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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

#161

Post by wiz21c »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #144
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…

In the case of the letter author, I suspect the problem isn't just that stillbirths are rare, but that you can't really monetize a stillbirth. Better to assume the baby was born successfully than miss out on the opportunity to advertise to a new mom. I'm sure no one in the room of marketing execs has considered personal consequences like this one. This type of thing is why I do my best to enable privacy settings and…

>>> I'm sure no one in the room of marketing execs has considered personal consequences like this one.

Your first sentence was more correct (I suspect) : they thought about it and purposely forgot about it 'cos there was no money to be made there.

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

#162

Post by fernandopj »

i_phish_cats wrote: post #138
cronix wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be a fun thing to do. Make google and the others pay out the nose by actually clicking as many ads as you can instead of avoiding them. Just have everybody be their own click farm. We could have an international "click to support business day" (hah) where for 24 hours everybody around the globe just clicks ads. That's what they want us to do, isn't it? Maybe we should give it to them.

Doesn't clicking on ads reward google, instead of punishing them?

The budget from advertisers is already credited to Google - if such tactic becomes popular, advertisers would get lower returns (bounces would be way higher than now), and move their budgets elsewhere, harming Google's business.

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

#163

Post by dkrich »

japhyr wrote: post #77
dkrich wrote: post #73

I feel like I’m alone in asking this but does personal responsibility play no part in this? She starts by admitting that she voluntarily signaled to these platforms that she was pregnant. They are ad platforms. She then goes on to admit that she continued to go back on the platforms after and then blames them for showing ads she herself engaged with at one point! I don’t think anyone would ever wish someone grieving…

I didn't read that as she "voluntarily signaled to these platforms that she was pregnant". She made social media posts with many clear signals that she was pregnant. She basically said, "I know your algorithms can detect that I was pregnant. Can't your algorithms detect that my baby is no longer alive?" That seems like a pretty fair statement.

So now society is frustrated because it’s data isn’t being analyzed and used to serve ads effectively enough? We’ve officially come full circle.

How about this- if you are uncomfortable with the prospect of ads potentially shown to you that may upset you based on recent history that’s now changed, lay off the platform for a while.

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

#164

Post by sbov »

nyxxie wrote: post #118

I felt immense pity for the mother in this scenario, and after reading the article I agreed that FB aught to have some sort of way to indicate that such advertisements are offensive and should not be shown to the user. Ideally, I'd like to see a paid tier that gets rid of advertising altogether. Then I read some of the comments here and on other sites. To put it bluntly, I don't understand the tone of entitlement peo…

> To put it bluntly, I don't understand the tone of entitlement people have when they demand FB/Twitter/etc fix their individual problems.

Individual problems caused by the platform. If something or someone is causing a problem for me one method to rectify it is to simply ask them to help. It's a pretty standard thing in society.

> What I don't understand is why they think they have a right to demand that a platform they aren't even paying for should cater to them.

For the most part, they do have a right to demand the platform do whatever they want. And depending upon the request, the platform has the right to say "no" to those. The users then have the right to continue using the platform or not.

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

#166

Post by misterprime »

johnny_and1 wrote: post #22

I feel like this is similar with Facebook "making it rain" whenever you send money through their messenger. It does not matter why you send the money, they always celebrate. Very distasteful and not taking into consideration the real reason. They presented this feature at MobileHCI'17 as part of their "Delight" mantra. They don't care about 100% accuracy, as long as it works for the majority, they will not cater to t…

"I got raped in college and need cash for an abortion".

Sends money.

YAAY!

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

#167

Post by munificent »

matty22 wrote: post #134
stabbles wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to interpret your comment as a direct response addressing the mother who put out the tweet, which seems very inappropriate. The point you're making might be true, but maybe it's better to rephrase it.

I also read it as a direct response to the mother who put out the tweet and it seems pretty appropriate to me? What part of the parent comment is inaccurate?

Whether or not it's accurate matters a lot less than whether or not it's kind.

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

#168

Post by matty22 »

jpindar wrote: post #159
matty22 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't alone. I had the same thoughts. Why would she share that type of information on a social networking site to begin with? It's terrible what happened to her and her family, but this post basically reads "I put my foot in a fire. Fire, why did you burn my foot?"

Are you actually suggesting that a woman should hide her pregnancy from her friends and family?

I'm horrified that anyone shares anything about their child, unborn or otherwise, on a social media platform. Shouldn't that child have the right to choose for themselves if they want literally their entire lives archived by advertisers?

Yes, she shouldn't have posted about her pregnancy on social media sites.

*Edit to add - There are a lot of other ways to share with friends and family about her pregnancy that aren't social media.

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

#170

Post by allemagne »

NorthOf33rd wrote: post #100

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 l…

This is mostly very true, but I think the author understands this better than you're implying. The point of this tweet is to influence public opinion. This:

>The ROI on dealing with still births for advertising is probably negative.

would hopefully not be true anymore due to negative PR, companies would take action out of pure self-interest, and it would stop this situation from happening to future people.

There's of course still the broader problem of companies ravenously and irresponsibly gathering as much data on individuals as possible. To me any increase in a company's liability for the information they're hoarding, even in the form of righteous outrage that on its surface seems to anthropomorphize them, is a step in the right direction.

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