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>Everything else basically just boils down to "they get to show you better ads" which honestly seems like a win-win to me. I am not really sure if targeted ads

>Everything else basically just boils down to "they get to show you better ads" which honestly seems like a win-win to me. I am not really sure if targeted ads, targeted news, targeted posts, targeted everything in social media is a good thing for a society in the long run. The physical reality is still the same for us; it would be great if we all lived in the same mental reality, too. On a personal level, while some of the advertising is good (it's useful knowledge to know which online bookstores ship to my country and what are their prices), I've always found the idea of advertising bit scary. A certain kind of optimized stimuli will make me some percentage point more like likely to want to buy a some kind thing I did not want before? Brr. I want more control of what I want. And some tradeoffs are not about the data. I've also noticed that an infinitely long feed that you can scroll and scroll ... is slightly addictive. I've read that it is so on purpose: all social media platforms popular today make money by advertising, or in other words, by having their users spend their time procrastinating on Twitter/FB/etc (so that they see the ads). I don't think this is a net benefit to individual users or the society as a whole, either.

apetresc 9y ago
For sure I'm on the same page as you that the current "media climate" is not necessarily a healthy one for society as a whole. But almost nobody uses that kind of "if everybody simultaneously stopped doing X the world would be a better place, so I'll stop doing X" mentality when deciding on their own behavior. Hence climate change, nuclear de-armament, etc. The arguments on HN and other places for "online privacy" aren't usually hinging on this tragedy-of-the-commons point. They're usually heavily implying that some very real and personal harm is being perpetrated on the unsuspecting sheeple right now and if only they understood what was really happening they'd be up in arms. I don't think a vague uneasiness with consumerism in general is what they're alluding to.
- lm_nop 9y ago
  A specific example of potential 'personal harm' due to highly detailed targeting is when Facebook identifies an individual who likely suffers from depression based on posts and preferences, and then targets advertisements that perpetuate an environment of depression. Anecdotal ref: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/when-facebook-and-instagram-thinks-youre-depressed https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/when-facebook-and-instagr...
deleted 9y ago
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apetresc 9y ago

For sure I'm on the same page as you that the current "media climate" is not necessarily a healthy one for society as a whole. But almost nobody uses that kind of "if everybody simultaneously stopped doing X the world would be a better place, so I'll stop doing X" mentality when deciding on their own behavior. Hence climate change, nuclear de-armament, etc. The arguments on HN and other places for "online privacy" aren't usually hinging on this tragedy-of-the-commons point. They're usually heavily implying that some very real and personal harm is being perpetrated on the unsuspecting sheeple right now and if only they understood what was really happening they'd be up in arms. I don't think a vague uneasiness with consumerism in general is what they're alluding to.

lm_nop 9y ago
A specific example of potential 'personal harm' due to highly detailed targeting is when Facebook identifies an individual who likely suffers from depression based on posts and preferences, and then targets advertisements that perpetuate an environment of depression. Anecdotal ref: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/when-facebook-and-instagram-thinks-youre-depressed https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/when-facebook-and-instagr...

deleted 9y ago

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