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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

#361

Post by Terretta »

crazygringo wrote: post #219
Terretta wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'd argue an urban legend is not the same thing as a hoax.

Compare "vampires walk among us" versus "Theranos works".

It did happen, and it didn't work, are not mutually exclusive.

Theranos happened, and subliminal advertising happened.

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

#362

Post by alfiedotwtf »

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

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

#363

Post by mrguyorama »

Terr_ wrote: post #317
mrguyorama wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can do like a few different states have done and just fucking ban billboards, and the world doesn't end, and the economy doesn't crash, and the world is an explicitly better place. So much stupid nonsense just to not make the world a better place and I don't understand it. You don't need to be creative. Speaking of which, at this point it's only a matter of time before some big name attempts to put a satellite…

> Or you can [...] just fucking ban billboards I feel this " just do X" formula is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting. Will you force most gas stations dismantle their price-signs? Will "garage sale here" signs become illegal? What zones are or aren't covered? Vehemence is unfortunately not a substitute for planning or clear rules.

And yet several states have done "just" that! You don't even have to figure anything out yourself, you can just copy their frameworks!

Why are you so insistent on this? We figured it out decades ago! Don't make up BS reasons to avoid reality, just go read the existing rules.

https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/23/title23sec1908.htm... Click the buttons at the top of the page to navigate this section of law.

Maine has had this all on the internet since the 90s. It's a solved problem.

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

#364

Post by sebastiennight »

randomdata wrote: post #331
sebastiennight wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed reading your side of the argument but am less convinced with > Without some kind of advertising, she also wouldn't know anything exists – even healthy food. Do you actually believe that before the 1900s and the invention of advertising, nobody knew about food? I don't see how you can make such a big claim without resorting to "well, daddy telling you to eat cucumber is a form of advertising".

> but am less convinced Is there something we are supposed to convince you of? > Do you actually believe that before the 1900s and the invention of advertising, nobody knew about food? 1900s? Even what is considered "modern" advertising dates back to the 17th century – i.e. the 1600s. > I don't see how you can make such a big claim without resorting to "well, daddy telling you to eat cucumber is a form of advertising…

Alright, it's all good and dandy to play devil's advocate to everyone, but it would be nice if you didn't mind sharing your definition of "advertising" that dates back to the 1600s and includes "knowing about the existence of vegetables".

Just a definition would be nice. Thanks.

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

#365

Post by ajsnigrutin »

tekknik wrote: post #349
sham1 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sorts of taxes could be made progressive. And if one wanted to be really cheeky, the progression could be based on percentages of global revenue. Ads really are a negative externality, and they should really be treated as such.

take a complex solution that doesn’t actually solve the problem and make it more complex so then it solves it, yet still doesn’t. a less complex solution, let companies like apple do what they do and allow ad blockers and develop an AI feature for removing them. people still seeing ads these days are doing so by choice.

> people still seeing ads these days are doing so by choice.

Hey, you might not know, but there exists this place called "the outside", where there are no adblockers, no AI, but A LOT of ads.

Severly limiting ads would solve that too. Adblocks wouldn't.

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

#366

Post by throw10920 »

ath3nd wrote: post #360
throw10920 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is deluded. "Capitalism" is not "structured" in this way at all. This is a failure of regulation , and it's extremely easy to see why: because competent regulators would take anticompetitive action against large monopolies like Google and Meta, as well as enacting laws to prevent undesirable things like personal data being sold. > The perverse incentives of capitalism will never create good social change ...and…

> This is deluded. "Capitalism" is not "structured" in this way at all. This is a failure of regulation I do agree with you that this is a failure of regulation. However, in the stage of capitalism we are currently in, capitalism actively FIGHTS regulation. Whether it's lobbyism, hiring "scientists" to challenge independent studies, outright tax evasion, or simply accepting fines for disaster after disaster (oil spil…

> However, in the stage of capitalism we are currently in

This is, again, deeply deluded and detached from reality.

People always fight those who hold them back. This applies to employees fighting bosses, children fighting parents, companies fighting regulators, citizens fighting corrupt governments, and different bureaucrats fighting each other in socialist and communist systems.

It's blindingly obvious that this phenomenon isn't specific to capitalism, and outright false to claim that it wouldn't happen in any other economic system. (and, in fact, it would be much worse in command economies, as history clearly shows)

> Capitalism at its current stage is just a giant fire-sale

Again: there's no "at its current stage" - there is corruption in government that has allowed bad actors to run rampant. The fact that tens of thousands of companies are behaving reasonably trivially disproves your claim that this is a "stage". This is bad actors, which have always existed, and always will continue to exist, that are now less checked than usual because of regulatory failure.

> we also need to think whether a system that produces statements like this

...which proves decisively that you have no idea what you're talking about. This is not an argument - this is emotional pleading.

That describes a lot of your posts, actually - pleading. Because there are no logical points made, just a lot of emotionally manipulative, trivially-false statements.

> will work my best to dismantle it and throw it in the past

...and there's the activism, which comes with the typical lack of understanding of reality that is common to proponents for communism.

You should visit North Korea for yourself and see how alternative systems to capitalism actually work.

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

#367

Post by throw10920 »

tekknik wrote: post #345
ath3nd wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it doesn't ALL go in their pockets. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2022/ The average CEO nowadays is paid 344 times more than an average worker, while in 1978 this figure was "only" 21 times. And indeed, lots of it goes to prevent serious penalties, like lawyering-up, lobbying, (deceitful) media campaigns, bribing "scientists" and "doctors", etc. Just look at Big Tobacco's playbook: https://en.wikipe…

> it's capitalism to blame it doesn’t matter how many times this is said, rational people know the issue is with humans and not capitalism. we can’t keep giving human behavior a pass and blaming systems that literally cannot take any action on their own. we see this with guns as well, the problem is not the system nor the laws, the problem is people. i wish you luck in fixing people, as many have tried before you and…

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

#368

Post by vsensei »

kelnos wrote: post #274
HDThoreaun wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

In your story nobody is forced to anything. The farmer that doesn't like the monsanto deal made their choice, effectively rendering their farm business less competitive (unable to lower prices like the other farmer). That was predictable, it's also why the other farmer took the deal. Yeah, forced by market to not ignore progress to be better at what you do, that may be, but can't see that as negative.

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

#369

Post by ath3nd »

throw10920 wrote: post #366
ath3nd wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is deluded. "Capitalism" is not "structured" in this way at all. This is a failure of regulation I do agree with you that this is a failure of regulation. However, in the stage of capitalism we are currently in, capitalism actively FIGHTS regulation. Whether it's lobbyism, hiring "scientists" to challenge independent studies, outright tax evasion, or simply accepting fines for disaster after disaster (oil spil…

> However, in the stage of capitalism we are currently in This is, again, deeply deluded and detached from reality. People always fight those who hold them back. This applies to employees fighting bosses, children fighting parents, companies fighting regulators, citizens fighting corrupt governments, and different bureaucrats fighting each other in socialist and communist systems. It's blindingly obvious that this ph…

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

#370

Post by mewse »

mrguyorama wrote: post #243
pseudocomposer wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reputational damage is pretty easy to limit for companies that can control what news a huge majority of people see.

If the "Craftsman" brand of tools didn't go completely out of business despite removing the lifetime warranty and just slapping the brand name on cheap chinese tools, then "Reputational damage" does not exist.

Pedantry: "Craftsman" was never a company and didn't "go out of business".

"Craftsman" was originally a store brand used by Sears, under which it sold tools that Sears contracted various third parties to produce.

In 2017, Stanley Black & Decker purchased the "Craftsman" trademark from Sears (Sears Holdings at the time), giving Sears a long-term royalty-free license to continue producing and selling tools under that trademark (I think that license lasts for about another decade at this point? And then there'd be a small royalty payment for using the trademark beyond that point.)

As a result, several different stores now each carry tools all called "Craftsman", they're generally not the same tools; different stores sell different tools produced in different places, and all sell their own versions of the tools under the same "Craftsman" brand name.

This undoubtedly causes absurd levels of consumer confusion. As you say, it's absolutely causing tremendous reputational value for the trademark.

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