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Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

gist.github.com

81–90 of 124 posts

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#81

Much more entertaining: Get the list of advertisers. Find the ones who aren't allowed to share your data with Facebook, e.g. due to lack of consent or because they're bound by professional secrecy (e.g. banks or health related things). Report to your local DPA.

When it comes to the UK DPA they will only even consider your complaint if you have evidence of trying to resolve the issue with the offending company directly, so it will not have the desired outcome because most companies will opt you out, removing your grounds to complain to the ICO in the first place.

Source: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/data-protection-complain...

> You'll need: a copy of the complaint you have made to the organisation about how they have used your information

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#83
post #24

Weirdly, as much as I hate internet ads in general, I actually find the FB ones better. I've even bought some stuff from a few and been happy.

So you are the one i need to be angry at for caving and perpetuating this bs.

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#84
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I mean the action of gangstalking If a bunch of people analyze your psychology and then coordinate to use what they find to scare you, that's gangstalking When an AI does it.... it's expected advertising behavior? I don't like that double standard. Gangstalking is gangstalking.

"A study from Australia and the United Kingdom by Lorraine Sheridan and David James[13] compared 128 self-defined victims of 'gang stalking' with a randomly selected group of 128 self-declared victims of stalking by an individual. All 128 'victims' of gang stalking were judged to be delusional, compared with only 5 victims of individual stalking."

Yeah but in this case it’s Facebook that is delusional.

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#85

What is the motivation to prefer untargeted ads over targeted ones?

Untargeted ads are presumably less profitable and thus the preference for untargeted ads is also a preference for fewer ads.

It's the opposite. If untargeted ads generate less revenue per impression, they'll need to show you more ads to make the same amount of revenue.

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#86
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because the far-parent problem was 'facebook has ads that target me.' an easy way to avoid the problem of seeing ads on facebook is.. to avoid facebook. yes, this doesn't solve the privacy and ad-affiliate network problem -- but that wasn't the stated problem.

Yea they can track my shadow profile all they want and I don’t care. I don’t visit them so they aren’t showing me ads.

They lease your behavior to other advertisers, insurance companies, loan guarantors…

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#87
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I mean the action of gangstalking If a bunch of people analyze your psychology and then coordinate to use what they find to scare you, that's gangstalking When an AI does it.... it's expected advertising behavior? I don't like that double standard. Gangstalking is gangstalking.

"A study from Australia and the United Kingdom by Lorraine Sheridan and David James[13] compared 128 self-defined victims of 'gang stalking' with a randomly selected group of 128 self-declared victims of stalking by an individual. All 128 'victims' of gang stalking were judged to be delusional, compared with only 5 victims of individual stalking."

Ah, you want to cite hair-splitting

Okay

Give me your identity

Email, phone number, address, family members, etc.

I can show you how gangstalking works with that information

Is that something you'd be willing to share here?

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#88
post #78
post #29

For me the correct URL seems to be: https://www.facebook.com/adpreferences/ad_settings/?section=... instead of what you have in the gist. (But the script errs on the awaits.)

Neither the URL in the gist or this one load for me. The one in the gist seems to freeze at trying to load some modal, on fully updated Chrome.

Can you post screenshots of your network tab so I can calculate the intervention actors?

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#89
post #66
post #3

Cool script. My hack is to live in a country where the local language is not my own, and not the one I have set in my Facebook settings. As a result, Facebook rarely has advertisements that can target me, because my language has been filtered out by the advertisers. When one does appear, it’s nearly always in the local language, so I’m kind of deaf to it and I’m not going to actively respond to anyway. Luckily they h…

Same situation for me. Basically the only ads I ever see in my native language are for American expat tax services (I’m not American, have never visited the continent and have never expressed interest in doing so). Sometimes I wonder just how good this adtech really all is when the best they can do is figure out I speak English (browser language) and live not in an English speaking country (IP address) and just assum…

That's probably less to do with Meta and their tech than a marketer setting up their ads in the way you describe (language: english, country: yours). I'm not sure you can even target nationality at all.

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#90

This got a little stuck on a few of the `.click()` calls for me. Here's my version: const wait = () => new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000)); const getElementsByAriaLabel = (label) => document.querySelectorAll(`[aria-label="${label}"]`); const getElementsByRoleAndWidth = (role, width) => Array.from(document.querySelectorAll(`[role="${role}"]`)).filter(el => el.clientWidth === width); const getElementsByTe…

Lol, I got hit with this: "You're Temporarily Blocked: It looks like you were misusing this feature by going too fast. You’ve been temporarily blocked from using it." Anyone using this may want to s/1000/2000/ on the first line.

I got this message once without even trying, I was just clicking the button for "see why this ad was shown to you" and it was always "You are in the USA and 18-35" which seemed pretty vague for very relevant ads. I never understood why they give the option if A. you don't want me to actually check B. you're not going to tell me how you knew I was in the market for a vacuum cleaner
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