Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by brightlancer » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 3:47 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #125

rendaw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone replies with "well all companies are bad in some way"... scale is also a factor here. Even if Google does the same things as a small family owned business, they have significantly greater ability to inflict harm. And I'm not sure I buy that all companies are bad. A lot of companies are earnest and customer-focused when they're smaller and desperate for more users. And I've worked at many companies whic…

> In case anyone replies with "well all companies are bad in some way"... scale is also a factor here. Even disregarding scale, plenty of large companies providing critical service struggle to find good people to do their job. Sure, they don't pay as well. But if the rebuttal is that you can't find a honest company that pays equivalent salaries, maybe we should call that wage-gap corruption money.

There's always going to be a lot of money/profit in amoral behavior that's legal -- while being moral means passing on that behavior and money. It's possible to run a business morally and successfully, but rarely as successfully as someone who runs one amorally.

IME, most people in the US will happily take a job with the extra money at an amoral company, even if the lesser paying job at a moral company would still be enough for a comfortable life. (Folks in the US are very price conscious; I don't know how that compares to other cultures/ societies.)

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

#212

Post by ssklash » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 3:48 PM UTC

spunker540 wrote: post #88

guerrilla wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an abused substance, it's violence.

You do a disservice to anyone actually exposed to real violence. I’m sure they’d prefer advertising to violence any day

Maybe not violence, but what word more accurately describes the non-consensual exploitation of human psychology for massive profit?

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

#213

Post by harimau777 » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 3:48 PM UTC

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #189

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line has to go up, and the slack has to be taken out of every last source of revenue. Like that story that was here yesterday about insurance companies monitoring customer's insured assets with drones and AI. Every unexploited dollar left on the table is slack, and a perfect market leaves no dollar unexploited. Therefore a more perfect market can be built with more perfect machine-powered decisions to more perfec…

You’re on a website run by venture capitalists who use this platform to increase the value of their portfolios… so unless you’re an agent provocateur, your comment needs to be read as ironic performance art because I hate to break it to you - you’re also part of the problem

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1259257-we-should-improve-so...

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

#214

Post by ndriscoll » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 3:49 PM UTC

fedeb95 wrote: post #126

volleygman180 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are commercials during saturday morning cartoons not ads targeted at children? When I was growing up at least, it was all for candy, toys, and sugary cereal, and often had kids or cartoon characters featured in the commercial.

it's a matter of threshold. There's a point up to which targeted advertising doesn't cause harm, after that, it does. Ads on smartphones cross that threshold. Doesn't matter if TV also does: if it does, it should be limited too, otherwise, it doesn't matter. Why smartphones and related software cross that threshold? They're specifically designed to increase use time, i.e. to be addictive. It's a drug.

The fact that companies making sugary cereals haven't gone out of business and the current obesity crisis suggest to me that those TV commercials are also quite harmful. Something causes people to switch off their brains and feed their kids cookies and marshmallows for breakfast as long as the TV says it's okay and normal.

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

#215

Post by harimau777 » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 3:52 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #191

cantrevealname wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the remaining ungrouped users, by process of elimination..." This being hacker news, I can't help but appreciate the pure evil genius of this. It reminds me of some other cases cunning corporate ingenuity: - Monsanto and their "terminator" seeds that prevents farmers from planting seeds they harvest, requiring them to purchase new seeds for every planting.[1] - Volkswagen and how they programmed diesel engines to a…

Monsanto isn’t forcing anyone to buy their product. Farmers use it because they’re better than uncopyeighted seeds.

They are forced in the sense that it's a prisoner's dilemma type of thing: Farmers would be better off if none of them used exploitative seeds. However since they are competing with farmers who are using those seeds then have to do so as well in order to stay competitive.

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

#216

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #196

resource_waste wrote: post #154

Wait... Nintendo and Disney targets children, including those too young to know what Ads are. Why are these different ethics? (They are not, both of those companies have created literal fanatics by adulthood. Even I cannot avoid beating each Zelda game despite not enjoying a single Zelda game since WW)

I live in an area where advertising is not allowed to target children directly. As a result, the adverts don't show children playing with the toys, but present the toys in a bland setting as potential gifts for adults to buy. They will show an adult happy with a purchase. In short, they simply cannot address children directly through television. However, it's a fine line and you hardly ever see advertisements for toy…

Wow, that's really interesting.

Having grown up on cartons filled with ads for toys showing kids playing with the toys, it literally never even crossed my mind that anyone would consider that objectionable, let alone pass laws against it.

At most parents would be annoyed because their kid would pester them for a toy, but I've literally never heard anyone suggest that the advertising should be banned.

(Advertising alcohol or tobacco of course is today different.)

You've definitely made me wonder how childhood might be different without ads for children. On the other hand, when I grew up you couldn't avoid commercials. Now kids watch everything through streaming where you can generally eliminate the commercials anyways.

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

#217

Post by brookst » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

talldayo wrote: post #201

brookst wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU: creates regulation that makes doing that thing illegal That’s a huge fallacy. For the most part complaints about the EU regulatory fetish are about the way regulations don’t make it clear what is legal to do. So yeah, the EU outlaws some bad behavior, but also lots of innocuous behavior, with a “spirit of the law” enforcement regime. So nobody actually knows what’s legal. I’m surprised that’s not well understoo…

> but also lots of innocuous behavior, with a “spirit of the law” enforcement regime. This is great, and you're only mad because it's the perfect riposte to Apple's "loophole around the spirit of the law" mentality. Cry more! We got into this mess because Apple illegally manipulated their implementation of normal software; App Stores, browsers, messaging apps, you name it. The point of this legislation is to make bus…

What an insulting post. Do you talk to people IRL that way?

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

#218

Post by brookst » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 4:06 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #94

brookst wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU: creates regulation that makes doing that thing illegal That’s a huge fallacy. For the most part complaints about the EU regulatory fetish are about the way regulations don’t make it clear what is legal to do. So yeah, the EU outlaws some bad behavior, but also lots of innocuous behavior, with a “spirit of the law” enforcement regime. So nobody actually knows what’s legal. I’m surprised that’s not well understoo…

> So yeah, the EU outlaws some bad behavior, but also lots of innocuous behavior, with a “spirit of the law” enforcement regime. So nobody actually knows what’s legal. There are edge cases but the directives are quite clear most of the time. It's much better than regulations that are interpreted literally, and have huge gaping loopholes to be exploited by companies spending millions on lawyers.

Ok, so would it be legal for Apple to ship Apple Intelligence in the EU, or would it be illegal unless they allowed e.g. Google to plug in and provide the same features?

I've read the DMA cover to cover twice and I honestly can't tell you. There are pretty convincing arguments in either direction as far as I can tell. I don't think it would be possible for Apple (or anyone else) to know the legality before the trial.

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

#219

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 4:10 PM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #205

wslh wrote: post #76

When I was a child, the conspiracy theory among kids was that Coca-Cola inserted subliminal ads by interlacing a can of Coke within TV series or movies. I cannot believe reality surpasses all those fantasies without scrutiny. Even political propaganda between left and right wings, 1984, and other similar scenarios sound like satire.

> When I was a child, the conspiracy theory among kids was that Coca-Cola inserted subliminal ads by interlacing a can of Coke within TV series or movies. I cannot believe reality surpasses all those fantasies. Reader: Yeah, that happened... Narrator: It did: https://www.businessinsider.com/subliminal-ads-2011-5

No, the idea that you can insert a single frame into standard video formats and have it subliminally influence you is an urban legend.

You can try it with any video editing software. A single frame at 30 or 60 fps is extremely visible. It's not passing by your conscious awareness undetected. The flash is obvious and you can easily read a word of text or recognize a logo or someone's face.

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

#220

Post by briandear » Thu, Aug 08, 2024, 4:18 PM UTC

mattacular wrote: post #63

Zambyte wrote: 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

Dream bigger? We could make it illegal to advertise period.

A ridiculous concept — the only people that win in that are the incumbent producers.

“I make a better widget at a lower price than BigCorp” — yet nobody will ever find out about it because advertising that fact would be illegal. Journalists would become supremely powerful and (more) supremely corrupt. Just like radio DJs in the 20th century determined what music sold (and were often bribed accordingly,) the same thing will happen for literally everything. Journalism would become even more like advertising but people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I don’t want the equivalent of radio DJs determining what products and services win.

Many professional sports would disappear, Motorsports, soccer, many olympic sports would cease to exist at the highest level. The Olympics themselves would no longer be broadcast (who would pay for it?) Kid’s little league teams would lose local business sponsors. Everything would be pay-per-view assuming the economics worked at all. Newspapers would all shut down. TV stations would disappear. Radio would be limited to small amateur stations — if that because the moment the host mentions a product, service, song, they’d be sued (wrongly or rightly) for potentially advertising. New restaurants would never survive (how will anyone know you exist: Signage and logos are all advertising.)

Basically it would be North Korea with people shopping for inferior state-produced goods at inferior state run supermarkets reading state-approved messages about the greatness of the Dear Leader and his progeny.

Even word of mouth referrals would be subject to lawsuits “can you prove you didn’t get a free cookie in exchange for saying something to your friends about this bakery?”

An absolutely dystopian nightmare.

And if there were an advertising ban, you can bet politicians would exempt themselves from such a ban.