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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

#91

Post by mcguire »

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…

The same way they know to present the ads in the first place? If they can do one, they can do the other, right?

It just happens infrequently enough that they haven't had to care about it. Yet.

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

#92

Post by jfk13 »

patmcguire wrote: post #84
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.

I see this sentiment a lot, but I think it probably does make financial sense to show you ads for a thing you already bought. There are often a few whales out there who are buying one of a thing to sample and then might later buy hundreds or thousands.

If I were buying a sample of something, with a view to buying in bulk, I don't think I'd base that bulk-buying decision on ads that follow me around after the sample purchase. I've already found the product and bought a sample; any decision to buy a thousand of them will be based on my evaluation of that sample. I'm not likely to forget about the whole project until reminded by an ad that stalks me around the web...

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

#93

Post by crazygringo »

I don't mind the ads... I just wish we could manually update our inferred advertising profiles ourselves!

Like, "I already bought that product on Amazon so you don't need to advertise it to me anymore." Like, "I already shop at store X so you don't need to keep showing it." Or the obvious case in this article.

Sure, draw your inferences... but please let us correct them! If I'm gonna see ads, I want them to be relevant.

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

#94

Post by pdimitar »

Perseids wrote: post #70

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 technologica…

> Or if the answer is technological: How come we accept the tyranny of advertisers on our most personal devices?

This alone deserves a entire novel to be answered properly but in short: it reaches out to social, political and economical reasons. As I programmer I so wish the problems to be only technological but alas, they are not.

1. Most people view anything they don't understand and/or are not good at as magic that "is simply there and works this way". Most non-technical people I knew in my life -- not a small number, has to be north of 300 -- simply had no idea you could block ads. And something like the Pi-Hole they would never imagine even being possible. It'd be a spy movie tech for them.

2. Possibly controversial anecdotal observation of mine during my whole life: most normal folk are very maleable and accepting for the realities around them. Many of my peers call them "sheep" or other derogatory terms and even though on rare occasions I am pissed enough to agree with them, I still understand and realize that people have jobs and lives to deal with and they don't want to go out of their way to try and make a difference in the world. I used to be mad at that but nowadays, with me having suffered years of depression and burnout, I understand that regular folk all too well...

3. Related to the above: not many want to change society at large. As much as it boggled my mind, I actually heard a chunk of the people I met agreeing to have ads served to them. At certain point you have to wonder would you be the hero of the story that aims to bring down tech giants that harvest personal data, or the villain? I know I would view myself as the hero for sure but you gotta wonder sometimes.

---

As an even more controversial aside, IMO the current breed of capitalism is ruthless and tries to fill every minute of people's leisure time with a ton of activities -- like doing taxes in huge convoluted procedures, poking you with notifications on your phone to hatch virtual eggs quicker with the diamond currency of your mobile game of choice or whatever, Facebook et al never leaving you alone about somebody posting something, and lots and lots of others.

What I am trying to say is that most people I see around me are way too tired and broken to NOT accept tyranny.

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

#95

Post by paulie_a »

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…

The problem is that banksy is incredibly self promoting and making millions. Talk about a huge hipocrite. "I'll cash my check pretending to not advertise his work, oh and don't be an advertising whore, seriously where is my check"

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

#96

Post by RandallBrown »

macleginn wrote: post #82
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.

This works the same way in Spotify’s recommender system. It keeps recommending you records you not only have already listened to a couple of times, but also added to your library and even made available offline. This is so fixable.

Spotify has several ways of recommending new music.

Discover Weekly is a brand new playlist of new music that you haven't listened to before.

They have their Daily Mixes which seem to be based on music you listen to regularly, with a few new, but similar, things mixed in.

I have found that it generally recommends the same type of music, so I can feel a little stuck in a few genres, but they just gave me a playlist of new music that's outside the genres I normally listen to.

I've been very happy with Spotify and their music discovery is a reason I don't see myself switching to Apple Music or similar anytime soon.

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

#97

Post by bogomipz »

jrockway wrote: post #34
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…

I don't really see the difference between Banksy having himself plastered all over the media for shredding his artwork versus Colgate telling me to buy their toothpaste. Banksy understands and uses advertising better than anyone.

That's a false equivalency. Banksy wasn't "having himself plastered all over the media" - he didn't do any media buys or pay anyone to promote him.

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

#98

Post by markus_orlandis »

dannykwells wrote: post #12

I think it's things like this that will ultimately bring the downfall of the tech giants - the fact that even with "machine learning", the quality if the experience is still so low. They built an addictive product in the beginning, but now all of them are starting to make us feel nauseous, which is one of the fastest ways to break an addiction. It's true here for social media (in spades), but it's true with Amazon (s…

I think that's pretty optimistic. Society seems to constantly drone on about "garbage" reality television and yet the networks keep pumping them out at an ever-increasing rate with more ridiculous plots all the time. For every person you hear complain, there are many more behind the scenes that you don't hear from who are the exact demographic that these companies are appealing to.

These companies wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't working.

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

#99

Post by davefp »

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…

> How, exactly, are they supposed to know that?

Because situations have more than one possible outcome. Lumping everyone into a single cohort based on a majority rule (e.g. people who buy pregnancy-related products often buy baby-related products later) is a kind of insensitivity that would be frowned on if applied in person.

> The bigger issue here is everyone expecting Facebook to somehow be omnipotent.

I'd argue that Facebook (or its advertising algorithm in this case) is operating _as if it is_ omniscient when really there are lots of shortcomings that can and do cause harm. It should be reigned in instead of forgiven.

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

#100

Post by NorthOf33rd »

Instagram is not a person. Don't ask it to be decent.

Those ads are not your friends. Don't expect them to treat you like they care.

You're not sharing your information with a human. You're sharing it with a business who is tuned to maximize profit. The ROI on dealing with still births for advertising is probably negative.

They don't care about you. You've made the decision to let a business deep into your personal life, a space once reserved only for loved ones. These are the consequences.

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