Clarification: 15 billion scam ads per day, $16 billion USD.

People seem to think democracy is ineffective, while autocrats get things done. But this case shows something we know: as autocrats purge dissenters and hire yes-men, their hubris leads to self-destructive mistakes. It is counterintuitive, but autocrats perform worse than deliberative democracies.

(Rephrasing) it is sad for people who would like to go, but not sad for the business and people in Florida who voted for this. De Santis announces this publicly because he thinks dismantling us power is apparently a popular policy in Florida.

I actually think there is an overemphasis on specific malicious actors. It does nothing to fix a system that can be (or perhaps it is designed to be) abused to spread incendiary content for profit. It is more yelling at the void.

I never thought of it in that way, but you are right.

My work is precisely on that. An overemphasis on rogue actors is unproductive since the industry and the market is geared towards producing disinformation. Here a link to my book.

doi.org/10.4324/9781...

A spokesperson for Google: "the TTPA defines political advertising so broadly that it could cover ads related to an extremely wide range of issues that would be difficult to reliably identify at scale."

Does she know Google does programmatic advertising at scale?

blog.google/around-the-g...

"The ad archives were introduced 7 years ago (...) to allow for scrutiny of campaigns, and also to provide a historical record so we could go back and look at what had been promised, and what had been spent, and to see if this lined up with what happened later."

www.thebriefing.ie/google-just-...

Follow the money

"Most brands do not want to be associated with hate speech and bot farms, but they are. It is easy to look the other way in such a technically complicated market, but marketers have a responsibility. Brands become complicit by remaining silent."

theconversation.com/disinformati...

I have documented the issue in my own research, explaining how advertisers justify not knowing how their brand budgets are helping fund fake news.

Hint: Programmatic advertising creates a black hole that marketers are not keen to open.

doi.org/10.1080/0267...

Back in February, the BBC reported how Google and Amazon are placing ads on the most horrible content.

Did digital marketers know? Apparently, no. How is it possible?

Advertisers give money to AdTech vendors, and in return, they receive a "trust me, bro" graph.

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

A while ago, a report by Adalytics demonstrated that Adtech vendors are profiting from child sexual abuse material by placing ads there... brands were not aware.

How is it possible that brands did not know they are helping fund this horrible content? Good question.

adalytics.io/blog/adtech-...

Hannah Arendt: On the Banality of Evil.

You have armed soldiers in your streets, kidnapping people with face coverings. And yet, the people seem more inclined to follow the outrage of the week, because, apparently, an AI video is more exciting.

Organizing is hard work, and work seems less exciting than the latest rant.

Is it? If you had told me 15 years ago that armed and masked troops would be kidnapping people on the streets of American cities, I would have expected Americans to resist like hell nonstop.

Now, they get easily distracted by whatever new rant or AI video. Many seem to be already bored.

You are right.

It is boring to focus on what is important: it requires dedication. It is easier to go with whatever is the outrage of the week: maybe some silly AI video or another rant.

Doing the hard work is not exciting; it is mostly boring. But that is precisely what needs to be done.

I sincerely hope you are right.

You wrote it much better than I did. Americans appear to be easily distracted by the outrage of the week. It seems that it is impossible to keep attention on what is important, because an AI video is more exciting.