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Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

theguardian.com

51–60 of 66 posts

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just asked my teenage siblings and both of them responded that they don't care that they are tracked and aren't sure why they'd pay. Only an anecdote, but there you go.

Maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part then :D

Mine too, believe me! My idea is to allow a group to contribute to cover a certain amount per year for their entire network, depending on the size of it. $50.00 split by 15-20 family/friend members would be pretty affordable. I would say a smaller more intimate network would be a major step in the right direction.

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#52
post #34

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? If I were a non-profit working on teen depression and suicide, this sounds like an amazing innovation. My intervention and education dollar would go much further. I don't understand the sinister outlook, especially from people who in other contexts--e.g. cryptography & terrorism--would adamantly claim that technology is neutral and that the net benefit from innovation is with rare…

Non-profits strive to place human outcomes over financial results. Many corporations are either unwilling or unable to do so, beyond what is required by law. Market forces aren't well suited, on their own, to deal with these kind of externalities.

> Non profits strive to place human outcomes over financial results. Most corporations are either unwilling or unable to do so, beyond what is required by law.

This is incredibly reductive. A non-profit can strive to place human outcomes over financial results, but nothing requires them to, and there are plenty of forces that push them in the other direction as well.

Conversely, for-profit corporations might not strive to place human outcomes over financial results, but nothing prevents them from doing so[0], and some in fact do.

The "non-profit" vs. "for-profit" distinction tells you literally nothing about a company's ethics.

[0] Every time this topic comes up, someone brings up Dodge v. Ford, which (a) is not the most relevant precedent, even in Michigan law; (b) does not actually establish the precedent that people citing it usually thinks it does, even in Michigan law, (c) was soundly rejected in other states shortly after the Michigan decision, and (d) has since been overturned (in the part that is relevant here) in Michigan.

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#53
post #34

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? If I were a non-profit working on teen depression and suicide, this sounds like an amazing innovation. My intervention and education dollar would go much further. I don't understand the sinister outlook, especially from people who in other contexts--e.g. cryptography & terrorism--would adamantly claim that technology is neutral and that the net benefit from innovation is with rare…

> I don't understand the sinister outlook, especially from people who in other contexts--e.g. cryptography & terrorism--would adamantly claim that technology is neutral and that the net benefit from innovation is with rare exception to the betterment of society.

There's no contradiction here. "Technology" in the abstract may be neutral, and specific technologies might even be neutral, but that doesn't mean that specific applications of specific technologies are necessarily neutral. And in this case, we're discussing the lattermost - the ability to market teenagers' feelings of depression[0] to advertisers.

That's only neutral if you think that the set of advertisers who might be interested in that information is either a completely unknown set or a set of advertisers that is, on the whole "neutral", after being weighted by their willingness to pay.

[0] conflating mildly the DSM-IV diagnostic criterion of 'worthlessness or guilt' with the clinical diagnosis, but nobody's keeping score here

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#54

I was just about to post to AskHN about how much data these social network behemoths can garner from unposted data, i.e., I write something into my status box or a comment like "fuck the police," then delete without posting, is that data gathered and mined? My gut and brain say yes, because it's easily possible to gather it and with the little bit of research I found no evidence that really shows one way or another w…

I remember reading about this a few years ago, and observed network activity using Facebook. They certainly did capture what you type but fail to post. I would put serious money on them mining that data, too, since it can reveal someone's true uncensored thoughts.

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#55

Why don't we have a subscription based, non-tracking, ad-free social network yet??

You should take a look at Mastodon [0].

It has risen from 150k to 560k users in the last few weeks [1] with 1601 instances up.

[0]: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon

[1]: https://instances.mastodon.xyz/list

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it can't arbitrate news, do we really want it trying to arbitrate diagnoses?

It's not a diagnosis, it's an ad. Worst case is you're shown irrelevant ads.

i think we can call it a diagnoses. i also think the worst case is more insidious. there's gotta a psychological effect of some super smart computer saying you have X all the time. Facebook is pervasive. imagine WebMD-syndrome if everyone was browsing WebMD 3 hours a day.

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it can't arbitrate news, do we really want it trying to arbitrate diagnoses?

But it could, eventually, theoretically? Ideally if it were good at its job it could point out things that you weren't consciously aware of before and then suggest appropriate courses of action. Advertising may not be the best medium for this, but perhaps another app that analyses your facebook habits/behaviors. Doesnt even need to be facebook specific. I think its worth some research effort.

i'm all for computers diagnosing things, just a little concerned with the ethics of "researching" at Facebook-scale.

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a serious question? Social networks are dependent on network effects. Having a subscription immediately increases the barrier to entry too high for people to be able to get their friends on the same platform.

Yes it is. My feeling is that we have entered an age that youth is not naive anymore and would happily pay $3/month (at least in the US) for a non-tracking all-round communication service.

Do what Whatsapp did, free for the first year, then something really really low, but covers the cost of servers and headcount. Done right, this is probably around 0.50-1 a month for a really high quality service.

Re: Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure', 'worthless'

#60
post #34

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? If I were a non-profit working on teen depression and suicide, this sounds like an amazing innovation. My intervention and education dollar would go much further. I don't understand the sinister outlook, especially from people who in other contexts--e.g. cryptography & terrorism--would adamantly claim that technology is neutral and that the net benefit from innovation is with rare…

Non-profits strive to place human outcomes over financial results. Many corporations are either unwilling or unable to do so, beyond what is required by law. Market forces aren't well suited, on their own, to deal with these kind of externalities.

The same can be said of cryptography. Why believe that cryptography is more likely to be used for lawful and social beneficial purposes than for, e.g., terrorism, tax evasion, child abuse, etc.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the latter were in actuality the first adopters of cryptography, especially if you include other illegal uses such as copyright violation.

We could easily say that free market dynamics suggest that the cost+benefit will higher for criminals, especially unless and until cryptography becomes ubiquitous. So why not nip it in the bud? That's been the argument coming from the law enforcement and intelligence communities all along.

Yet engineers are defensive and optimistic about the beneficial usages of cryptography. They're dismissive of usages such as the encrypted iPhones used by the San Bernardino terrorists. And they focus on seemingly esoteric benefits--like improved security from extortionists--that most common people overlook or discount.

I tend to _agree_ with those engineers, am similarly defensive and optimistic regarding cryptography, and place a high value on benefits not obvious to others. I think it's worthwhile to be consistent here. Any distinctions one can concoct to differentiate Facebook and their advertisers from, e.g., non-profits, can easily be turned around later.

The emphasis shouldn't be on _presumed_ abuses, guilt by association, etc. It should be on hard data of actual usage and actual outcomes, with attention paid to implicit biases in collection and reporting. We also need to compare this against alternatives, taking into account (and quantifying) the futility of criminalization or regulation, etc.

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