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Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

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Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#41

Post by amf12 »

smt88 wrote: post #19
bm3719 wrote: post #10

In order to reduce the likelihood my child is victimized online by questionable corporate behavior, I've redirected facebook.com to infowars.com in /etc/hosts.

I can't begin to express my horror at the idea of a well-meaning parent funneling their child into a pit of abhorrent fear-mongering, bigotry, and conspiracy theories. I sincerely hope this was a weird joke.

Exactly! Teaching them the importance of privacy and the harm of social media would be a hundred times better than redirecting facebook.com to infowars.com. I would be pissed off if my parents had done that to me.

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#42

Post by toast_coder »

tirumaraiselvan wrote: post #35
toast_coder wrote: post #12

This seems fairly benign. What's giving it the coverage and negative feedback here is the fact that somebody call it a 'psychological trick'. Is an ice cream truck playing music and slowing rolling down your street on a hot summer day also a psychological trick we need to guard against? Accounting for human congregations and 'appealing to their curiosity' is a part of the human existence. Downloading junk is also a l…

So you are saying this article is more of a 'psychological trick' than the real content.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#43

Post by amf12 »

saudioger wrote: post #29

The trick itself isn't very shitty, but some of the mentality is: "Our team obsessed with finding ways to get individual high schools to adopt a product simultaneously." Seriously? getting a bunch of kids to adopt a product is what you want to obsess about? How about helping companies make a product that's not shit so you don't have to trick kids into using it.

To be fair, all the toys/consoles have been similarly marketed to a bunch of kids (for example during after school hours) for a long time without anyone getting pissed off. It's just marketing. This doesn't really seem like a "psychological" trick to me.

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#44

Post by superfrank »

toast_coder wrote: post #12

This seems fairly benign. What's giving it the coverage and negative feedback here is the fact that somebody call it a 'psychological trick'. Is an ice cream truck playing music and slowing rolling down your street on a hot summer day also a psychological trick we need to guard against? Accounting for human congregations and 'appealing to their curiosity' is a part of the human existence. Downloading junk is also a l…

I think the only part to me that seems a bit sketchy is that the pages were titled things like "TBH @ Some Random Highshool". It seems like their goal might have been to trick kids into thinking the page actually had some association with their high school.

They rest of the stuff they seems pretty normal and is actually pretty clever in my mind.

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#45

Post by HenryBemis »

freetime2 wrote: post #31

> TBH noticed that teens often list their high school in their Instagram bio. So, using a private Instagram account of its own, the company would visit a school’s location page and follow all accounts that included the school’s name. The idea of a company targeting and following individual high school students on instagram does feel a bit "off" to me. If facebook or any other billion dollar public company were doing…

> tactics explicitly designed to target young users

I know that the "target audience" is an established term in business lingo, but when FB is involved they mean it in the literal sense: "you can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave" (as the great poets narrated)

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#46

Post by TeMPOraL »

United857 wrote: post #34
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prescription drug ads do far more social harm. "This shit will fuck you up six ways from Sunday but we make a ton of money off of it so ask your doctor..."

I've only seen such drugs ads in the US. Most other countries seem to realize that watching a 30 second ad is unlikely to make you more informed than a MD or PharmD.

It's not about being informed, it's - like all marketing - about being misinformed. And in this case, the intended effect is that the patient will pressure the doctor to prescribe them the drug they've seen on TV.

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#47

Post by TeMPOraL »

freetime2 wrote: post #36
bendoernberg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the case for "billion-dollar companies using neuroscience to manipulate the behavior of individuals is a moral and societal good"? Neuromarketing seems pretty straightforwardly evil to me...

Is it straightforwardly evil? What if the thing being marketed is good for you? Would a neuromarketing campaign designed to get people to exercise more or eat more vegetables be evil?

> What if the thing being marketed is good for you? Would a neuromarketing campaign designed to get people to exercise more or eat more vegetables be evil?

Then we could debate whether targeted assault at free will is in principle bad or not.

As it is, neuromarketing is not used for good. It's used to exploit people.

It's like asking if killing random strangers on the street is straightforwardly evil, because there's a remote possibility that they're all alien shapeshifters out to destroy our way of life.

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#48

Post by [deleted] »

freetime2 wrote: post #31

> TBH noticed that teens often list their high school in their Instagram bio. So, using a private Instagram account of its own, the company would visit a school’s location page and follow all accounts that included the school’s name. The idea of a company targeting and following individual high school students on instagram does feel a bit "off" to me. If facebook or any other billion dollar public company were doing…

[deleted]

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#49

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

kartan wrote: post #38
toast_coder wrote: post #12

This seems fairly benign. What's giving it the coverage and negative feedback here is the fact that somebody call it a 'psychological trick'. Is an ice cream truck playing music and slowing rolling down your street on a hot summer day also a psychological trick we need to guard against? Accounting for human congregations and 'appealing to their curiosity' is a part of the human existence. Downloading junk is also a l…

> Downloading junk is also a life lesson, they will learn. Mega-corporation - with deep pockets, professional advice, etc - stalks teenagers and does targeted personalized campaign, it is teenagers fault to fall for it... I see a "blame the victim" attitude here. > Is an ice cream truck playing music and slowing rolling down your street on a hot summer day also a psychological trick we need to guard against? The truc…

> > Downloading junk is also a life lesson, they will learn.

> Mega-corporation - with deep pockets, professional advice, etc - stalks teenagers and does targeted personalized campaign, it is teenagers fault to fall for it... I see a "blame the victim" attitude here.

You're really extrapolating quite a straw man from the original statement there. There's a lot of people out there that want to (and will, if given the change) scam you. Arguing that it's better to learn that in a way that at least doesn't lose you any actual money is not the same as blaming people who fall for it and/or implying that they deserve it.

Re: Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens

#50

Post by sAbakumoff »

bm3719 wrote: post #10

In order to reduce the likelihood my child is victimized online by questionable corporate behavior, I've redirected facebook.com to infowars.com in /etc/hosts.

Yeah, and in 20 years you kid will have an appointment with the AI driven shrink developed by Facebook...and it will be seriously pissed off when it finds out that you redirected facebook to infowars. Be ready!
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