Commentary
Social Media Ads Can't Pass The TV Test
- by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, October 3, 2017
Can you tell what is a Russian-backed fake news/message? It may not be what you think.
The following is from a Twitter account called @LGBTuni -- for LGBT United -- believed to be a Russian-backed social media message:
“We speak for all fellow members of the LGBT community across the nation. Gender preference does not define you. Your spirit defines you.” Yes. That was a Russian-backed fake-news message, according to The New York Times.
As is this one from “Defend the 2nd” on Facebook:
A political ad showed a black-and-white close-up picture of a woman holding a revolver close to her face. “Why Do I Have A Gun?” the display ad asks. “Because it is easier for my family to get me out of jail than out of cemetery.”
It’s the ad's last three words where something is out of whack -- the grammar. The phrase “... out of cemetery” is missing the word “a” before “cemetery.”
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Another Facebook message and display ad from “Secured Borders” talked about “liberals trying to forbid me from saying Merry Christmas... Thankfully this PC absurd soon will be over.”
These messages might yield a head-scratching moment. Recent social media Russian-backed political messages are all over the map: politically right and left, anti-immigration, pro-gun rights, as well as pro-LGBT and Black Live Matters.
Facebook says 3,000 of these Russian-backed ads infiltrated its platform during the 2016 presidential campaign. After releasing these ads to Congress, Facebook now says it will hire 1,000 people to review social media ads.
Now imagine some of these messages appearing on TV.
They would yield somewhat different results, because there is a lot more oversight for TV ads. For decades now, TV networks have had standards-and-practices departments for on-air advertising content. In addition, there are specific on-air FCC rules concerning political advertising.
Is there a deeper context here -- any clear political point of view? Nope. That’s not the point. It seems to be a “long-con,” which means building trust over days and weeks and then closing the deal. And if that doesn’t work, just create obfuscation, confusion and doubt.
Open your Facebook or Twitter app in the next day or so. Take an extra moment to mull over a message, tweet or ad and ask a key question: Where did this come from -- and why?
Wayne Friedman is West Coast Editor of MediaPost. You can reach Wayne at wayne@mediapost.com.
And we pay for this higher-level curation on TV (and other) advertising. As advertisers with higher costs, and as consumers with terrible ad experiences. In exchange, we know there are standards.
Facebook has very different standards for both content and advertising. And while interfering with elections obviously oversteps their freedom to ignore the problem, I don't expect much will happen. After all -- the existence of these ads doesn't harm or interfere with my own ad experience (unlike YouTube, where my ad can be sponsoring terrorist propoganda).
At the end of the day, a fake ad falls into the feed just like a comment from my crazy uncle or someone from high school who still lives off his parents. The ad is cheaper, and the consumer ad experience is less intrusive, so people will keep tolerating low standards.