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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

#271

Post by nonrandomstring »

rexf wrote: post #245
nonrandomstring wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but to enjoy the validation Absolutely. It makes me think about the things in life that don't need "validation". Maybe it's a cliche but my dad would say about Korea and other wars "no pics, no words, you had to be there". So that was a teenage trope in the 80s and 90s too for my generation, if you were trying to be cool just say "you had to be there". It draws a circle around a personal or group experience that ex…

> Maybe it's a cliche but my dad would say about Korea and other wars "no pics, no words, you had to be there". So that was a teenage trope in the 80s and 90s too for my generation, if you were trying to be cool just say "you had to be there". sounds like a partial retroactive justification to me. sure, you wouldn't get the full experience via a photo or verbal anecdote, but it's not like camera smartphones were ubiq…

> retroactive justification

Oh I'm not "justifying" it, because I don't need to. This isn't that conversation. I'm just remarking on a difference of culture over time for those who are interested. As you say, there were no cellphones back then, so a quite different world.

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

#272

Post by codr7 »

whythre wrote: post #176
hn72774 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One can couch their words in the language of nonviolence and still be manipulative, cruel or discriminatory. It can and does act as a form of social camouflage, because humans are shitty and a method of communication will not safeguard against predators. You can’t make people harmless, but you can force them to innovate different ways to harm others.

Yeah, but that isn't it at all, I'm afraid.

It's much darker.

The fact is that exactly the same people who are pushing the idea, are the ones who we would need protection from. And they're not innovating much, it's the same bs over and over and over again.

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

#273

Post by kelnos »

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

Kinda tired of hearing this over and over. By and large, most HN readers and commenters are just regular people. Certainly we are regular people of a certain demographic, but we're not all venture capitalists or startup executives or whatever. Not even close.

If you have evidence that the people who run and moderate HN are doing so with a heavy bias toward projecting some sort of venture-capitalist narrative, please present that evidence. My interactions with dang, at least (reading his comments here, and a few email interactions) suggest quite the opposite.

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

#274

Post by kelnos »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #226
harimau777 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dont see how that is the case. How does one farmer using monsanto seeds mean another needs to as well? Each farmers seed choice has no effect on others choices. If the monsanto seeds cost more than they were worth farmers wouldnt use them. In fact saying that you need to use their seeds to be competitive makes it clear that you understand that the seeds are worth it, you just wish they were free or cheaper. But in…

My guess would be it's about pricing. Let's imagine a world where there are only two farms, mine and my neighbor's. We're both using regular seeds, and we do a decent job, but it's not wonderful, and some years our yield isn't so great.

Then Monsanto comes along and wants to sell us a product that gives us better, more consistent yields, even better than our best harvests with the regular seeds. The catch, of course, is that we have to buy new seed from them every year, and can't propagate seed from the prior year's crop.

So my neighbor decides to start buying Monsanto's seeds, but I don't like the terms of the deal, so I don't. My neighbor sees amazing yields, even to the point of surplus. He decides to undercut me by lowering his prices because he has so much to sell, and can still make out better than before, with those lower prices. Nothing's changed for me, so I can't lower my prices. My neighbor's entire inventory sells out, but because of his surplus, only half of my yield gets sold. Fortunately I have some savings to fall back on, so I burn my entire savings feeding my family for the rest of the year, and then grudgingly buy Monsanto seeds for next year.

I'm sure this exact scenario doesn't scale up to the global agricultural system, but I think it's more likely than your naive "no one forces anyone to buy anything; if they buy it, it's because it's worth it" view of economics... things are rarely that simple.

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

#275

Post by randomdata »

bitbuilder wrote: post #260
randomdata wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that this Reframe is some miracle app that will truly do what you think it claims to. Would that not be an ideal way to get the solution into your hands if you have that problem? You're not going to feel guilt or shame unless you already are under the understanding that you're not, in this case, being then parent you wish to become. Anyone who takes an interest in this ad wil…

That's a valid way to look at this, and I appreciate that perspective. However, I think you may be missing the point that the advertisement is specifically meant to elicit, or create, those feelings of guilt or shame. Maybe I feel just fine about the amount I drink, but the wording of the ads subtely implied I should feel guilty about my drinking. If the question was "Do you feel like you could use help with your dri…

> I think you may be missing the point that the advertisement is specifically meant to elicit, or create, those feelings of guilt or shame.

I'm not sure that was missed, but, as before, you cannot elicit or create feelings where there isn't already an understanding of what the feelings reflect. The particular ad no doubt does elicit feelings in those who already see themselves as not being the parent they want to be. It's not going to elicit any particular feelings in someone who is childless, though. They lack the necessary understanding.

And if you do have concern about the way you are parenting, wouldn't you want to improve upon that?

> what if instead the ad had instead said "Tired of being the the ugliest girl in your class? Try BetterMakeup!" (with all the appropriate imagery the targetting provides). Is advertisement like that truly good for anyone but the seller?

Sure, it is also good for the person who has an understanding that they are ugly and no longer want to be, again, assuming the product works. We do again have the potential problem of where the product might not work as expected. Indeed, that can be a problem, but I'm not sure that's a problem with advertising in and of itself. We should be careful to not conflate different ideas.

On the assumption that "BetterMakeup" actually makes a person more beautiful, someone wants to become more beautiful, and the ad gave awareness to the person that there is a solution to their apparent problem, is that not a win for the consumer?

> I think the larger point though is that many of us simply do not think its ethical or healthy to give companies the tools to manipulate our emotions and tap into our insecurities in the pursuit of profit.

If all products magically solved the problems they purport to solve, would you still have the same concern? As before, trying to convince a childless person that they are a bad parent isn't going to work. This only works when you are presenting a solution to someone who already understands that they have a problem.

If the product is shitty, thereby not solving the problem, then I can definitely understand your overall concern. Although I am not sure you have made clear why advertising is to blame for shitty products. If we are imagining ways to change the world, why place product evaluation in the advertising band at all? Perhaps these shitty products don't need to be allowed on the market in the first place?

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

#276

Post by kelnos »

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.

That really is my dream. Advertising is a blight on humanity.

Of course, this would break capitalism. We live in a society where the foundation of the economy requires that people keep buying things, even things they don't really need and don't really want.

I happen to think breaking capitalism a bit could be a good thing, but it would likely also cause a period of economic instability that would crush people who are marginal financially.

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

#277

Post by kelnos »

Nasrudith wrote: post #261
ssklash wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Fraud is closer but still a massive reach.

IMO advertising is worse than fraud. At least with fraud the impact is usually fairly clear, and not buried in our broken, manipulated, subconscious minds.

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

#278

Post by [deleted] »

codr7 wrote: post #100
hn72774 wrote: 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.

[deleted]

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

#279

Post by kelnos »

randomdata wrote: post #194
snapcaster wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate ads, but this is not a winning argument. Instead of winning people over to the sympathetic cause (nobody really LIKES ads besides google and meta employees) you alienate people

Ads can be likeable under the right conditions. Who doesn't want to learn about something that will actually improve their life? Which is also ideal for advertisers. Who wants to pay to advertise to an audience that doesn't want their product? Google and Facebook, in the early days, thought they could use copious amounts of data to tailor the ads to the user such that they would only be subjected to those which are l…

> Who doesn't want to learn about something that will actually improve their life?

I don't, honestly. If I've decided I want something, I'll seek it out. If I've identified an area where I feel like my life is lacking, I might look for a product to help fix that. If I don't even know about something that I might want, I'm fine not having it.

The problem is that I don't really trust anyone else to determine what kind of ad passes the test of "will improve people's lives". There's really no objective way to approve or reject an ad based on this kind of criterion.

I'd rather we just ban all forms of advertising.

> Google and Facebook, in the early days, thought they could use copious amounts of data to tailor the ads to the user such that they would only be subjected to those which are likeable

No, they wanted to give people ads they thought would be effective. Google's plan was to make ads unobtrusive, mostly text-only, and thought that they would be likeable enough to be effective. But that's the key: they didn't do this because they were being nice and wanted to make the web a better place. They did it because they thought the ads would actually work better.

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

#280

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #246
supertofu wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to go that far back. Remember Juul in the 2010s?

Juul sent representatives to schools who told kids that Juuls weren’t addictive. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping....

> sent representatives to schools

This seems like something that should need to be positively justified by the organization which wants to send salespeo^W representatives to schools, in a way that is publicly auditable.

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