President Trump talks a lot about the 2016 election. When he does, members of the press often respond with a snicker, noting that the election was “X” days ago. The point is to laugh at a man obsessed, as surely Trump is.
Equally amusing, however, is the fact that his opponent, two-time presidential loser Hillary Clinton, is every bit as obsessed with the 2016 campaign. Yet, we rarely hear sniggering from the same folks when she does it.
Take, for example, when Clinton weighed in this week on an article outlining the Trump campaign’s approach to Facebook ads. Wired reported:
[T]he Trump and Clinton campaigns bid ruthlessly for the same online real estate in front of the same swing-state voters. But because Trump used provocative content to stoke social media buzz, and he was better able to drive likes, comments, and shares than Clinton, his bids received a boost from Facebook’s click model, effectively winning him more media for less money. In essence, Clinton was paying Manhattan prices for the square footage on your smartphone’s screen, while Trump was paying Detroit prices.
Alex Tabarrok explained further at Marginal Revolution: “Google and Facebook calculate how many clicks or interactions your ad is likely to receive and they charge lower prices the greater the predicted number of clicks … In the long run this system better targets ads to customers and thus maximizes the value of the platform to both advertisers and customers.”
The Wired article notes this stuff isn’t new. “I always wonder why people in politics act like this stuff is so mystical,” Trump’s data guru Brad Parscale said before Election Day. “It’s the same shit we use in commercial, just has fancier names.”
The article adds, “He’s absolutely right. None of this is even novel: It’s merely best practice for any smart Facebook advertiser.”
It’s also not illegal, but you’d think otherwise from perusing reactions to the article.
“Do people not really care that Facebook may have systematically charged the Clinton campaign an order of magnitude or two more than it was charging Trump to reach American voters? (Which is not allowed in other mediums by law),” tweeted TechCrunch contributor Kim-Mai Cutler.
Clinton herself responded, “We should all care about how social media platforms play a part in our democratic process. Because unless it’s addressed it will happen again … We owe it to our democracy to get this right, and fast.”
This sour grapes routine, which has become the norm for Clinton and her biggest fans, is as ridiculous as when Trump brags about winning the election. Clinton’s people had access to the same information as the Trump camp. She’s not a victim. If the Wired article is accurate, and there’s discussion about whether the GOP candidate actually paid a lower “cost per 1000 impressions” price, it just means Trump’s people did their homework. Just like they visited Wisconsin. Who’s to blame for that?
