Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 362 posts

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#2

Post by res0nat0r »

I saw this post the other day, but this just seems like it is going to involve even more outrage at FB when the algorithm presents something incorrectly. Getting ads for "You just lost a child, would you like to call a helpline?" are going to outrage just as many people, which is why I expect they just stay away from that type of subject matter all together.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#4

Post by floatingatoll »

res0nat0r wrote: post #2

I saw this post the other day, but this just seems like it is going to involve even more outrage at FB when the algorithm presents something incorrectly. Getting ads for "You just lost a child, would you like to call a helpline?" are going to outrage just as many people, which is why I expect they just stay away from that type of subject matter all together.

It wouldn’t outrage people who need the help.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#5

Post by thebiglebrewski »

res0nat0r wrote: post #2

I saw this post the other day, but this just seems like it is going to involve even more outrage at FB when the algorithm presents something incorrectly. Getting ads for "You just lost a child, would you like to call a helpline?" are going to outrage just as many people, which is why I expect they just stay away from that type of subject matter all together.

How about just stopping the pregnancy ads? Why does it suddenly have to be serving ads about stillbirth?! Maybe just go back to serving pre-pregnancy ads, or ads about something else....or maybe just no ads at all, for a welcome respite?

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#6

Post by ssully »

res0nat0r wrote: post #2

I saw this post the other day, but this just seems like it is going to involve even more outrage at FB when the algorithm presents something incorrectly. Getting ads for "You just lost a child, would you like to call a helpline?" are going to outrage just as many people, which is why I expect they just stay away from that type of subject matter all together.

I think they are asking to stop being prodded with baby ads altogether, not to be shown ads for loss support hotlines.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#8

Post by joe_hills »

On an emotional level, this deeply troubles me—but to address the problem analytically:

It strikes me that an ad algorithm that forces grieving people to opt out of social media at a time when their friends and family are most interested in checking in on their well-being may encourage a broader pattern of falling back on non-ad-supported communication channels in the weeks or months to come.

It seems like there's a strong case to be made here that some ad-supported communication channels should consider either an ad-free grief mode when users are in distress, or at least sell a giftable ability to use the site without ads, in which case friends of the grieving could chip in to avoid this kind of distress.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#9

Post by skystrife »

res0nat0r wrote: post #2

I saw this post the other day, but this just seems like it is going to involve even more outrage at FB when the algorithm presents something incorrectly. Getting ads for "You just lost a child, would you like to call a helpline?" are going to outrage just as many people, which is why I expect they just stay away from that type of subject matter all together.

The correct response is not to try to advertise targeting the traumatic event, but to pivot and avoid it and related subjects entirely. I doubt people will complain if ads about babies and parenting were to disappear after a still birth or miscarriage.
Post reply on HN