The company that invented the motto “Move fast and break things” certainly managed to break things pretty good during the 2016 election, promoting Russian troll-farm fake news content to as many as 126 million Americans during the election cycle (and pocketing a paltry $100,000 in the process). Facebook now vows they’ll be much more transparent about political advertising going forward, as today they get set to testify before Congress about the Russian meddling that took place on their platform (livestream here).

But as Facebook gets ready to testify, BuzzFeed News has acquired Facebook’s pitch to political advertisers during the election cycle. We see in the pitch that Facebook’s vaunted “algorithm culture” is in fact shockingly stupid and simplistic with regards to political identification, and breaks every American down into one of “14 independent segments” drawn up by the kind of tech folk who think mini cupcakes are a standard form of caloric measurement.

As we see from the pilfered PowerPoint slide above, the interests Facebook assigns are all straight from the old blog Stuff White People Like. Citing interests like ‘yoga,’ ‘Kardashians,’ and ‘SUV owner,’ Facebook thinks we all belong in one of 14 categories of the ad-industry-friendly silos like ‘Multicultural Millennials,’ ‘Traveling Baby Boomers,’ and ‘Post Grad Nest Builders.’

Interestingly, the “Youthful Urbanites” demographic lists ‘Boxing’ as an interest. I’m frankly skeptical that there is currently much interest in boxing.

At the expense of sounding redundant, these segments do not represent all of Facebook-using America. These segments represent middle- and upper-class Caucasian Facebook-using America. It’s not unreasonable to conclude that a white bias in forming these tools makes the tools better at engaging white people, at the expense of engaging communities of color. That the tools were developed by a not particularly diverse workforce may make them more powerful at reaching white people, with a tech wealth disposition inherently baked into the (mini cup) cake.

“We typically help marketers across all verticals understand audiences this way, and we briefly used this framework to help inform how a small number of marketers built their campaigns,” a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. The spokesperson said the pitch is no longer used because it was discarded as part of a "regular refresh," and that “these segments are no longer available.”

This is, of course, separate from the more granular targeting of segments like “Jew Hater” and “Nazi,” which Facebook did indeed allow until ProPublica called them on it last month.

And this seems symptomatic of how Facebook is missing the point. For all its self-professed targeted demographic wizardry, Facebook doesn’t seem to have a clue how dishonest players are gaming their platform in ways that are light years beyond Facebook’s safe, namby-pamby suggested parameters.

Zuckerberg and company seem stuck in a cushy Silicon Valley mindset that assigns actual reality to the milk-and-cookies stereotypes that investors and advertisers are comfortable with. The monster they’ve created is being used for far more sinister purposes than what falls within purview of the company advertising parameters. Facebook remains flat-footed and clumsy in response to troll accounts that literally call for U.S. violence, and internationally, use of Facebook to cause real-life mass violence.

There is a popular Silicon Valley notion that tech execs like Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Sergey Brin are the best and brightest minds of our era. But if their platforms are being used in ways they didn’t anticipate and still can’t control, well, doesn’t that inherently make them not best and brightest minds of our era?

Related: Facebook Wouldn't Be As Big Of A Problem For The News If People Actually Clicked And Read Stories

It is not a particularly unique observation that the culture of constantly looking at our phones has spawned an app economy whose emotional manipulation, trampling of our privacy, and spread of misinformation has changed our society, likely not for the better. Former Google engineer Tristan Harris, who spoke to 60 Minutes on this topic in April, has started a nonprofit called Time Well Spent to fight the influence of “advertising-fueled technology” on our minds. This week he has a lengthy new interview in Wired on how we can respond and save our sentient being-hood before virtual reality and artificial intelligence trap us in some dystopian version of The Matrix.

“Advertising is the new coal,” Harris tells Wired. “It was wonderful for propping up the internet economy. It got us to a certain level of economic prosperity, and that’s fantastic. And it also polluted the inner environment and the cultural environment and the political environment because it enabled anyone to basically pay to get access to your mind."

“On Facebook specifically, it allows the hyper-targeting of messages that perfectly persuade and polarize populations,” he says. “That’s a dangerous thing. It also gave all these companies an incentive to maximize how much time they have of your life. So we have to get off of this business model. And we haven’t actually invented the alternative yet.”

Harris also decries the Facebook platform’s hold over two billion users’ minds, calling it “possibly the largest source of influence over two billion people’s thoughts that has ever been created. Religions and governments don’t have that much influence over people’s daily thoughts.”

“We have three technology companies who have this system that frankly they don’t even have control over—with newsfeeds and recommended videos and whatever they put in front of you—which is governing what people do with their time and what they’re looking at,” Harris says.

Ultimately, Harris complains that the tech firms have bamboozled us into pursuing their goals over our own. “We might enjoy the thing it persuades us to do, which makes us feel like we made the choice ourselves,” he says. “For example, we forget if the next video loaded and we were happy about the video we watched.”

“But, in fact, we were hijacked in that moment,” he notes. “All those people who are working to give you the next perfect thing on YouTube don’t know that it’s 2 am and you might also want to sleep. They’re not on your team. They’re only on the team of what gets you to spend more time on that service.”

Harris's critiques might make more impact if he included some actual dirt on these brain-hijacking tactics (he’s in a position to know!) instead of remorseless autofellatio on the very industry that made him a millionaire. Further, he recommends solving the problem with more apps. Certainly Bro-ey Brosowycz makes a few compelling points here, but I've got my own personal solution to this so-called "brain hacking" — never trust anyone who refers to a solution as a "hack."

Related: UGH: The Average Person Is Going To Spend Five Years Of Their Life On Social Media

If you see something that looks more like art, or like the hand-painted poster above, in a spot that would usually be home to home to an advertisement somewhere around the city, this is not an isolated incident. March 22 to 25 has been declared an international period of resistance against advertising and consumerism with the hashtag #SubvertTheCity. Examples are popping up on social media in multiple cities, and feel free to add any others you may see in the comments.

As the blog Public Ad Campaign explains, this is the work of "a huge group of activists and artists around the world," and "a transnational partnership called the Subvertisers International."

According to organizer Jordan Seiler:

Commercial advertising invades our public spaces and all forms of media in order to influence our behaviours and serve corporate interests... #SubvertTheCity will challenge corporate advertising all over the world in order to imagine and rebuild the cities and societies we want to live in so that we can meet our shared human needs, and those of the planet.

Some more examples, culled from Twitter, below.

The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album cover. The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street. The poster for The Endless Summer. John Van Hamersveld designed those arresting images and many more. Oh, and here's a new one: An avocado mural in SoMa. It's also an ad... for avocados, which the website Creativity Online celebrates for its subtlety. Sure, it's not exactly subliminal — the avocado is front and center, making it, I don't know, superliminal? — but it's also not aggressive, either.

Produce News (hey, everybody needs a trade publication) writes that Van Hamersveld thinks the mural, which is also the work of the MullenLowe ad agency “aesthetically stands alone.” A second, similar mural will show up in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter.

While you won't see any acknowledgment of the mural' provenance with the naked eye, try Snapchatting it. That's right. The "fellow kids" at the California Avocado Commission paid for a secret filter that will appear only via Snapchat, revealing the Commission's logo. You know, kinda like this:

Super Bowl ads! For some of us who don't mind the corporate shilling, these are the only watchable parts of this national obsession nicknamed The Big Game.

As Ad Age tells us, the price of a 30-second Super Bowl ad spot has gone up 11 percent each year for the past five Super Bowls, and ad placements this year were going for between $4.6 million and $5 million each. And at that link you'll see the full roster of all the companies that coughed up that much and more to advertise this year.

Below, the best of the bunch, in our opinion, as we finally, finally, wind down our coverage of Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco.

Heinz, 'Meet the Ketchups'
This "wiener stampede" might just win.

Mountain Dew, 'Puppy Monkey Baby'
There hasn't been a Mountain Dew ad during the Super Bowl in 15 years, so they pulled out all the stops with this nightmare mashup of three of the internet's favorite things, puppies, monkeys, and babies, created by BBDO New York.

Avocados from Mexico, 'Avos in Space'
Way to make us all feel small, avocados.

Marmot's Little 'No Homo' Joke
It was their first time advertising at the Super Bowl, and Marmot went for a "no homo" joke, but it's sort of cute.

Doritos, 'Ultrasound'

The Sabotkas from 'The Wire' in 'The Longest Chase' for Toyota Prius
The actors who played the family of dock workers from Season 2 of The Wire, Chris Bauer, James Ransone, and Pablo Schreiber reunited as bank robbers on a getaway in this fun car chase.

Amy Schumer and Seth Rogan for Bud Light
"Just wait til you see our caucus."

T.J. Miller and Shock Top Orange Slice Exchange Insults

ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos

Acura NSX with David Lee Roth Isolated Vocals
You've still got it, Diamond Dave.

Helen Mirren for Budweiser
You are an "oxygen wasting human form of pollution" if you drive drunk. You heard it here.

Honorable Mention...

X-Men: Apocalypse
Obviously.

We all know some of the more painful numbers from the Super Bowl: The money SF expects to spend on the game sans reimbursement, the price this bro was asking for his Super Bowl pad, and the gallons of refuse that Super Bowl City's celebratory fireworks have sent to our beaches. But what about the game, itself? What about those numbers? Do you even care?

I don't know if I do, honestly, I am so sick of this goddamn thing that last night I — this is not a joke — dreamed that Brock and I were scrambling all over City Hall trying to pack up and save as many historic/valuable artifacts we could carry as the game had somehow caused a massive flood (dream logic!) that would destroy the building in the coming hours. (My conscious is not so un, I guess.)

OK, where was I? Anyway, this company called WalletHub, which bills itself as "a one-stop destination for all the tools and information consumers and small business owners need to make better financial decisions and save money," made some sort of "infographic" about the game. They say the data is based on their projections, as well as information from news reports, the Super Bowl Host Committee, and others. So, grain of salt! But here are some of their Super Bowl 50 data points:

• 37: The number of miles of airspace above Levi's Stadium that will be closed to travel from 2-midnight Sunday
• 5000: The number of journalists who will travel to the Bay Area to cover the game
• 230: The number of countries in which the game is broadcast
• $5 million: The cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad
• $400 million: The amount of money advertisers are expected to spend to advertise during the game
• 28 million: The number of SB-related tweets predicted to be sent during the game
• 1.3 billion: The number of chicken wings projected to be consumed by game-watchers during the event
• 14,500 tons: The amount of chips they're projected to eat
• 8 million pounds: The amount of guac they're projected to eat
• 1.5 million: The number of people projected to call in sick on Monday

You know how Verizon and Super Bowl 50 were doing that huge wrap of Four Embarcadero Center over the last two weeks — the one that ran into a humorous snafu last week? Some commenters actually asked how SF even allowed such a big obnoxious ad to happen, and it turns out they didn't! As the Examiner reports, City Attorney Dennis Herrera is now demanding it get removed.

You may recall that voters approved Proposition G in 2002 which sought to avoid exactly this kind of advertising, banning all new large-scale ads of this sort. The proposition, voted into law, grandfathered in all existing billboard advertising, and allowed such billboards to be moved with city approval to legal locations, but disallowed any new "general advertising signs."

Verizon's lawyers may have decided to take the gamble, however, because SF's own Planning Department admitted impotence last week, saying, "Even if we did enforce [the law], due process would allow them to stay up for 30 days. They are expected to be removed in a timely manner after February 7th."

But will SF stand for such corporate insolence? As this local Flickr user calls the Verizon example, such signage is "advertising at the zenith of poor taste."

Says Herrera's office, "The Verizon signs installed on Four Embarcadero fall within the definition of a general advertising sign prohibited in San Francisco. These signs as installed could not have been permitted by the Planning Department because they violate City law."

Looks like the Super Bowl Host Committee and the property owner just went ahead with this without asking anyone?

Herrera promises to sue for a temporary restraining order against Verizon if the signs aren't removed by 5 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday.

Sorry, Verizon. And welcome to San Francisco, Super Bowl 50.

Previously: How SF's Massive Super Bowl Ads Ducked Permit Fees, Billboard Regulations
Photo Du Jour: Embarcadero Center Super Bowl Wrap Fail

Astute commenters on yesterday's post on Embarcadero Center's Super Bowl wrap fail wondered if such displays violated San Francisco's advertising regulations, and/or if the building owners could be fined for the vast billboards. But as with everything else about the Super Bowl, you'll be SOOOO SURPRISED to hear that it's unlikely that anyone will face fines — and that even permitted display advertising for the event didn't have to pay the usual local fees.

As commenter Tarniv noted Wednesday, section 611 of SF's General Advertising Sign Program "is pretty cut and dry"

No new general advertising signs shall be permitted at any location within the City as of March 5, 2002, except as provided in Subsection (b) of this ordinance Subsection B just applies to signs on motor vehicles and ones "in the public right of way" only. Section 610 says they should be paying $2.5k/day to the city for violations.

Additionally, Section 604 says they would need a building permit to do this. For the address 4 Embarcadero Center, no permit at all related to external signage/billboards/advertisements has been made in 2015 or 2016.

It's not just SFist commenters who are noting the possible violation. According to Hoodline, the (as of yesterday, off-kilter) giant ad wrap on Embarcadero Center 4 and another 20-story Super Bowl ad on the Hilton Union Square got the attention of area activist Jamie Whitaker, who said that "the buildings that attach these extremely large illegal advertisements to their buildings are counting on the Planning Department to be negligent in their enforcement role. I hope Planning proves them wrong, and immediately enforces the Planning Code and charges penalties allowed by San Francisco law."

Whitaker had better prepare for disappointment, though, as a spokesperson with Planning told Hoodline that "it is a Super Bowl sponsor sign ... they got the green light from the Mayor's Office, as [the ads] are temporary, and connected to a civic celebration."

"You will most likely see more of these Super Bowl signs, but again, they are temporary," Planning spokesperson Gina Simi said.

"Even if we did enforce, due process would allow them to stay up for 30 days. They are expected to be removed in a timely manner after February 7th."

And the skyscraper wraps aren't the only Super Bowl advertising that doesn't have to follow the laws of the land! You know those 1,600-pound, light-up, "50" signs that people keep vandalizing with graffiti like "Evict Ed Lee"?

Well, while Hoodline reports that the NFL and the Super Bowl Host Committee did get permits for all four of the displays, they didn't pay any of the four $1125 application fees each "minor encroachment" permit would cost pretty much anyone else.

"The permit fees were waived as this is part of the civic celebration," a Rec and Parks spokesperson said. Hmm, maybe when the Board of Supes demand that City Hall renegotiate the event's costs with the NFL, they should remind them that the first step in negotiations is "don't give away the whole goddamn farm."

Previously: Supervisors Now Demanding City Hall Renegotiate Super Bowl 50 Deal
Photo Du Jour: Embarcadero Center Super Bowl Wrap Fail

The always adorable Buster Posey is the latest celebrity to appear in Esurance's new series of ads about imposters who are "sort of" like the real thing — in this case Buster is sort of like this pregnant woman's obstetrician, because "we both wear gloves, and we always deliver in the clutch." As the Business Times notes, this is just one of several endorsement deals Posey as landed after being a three-time World Series winning catcher, including deals with sportswear company Under Armour, BodyArmor sports drink, and Topps baseball cards.

Also, Esurance is an official sponsor of Major League Baseball.

Burger King scored a potentially viral advertising hit — at least among left-wing beef eaters — with this new video about the "Proud Whopper," which was launched as a limited promotion at a single location in San Francisco, right in the middle of S.F. LGBT Pride weekend.

The "Proud Whopper," wrapped in a branded rainbow wrapper, is actually just a regular Whopper in a rainbow wrapper, but confused LGBT patrons in the video all give it a try and are at first convinced that there is something special — perhaps "sweeter" — about its ingredients.

Then one customer unfurls and reads the whole burger wrapper and sees that it says, "We Are All the Same Inside," and gets the joke. The video, shot at the Civic Center Burger King at Market and Hyde Streets in San Francisco over the weekend, just appeared online on Burger King's YouTube channel this morning.

Burger King employed the Brazil- and Miami-based ad agency DAVID for the campaign, as the NY Daily News reports, likely in an effort to boost sales and gain visibility in at least one demographic. As many have reported, fast food sales at all traditional fast-food outlets like BK have been flagging in recent years, with the business being usurped by upstart, and ostensibly healthier chains like Chipotle and Panera Bread.

The "Proud Whopper" is still on sale at this Burger King location in San Francisco through tomorrow, Thursday, July 3. If the chain has their way, many of you will Instagram yourselves with it before then.

[NY Daily News]
[USA Today]

The relationship between Diet Coke and its users is one fraught with bubbly highs and devastating lows. It's a vulgar, beautiful, intensely complex, and, ultimately, toxic drink. The Dior Poison of sodas. You either love it or loathe it. Which is why I was tickled to see it being marketed toward San Francisco's tech sect.

The ads — which can be found near Duboce Triangle, the Mission, and downtown San Francisco near 2nd and Beale and over on Stevenson — read:

"You moved to San Francisco with a crowd-funded website, a dad-funded hatchback, and a no-funded bank account. You're on."
"You moved to San Francisco with an engineering degree, an app idea and an investor named Nana. You're on."
"You moved to San Francisco with an idea for a start-up, a name for a start-up and zero money for a start-up. You're on."

Ah, yet another side on the already multifaceted die that is Diet Coke. Can you imagine Diet Pepsi doing the same? Of course you can't. Diet Pepsi is shit. (Diet Coke drinkers know this to be gospel.)

As for the ads, Business Times thinks the company could be screwing with techies. But the ads also parallel the company's plan at roping in younger drinkers (e.g., the use of the indefatigable and critically underrated Taylor Swift). As the New York Times reports: "The new 'You’re on' effort, created by Droga5, New York, presents Diet Coke helping Taylor Swift and other millennial women and men by providing an energetic 'uplift for those moments when you really need to be on.' "

The new ads threw several local writers and bloggers for a loop this week as it touched on an already-sensitive topic. We Built This City asks, “I’d say that I hope these ads are a joke or art piece, but they probably aren’t. I mean, seriously? Seriously?” And Mission Mission's Ariel Dovas notes: "New ads on pay phones seem to mock . . . something. But maybe the tone is what you bring to it. Maybe they’re meaning to celebrate a lifestyle or demographic that they’ve identified on some fancy charts as primed for targeting."

In the end, Coca-Cola's aim makes sense — like Coors or SKYY Vodka targeting the city's (eroding) LGBT community during Pride season.

SFist contacted the cola company for comment, but they wouldn't speak. Diet Coke, she's a mystery wrapped in a riddle. She's a bit frosty too.

[Mission Local]
[Mission Mission]
[NYT]

Google wants to make you the new face of [insert brand name here] via a new revision to their terms of service. Basically, the company plans on taking anything you review or rate on Google Plus and offer it up to advertisers to use (like Facebook does) in social ads and shared endorsements.

The topic is a dicey one, and one that gets privacy advocates very riled up — Facebook has already had to settle a class action lawsuit relating to how they notified users about what they do with shared endorsements, as the NYT reports. And the EU Parliament is already considering legislation to deal with what they see as Google's overstepping privacy regulations and involving users in their advertising model without their explicit consent.

Both companies, Facebook and Google, want to continue to monetize their free products by turning us all into unwitting shills for Subway, Starbucks, and HP — that is if we are already boring enough to be raving about such brands in public, on brand pages, or on our own news feeds. Companies can now pay Facebook to repost any such endorsements across our friends' feeds, and Google wants to start doing the same in the coming months -- thus the announcement about the terms of service change. Google, at least, is saying that users under 18 will be automatically excluded from having their faces plastered onto these "shared endorsements." Also, you will be given the option of opting out, and they'll be doing plenty of notification around this.

Google Plus boasts 190 million users, not including the 390 million people who use it indirectly by sharing things on YouTube, etc. And this move by the company comes just as they're already dealing with a federal lawsuit over their policy of scanning users' Gmail accounts for keywords in order to delivery targeted ads.

In other news, 190 million people are using Google Plus for anything but Gmail? Come now.

[NYT]
[Tech Crunch]

Twitter is racing — racing! — to bring more video advertising to the site. The San Francisco-based company is reportedly in talks with NBC and Viacom to add even more TV content to your favorite social media platform.

Bloomberg reports:

Twitter ... is racing to add video content that will get users to spend more time on the site and watch promotions. Building on its existing partnerships with Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s ESPN, Weather Channel LLC and Turner Broadcasting System Inc. (TWX), Twitter is seeking to add more entertainment and news video, two people familiar with the plan said. NBC, which also owns the USA Network, and Viacom, which owns MTV and Nickelodeon, would make attractive partners given the popularity of their content.

This partnership, it seems, would then allow Twitter to stream videos and then split the ad revenue with the network. Here's an example of what it would look like, via the following highlight clip, embedded in a Tweet from the NCAA March Madness tournament. Behold:

An ad within an ad, basically.

But why work with Twitter on posting ad content rather than a TV network doing it themselves? According to All Things D, it would be best for networks to work with Twitter, saying:

Their argument, according to people who have heard the pitch, is that Twitter can figure out how to display the networks’ content in front of Twitter users who might not know about their channels/shows, but might be inclined to like them if they did.

Twitter (unlike successful yet long-in-the-tooth Facebook) goes together with television the way peanut butter goes together with chocolate. It just works. Bloomberg goes on to report:

Last June, a third of active Twitter users posted on the site about something they watched on TV, up from 26 percent at the beginning of the year, Nielsen Holdings NV (NLSN) said in a report on social media last year. Twitter and Nielsen have agreed to form a partnership to measure the amount of online discussion being generated by TV programs.

FWIW, Twitter, for many of us, have helped bring a much-needed return to live TV viewing. Watching a show in realtime while perusing Twitter — particularly while watching reality programming like #BGC12 or #RHOA — have added an exciting live element to TV sorely lacking in these modern DVR times.

[Bloomberg]
[All Things D]

The average cost of a 30-second advertisement to air during Super Bowl XLVII was around $4 million. But among all of the Kate Uptown, GoDaddy (ugh), and Amy Poehler commercials, the real winner never aired on TV.

The following wry tweet sent out by the fine folks at Calvin Klein wins our pick for best Super Bowl ad via any medium. Using last night's blackout to their advantage, the clothing company swiftly tweeted this shot of a guy working out while sporting a pair of their signature underwear:

The following Calvin Klein ad also ran during the Super Bowl. However, we prefer the simplicity and bluntness of the former. Here it is:

A harrowing scene was captured on tape recently as ranch dressing and ketchup duked it out on the Dolores Park playground. Ranch, the clear winner since it's the superior condiment, was minding its own business when ketchup began to harass Ranch for, presumably, hanging out in his skivvies on the fruit shelf and getting stoned. Actually, it's all part of Hidden Valley Ranch's campaign to become to the ketchup. Yes, it's an ad campaign and, yes, we are falling for it because, again, we love Ranch dressing. It should be on everything.

Also, Linda would approve.

[via Mission Mission]