Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#81

Post by throwaway3699 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 3:15 AM UTC

minikites wrote: post #68

rblatz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a “le late stage capitalism” sentiment that I see posted all the time. It completely misrepresents the responsibility of a public company to operate in its shareholders’ best interest.

>the responsibility of a public company to operate in its shareholders’ best interest The shareholders are only interested in profits.

Not really. If Facebook (and the rest of them) keep burning bridges and making enemies, in this political climate, they're going to get broken up or even liquidated if enough users leave. That is not in shareholder interest.

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#82

Post by Layke1123 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 3:16 AM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #50

WillDaSilva wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies - specifically large public for-profit companies - are amoral entities solely concerned with maximizing their profits. That Facebook acts seemingly without any morals isn't all that surprising.

If I were a shareholder I’d only expect them to operate within the law. Or if the CEO was unsure then hold a shareholder vote (though I’d rather the CEO do their job and not bother us). In the end it is the democratically elected people’s job to make the laws in the public’s interest. Ban advertising to minors.

If I were a share holder, I'd say that too and then expect them to break the law as long as we made more than the fine was worth.

Let's face it guys and gals. For profit is killing our world.

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#83

Post by xkeysc0re » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

minikites wrote: post #71

xkeysc0re wrote: post #2

I don't think there should be a minimum legal age for any of these activities. It's beyond clear that coddling helicopter government invoked disastrous consequences for Western society

How is society improved by letting 8 year olds gamble?

- Children learn applied mathematic principles earlier, such as odds and optimizations

- Gives children a chance to materially understand the meaning of a dollar

- Allows for demonstrations of propositional logic and formal reasoning

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#84

Post by lamontcg » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

aierou wrote: post #66

I think it's important to recognize that Reset Australia is a traditional media lobby group, and that this report amounts to a zero-day attack on Facebook's automated advertising system. Facebook would never choose to advertise these products to children for a variety of reasons. Reading the sentiment in this thread, when exactly did we create the expectation that Facebook (or any social media entity) must execute as…

They have a nasty problem of behaving completely amorally until someone points it out.

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#85

Post by sodality2 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 3:21 AM UTC

xbar wrote: post #53

sodality2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it's not malicious intent; if facebook could squeeze every cent out of their platform while advertising scented candles, they certainly would. It's the indifference that matters though.

Some ads can never be posted on Facebook (prostitution, child pornography, murder for hire, firearms). Facebook is capable of filtering ads. It is mission critical for them to do so. It is the thing they are best at in the history of the known universe: showing the right ad for maximum value and not showing ads that are not of maximum value. These ads are posted. This is intent.

By intent, I mean facebook does not choose specifically immoral things and it just happens to be super profitable; they show whatever is profitable, which happens to be immoral things. I don't mean "they don't mean to show bad ads" because they do, I mean "they would just as quickly choose another category if it meant more profits".

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#86

Post by op03 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 3:23 AM UTC

tbwriting wrote: post #61

Drinking harms the adolescent brain. Why comment about how “it’s legal there” or “teens already do it” or “it’s really the advertisers’ fault”? Where does defending Facebook’s behavior get you?

You get job offers from FB recruiters.

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#87

Post by tdfx » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #70

Without a link to the actual report, which hopefully contains more information, anyone who's ever spent $5 running a campaign on FB would know this is a little suspicious. You can upload content to your hearts content, but ads are not actually 'approved' until they running. And there's no way to actually 'target' without running an ad ... which they didn't do ... so ... If they were looking for hard evidence, they co…

Yes, this reads like it was written by someone who has never run a real Facebook ad. Facebook routinely accidentally blocks legitimate advertisers from running normal, compliant ads, and there's a massive underground devoted to beating Facebook's algorithms to get non-compliant ads running. This looks like they just got lucky with a few ad sets, and since they never set them active, it looks like they might've not been approved, anyway.

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#88

Post by akomtu » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 3:30 AM UTC

minikites wrote: post #68

rblatz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a “le late stage capitalism” sentiment that I see posted all the time. It completely misrepresents the responsibility of a public company to operate in its shareholders’ best interest.

>the responsibility of a public company to operate in its shareholders’ best interest The shareholders are only interested in profits.

This made me think of one analogy, that shareholders just want heat in their homes and there are two ways to produce heat: by destroying something (burning oil, the nuclear reaction) or by creating something (fusion). The former is much easier and unless the laws prevent this low effort business, the heating company will happily burn forests, poison rivers and sell the future of the young people if necessary.

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#89

Post by magnetowasright » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 4:00 AM UTC

Shameful that the ABC doesn’t know the difference between teenager’s and teenagers’.

The article briefly mentions that the relatively restrictive laws around traditional advertising haven’t kept up with social media. I think that should be the focus of the article; we know companies (including those wanting to advertise and advertisement platforms) will do absolutely everything they are not forbidden from doing if it brings them more money. They might still do the forbidden things anyway if the punishment isn’t substantial. They won’t stop doing this out of the goodness of their pockets, I mean hearts. It’s an unfortunate reality for most of us, but it’s how things work currently.

We should be holding our politicians accountable for their total lack of digital awareness and their general willingness to prioritise money and power over their constituents. With the Murdoch media profiting from and controlling the narrative, the ABC is one major outlet that might be able to switch people on to these issues, but they turn out this ungrammatical drivel instead.

Re: Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

#90

Post by SirSourdough » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

fy20 wrote: post #74

adamsvystun wrote: post #24

While it is obviously unethical, is advertising alcohol, vaping and gambling to 13-17 year olds illegal in Australia? Asking because I am not sure if Facebook should be making the shots here on what is legal or illegal to advertise. This is best handled through government.

In my country (not AU) they banned alcohol advertising completely a couple of years ago, because alcoholism is a big problem here. So instead of advertising alcohol, the breweries now advertise their alcohol free drinks. They just changed "Carlsberg" to "Carlsberg Alcohol Free" on the same ads, and boom it's allowed.

Reminds me of cigarette advertising in Formula 1, where brands like Phillip Morris have constantly tried to find new ways to sneak imagery and color schemes onto the cars that are reminiscent of their branding despite cigarette ads being banned in the early 2000s. There have been cars the looked exactly like a Marlboro pack (red car, white chevron rear wing), sponsored by Marlboro, but without the actual word Marlboro that have been allowed to race.

They even created a new entity (Mission Winnow) in 2018 which is purportedly an initiative “to create engagement around the role of science, technology and innovation as a powerful force for good in any industry”, whatever that means. Conveniently, MW has the same color scheme and a suspiciously similar "M" logo to Marlboro, and surprise, they've been a title sponsor of the Ferrari cars since, though they didn't use the branding in 2020 after countries started investigating whether they were flaunting the ad ban.