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If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

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Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#121

Post by aylmao »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #112
adgineer wrote: post #48

FB ads engineer here. Every time I read these threads, I'm 1. Flattered by how sophisticated HN thinks our systems are (they're not. and we're not that smart. FB's A-team stopped working on ads a long time ago) 2. Entertained by how HN thinks ad targeting works (we don't want to know everything about YOU. we want to know basic info about all of our users.) Hypertargeting doesn't work. Targeting small audiences doesn'…

Please. Ads are Facebook's core business. I don't have any reason to believe you're not telling the truth about basic facts, but the "aw shucks" part is a bit insulting to my intelligence. If the A-Team isn't working on ads, that actually concerns me. When I think of mediocre performers, I think of people who respond most strongly to short-term incentives, not people making nuanced ethical decisions involving a lot o…

> FB is actually stripping away features from our targeting system and removing inputs because we spend too much compute power ($$) driving optimizations that don't have any material impact on delivery value.

> Also, ethics. We do actually think about that a lot these days - it just took us a while to clean up short-sighted product decisions made a decade ago.

I mean, it sounds to me like the A-Team were the ones motivated enough by the technical challenge to not care about cost, ethics or the "big picture". I know plenty of "A-team" engineers like that— they're in it for the technical challenge and to prove themselves, not to be "slowed down".

Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#122

Post by wizzwizz4 »

bagacrap wrote: post #41
classified wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How invasive might this become? Brain-wave-scanning kind of invasive. FB (and advertising in general) will continue to become ever more invasive until it meets a limiting factor. That limiting factor will possibly be legislation (just not in the US because worshiping the Dollar overrides anything and everything else).

Do we know the first thing about how brain waves correlate to any real world properties of a person? If Facebook or anyone else can crack brain waves, ie in a sense "read your mind", it seems like serving ads is the least of our worries, but also pretty exciting in terms of the potential positive applications.

We've already got "EEG to categorised-eyeball-images" technology; in fact, that was a relatively primitive application of neural nets. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/787101v2.full

No, I don't think it unlikely that the next-gen Oculus might do this.

Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#123

Post by LegitShady »

dangoor wrote: post #40
LegitShady wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you say the only data being collected is what you play and when. Why do you think that? They have a lot of lose and movement data from you I bet theyve been spending a lot of time trying to develop inferences you can make from it.

Sure. They know I play Beat Saber and move pretty quickly while doing so. Maybe they'll try to sell me exercise stuff (though I rarely interact with Facebook and my browser setup is kind of aggressive when it comes to them). They also know I'm shorter than Darth Vader. They know the size of a couple of our rooms. I acknowledge there is data they can attempt to extract value from, but that data just doesn't concern me…

>I acknowledge there is data they can attempt to extract value from, but that data just doesn't concern me

This feels like a weird non computer person answer of "I don't understand why I should be worried about metadata it doesn't concern me"

Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#124

Post by tjoff »

paride5745 wrote: post #60
corndoge wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care My $500 device should not be exploiting me Full stop

Let me play Devil's Advocate here. Without these Ads plans, your device would probably cost $1000, as the Valve Index shows us. My 2 cents.

Closer to $500.02.

Seriously.

Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#125

Post by troquerre »

adgineer wrote: post #48

FB ads engineer here. Every time I read these threads, I'm 1. Flattered by how sophisticated HN thinks our systems are (they're not. and we're not that smart. FB's A-team stopped working on ads a long time ago) 2. Entertained by how HN thinks ad targeting works (we don't want to know everything about YOU. we want to know basic info about all of our users.) Hypertargeting doesn't work. Targeting small audiences doesn'…

Having spoken with people who have worked on the FB ads team, and having heard stories of how extensive FB's tracking is, this post seems disingenuous and personally I wouldn't be surprised if the account is sponsored by FB.

Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#126

Post by caconym_ »

adgineer wrote: post #48

FB ads engineer here. Every time I read these threads, I'm 1. Flattered by how sophisticated HN thinks our systems are (they're not. and we're not that smart. FB's A-team stopped working on ads a long time ago) 2. Entertained by how HN thinks ad targeting works (we don't want to know everything about YOU. we want to know basic info about all of our users.) Hypertargeting doesn't work. Targeting small audiences doesn'…

It's documented fact that certain political entities have made heavy use of microtargeting in Facebook ads. Such entities would seem to be less sensitive to traditional ROI concerns, regardless of whether your bit about microtargeting never being worth it is actually true (spoilers: it is not true. maybe for some advertisers, but not for all).

Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#127

Post by mcast »

hanniabu wrote: post #59
adgineer wrote: post #48

FB ads engineer here. Every time I read these threads, I'm 1. Flattered by how sophisticated HN thinks our systems are (they're not. and we're not that smart. FB's A-team stopped working on ads a long time ago) 2. Entertained by how HN thinks ad targeting works (we don't want to know everything about YOU. we want to know basic info about all of our users.) Hypertargeting doesn't work. Targeting small audiences doesn'…

> FB's A-team stopped working on ads a long time ago What are they working on now?

Instagram and personalization feeds if I had to guess

Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#129

Post by sudosysgen »

paride5745 wrote: post #60
corndoge wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care My $500 device should not be exploiting me Full stop

Let me play Devil's Advocate here. Without these Ads plans, your device would probably cost $1000, as the Valve Index shows us. My 2 cents.

Uh, no. Lenovo and Samsung manage to make better HMDs than the Rift S for 250$. The only disadvantage they have is slightly smaller tracking area, but that's not cost, the cameras are like 2$ each.

The only reason the Index costs 1000$ is because its absolutely cutting edge and its controllers and tracking systems are expensive. If it had inside out tracking and normal controllers it would be around the price of the Index.

Re: If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads

#130

Post by throwaway48544 »

adgineer wrote: post #48

FB ads engineer here. Every time I read these threads, I'm 1. Flattered by how sophisticated HN thinks our systems are (they're not. and we're not that smart. FB's A-team stopped working on ads a long time ago) 2. Entertained by how HN thinks ad targeting works (we don't want to know everything about YOU. we want to know basic info about all of our users.) Hypertargeting doesn't work. Targeting small audiences doesn'…

Who is "we"? Thinking big picture here, from a corporate POV, it's entirely possible that the discussions of ethics around handling and retention of data is way outside of the engineering core.

Furthermore, while it's interesting to read about this good intent, that doesn't change the reality of the situation. Your post actually bothers me more than pure maliciousness or opaqueness, because I know it's entirely possible these systems and workflows could be out of control... which is reflected extremely well today in the major complaints and scrutiny of the platform.

The tinfoil hat side of me does not believe this is a genuine account, but eh, there's no way to know here, and at least it opened up an interesting discussion

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