not disclose information about political campaign advertising or related data such as how many users click on ads and if advertising messages are consistent across demographics, despite arguments from political scientists who want the data for research.
Details such as the frequency of ads, how much money was spent on them, where they were seen, what the messages were and how many people were reached would remain confidential under the company’s corporate policy, which is the same for political advertising as for commercial customers.
“Advertisers consider their ad creatives and their ad targeting strategy to be competitively sensitive and confidential,” Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer, said in an interview on Wednesday, when asked about political ads.
“In many cases, they’ll ask us, as a condition of running ads on Facebook, not to disclose those details about how they’re running campaigns on our service,” he said. “From our perspective, it’s confidential information of these advertisers.”
Sherman said it would not make an exception for political advertising. “We try to have consistent policies across the board, so that we’re imposing similar requirements on everybody.”
Academics who study political campaigns worldwide said this kind of information fosters accountability by analyzing how candidates compete for votes and whether election systems live up to expectations of fairness. Transparency can also deter fraudulent ads, they said.
“We don’t have the capacity right now to track it, and nobody does, as far as we can tell,” said Bowdoin College Prof. Michael Franz, a co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which catalogs political ads on traditional television but has no means of doing so on Facebook.
Television has been the backbone of political advertising for decades, and local US broadcasters are required to disclose a wealth of details about the cost and schedules of ads. The ads can be seen by anyone with a television provided they are aired in their markets.
Online advertising, though, often targets narrow, more carefully constructed audiences, so for example an ad could be directed only to Democrats under 25 years of age.
Thousands of variations of online ads can be directed at select groups and the targeting can be extreme. Academics argue this is where the process can become very opaque.
“Candidates can speak out of both sides of their mouths,” said Daniel Kreiss, a communications professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Having some kind of digital repository of ads that are purchased during a particular cycle and linked to a particular source is a good, democratic thing for the public.”
No such repository exists, and the quandary for researchers is expected to worsen as more politicians use digital advertising because of its relatively low cost and opportunities for target marketing.
According to US President Donald Trump’s campaign, $70 million was spent for its ads on Facebook, more than on any other digital platform including Google, and Trump has credited Facebook with helping him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton last November.
Advertising on Facebook also figured prominently in recent elections in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, researchers said.
Britain is investigating how candidates use data to target voters.
Facebook ads generally disappear with the scroll of a thumb on a smartphone, and they have no permanent links. Advocates for transparency call them “dark ads.” Facebook calls them “unpublished posts.”
Researchers said that disclosure reports from the US Federal Election Commission are unhelpful because they show what campaigns pay to intermediaries, not to Internet platforms.
The role of advertising online is as important to study as the effect of so-called “fake news,” which has received more attention than ads, scholars said.
“The holy grail, I think, of political analysis for the 2016 election is to figure out which communications from which entities had an effect on which jurisdictions in the United States,” said Nathan Persily, a Stanford University professor who writes about elections.
Facebook has such information and should make it available for study, Persily said.
Facebook’s Sherman said the company was open to hearing research proposals, but he doubted much could be achieved.
“Even if we were able to be more transparent in this area, it would only be a very small piece of an overall story,” he said.
Facebook to keep wraps on political ads data despite researchers’ demands
Facebook to keep wraps on political ads data despite researchers’ demands
AI will never replace human creativity, says SRMG CEO
- Speaking to Maya Hojeij, senior business anchor at Asharq with Bloomberg, Jomana R. Alrashid expressed pride in SRMG platforms that had absorbed and adopted AI
RIYADH: Jomana R. Alrashid, CEO of Saudi Research and Media Group, highlighted how AI cannot replace human creativity during a session at The Family Office’s “Investing Is a Sea” summit at Shura Island on Friday.
“You can never replace human creativity. Journalism at the end of the day, and content creation, is all about storytelling, and that’s a creative role that AI does not have the power to do just yet,” Alrashid told the investment summit.
“We will never eliminate that human role which comes in to actually tell that story, do the actual investigative reporting around it, make sure to be able to also tell you what’s news or what’s factual from what’s wrong ... what’s a misinformation from bias, and that’s the bigger role that the editorial player does in the newsroom.”
Speaking on the topic of AI, moderated by Maya Hojeij, senior business anchor at Asharq with Bloomberg, the CEO expressed her pride in SRMG platforms that had absorbed and adopted AI in a way that was “transformative.”
“We are now translating all of our content leveraging AI. We are also now being able to create documentaries leveraging AI. We now have AI-facilitated fact-checking, AI facilities clipping, transcribing. This is what we believe is the future.”
Alrashid was asked what the journalist of the future would look like. “He’s a journalist and an engineer. He’s someone who needs to understand data. And I think this is another topic that is extremely important, understanding the data that you’re working with,” she said.
“This is something that AI has facilitated as well. I must say that over the past 20 years in the region, especially when it comes to media companies, we did not understand the importance of data.”
The CEO highlighted that previously, media would rely on polling, surveys or viewership numbers, but now more detailed information about what viewers wanted was available.
During the fireside session, Alrashid was asked how the international community viewed the Middle Eastern media. Alrashid said that over the past decades it had played a critical role in informing wider audiences about issues that were extremely complex — politically, culturally and economically — and continued to play that role.
“Right now it has a bigger role to play, given the role again of social media, citizen journalists, content creators. But I also do believe that it has been facilitated by the power that AI has. Now immediately, you can ensure that that kind of content that is being created by credible, tier-A journalists, world-class journalists, can travel beyond its borders, can travel instantly to target different geographies, different people, different countries, in different languages, in different formats.”
She said that there was a big opportunity for Arab media not to be limited to simply Arab consumption, but to finally transcend borders and be available in different languages and to cater to their audiences.
The CEO expressed optimism about the future, emphasizing the importance of having a clear vision, a strong strategy, and full team alignment.
Traditional advertising models, once centered on television and print, were rapidly changing, with social media platforms now dominating advertising revenue.
“It’s drastically changing. Ultimately in the past, we used to compete with one another over viewership. But now we’re also competing with the likes of social media platforms; 80 percent of the advertising revenue in the Middle East goes to the social media platforms, but that means that there’s 80 percent interest opportunities.”
She said that the challenge was to create the right content on these platforms that engaged the target audiences and enabled commercial partnerships. “I don’t think this is a secret, but brands do not like to advertise with news channels. Ultimately, it’s always related with either conflict or war, which is a deterrent to advertisers.
“And that’s why we’ve entered new verticals such as sports. And that’s why we also double down on our lifestyle vertical. Ultimately, we have the largest market share when it comes to lifestyle ... And we’ve launched new platforms such as Billboard Arabia that gives us an entry into music.”
Alrashid said this was why the group was in a strong position to counter the decline in advertising revenues across different platforms, and by introducing new products.
“Another very important IP that we’ve created is events attached to the brands that have been operating in the region for 30-plus years. Any IP or any title right now that doesn’t have an event attached to it is missing out on a very big commercial opportunity that allows us to sit in a room, exchange ideas, talk to one another, get to know one another behind the screen.”
The CEO said that disruption was now constant and often self-driving, adding that the future of the industry was often in storytelling and the ability to innovate by creating persuasive content that connected directly with the audience.
“But the next disruption is going to continue to come from AI. And how quickly this tool and this very powerful technology evolves. And whether we are in a position to cope with it, adapt to it, and absorb it fully or not.”
