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

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

#61

Post by johnchristopher »

GuiA wrote: post #25

Banksy on advertising, in 2004: People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most…

You can do better and just install an ad blocker though.

Activism against ads in public space is still a very much IRL activity.

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

#62

Post by random878 »

GuiA wrote: post #25

Banksy on advertising, in 2004: People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most…

>People are taking the piss out of you everyday.

>in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours.

>what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

>Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy

>They never asked for your permission

Sums up vandals like Banksy pretty well too.

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

#63

Post by mc32 »

Klathmon wrote: post #50
mc32 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know things are broken when after you buy things you begin to get ads for the very thing you just bought. Now, you could forgive one ad network not knowing, but when you get served up ads by the people who know (have a record of the transaction) you bought something, you know something’s not working the way it should, optimally.

But every ad network ive ever worked with already allows you to define categories of people you specifically don't want to show your ads to. It's on the shopders of the ad creator to set that up though. I did read a comment one time that said the companies might be doing it on purpose, to "reaffirm" you made the right choice going with their product. Not sure how true that is, but it might factor in.

Honestly, it’s a turn off for me; or rather a small annoyance. But if true, it must work for most people if true, though I’m having a hard time imagining people not slightly annoyed at this ad behavior.

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

#65

Post by wesd »

mc32 wrote: post #35
40acres wrote: post #13

I've been really interested in a 'digital agent' model for a while now. Some profile, and/or grand set of settings that apply to all my interactions online. I interface with way too many platforms online to keep track of, this can lead to unwanted and annoying targeting similar to (but obviously on a much lesser scale) to this mother. I recently bought a shaving kit for my future brother-in-law for Christmas, I looke…

You know things are broken when after you buy things you begin to get ads for the very thing you just bought. Now, you could forgive one ad network not knowing, but when you get served up ads by the people who know (have a record of the transaction) you bought something, you know something’s not working the way it should, optimally.

There was a thread about this about a month ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18535748

"This one is funny, and has a couple of obvious solutions that have been prevented due to internal politics. The short answer is that they have a couple of different recommender systems, all competing against each other internally for sales lift. One is purely based off of pageviews. When you get recommendations for something you already bought, many times it is because you looked at it, but they don't know nor care if you already bought it. In their words, it works really well and accounting for sales brings in a lot of needless complexity.

Another is based off of sales. They also don't care if you already bought it because according to them, it works well. I remember trying to point out to them that for some types of products (specifically consumable products) this would work really well, but durables not so much. They claimed otherwise, that although they couldn't explain it, it was entirely common for people to rebuy things like vacuum cleaners and TVs and kitchen knives. I did a tiny bit of research to show them why they thought that, and proved with a small segment (vacuum cleaners, I believe), that after you filter for returns and replacements, that the probability of sequentially buying two of the same vacuum cleaner was effectively zero. They asked me to do it for the rest of their products, but I didn't have limitless time to spend on helping another team, especially one with a PM who was a complete dick to me for having the audacity to make a suggestion that he hadn't thought of.

In all, I believe there are a dozen or so recommender services, each with their own widget. There are tons of people that think all of the recommenders have merits in some areas and drawbacks in others, and the customer would be better off if they merged concepts into a single recommender system. But they all compete for sales lift, they all think their system is better than the other systems, and they refuse to merge concepts or incorporate outside ideas because they all believe they are fundamentally superior to the other recommenders. Just a small anecdotal glimpse at the hilariously counterproductive internal politics at Amazon."

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

#66

Post by cronix »

srvo wrote: post #21

This seems to happen a lot when one's experience is statistically unlikely, or when it doesn't neatly mesh with a commercial opportunity. For instance, I am a transgender woman and I get THE WEIRDEST ads. Makes sense, since an algorithm meshing together my engagement histories from ten years of social platforms must see something quite strange. The only appropriately targeted advertisements I get are from academics i…

I am coming to the conclusion that the only way to beat the system is to not play in the system. Or play as little as possible. I no longer go on FB, Instagram or Amazon. I do my best to just be anonymous. I don't "need" to hang out on social media. I lived quite happily before these services even existed, and will continue without them. We have control. We can resist their shiny toys. If we are waiting for THEM (or politicians) to fix these problems, we will die of old age waiting. It's antithetical to their business and self-interests. The only way to make them less powerful is to not give them your data. That is the source of their power. Information.

  Greetings Professor Falken

  Hello

  A strange game.
  The only winning move
  is not to play.
  (1983 - Wargames)

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

#67

Post by Klathmon »

strict9 wrote: post #64

Experienced this with a miscarriage in our family, it's the worst. Months and months later this stuff still follows me around the web like a taunting ghost. The worst part of targeted advertising is when it becomes targeted haunting.

I know it's not ideal, but if you go to the below URLs for Google and Facebook respectively, you can choose which categories you get ads about, and can even specifically "turn off" some categories of ads for you (it looks like facebook even allows disabling some categories for a specific period of time!)

Again, it's obviously not perfect, but at the very least it can help the situation.

https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated

https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/

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

#68

Post by walrus01 »

40acres wrote: post #13

I've been really interested in a 'digital agent' model for a while now. Some profile, and/or grand set of settings that apply to all my interactions online. I interface with way too many platforms online to keep track of, this can lead to unwanted and annoying targeting similar to (but obviously on a much lesser scale) to this mother. I recently bought a shaving kit for my future brother-in-law for Christmas, I looke…

I recently viewed the Amazon page for a 55 gallon drum of personal lubricant and you would not believe the weird ads I get now.

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

#69

Post by protomyth »

res0nat0r wrote: post #59
protomyth wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think the story is looking for comfort from Facebook ads. I am pretty sure she is looking for Facebook not to add to the pain and just get out of any conversation she is having with those that support her. That's the point of the letter. Frankly, if you are an advertiser and know your ads are being served to someone who, through tragedy, cannot use your product and instead are now part of a thousand cuts…

> Frankly, if you are an advertiser and know your ads are being served to someone who, through tragedy, cannot use your product and instead are now part of a thousand cuts treatment, you should be pretty offended yourself. How, exactly, are they supposed to know that? The bigger issue here is everyone expecting Facebook to somehow be omnipotent. They're not. They are a sharing platform that makes money by selling tar…

I would imagine that in this case, some of their social media folks are seeing the problem. Target got word that they were accidentally telling some parents their kid was pregnant. Enough retweets and articles should hit the any social team worth the name.

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

#70

Post by Perseids »

I'm someone saddened that the discussion here focuses only on what the advertiser (/ tech companies) should have done and leaves out the aspect of how we have failed to bring the obvious solution to the harmed individual: Install an adblocker at the first sign of trouble. How come she was so morally obliged to watch any ads in the first place instead of engaging in basic self defense?

Or if the answer is technological: How come we accept the tyranny of advertisers on our most personal devices? Pi-Hole is a nice gimmick for those who can use it. If we can't bring the choice not to watch advertisements to the masses, we have essentially failed.

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