Fake Russian Ads? Heck, we did it to ourselves.

Facebook ad, bought with roubles.

Russian ads on Facebook look so real and familiar.

If counterfeit is identical to genuine, then what does counterfeit really mean?

I had an realization looking in the window of a store in Shanghai, China.   I was looking at bargain prices of Nike shoes, selling for the equivalent of $25.  My guide said these were very good shoes, but counterfeit.  "They say Nike but aren't really Nike."

I asked how they were different.  She said, "They aren't really made by Nike.  They look exactly the same and get everything from the same suppliers, but they are counterfeit.  They might be made in the same factory and they are done to the same specifications.  No one can tell them apart, but they are fake.  The real ones would cost about $100, same as in the US."

Real or counterfeit?

I realized something that was so obvious I had missed it.  A genuine Nike shoe is designed in the US, and manufactured to exacting Nike specifications in a Chinese factory under local rules and conditions, and sold as genuine Nikes.  A counterfeit Nike shoe is designed in the US, and manufactured to exacting Nike specifications in the same factory or one just like it under local rules and conditions, and sold as genuine Nikes, but are fake.

Both are subject to quality control inspections.  Genuine Nike's need to meet Nike's standards.  Counterfeit Nike's need to meet standards high enough to not be distinguished from real Nikes by the people expecting to substitute them for Nikes, either in stores in the US or sold locally in China.  Either way, they were built in a Chinese sweatshop to Nike specs.

Congress is shocked to see that Russians created content that was spread on Facebook.  I am not.  Their ad content is essential the same as the content created and spread by my all-American Facebook friends and by the many people who send me e-mails.  My Bernie supporting friends posted material about Bernie's virtues and Hillary's deceit.  My Trump supporting evangelical Christian friends sent me emails about how terrible Hillary was and how Trump was on Gods side.  It now appears that some of the content was paid ads, created by Russians and paid for in roubles.  

My only surprise is how cost effective it was.  

At a cost of $917 a post about Black Matters, an apparently fake activist group protesting killings of black youth by police, had some 201,000 impressions and 12,000 clicks.  Another fake Facebook group got 289000 impressions and 13,000 clicks for $694.  A faked up group with ads defending the 2nd Amendment got 300,000 impressions and 25,000 clicks for $829.

Apparently the Russian goal was to pick at the scabs of the culture war to create social conflict and doubts about America.  We did not need Russians to do that.  We do it to ourselves, in our everyday politics, and because ugly conflict is the business model for cable TV shows and talk radio.  Outrage sells and it holds an audience.  We didn't need the Russians.

If anything, we should thank them for their business--but raise our advertising rates.  We are selling the American mind too cheaply.

Here are some examples of ads they bought, which we American read, shared, and circulated.  Do they look familiar?  Possibly readers saw these, or saw others just like them, produced in St. Petersburg, Florida by a politically active American, or in St. Petersburg, Russia by the Russian government.  Same product.  Same design.  Different factory

I don't want Russian interference in our elections.  I understand, on principle, that it is dangerous and wrong.  Yet I have the same feeling I had in front of the shoe store in Shanghai.  What is, really, the difference between a genuine Nike and a counterfeit one?