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How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

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Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#151

Post by LorenPechtel »

mbg721 wrote: post #77
designium wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it could be similar to the case where Target was able to targets ads to women who did not even know they were pregnant. In this case, the above commenter could be doing things signaling that he may need a will soon due to diseases or life situation that he is not aware of. Or he/she has looked into content similar to those people in need. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For every "Big Tech figured out my diagnosis before I did" there are a thousand instances of "You just bought a fridge--I bet you love buying fridges, here, let me show you some".

The really nutty one I've seen--Amazon apparently only looks at correlation without regard for causation. Buy ink, it starts showing you printers that use that ink.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#152

Post by LorenPechtel »

dools wrote: post #2

The article seems to suggest this is a bad thing, but my first reaction is "fantastic". Pharmaceutical companies create life saving medicines and then use advanced social media targeting to locate the people that need them. The only bad thing about it is if those people targeted can't afford the medication, which is why healthcare needs to be a universal right. People love to bitch about Big Pharma but I have a magic…

In almost all these cases the doctor should know what the patient needs, pushing patients to ask their doctors about certain medicines.

The one case I think drug ads are legitimate is when it's a dramatic improvement in treatment for a live-with-it type condition. The prime example would be Viagra--before Viagra there were not any good options, a patient very well might not mention it to their doctor so the doctor wouldn't know to suggest it. Thus "talk to your doctor about new options for erectile dysfunction" ads should have been acceptable to run for a while. I'm not sure what the medical situation was when the overactive bladder ads were coming out, that one might also be acceptable. I can't think of anything else right now.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#153

Post by LorenPechtel »

My wife used to be an example of targeting going really wrong on YouTube. She used to only watch stuff in Mandarin (her mother tongue)--their targeting had absolutely nothing to go on and thus was nuts. I would say the majority of the ads she got were pharma ads, but for a whole slew of things. Everything I noticed was niche stuff, I would presume groups narrow enough that they did some ads aimed on age alone.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#154

Post by isaacremuant »

entropyie wrote: post #64
isaacremuant wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland is extremely for profit in everything they do and very poor compared to many places in Europe in terms of response and quality. People just assume a lot about the world.

I don't think it's fair to put Ireland in the same category as the USA here: 1. Zero ads for prescription medication anywhere 2. Medical card for everyone on low income covering everything 3. Never pay more than EUR114/month for prescriptions, no matter how much you medication you need or your income. I've never had doctors pushing any kind of medication on me or my family.

I was curious about another HN poster from Ireland so I looked at your other comments and you're defending RTÉ so it's safe to say we won't see eye to eye.

You're a glass half full type of person, to put it in polite terms.

I could rant all day about media and health in Ireland. Specially from a migrant perspective but it's not really the place.

What is undeniable is that Ireland ranks amongst the worst in Europe and it's very much for profit. It's just Irish people don't know any better and they look at the wrong place (USA) and only at the money aspect, not the quality.

Quality wise, I'd much rather be in USA than Ireland because treatment here is terrible in many cases and there's always a sea of excuses and bureocracy.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#155

Post by okareaman »

timoth3y wrote: post #67
okareaman wrote: post #56

I like targeted ads. I just wish they were better. For example I am open about being in recovery for alcoholism on FB but they still show me ads for hard liquor.

> I am open about being in recovery for alcoholism on FB but they still show me ads for hard liquor. Or perhaps you see the ads because you are open about your recovery. If the relapse rate is high, you will be blanketed with such ads. FB's targeting AI is pretty good. Even people recovering from alcoholism were being targeted, the advertisers might not even know it.

I hadn't considered that. That would be evil, so I need to pay more attention to when this happens and try to understand it better.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#156

Post by okareaman »

andrepd wrote: post #60
okareaman wrote: post #56

I like targeted ads. I just wish they were better. For example I am open about being in recovery for alcoholism on FB but they still show me ads for hard liquor.

I'm afraid you might not be seeing beyond the first-order effects: "ads are annoying, relevant ads are less annoying, therefore I like surveillance!" Consider all the implications that ubiquitous surveillance by unaccountable private entities carries. Plus, the fact that you can advertise extremely harmful drugs such as alcohol (or gambling) at all, not to mention do so precisely to those you figure are more suscepti…

Calling it surveillance is like Steve Ballmer saying about Google "we don't read your email." No human at Google is reading my email. They are scanning it and associating keywords to my account. Do this make me a marked man? Some might feel that way, but this technique is not very accurate and is only used to show me ads when they are going to show me ads anyway. Ads are part of the current reality whether we like them or not. Why not prefer relevant ads?

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#157

Post by cebert »

jack_pp wrote: post #110
cebert wrote: post #92

I can relate to this from my personal experience of having a sick family member. Five years ago, my father-in-law was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a rare blood cancer. I was close to him and joined several support and information pages on Facebook. Since doing that, I see ads on Facebook and elsewhere targeted to me as if I too had cancer. Now my father in law has passed, yet I still see ads that remind me of the…

Have you tried telling Facebook to not show you these ads through the 3 dot menu in the top right? I don't go on Facebook much anymore, just curious

No, but that's a great idea to try.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#158

Post by andrepd »

TchoBeer wrote: post #116
andrepd wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid you might not be seeing beyond the first-order effects: "ads are annoying, relevant ads are less annoying, therefore I like surveillance!" Consider all the implications that ubiquitous surveillance by unaccountable private entities carries. Plus, the fact that you can advertise extremely harmful drugs such as alcohol (or gambling) at all, not to mention do so precisely to those you figure are more suscepti…

>Consider all the implications that ubiquitous surveillance by unaccountable private entities carries I've legitimately never seen an implication other than "I'm uncomfortable with it" that isn't illegal. >Plus, the fact that you can advertise extremely harmful drugs such as alcohol (or gambling) at all Yeah, advertising those things at all should be illegal.

Many such examples: https://theintercept.com/2016/04/28/new-study-shows-mass-sur...

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#159

Post by gerdesj »

anjel wrote: post #140
gerdesj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace the word patient with customer or "money".

I work in a (California) medical facility. "Patient" is now a deprecated if not archaic term, no longer used. Patients are now properly referred to as "clients" for at least 5 years now.

I understand that we all have to keep up but how on earth is patient an "archaic term" when compared to client?

Both words are derived from Latin and have seen some service. Patiens - "sufferer" seems appropriate for someone who is suffering - they tend to gravitate towards Doctors. A client "cliens" is more of a legal term - it was used to denote someone who had a lawyer or was "protected" by a patron.

I think that patient is the more appropriate term for your customers (originates from Latin - "tax gatherer.") 8)

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#160

Post by boomboomsubban »

nceqs3 wrote: post #121
boomboomsubban wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industry has repeatedly put profits ahead of people's well-being, Oxycotin being the easiest example. Their actions should be met with severe skepticism.

Revlimid, Humira, Trikafta, I can go on and on. There are many, many great drugs that save people's lives. Obviously Purdue committed crimes with how they marketed the drug but remember Oxycontin was FDA approved and it had a massive black box warning that said THIS DRUG IS ADDICTIVE.

>Oxycontin was FDA approved and it had a massive black box warning that said THIS DRUG IS ADDICTIVE.

They lied in their submission to get it FDA approved. And that massive black box only appeared 20 years after the introduction of the drug.

As I said, they place profit over the wellbeing of people. That doesn't mean they don't save lives, but if it's more profitable to save fewer they'll generally prefer that route.

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