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How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

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51–60 of 173 posts

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#51

"How Big Auto finds users with car troubles on Facebook" "How Big Lighting finds users with blown bulbs on Facebook" "How Big Chocolate finds users with cravings on Facebook"

The difference is that Facebook says they specifically avoid sensitive health information https://www.facebook.com/business/help/361948878201809?id=18...

And nowhere in the article it's said that they use sensitive health information.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#52
post #17
post #7

“If you’re a drug manufacturer looking for patients”. Maybe I’m just too Scandinavian to understand, but wouldn’t it be the other way around? Now I also wonder if I should see a doctor. I’ve been getting a lot of “is your will in order” commercials from law firms on Facebook recently. I sure hope big tech advertising doesn’t know something I don’t.

Did you fill your date of birth on any age-protected content (websites for distilleries or breweries, for example) as 1st January 1940 or something? They could just mistakenly believe you're 81 based on that :)

Well I’ve had a friendly hemorrhoid for a few years that I frequently see a lovely anal surgeon for and I probably have some “this might be cancer” search entries from a few years back, but it’s been so long that I should’ve died by now if it was actually cancer down there.

Other than that I have no idea heh.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#53
post #2

The article seems to suggest this is a bad thing, but my first reaction is "fantastic". Pharmaceutical companies create life saving medicines and then use advanced social media targeting to locate the people that need them. The only bad thing about it is if those people targeted can't afford the medication, which is why healthcare needs to be a universal right. People love to bitch about Big Pharma but I have a magic…

I don't know why you were downvoted into the grey zone. I don't entirely agree with your points about Big Pharma finding needy patients instead of doctors prescribing based on professional experience (though there's still plenty of room for bias there too) but overall, fully agreed, the pharmaceutical industry is a wonderful thing on the whole, and while it gets a lot of knee-jerk hatred from too many people, i'd lov…

Maybe the bribery to get your Doctor to recommend a different drug than is probably best for you or your pocket book?

Maybe the campaigns pushing opioids on doctors and patients to the point of crisis?

Insulin is at least twice the price (depending on type might be 3 or 4 times) in the $US as anywhere else in the world.

There's that famous case where a Turing Pharma skyrocketed price of Daraprim that only they were manufacturing because, well, they could get away with it.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#54
post #7

“If you’re a drug manufacturer looking for patients”. Maybe I’m just too Scandinavian to understand, but wouldn’t it be the other way around? Now I also wonder if I should see a doctor. I’ve been getting a lot of “is your will in order” commercials from law firms on Facebook recently. I sure hope big tech advertising doesn’t know something I don’t.

Interesting article on a Uber for cremations company:

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/may/07/funeral-grace...

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#55

> How Big Pharma Finds Sick Users on Facebook Living in a country where advertisements of pharmaceuticals are allowed, it's unbearable. Basically Facebook in real life - in TV, on billboards, in newspappers, YouTube ads, omnipresent leaflets. All flavours of dietary suplements, Rutin and Ibuprofen products, cures for fungal and intimate infections, wonder cures for liver and joints, "digestion catalysers". They're th…

>Pharma industry is malicious scum and has to be kept on short tight leash.

That sounds a bit anti-vax.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#57

I like targeted ads. I just wish they were better. For example I am open about being in recovery for alcoholism on FB but they still show me ads for hard liquor.

I guess a simpler fix here would be to explicitly opt out of certain classes of ads eg gambling / alcohol. It feels like we should have rights not to see ads for damaging products.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#58

> How Big Pharma Finds Sick Users on Facebook Living in a country where advertisements of pharmaceuticals are allowed, it's unbearable. Basically Facebook in real life - in TV, on billboards, in newspappers, YouTube ads, omnipresent leaflets. All flavours of dietary suplements, Rutin and Ibuprofen products, cures for fungal and intimate infections, wonder cures for liver and joints, "digestion catalysers". They're th…

>Pharma industry is malicious scum and has to be kept on short tight leash. That sounds a bit anti-vax.

The industry has repeatedly put profits ahead of people's well-being, Oxycotin being the easiest example. Their actions should be met with severe skepticism.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#59
post #17
post #7

“If you’re a drug manufacturer looking for patients”. Maybe I’m just too Scandinavian to understand, but wouldn’t it be the other way around? Now I also wonder if I should see a doctor. I’ve been getting a lot of “is your will in order” commercials from law firms on Facebook recently. I sure hope big tech advertising doesn’t know something I don’t.

Did you fill your date of birth on any age-protected content (websites for distilleries or breweries, for example) as 1st January 1940 or something? They could just mistakenly believe you're 81 based on that :)

I'm in my early 40s and just got shingles. Based on my googling the past few weeks I expect AARP and mechanical stair chair ads any time I'm not using adblock from here on out.

Re: How pharmaceutical companies find sick users on Facebook

#60

I like targeted ads. I just wish they were better. For example I am open about being in recovery for alcoholism on FB but they still show me ads for hard liquor.

I'm afraid you might not be seeing beyond the first-order effects: "ads are annoying, relevant ads are less annoying, therefore I like surveillance!" Consider all the implications that ubiquitous surveillance by unaccountable private entities carries.

Plus, the fact that you can advertise extremely harmful drugs such as alcohol (or gambling) at all, not to mention do so precisely to those you figure are more susceptible to this manipulation is pretty disgusting in itself.

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