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An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

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Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#31

Post by jbob2000 »

whatshisface wrote: post #27
jbob2000 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could all just start googling and searching for things that are completely irrelevant to us. This would fuck up the advertising models and marketers would be forced to change their practices. So I say to you all: go and google some random shit and do some deep dives into it. Be predictably unpredictable.

There are people working around the clock to determine this information, and there's no indication that they couldn't just peg you as "open-minded" and start selling products associated with that.

Right! But I will not click on those ads because I am not part of that demographic. The whole point of doing this is to shift you to a demographic where the ads become irrelevant and you aren't tempted to click them.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#32

Post by skystrife »

basic1 wrote: post #23
skystrife wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct response is not to try to advertise targeting the traumatic event, but to pivot and avoid it and related subjects entirely. I doubt people will complain if ads about babies and parenting were to disappear after a still birth or miscarriage.

>The correct response is not to try to advertise... Never going to happen, they say marketers ruin everything for a reason.

I'm not saying "don't advertise at all", but rather "advertise something very different". Does that matter, though? Maybe not.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#33

Post by froindt »

creaghpatr wrote: post #3

Suprised pregnancy doesn’t fall within the ‘no targeting based on health conditions’ policy of most ad platforms.

Target got in hot water in 2012 when a guy found out his 17 year old daughter was pregnant because of a customized ad sent to their home.

In the articles at the time, they mentioned your whole life gets turned upside down when you have a kid. It's an event that changes your routines, and all retailers would love to become the new convenient store you routinely go to. Huge value for them.

www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#34

Post by jrockway »

GuiA wrote: post #25

Banksy on advertising, in 2004: People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most…

I don't really see the difference between Banksy having himself plastered all over the media for shredding his artwork versus Colgate telling me to buy their toothpaste. Banksy understands and uses advertising better than anyone.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#35

Post by mc32 »

40acres wrote: post #13

I've been really interested in a 'digital agent' model for a while now. Some profile, and/or grand set of settings that apply to all my interactions online. I interface with way too many platforms online to keep track of, this can lead to unwanted and annoying targeting similar to (but obviously on a much lesser scale) to this mother. I recently bought a shaving kit for my future brother-in-law for Christmas, I looke…

You know things are broken when after you buy things you begin to get ads for the very thing you just bought. Now, you could forgive one ad network not knowing, but when you get served up ads by the people who know (have a record of the transaction) you bought something, you know something’s not working the way it should, optimally.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#36

Post by jbob2000 »

kmetan wrote: post #28
jbob2000 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could all just start googling and searching for things that are completely irrelevant to us. This would fuck up the advertising models and marketers would be forced to change their practices. So I say to you all: go and google some random shit and do some deep dives into it. Be predictably unpredictable.

Maybe this is close to your idea: https://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/

Yes, but I think that this is too shallow. You have to do deep dives (as if you were actually interested in the product/service) for it to really work. Like the OP said, you have to go to review sites, watch youtube videos, etc.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#37

Post by Tom4hawk »

jbob2000 wrote: post #20
40acres wrote: post #13

I've been really interested in a 'digital agent' model for a while now. Some profile, and/or grand set of settings that apply to all my interactions online. I interface with way too many platforms online to keep track of, this can lead to unwanted and annoying targeting similar to (but obviously on a much lesser scale) to this mother. I recently bought a shaving kit for my future brother-in-law for Christmas, I looke…

Or we could all just start googling and searching for things that are completely irrelevant to us. This would fuck up the advertising models and marketers would be forced to change their practices. So I say to you all: go and google some random shit and do some deep dives into it. Be predictably unpredictable.

Because I don't have better things to do than playing whack-a-mole with some stupid advertisement algorithm.

I have simpler option: don't use social media, use DDG, uBlock and pay for products you use.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#38

Post by buboard »

dannykwells wrote: post #12

I think it's things like this that will ultimately bring the downfall of the tech giants - the fact that even with "machine learning", the quality if the experience is still so low. They built an addictive product in the beginning, but now all of them are starting to make us feel nauseous, which is one of the fastest ways to break an addiction. It's true here for social media (in spades), but it's true with Amazon (s…

Facebook in particular can easily fix this. Just use their friends to get the information.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#39

Post by froindt »

skystrife wrote: post #29
srvo wrote: post #21

This seems to happen a lot when one's experience is statistically unlikely, or when it doesn't neatly mesh with a commercial opportunity. For instance, I am a transgender woman and I get THE WEIRDEST ads. Makes sense, since an algorithm meshing together my engagement histories from ten years of social platforms must see something quite strange. The only appropriately targeted advertisements I get are from academics i…

I wonder if it makes sense for ad platforms to enable a "clear history" option just like our browsers do? That way you can say very clearly "the current model is wrong, please restart and try building a new one for me". That might also help this particular case: rebuild the model from scratch including only content going forward rather than backward. Should eliminate the baby ads effectively, right?

That'd work in this case, but would destroy lots of value when people like me would go in every few months and reset all my ad profiles. Then again, the total percentage of people who would care enough to go in and do that is probably pretty small.

Re: An open letter to FB, Twitter, Instagram regarding algorithms and my son's birth

#40

Post by Klathmon »

skystrife wrote: post #29
srvo wrote: post #21

This seems to happen a lot when one's experience is statistically unlikely, or when it doesn't neatly mesh with a commercial opportunity. For instance, I am a transgender woman and I get THE WEIRDEST ads. Makes sense, since an algorithm meshing together my engagement histories from ten years of social platforms must see something quite strange. The only appropriately targeted advertisements I get are from academics i…

I wonder if it makes sense for ad platforms to enable a "clear history" option just like our browsers do? That way you can say very clearly "the current model is wrong, please restart and try building a new one for me". That might also help this particular case: rebuild the model from scratch including only content going forward rather than backward. Should eliminate the baby ads effectively, right?

Google at least let's you specifically go into ad settings and check/uncheck specific categories of things that you get ads about (that's an oversimplification of the process behind it).

I'm not sure how but one time I started getting a few ads in Spanish about toothpaste. I had also just found out about the ad settings page, and after taking the minute to remove the handful of wrong interests, the incorrectly targeted ads stopped.

Edit: Facebook allows it as well, here are the links for anyone that wants to do it now.

https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated

https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/

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