What We Learned

With the testimony of Facebook, Google and other internet companies about the ads that Russian front organizations like Black Matters put on the web during 2016, what have we learned?  If you follow the mainstream media, you hear that up to 120 million people may have seen these ads.  But is that the real takeaway?  Here's what I heard:  Russia spent less than $100,000 on these ads in total.  Of that, only 8% was directed towards affecting the election.  By contrast, the presidential campaigns spent over 80 million bucks to put advertising on those same platforms.  Do we really think that $8000 dollars from Russia had any impact compared to 80 million dollars from the campaigns?  My guess is that while these ads may have been seen on a page, almost everyone who saw those pages did not even notice the ads.  During the election, there was always an ad coming up.  They got tuned out.