51–60 of 140 posts
"The fact that Facebook could easily throw the election by selectively showing a Get Out the Vote reminder in certain counties of a swing state, for example, was a running joke." Woah. They're asking to be regulated.
Not a very good joke. I'd have considered it a moral imperative to act on that impulse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not questioning, that's rejecting wholesale without a proper argument as to why. And frankly I don't at all see the ethical analogy between luxury athleisure and payday loans, and it seems to me you'd have to be pretty damn fucking self-deluded to think they're remotely comparable.
it's a good that a demographic buys. that's the way that ethically bereft corporations see it. i would even guess that this is how zuck sees it. people who buy jay-z buy obama. people with lower income buy payday loans. there is nothing ethical about any of this unless you want to add the ethical dimension. corporations are expected not to. and yet the data is allowing them more and more to target these "opportunitie…
Oxygen and carbon monoxide are both gases. One of them is poisonous to humans.
"Sometimes data behaves unethically." No, data doesn't behave at all. This is quite a cynical deflection of responsibility for ethically questionable actions taken by people.
I think this is the point being made: the data shows, beyond statistical doubt, that payday loan ads aimed at a certain demographic have better conversion, ergo profit. The data also shows, beyond statistical doubt, that [current fashionable brand] yoga pant ads aimed at a certain demographic have better conversion, ergo profit. The data doesn't care. If you are an ad-funded company (as both facebook and google are), you can't afford to ignore the data, it's your differentiator.
I'm not saying I agree with it, I am saying that ethics is an opinion, data is fact. I long for a time when we as a species evolve beyond being so predictably influenced by propaganda.
"The fact that Facebook could easily throw the election by selectively showing a Get Out the Vote reminder in certain counties of a swing state, for example, was a running joke." Woah. They're asking to be regulated.
The idea that UI/UX can change the outcome of an election, though, isn't terribly new. Consider 2000's butterfly ballots: http://www.asktog.com/columns/042ButterflyBallot.html
Though of course it's a different thing when a county inadvertently affects vote results by unintentional bad design, versus when a centralized entity intends to have an effect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's a good that a demographic buys. that's the way that ethically bereft corporations see it. i would even guess that this is how zuck sees it. people who buy jay-z buy obama. people with lower income buy payday loans. there is nothing ethical about any of this unless you want to add the ethical dimension. corporations are expected not to. and yet the data is allowing them more and more to target these "opportunitie…
>>it's a good that a demographic buys. Oxygen and carbon monoxide are both gases. One of them is poisonous to humans.
"We are not Facebook's customer. We are their product." I have stated that fact so many times to so many people, and yet most people don't care. They continue to use Facebook. It's almost as if people are addicted to Facebook.
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Exactly, like newspapers and TV channels. Oh, they are already in good hands...
Broadcast media can't microtarget like that. At best they can cultivate a certain audience, but it's an extremely crude tool in comparison.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11...
https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/item/if-tv-stations-w...
https://sunlightfoundation.com/2015/11/10/everything-you-nee...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's a good that a demographic buys. that's the way that ethically bereft corporations see it. i would even guess that this is how zuck sees it. people who buy jay-z buy obama. people with lower income buy payday loans. there is nothing ethical about any of this unless you want to add the ethical dimension. corporations are expected not to. and yet the data is allowing them more and more to target these "opportunitie…
>>it's a good that a demographic buys. Oxygen and carbon monoxide are both gases. One of them is poisonous to humans.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You ought to continue to read past that. Because you missed his point. He goes on to basically question "ethics" entirely: >What did this tool start spitting out? Every ethnic stereotype you can imagine....People who liked Jay Z were more likely to like Obama – it was one of the statistical truths Facebook couldn’t be seen espousing. I disagreed. Jay Z is a millionaire music tycoon, so what if we associate him with t…
Well to answer his question: because in the examples of African Americas and Hispanics, there's a power structure with its roots in the racist history of American capitalism, and profiting off of that power structure is definitely less ethical than getting an affluent woman to spend some of her disposable income.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>it's a good that a demographic buys. Oxygen and carbon monoxide are both gases. One of them is poisonous to humans.
Are you suggesting that pay day loans should be illegal or advertisements for them should? If not why not advertise them to the audience that is apparently interested in it?