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Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

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Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#111

Market data science is tragically fascinating. It's a superpower, capable of being used for eithger good or bad.

What would it look like when it is being used for good? Not being a smartass implying its existence, legitimately wondering.

From what I hear the chinese Tik-Tok equivalent Douyin does manage to educate and raise STEM interest and help... https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/10i4gks/tiktok_in_c...

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#113
post #85
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are free to enable Do-Not-Track and then sue a company for not respecting it, which will create precedent that companies must default to "reject all" if this header is present, if you win.

Seems sensible, which makes me wonder why it hasn't already happened

When Do Not Track was introduced, the industry immediately used it to fingerprint and track users. In the end Safari ended up removing it.

As to why no one sued, it's really hard to prove that a company doesn't respect the header.

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#114
post #105
post #22

"We're sorry." This is not surprising. Google has a history violating the privacy of and targetting ads to not only teenagers, but children: - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/business/youtube-ads-kids... - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/business/media/youtube-ki... - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/media/google-you... - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube... - https://www.n…

Why are you quoting "We're sorry."? Who apologized? "I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything." is not "I'm sorry."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiL2AjOtjZI

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#115
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Granted, the EU is pushing back against some of this. But it's far from enough, it's only one continent, and like others mentioned, their solutions often have technical problems. I'm still glad they're at least trying to do the right thing. I've seen the patterns you mention, but yes, they're not coming from the same people. It's indicative of differing opinions, so the hive mind comparison is not a good fit (in this…

The EU isn't even a continent. It's a trade/political block, making up a part of a continent. And the part of the EU pushing back is generally just the European Parliament, not the whole organisation.

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#116
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mind would be the source. This is actually one of my least confident comments; I was almost not going to post it. I consider putting a text together later. Regardless—I've observed, to one example, a young girl I know wanting to buy horse toys to make YouTube horse videos with play & interest in horses being a side motive. The adults are proud of her basically being an instrument of marketing. On one hand, making…

In the same vine, people "doing it for the 'Gram": you go to a fancy vacation or restaurant not to enjoy the experience, but to enjoy the validation from the thumbs up, hearts, comments of your friends social media... I wonder if that's a valid craving after all, a craving for social contact, sadly a craving being answered not by real life interaction, but by a mobile client hitting some API endpoint called something…

It's always so easy to spot these people at restaurants.

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#117
post #100
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not who shared that but there's a concept of non-violent communication that they may be referring to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication Coercion -> force -> violence Forcing ads onto kids = violence?

From my experience, that concept is mostly used as weapon and shield by the worst kind of people, to let them get away with their manipulative bs. Speaking clearly sometimes means saying things that are uncomfortable to hear.

That sounds more like gaslighting.

Non-violent communication isn't at all about manipulation. It's about discussing behaviors and their impact on the person vs attacking and defending in circles that go nowhere.

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#118

The Instagram campaign deliberately targeted a group of users labelled as “unknown” in its advertising system, which Google knew skewed towards under-18s, these people said. Meanwhile, documents seen by the FT suggest steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised. The project disregarded Google’s rules that prohibit personalising and targeting ads to under-18s, including serving ads based o…

As always with these massive corporate failures/crimes it turns out no one in any important position knew anything and it was a small group of low-level bad actors causing all the trouble. How sad that all these companies are plagued with this while the leadership is just trying to virtuously do good business!

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#119
post #22

"We're sorry." This is not surprising. Google has a history violating the privacy of and targetting ads to not only teenagers, but children: - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/business/youtube-ads-kids... - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/business/media/youtube-ki... - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/media/google-you... - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube... - https://www.n…

> Everyone working at these companies: you're partly to blame, whether you're directly involved or not. Reconsider the behavior you're supporting, and quit. I used to think like this, until I got married and started a family. I’m no longer so quick to judge folks for not doing what I believe to be the most ideal (or even ethical) thing in these types of circumstances. For many of us who have families, our top priorit…

This is also true of people with chronic medical conditions or disabilities. I don’t know if the next company’s insurance will cover my doctors or my medication.

Getting a job while having an obvious disability puts you at a disadvantage, regardless of discrimination being illegal.

Re: Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers

#120
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could also make it illegal to advertise to children at all. Wouldn't that be funny if all of us started clicking "I am below 18" :D

We could make it illegal for minors to use the internet at all. It is too dangerous. Similar to driving. That would solve so many current problems.

I think it's more interesting when you scope it to mass media system. I think kids using the internet to communicate directly with their peers and family makes a lot of sense. Kids consuming an infinite amount of media and trying to broadcast themselves to the whole world is very often unhealthy.

I think this is also true if adults, but I think kids are particularly susceptible to unhealthy habits / addictions around mass media systems.

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