ARD (German public network, Channel One)....came out this morning with a piece describing into some detail the effect of the 'evil' Russians buying Facebook ads prior to the US election (back in November of 2016).
It's an interesting piece. Thousands of Russian-paid ads....through a Russian company (Wire Puller)....based in St Petersburg. As ARD tells the story....hundreds of Internet trolls appear to be behind the effort.
The goal? Simply to spread false or fake news in social media. Naturally, this can only lead to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although no one...even ARD...can say this as a fact.
A tremendous sum of 84,000 Euro....was spent over a twenty-four month period...to achieve this great evil act.
So I sat there....pondering over this whole story. 84,000 Euro comes out to 3,500 Euro a month....roughly $4,000 a month. It's not that big of a sum.
To be honest, that really doesn't buy that much in face-time over Facebook. On the occasions that Facebook tried to interest me in buying up ads....it was in the $20 to $50 range and you really didn't seem to be getting that much in return.
Who clicks on these ad's? That's another issue. Most people aren't clicker-types. If you did click....you go to some fake news site, with another ad or two, and the fake news script guy is trying to get you to click one more time....to help him make up the 3,500 Euro that he invested. Course, ARD doesn't have the sense to ask about the game of clicking-the-click-to-return-the investment situation.
Sadly, that 84,000 Euro mentioned? That won't even cover half of the yearly salary of the top ARD nightly news guy.
Not to blame ARD, but it's a 10-cent story told at the 100-Euro level.
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