Why the future of Welsh politics will be shaped by social media advertising

scary and true, The only safe route out of this trap is awoken and to be awoken, empowered voters. Voters taking more notice of human networks than virtual. Ceredigion is a well networked socially active county. Hopefully an example of the way to go. And yes we need to use IT networks too, using money and human nodes to amplify where we lack money. We should learn from success, tanker turners like Neil McEvoy. We live in terrifying times i feel that the public know it in their bones and are hungry for real leadership,.. locals they can trust,

Hmm... Leighton Andrews is probably not the best presenter for these listicals although, chwarae teg, he does his best! An ex-politician from an essentially moribund party whose use of social media is ham-fisted and underinvested (compared to the Tories). Cue the dead parrot sketch.

Well I don't know what social media Mr King subscribes to, but my Facebook and Twitter were dominated by Labour supporting ads and comments to the extent that I thought they might get close to winning the election, and there have been plenty of commentators making similar remarks. How wrong was I - and much relieved too. Social media is where people get information from like-minded people, and it has become an echo chamber. And a nasty one at that - so much vitriol. I think the result is much more down to bad policies that became increasingly unrealistic the more Labour threw into their manifesto - money really would have to grow on trees for all the things they wanted to spend money on. That and complacent MPs who have neglected their "safe seats" for too long. It is easy to say big money is what dominates elections, but let's not forget that there are over 60 million people in the UK, so £5 million is 8p to spend on each one. Hardly extravagant.

It will indeed, and those of us who want to see Wales taking its place in the world as a progressive independent nation have to be active on social media - taking our message directly to the people of Wales via Facebook, Twitter etc. We can't leave the field of social media to the wealthy right wing British nationalists who bought brexit for the leave campaign and who bought the recent UK GE for the tories

The truth is opposite to what is stated here. The reason the Conservative party attracted more big spenders is because they were the safer bet to place their investment. (Money buys influence.) If the Labour had been poised to win, big money would have been tipped in their balance. Labour lost because their platform was confused not credible. No amount of advertising spending would significantly alter that fact. Ditto Plaid Cymru. If they persist with their progressive globalist policies, no amount of spending on advertising will change their fortunes. Unlike the author of this article, I don't believe people, (by and large), are that stupid.

The more pertinent question might be: "how can social media advertising be effectively deployed to deliver regular factually correct messages to the audience", and, "to what extent does it form a valid component in our chosen communications strategy". Finally "what are the other components of such a strategy and how should they be organised and delivered"

Emmigration will be banned, save the wealthy. The internet will be closed, save America. Scotland lost Bannockburn, but not Burns Night. Glyndŵr was an English peasant, Agincourt becomes a charade of intent. Hide your history, it is about to be rewritten. Wales is Cornwall and Cornwall is forgotten.

I would argue that the paid for advertising campaign that the Tories subjected us to was more a substantiation of their made up truths, they were reinforcements of the lies, which had already permeated the voter consciousness. To look at digital adverts as being the major culprit is to misunderstand the role of digital advertising for political ends. Where Labour with its thousands of Momentum activists were on the doorstep, the Tories (this holds true for the alt.right in 2016 American election and the ethno-cleansing ideology in the 2019 Indian election too) the power of social media groups such as those offered by Facebook and Whatsapp had played a pivotal role in that first convincing of the voters. The paid for adverts came later and were nothing more than a reminder. The work was done at social media groups level, throuh private messaging and in a very non-aggressive way for an aggresive bunch. The left won the social media war it claims, but actually, shouting loud and calling the right of centre voters, Tory scum or brexiter-scum were just the sort of aggressive posturing that the political centre saw as an aggressive new, not to be trusted, left-wing political problem. The Tories started their campaign after the Theresa May hung parliament debacle. They slowly chiselled away at Corbyn's supposed populism, brought on the tar or anti-Semitism with a new found enthusiasm and the rest is history. Much greater understanding of digital campaigning and digital trends are required, and with that the admission that the election had been lost on 'mobile' digital platforms, more so than the old fashioned large computer or television screens. A concentrated digital approach that is capable of changing within minutes to counter situations is required, allied with easy to explain, popular policies that do not preach or make someone feel in the naughty, would be required to win the next election. No point in these massive phonebanks operated at the Unite headquarters by Labour, train the same army to sound less radical, come across as nicer, and most importantly, instil in them the ability to listen to those who are at the opposite end of the political spectrum - this would go a long way. When you talk with a pint in hand rather than megaphone shouting down, the individuals listen more and listenng individuals win elections.

Carole Cadwalladr's case which Clive recommends is ignored by the above commentators - the editorial presentation giving prominence to the far weaker one of Leighton Andrews (how many clicked on his picture rather than her link?). Carole's argument is that Facebook has subverted our democratic electoral system - criminally subverted it through collaboration with undeclared spending including foreign funds going into Facebook advertising. The controlling shareholder Zuckerberg holds the Facebook evidence, but refused to disclose spending on the Brexit referendum to our Commons Committee. The Electoral Commission started action against Aaron Banks and Nigel Farage (in a picture with Trump and others) . We know the DUP laundered £100k - small compared with Banks and Farage's sums - and that the post-election fines have been trivial. The £-millions into Facebook advertising were invisible - and not seen by all you commentators, as it was directed to those cohorts of Facebook-users (analysed by Cambridge Analytica's criminal misuse of 87 million Facebook profiles) who were likely to be susceptible and pass on the message to their networks. Facebook has refused to stop adverts with politician lies, like that saying Turkey's millions were about to join the EU. Aaron Banks refused to disclose the source of his hue donations and his links with Russians linked to Putin's rogue state. Boris Johnson suppressed the Commons report on Russian interference. £5 million came into Conservative Party coffers in one week in November (when the LP received £200k) says Cadwalladr. It's certain the General Election was similarly subverted (perhaps moreso and with zionist money) to the Referendum. Certain too that Boris Johnson will do little or nothing to fix our broken electoral system. Labour's banks of phone-callers, old-style, were powerless against the money and power of Facebook advertising, often lying but also using Corbyn's slip-ups. Cadwalladr illustrated Facebook's power by comparing on-street messages in Eddw Vale saying "had-enough-of-EU" and "immigrant/refugee threats" with the reality of Euro £-millions into Ebbw Vale and the lowest fraction of non-Brits there. We challenge and limit the lies in our traditional media but can do nothing about Facebook's advertisers. And as Cadwalladr says, you politicos are not even aware what's hit us. How Britain reacts was a test case for electoral subversion - and we've failed.

Grooming only works if the people being groomed don't know they're being groomed. Those lucky enough to have disposable income already have what they need. Successful advertising is about convincing people they want something that they didn't know they wanted, don't need and will leave them worse off financially and possibly in other ways. This is achieved through "Data Mining" combined with increasing sophisticated understanding of consumer psychology and message targeting. These methods are directly transferable to, and of obvious interest to, those who seek to further goals which are not in the interest of the majority.