Rundown

Why AI Dangers Didn't Materialize

How Harris Campaign Spent $1 Billion

Advertising

Threads might get ads early next year
The Verge
"We don’t know how ads will surface on Threads just yet, but they could appear as 'sponsored' posts, which is something reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi recently spotted in development."


Campaigns

How Kamala Harris Burned Through $1.5 Billion in 15 Weeks
New York Times
"Other major costs, according to records and campaign officials, included $111 million in online ads seeking donations... and nearly $28 million to produce the merchandise that people were ordering."

Kamala Harris raised $1B-plus in defeat. She’s still sending persistent appeals to donors.
Politico
"The party is flooding Harris’ lucrative email donor list with near-daily appeals aimed at small-dollar donors — those whose contributions are measured in the hundreds of dollars or less."


Content

Substack’s Great, Big, Messy Political Experiment
New York Times
"In the politics and news categories, more than 30 publishers earn at least $1 million annually, according to the company. These operations range in size from one employee to dozens."


Data

What Political News Engagement Tells Us About Donald Trump’s Victory
Data For Progress
"Our data suggests that what little political content reached [low propensity voters] was overwhelmingly pro-Trump or, at the very least, open to his message. Trump’s campaign was tactical about going around traditional media, using alternative channels to reach these voters directly — and it looks to have worked."


International

Google says it will stop serving political ads in the EU
The Verge
"Ad providers must also obtain explicit consent from users to serve them with targeted political ads, and cannot use minors' data and certain personal information."


Social Media

X sees largest user exodus since Musk takeover
NBC News
"But the day after, Nov. 6, X also saw 115,414 account deactivations, the most it has gotten since Musk took ownership of the site, the research found."


Technology

Why didn’t AI ‘happen’ in 2024’s elections?
Who Targets Me
"But fragmentation seems to have been a limiting factor, with examples of 'bad AI' (or even satirical AI) largely stuck on the platforms where they were first posted, rather than hopping from place to place."

AI didn’t sway the election, but it deepened the partisan divide
Washington Post
"Despite AI’s prevalence, however, there was no evidence that malicious activity had a 'material impact' on the voting process, Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the federal government’s lead department on election infrastructure security, said in a statement Wednesday."


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