This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I pirated her book (because fuck her, she was a Facebook exec) and learned that she had a gnarly near-death experience as a child when she got attacked by a shark at the beach.
I didn't finish the book due to a combination of laziness and my general revulsion at anything Zuck adjacent, but if you have the stomach for it there's a cool shark attack story in it for you at least.
Were you rooting for the shark?
What do they mean by targeted? Like targeted how and with what if they're talking about using the already targeted advertising data that shows a teen is receiving ads for emotional stuff?
To the business world humans are ultimately just conduits to money. But somehow people think privatizing everything is the best way government can serve the public.
Facebook used to have a team dedicated to analyzing their apps' risks to children's and teenagers' health. The team concluded that there are indeed many serious health risks for both children and teenagers, especially teenage girls. Shortly after, it got disbanded, and all its recommendations completely ignored.
They took all that data and used it to exploit the kids.
But really, who wouldn’t? They’re not our kids! Well, nearly 100% of them aren’t. Little Johnny will forgive papa for it one day right?
Not ignored. They weaponized that info internally. And had a road map of potential liabilities and damages that may be involved.
Ignored? Yeah I suppose so, but they sure as shit used the data for their own gain. That team really was the road of good intentions
That's how targeted advertising works yes. Not much of a reveal there?
I guess people need the obvious pointed out, and yeah fair enough.
Before I get dogpiled: I'm not defending them. I'm saying it's sad people actually think or thought the bar was higher than this. You can tell me Google, Xhitter, whatever did the same and I'd say the same thing. You're the product. You. Are. The. Product.
I am sure you already know, but the objection here is going after kids. literally profiling and then abusing their vulnerabilities for profit. this isnt your standard cereal box advertising, I think this is something much darker and more disgusting.
edit: added word
I hear you, I'm saying this shouldn't have been news to anyone.
It's still important to point out and put on the public record.
Yes! SO many people would never ever believe this kind of evil action without hard proof. It absolutely needs to be said and reported on! Any reaction less than this is dismissive and enabling.
I didn't see the testimony, but I did read her book.
When most people think "targeted advertising", I think they are thinking about something like: this user is a middle-class woman between 18 and 25 who enjoys bicycles, so we'll show her ad X.
According to Wynn-Williams, Facebook/Meta is doing things like detecting when a user uploads, then immediately removes a photo--detecting that as a moment of emotional vulnerability (that is, the user was feeling self-conscious about their appearance), then bombarding them with ads in that moment for beauty products.
I think the former is 'obvious' to most people, but the latter probably isn't--probably because Meta and other advertising companies have put a lot of effort in to keep this on the down low--which is why Wynn-Williams is speaking about it publically.
(not accusing you of defending them BTW, just my 2¢ that this goes beyond what most people would consider obvious, imo)
It is absolutely baffling that people don't realize that people are the product. I've had some folks tell me that they understand and "don't care" because the service is "free" or whatever, but then they get angry and freaked out when the platform knows exactly what they're thinking, or at least seems to know.
There's definitely a deficit in understanding and education on what corporate social media really does.
a) yes
b) what I find really concerning is that they may have already figured out how to change people's behaviour: what they think is funny, what they think is appropriate to say/do, where they want to travel to (if at all), how they feel about certain celebrities they like or dislike, what is believable or not believable, how they feel about certain politicians, who to vote for. Some people are probably more easy to sway on certain topics than others are. It's not a stretch to guess that they probably already know various paths to make individuals into something they currently are not.
People downvoting you don't realize how much of a science advertising is.
I wonder how prevalent adblocking is among the younger generations. Even among my peer group I'd see people browsing the web with no adblock and a bunch of ads on websites when I'd glance at a sea of laptops. It was eye opening that outside of the social media I use that many people are just not tech literate. Is ad acceptance trending upward as people get younger and younger?
I wonder how prevalent adblocking is among the younger generations
Speaking of advertising being a science like another person commented, it means it's data driven.
https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-july-global-statshot
Lots and lots: https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=how+prevalent+is+adblocking+by+generation
But more to the point:
Women in every generation block less ads however, which I found interesting.
The difference is this is tracking and targeting minors.
And just because it is the status quo does not mean the general public is aware of it or the actual extent. It needs to be spelled out to them how and why.
Honestly I find it hard to believe any teens are on Facebook now, maybe IG is still cool? Nothing like before. Idk I don't think teens are on those platforms really
Wake me up when something gets done about it other than a fine that amounts to about half a day's profit for them.
They need to be jailed and their companied closed
/s Meanwhile, in some Signal group: “Should we suicide her or do you guys figure she might have some ICE-worthy tattoos?”
:punch: :americanflag: :fire:
Don’t all social media and internet companies do that? It’s all a case of machine learning. I can’t open Insta these days without being blasted with reels of boobs, cleavage etc. My wife gets reels of cooking, dancing etc. It doesn’t have to do anything with our searches or viewing. They’re using our personal information to create a model and shoving targeted content based on that down our throats. This has the highest probability of increasing engagement on their platform.
Meta purposely pits extreme sides of every issue you could think of, gender, race, class, religion, even vegan, against each other. Every hate comment is great news for Meta. Hate comments mean that person is engaging so they will feed them more of that content and further drag them into their hateful beliefs. And why do they do that? To show them shirt and knicknack advertisements while they're frothing at the mouth.
Fuck Mark Zuckerberg. He's one of the worst humans on the planet and deserves terrible things to happen to him.
I'm convinced insta knows your a guy and will blast you with reels full of chicks no matter what you do.
Yeah, it’s impossible to escape the thottening. Same with snap
But emotional state?
I can't speak to "emotional state", but the thottening is a real thing (I've spent weeks trying to stop having all these ass models from cluttering up my feed, it's impossible)
Well sure, but it is more than that. Advertising ,broadly, is literally there expressly to manipulate your emotional state. Social media just gives them more info about your state so they are much more effective at it.
No, it's not normal. Almost no internet companies around the world try to do anything similar to what Meta did and does. Even if you focus on social media companies, I believe that only a small minority try to do that kind of thing.
For example, here we are on social media. Do you see any targeted advertising? Is it being done by the Lemmy instance? And how many instances are there? Then we could look at Mastodon, or discussion forums, or comment boards, or you name it. Of course you would expect some targeted advertising, like you might find computer advertisements if you're on a computer tech forum, but that's different from targeting users who are in a weak state of mind, precisely because it's targeting their overtly expressed general interests and not their temporary vulnerabilities.
Finally, I think you should go back and read the article. You ranted about companies trying to shove things down your throats, but the article was about how to misuse targeted advertising.
