7 ms·

For the sake of discussion, why is that scary rather than kind of nice? Unless you take the AdBlock route, aren't well targeted ads better than irrelevant ones

by jraines 10y ago

For the sake of discussion, why is that scary rather than kind of nice? Unless you take the AdBlock route, aren't well targeted ads better than irrelevant ones?

zo7 10y ago
It's scary because the system learned something about you automatically from an innocuous photo and told others about it, all without a human in the loop. Ads are pretty harmless, but you can imagine what might happen in a surveillance system or if a more malicious actor was behind the system.
- xapata 10y ago
  Ok, so I'd like some way to get the benefits but protect from the harm. I don't want to throw out the convenience if that's possible.
toyg 10y ago
That's my wife's position, and IMHO it's a wrong one. It's the same argument about letting them store your search history: everything about you ends up in a database that someone can look up whenever s/he wants. Where you shop, where you eat, where you go on holiday, all about your family and friends, what you like, your health... it's a treasure trove for all sort of nefarious activities that could target you, from ID theft to fraud, framing, entrapment, you name it. But of course it will never happen to you, right?
tajen 10y ago
Because he also looks terrible on the photo and he immediately received ads for MacDonalds jobs within minutes of posting this picture. His insurance also resigned his health policy after a system recognized him as a drunkard.
- quickben 10y ago
  Insurance/banks are already teaming up with fb for moves in that direction. That isn't anything new.
stymaar 10y ago
Realizing that the sentence «big brother is watching you» accurately describes the world de live in ils kind of scary… It's something to rationaly know it, it's totally different to experience it in real life !
mmjaa 10y ago
Its scary because its intrusive. I didn't post the picture so that I would get better ads - rather, to inform my friends that we were having a jam session. But now, we're all going to be bombarded with ads for instruments we don't need to buy (because we already have them). The most uncomfortable angle is just how quickly Facebook tuned into what we were doing and then changed its ad-delivery algorithm to match. I have one friend who had his picture taken in front of a headshop - he now gets regular ads for bongs and smoke accessories, even though he's not a user. So, that's also quite discomfiting ..
- Jedd 10y ago
  > I didn't post the picture so that ... This assumes that your and Facebook's intent and interests are aligned. Clearly they are not. Why you posted your picture onto someone else's database is relevant primarily to you, and perhaps also to some subset of your friends. You're not obligated to turn that process into a money-making proposition. As Eben Moglen warned us a long time ago [1] the arrangement between you and Facebook (et al) is neither complex nor confusing: You get some PHP doodads and you get spying for free all the time. [1] https://www.google.com.au/search?q=eben+moglen+doodads+and+spying+all+the+time https://www.google.com.au/search?q=eben+moglen+doodads+and+s...
jraines 10y ago
I understand the responses to this, but my take is we're so far past the Rubicon we might as well be in the Atlantic. For example, I have a friend who has never been on any social media. If he wanted to opt out of the surveillance apparatus, he still would have to address: collection of phone metadata, browsing history, traffic cams, other CCTV, financial paper trail, probably more I'm missing.
- psyc 10y ago
  I wrote an essay in 2003, saying that all of this was 100% inevitable. No matter how many people thought it was creepy, didn't want it, raised privacy concerns, it was imminent all the same. Digital sense organs would continue to multiply all over the planet, and the digital nervous system would become ever more sophisticated and scary-smart all the time. I argued that the one thing we had some limited hope of shaping was cultural attitudes and public policy towards this information and how it is applied.
  - paulbaumgart 10y ago
    Is there a link to your essay? I would be interested to read it.
    - psyc 10y ago
      My best guess is it's on a zip drive, in a box, in a storage unit. The idea that the future would feature drastically reduced privacy was taken as a given. The thesis was basically that humans tend to be both judgmental and hypocritical, so in a world of total information, we could either keep persecuting and jailing each other over non-violent cultural things, or we could become more tolerant. I must say that the current climate of everybody tearing each other apart on social media is so far not encouraging. The rest of it was about the more concrete benefits, like improved traffic, logistics, labor and resource allocation.
Sir_Substance 10y ago
>aren't well targeted ads better than irrelevant ones? Depends on whether you're a fan other other people making your choices for you, I guess.
exodust 10y ago
> "aren't well targeted ads better" When you're the advertiser, sure. When you're the target, not so much. Do you really want billboards speaking to you as you walk down the street? Making suggestions based on your recent purchase history or activities and personal associations? Just because advertising technology can achieve greater powers of reaching people, doesn't mean we need or want advertising woven into the fabric of our existence more than it already is. You can opt in to that if you want, I'm staying well clear.
sshanky 10y ago
This is probably the most important question to be able to answer effectively, though I (and it appears many others) have trouble coming up with a compelling reason why people should be worried. Most of the people I try to convince remain unworried, thinking along the same lines -- why is it bad if they know more about me? I inevitably try to explain that 1) it's not beneficial to you, and 2) more importantly, bad actors could use the information unscrupulously. However, they believe that if this information is helpful in any way in protecting them, and otherwise doesn't really bother them, then it's a positive trend. I would like to come up with some powerful (frightening) examples of why the data collection going on is so dangerous, and why people should be worried and careful.

by jraines 10y ago

For the sake of discussion, why is that scary rather than kind of nice? Unless you take the AdBlock route, aren't well targeted ads better than irrelevant ones?

zo7 10y ago

It's scary because the system learned something about you automatically from an innocuous photo and told others about it, all without a human in the loop. Ads are pretty harmless, but you can imagine what might happen in a surveillance system or if a more malicious actor was behind the system.

xapata 10y ago
Ok, so I'd like some way to get the benefits but protect from the harm. I don't want to throw out the convenience if that's possible.

toyg 10y ago

That's my wife's position, and IMHO it's a wrong one. It's the same argument about letting them store your search history: everything about you ends up in a database that someone can look up whenever s/he wants. Where you shop, where you eat, where you go on holiday, all about your family and friends, what you like, your health... it's a treasure trove for all sort of nefarious activities that could target you, from ID theft to fraud, framing, entrapment, you name it. But of course it will never happen to you, right?

tajen 10y ago

Because he also looks terrible on the photo and he immediately received ads for MacDonalds jobs within minutes of posting this picture. His insurance also resigned his health policy after a system recognized him as a drunkard.

quickben 10y ago
Insurance/banks are already teaming up with fb for moves in that direction. That isn't anything new.

stymaar 10y ago

Realizing that the sentence «big brother is watching you» accurately describes the world de live in ils kind of scary… It's something to rationaly know it, it's totally different to experience it in real life !

mmjaa 10y ago

Its scary because its intrusive. I didn't post the picture so that I would get better ads - rather, to inform my friends that we were having a jam session. But now, we're all going to be bombarded with ads for instruments we don't need to buy (because we already have them). The most uncomfortable angle is just how quickly Facebook tuned into what we were doing and then changed its ad-delivery algorithm to match. I have one friend who had his picture taken in front of a headshop - he now gets regular ads for bongs and smoke accessories, even though he's not a user. So, that's also quite discomfiting ..

Jedd 10y ago
> I didn't post the picture so that ... This assumes that your and Facebook's intent and interests are aligned. Clearly they are not. Why you posted your picture onto someone else's database is relevant primarily to you, and perhaps also to some subset of your friends. You're not obligated to turn that process into a money-making proposition. As Eben Moglen warned us a long time ago [1] the arrangement between you and Facebook (et al) is neither complex nor confusing: You get some PHP doodads and you get spying for free all the time. [1] https://www.google.com.au/search?q=eben+moglen+doodads+and+spying+all+the+time https://www.google.com.au/search?q=eben+moglen+doodads+and+s...

jraines 10y ago

I understand the responses to this, but my take is we're so far past the Rubicon we might as well be in the Atlantic. For example, I have a friend who has never been on any social media. If he wanted to opt out of the surveillance apparatus, he still would have to address: collection of phone metadata, browsing history, traffic cams, other CCTV, financial paper trail, probably more I'm missing.

psyc 10y ago
I wrote an essay in 2003, saying that all of this was 100% inevitable. No matter how many people thought it was creepy, didn't want it, raised privacy concerns, it was imminent all the same. Digital sense organs would continue to multiply all over the planet, and the digital nervous system would become ever more sophisticated and scary-smart all the time. I argued that the one thing we had some limited hope of shaping was cultural attitudes and public policy towards this information and how it is applied.
- paulbaumgart 10y ago
  Is there a link to your essay? I would be interested to read it.
  - psyc 10y ago
    My best guess is it's on a zip drive, in a box, in a storage unit. The idea that the future would feature drastically reduced privacy was taken as a given. The thesis was basically that humans tend to be both judgmental and hypocritical, so in a world of total information, we could either keep persecuting and jailing each other over non-violent cultural things, or we could become more tolerant. I must say that the current climate of everybody tearing each other apart on social media is so far not encouraging. The rest of it was about the more concrete benefits, like improved traffic, logistics, labor and resource allocation.

Sir_Substance 10y ago

>aren't well targeted ads better than irrelevant ones? Depends on whether you're a fan other other people making your choices for you, I guess.

exodust 10y ago

> "aren't well targeted ads better" When you're the advertiser, sure. When you're the target, not so much. Do you really want billboards speaking to you as you walk down the street? Making suggestions based on your recent purchase history or activities and personal associations? Just because advertising technology can achieve greater powers of reaching people, doesn't mean we need or want advertising woven into the fabric of our existence more than it already is. You can opt in to that if you want, I'm staying well clear.

sshanky 10y ago

This is probably the most important question to be able to answer effectively, though I (and it appears many others) have trouble coming up with a compelling reason why people should be worried. Most of the people I try to convince remain unworried, thinking along the same lines -- why is it bad if they know more about me? I inevitably try to explain that 1) it's not beneficial to you, and 2) more importantly, bad actors could use the information unscrupulously. However, they believe that if this information is helpful in any way in protecting them, and otherwise doesn't really bother them, then it's a positive trend. I would like to come up with some powerful (frightening) examples of why the data collection going on is so dangerous, and why people should be worried and careful.