Marketing domestic war
Facebook targets pro-violence advertising to – naturally – the people most likely to use it.
As part of my research while working as a consulting producer on Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, I made many pro-Trump social media accounts. The accounts were a window into the Trump echo-chamber, where the unhinged threats and vitriol posted by radicalized users are chilling. Yet as shocking as the posts can be, they make perfect sense if you look at the ads that bombard those accounts.
Roughly four out of five ads shown to my pro-Trump profiles sell tactical gear clearly intended for combat. This is not a new thing – it has been going on since I started looking at these accounts in June 2019, and it was probably going on much longer than that.
You have to wonder why tactical gear intended for combat is a private market thing at all. Are there ads for nuclear weapons? Fighter jets? Tanks? Should war equipment really be a consumer item?
Despite not actually selling guns, the vast majority of the ads nevertheless display military-style weapons somewhere in their design. An automatic rifle slides into the tactical backpack. The body armor is worn by someone actively poised to shoot a semi-automatic weapon. A black T-shirt presents an image of a medieval crusader in full armor holding a contemporary handgun, accompanied by a biblical quote: “Blessed be the lord my rock who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.”
Capitalism—>marketing the tools of war: fabulous!
Ad revenue is the lifeblood of platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and ads from companies peddling military-style gear are key to creating the hateful communities we see online today. To change the violent online world Facebook has created for “Trump’s Army” will require changing the algorithms themselves, the basic architecture of Facebook’s advertising – a market that is projected to bring the company nearly $100bn in the coming year.
And Zuckerberg isn’t about to mess with that.
That’s silly. If war equipment is to be a consumer item (which is an absolutely horrific idea, but the article seems to take it as a given), why would Facebook make algorithms to sell it to people that aren’t interested in buying it? Yay, let’s make advertisements for war equipment, but show it only to people that aren’t interested!
It’s certainly possible that some of those ads were targeted at Trumpers. It is also possible that there was a snowball effect. If I click on a donut ad, I start seeing more donut ads. So I’m a bit skeptical of the 80% figure. But the snowball has to start somewhere.
The whole notion of “tactical gear” is a bizarre marketing niche. I recently bought a couple of canvas bags for carrying spare lithium batteries for my nerdy amateur radio hobby, and as luck would have it they are deemed “tactical bags” because (and I’m really just guessing here) there is a velcro strip on the top flap (for putting your preferred flag patch on, maybe? Dunno. I put a velcro patch with my FCC license ID on it there) and because the only color one can buy them in is olive drab. Seriously. That’s “tactical gear”. Having now purchased these two bags (which are quite nice), I am now regularly bombarded with ads for body armor, weapons sales, night-vision goggles, and more. I foolishly clicked on some of those links just to see what’s there, and I am sad to report that there are no miniature combination Russian phrase books and Bibles for sale, but there are concentrated emergency rations. Gum and gold and rubles you’ll have to find on your own. (h/T Slim Pickens.)
Hahahaha you had me at miniature combination Russian phrase books and Bibles.
So where does antifa shop for their tactical gear? I have seen a lot of that gear on both proud boys and antifa. I get it if the author objects to this stuff being sold to any civilians but by using only examples from his “pro Trump” profiles and not finding out what may be marketed to him if he made “pro antifa” or ACAB profiles……kind of dilutes his point. If his point is only that no civilians should have this stuff, of course. But considering the death threats radfems get from TRAs, maybe gear like bulletproof vests is something that anybody should be able to buy.
Southwest88@5, I cannot speak for the author, but I suspect that the key difference which led to highlighting the pro-Trump crowd is that antifa and radfems are not, generally, any kind of organized community, but rather composed of dozens (hundreds?) of splintered groups who don’t agree upon much. This is in contrast to the Proud Boys, who are organized and, have actual formal leaders, meetings, and who knows–maybe even knitting circles. So I suppose that it’s one thing to sell bulletproof vests to random citizens who are afraid of being shot, but quite another to sell them to organized groups that are and have been actively planning and carrying out insurrection.
AFAIK, it’s completely legal for anyone to buy bulletproof vests. Not so much for flash suppressors and silencers, for example, which are also “tactical gear” that I’ve seen advertised in the context of pro-Trump crowds. (NB: those things are legal to own, just difficult due the licensing restrictions, which most everyday people wouldn’t want to bother with.) I don’t know of any radfems in the market for flash suppressors, but I’m willing to admit that I could be wrong.
The author’s wish for algorithms that promote love and not hate makes me wince. I know it may just be that I am getting jaded but it just lands too close to “be nice” for me. What is going on now is that once we justify violence for the sake of some causes, we can’t act surprised when some of the people we think should be “punched” decide to punch back and maybe punch preemptively. The author is trying to close the barn door after the horses have already run off.
Sure, “punch a nazi” sounds great but feminists have long been called feminazis as a way to demean us. Now “punch a terf” posts are put up and do any media platforms remove those posts as hateful or for inciting violence?So, in a society that seems to be moving away from enforcing anti-violence rules fairly, why should I not carry whatever means of self defense I find necessary?
James Garnett #6
Antifa is not organized? They must have some organization to have managed over a year of constant attacks in some cities. They may be cleverer than the proud boys in hiding their communications from others. I guess I can accept that the author found it easier to make his point with proud boy groups in that they are more out in the open than antifa is.
ROTFL! No, I don’t see many radfems going for flash suppressors! I generally only agree with the use of violence for true self-defense but I have had some radfems chide me for even carrying guns. We are a non-violent bunch… which is why we are the ones being threatened so much, I guess.
A year of constant attacks? What have I missed?
Ophelia Benson #9
I was thinking of Portland and Seattle this past year.
southwest88@8
Yeah, antifa is not organized, at least in the sense that there’s no single leader or go-to group. Antifa is whoever calls themselves antifa, it seems like. Individuals so-designating themselves sometimes congregate in various corners of the internet, but there is no real coordination; there’s no definitive Antifa website with someone directing operations in various corners of the country. I’ve seen black-clothed antifa types attacking others presumably on their same side during riots in Seattle and Portland because they mistook them for people whom they really did want to attack. To a large degree, it seems like they don’t even all agree on what “fascism” even means. I get the distinct feeling that antifa, as it exists today, is just an evolution of the long-tiresome anarchy movement (at least here in the PNW).
This is in contrast to the Proud Boys, who (like various outlaw motorcycle clubs) have designated leaders, logos, gear, meeting places, etc., and who have been doing things like (allegedly) planning the assault on the Capitol some weeks in advance, if the FBI is to be believed. It’s hard to miss the Proud Boys when they’re all wearing gear that actually says PROUD BOYS.
I’m in Seattle, and I don’t think anyone has perpetrated a year of constant attacks here. You mean the extended protests in Capitol Hill that turned violent? But that didn’t go on for a year, or anything like it. Sure, there are violent people on the left as well as on the right, but that doesn’t mean antifa is an organized army.
Antifa is harder to track then the proud boys then. They go for plausible deniability while the proud boys are, yes, pretty much in plain sight. But what does it matter to the victims if their attackers were organized or unorganized? I think that is where our society is messing up: abandoning the principle of civilians not being entitled to use violence against each other over politics (we do allow the police and military to use violence).
This puts me in the politically homeless camp. I loathe antifa and proud boys when they are violent. I disagree with my right wing neighbors on all kinds of stuff but if somebody attacks one of them in the street, I am coming to their aid because they would do the same for me. Maybe I can feel this way because I pre-date everybody being able to use the internet easily.
Don’t get me wrong, I loathe violence too. I just don’t think antifa has organized a year of constant attacks anywhere. I don’t think overstating does anything particularly useful.
Ophelia Benson #14
Since you are in Seattle and closer to Portland than I am, you have a more on-the-ground view than I do. But I have seen enough videos of let us just say “unorganized people” attacking other people and buildings and I do not think that should be tolerated, but in Portland it just seems to keep going on and on. My take is once one group of even unorganized civilians gets to start behaving badly and are not stopped immediately, we have hit a slippery slope and may not like where we all might end up.
I agree with that, no question.
I don’t get around to all of Seattle these days though, thanks to the pandemic, but I think the violence on Capitol Hill was shut down some months ago. Not necessarily soon enough, but.
Ophelia Benson #16
I would love to get see Washington state and see Oregon again someday when I am free of family duties. Since I will be doing that in a van or RV, I will probably give the urban areas a miss and stick to the eastern parts of those states.
southwest88@17:
If I may be indulged in a little selfish promotion of my state, there are a lot of really beautiful non-urban things to see in Western Washington! Like, pretty much all of the Olympic Peninsula, and most things east of I-5 (like the Cascades). The eastern side of Washington is like another world, compared to the western side. It’s also quite nice over on the eastern side, albeit somewhat more like the great plains than the lush rain forest out here on the western side. (Also, the politics over there are… er… quite different from how things are here on the western side.) Regardless, I hope you enjoy your eventual visit, no matter where you decide to go.
Portland actually has organized Antifa (Rose City Antifa or something similar)… it’s not a national organization. They’re basically a street gang that show up to rumble whenever Patriot Prayer/Proud Boys/whatever turn up on their turf. Stupid children doing stupid children things, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up to fuck up a feminist bookstore or similar for being insufficiently woke.
Southwest @ 7 – something I overlooked yesterday – I’ve never thought ‘“punch a nazi” sounds great’ – not for a second.
James Garnett #18
Oh, I definitely plan on visiting all over Oregon and Washington state eventually and would be heading to the wilderness areas out of choice. I don’t plan on having a big RV but even a van and small trailer can be a drag to drive in the urban areas. I will have to see how many people in Washington are on the Boondockers Welcome groups that have some land or are in an area with few parking laws and are OK with RVers or van-lifers parking on their property for a night (sometimes free, sometimes for a fee, I think). Kind of like Airbnb for RVers.
Ophelia Benson #20
Oh, I always knew you were against cheap stochastic calls for violence because you can see where that leads. I think this is one of the reasons you found Myers bunch disappointing when they went down that road. I found it hilarious that anybody who claims to be atheist and against having the religious dictates of others shoved into their lives would join the gender cults but there they went.
Blood Knight in Sour Armor #19
Rose City Antifa is definitely organized. I am surprised that the bookstore (Powell’s?) in Portland has not been burnt down yet but maybe a few of the antifa bosses have sent the message down that burning a bookstore would really give the right-wingers something to blog about.
Southwest @ 22 – It is indeed. I never liked PZ’s bunch, even when I did like PZ. The flippant violence-invocation was most of the reason.