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Towards a bra-free Instagram experience

241 points by koolhead17 9y ago

nukeop 9y ago
So some woman is sad ("triggered") because she doesn't look like a model from an ad on Instagram. How is this relevant to Hacker news? Maybe the message is that uBlock origin should be installed by default on every browser?
- dang 9y ago
  I don't think it's "some woman" who was triggered here. The article is intellectually interesting and therefore clearly on topic for Hacker News. It takes a path through some provocative material, of course, but hardly gratuitously. Meanwhile, your comment violates the site guidelines, first by crossing into personal attack, and second by failing to do this: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." And I'm sorry to see that you've been violating the site rules quite a bit, already. We eventually ban accounts that do this, so please read the rules and take the spirit of this site to heart. That means civil, substantive comments only, and no more rants or flamebait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - nukeop 9y ago
    So what is the strongest plausible interpretation here? Because the article is full of body image issues and being jealous that somebody else in the ads looks better.
    - dang 9y ago
      That's an exercise for the reader, and not a difficult one. I'm not here to argue the point so much as let you know that if you don't study the site rules and follow them properly, we will ban you.
    - MBCook 9y ago
      So let’s take away the sexualized imagery aspect. If huge percentage of the ads you saw on Instagram were pictures of legs with varicose veins advertising some sort of treatment… would you want to see that all the time? Wouldn’t you start to get annoyed and grossed out that they keep shoving that in your face when you’re trying to look at pictures of cats/cars/landscapes/buildings/whatever? The author doesn’t seem to be complaining the ads exist, they seem to be complaining about the quantity/frequency of that kind of imagery.
    - nperez 9y ago
      It's food for thought if you work in ad tech. Targeting based on tags/interests can be effective, but understanding the visual content of an ad and how it will be received by the user is a different problem that could result in better targeting if solved. Suppose all ads were tagged for their visual content and their ad-hiding functionality looked for categories of content that you frequently hide. That data could be used for better targeting and passed all the way back to creative agencies to influence design decisions. How is that not relevant to HN?
      - tinymollusk 9y ago
        It is my belief that adtech companies' top priority is to make money. They do this by increasing clickthrough rate and cost per click. As long as they don't fall below some "trust" threshold (subjective emotional judgement from ill-informed customers pulling threads from obfuscated-at-best PR releases), they are golden. From that perspective, why would they want to "better" target using proxy metrics for the ones you really care about? Focusing on the CTR[0], why use tags or interests when you can use clickthrough rate itself? There are so many factors in what causes someone to click; it's a more effective strategy to treat all those factors as a black box, and optimize for the direct behavior you want to encourage. Added bonus, those black box / supercomplex problems can be efficiently optimized by ML. [0] CPC is driven by the advertiser side
  - epx 9y ago
    I feel this is just the pound of posts that HN allows to feed the hive.
    - dang 9y ago
      I'm afraid I don't understand.
  - aceofspad3s 9y ago
    Not defending the gp's harsh tone, but there's nothing particularly interesting about this post. We all know how ad algorithms are stupidly repetitive and how ads only show attractive people. This is just flamebait.
    - jji990 9y ago
      But we don't all realize the effect this shit is having. And if we did, we wouldn't be reacting so non-chalant about it. I think it's an interesting post, and it's a more nuanced criticism than just "too many repetitive ads with attractive people."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Hnrobert42 9y ago
  Why is it not relevant? Because it is a woman or because she used the word triggered?
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I think that her point is... why? What’s the point of this? What is the long term societal impact? It’s not just that she wants to avoid that crap, but that she feels she shouldn’t have to.
  - nukeop 9y ago
    She has been clustered into a group most likely to click bra ads by a data-mining algorithm that maximizes click through rate based on available data. There's no other consideration given and no deeper meaning to it. The bottom line is that you should use ad, script, and tracking blockers on every website you visit. It should be common sense by now.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      That algorithm is not a natural phenomenon, it’s made for a purpose it serves, and I’m so tired of “the algorithm did it” as an excuse. Please try again. I agree on the ad blocking, but if everyone actually did it the internet would implode for a while, and most don’t know how to use good versions anyway. No offense, but pretending that anything remotely technological is “common sense” for most of the world is either idealistic, or delusional.
    - jji990 9y ago
      Somebody made that algorithm, and ran it. They should be held accountable for what that algorithm does. We all know we can block the ads, stop using the product, etc. Now when is Instagram going to acknowledge that their product is user-hostile?
- throwaway_98554 9y ago
  Because many people on Hacker News think that caring about what women say is the same as bringing interesting and thoughts provoking topics. And when pointing out that such content is not worthy, as per the site guidelines, people will at best ignore the policy, at worse say you're a sexist.
moltar 9y ago
Well, it’s easy. Don’t use Instagram.
- jrockway 9y ago
  Why does it have to be all or nothing? She likes the product, she just doesn't like the bra ads.
  - analognoise 9y ago
    Then she doesn't like the product. If you're not paying for it, you are the product. You are a faceless, nameless consumer #320981093, with preference code hash #AB7ZXJAL. We have determined that, when lumped into this preference code, you have a click-through advertising rate of XY% on said preference hash. We sell this, and you. Your 'triggering' doesn't matter, neither does your mental health - we don't care about either because, again, you are the product. If you get depressed about this enough for our algorithm to detect, you will be moved to preference hash #WNXI802N, which will include advertisements for antidepressants and churches into your mainly bra-based advertising stream. There is a delta of ZA% in your net worth to us, because your click-through rate is now BC% {higher or lower}. This data is aggregated again and incorporated into our quarterly financial statements. Thank you for being a part of The Machine.
    - askafriend 9y ago
      This is so silly. That’s all I have to say. So you’re telling me that because I pay for Coca Cola - that somehow makes it a more noble and more pure product than Instagram? Have you considered that perhaps I don’t mind “being the product” in exchange for a platform where I can share photos with the world that I’m proud of and follow some cool people relevant to my interests? Have you considered that perhaps there are trade offs involved, and that just because you’re not OK with them doesn’t mean that somehow I’m not as “enlightened” as you are? Look, social media is not all good and it’s not all bad. Like most things, it’s in large part what you make it (sure there’s nuance around this - but I’m gonna keep it short). You can definitely abuse it and it’s easy to do, but it’s also possible to use it in a way that is a net positive to your life. Social media is many things to many people so don’t project your unhappiness with the way you use the product onto other people.
hello_asdf 9y ago
Are there common domains to Instagram sponsored posts? I'm wondering if blocking DNS on routers / devices would give some temporary relief for this situation. I'm sorry that you're being bombarded with this, it'd be nice if Facebook provided topic blocking for ads beyond alcohol and parenting.
- na85 9y ago
  I believe this highlights a problem with the web in general: ads are a blight and should be excised from it entirely. If some ad-supported sites have to go under, well, that's just the cost of social progress.
  - dominotw 9y ago
    What about highway Billboards, how can we bring progress there?
    - soundwave106 9y ago
      Different business models and different focus. In the US, billboards are banned in four American states (Vermont, Maine, Alaska and Hawaii) and various other counties or cities. Generally speaking, these are places that put high value on tourism driven by natural beauty (which, of course, roadside billboards tend to undermine). In photo sharing communities where there is less focus on the "social" aspects, ads are often less of a problem. From what I see, for instance, Instagram is not used as a primary resource by a lot by professional / semi-pro photographers. Many of them build online portfolios to catalog their work, and I imagine most photographers would not be terribly thrilled to see bra ads or any other ads being inserted into their portfolio of works. So these people more go to sites like Smugmug and Zenfolio. Which as far as I know is ad-free, but also isn't zero cost to set up either. Intrusive, often creepily-targeted advertising seems to be the norm now for any large social-focused Internet business. It's what keeps things "free". The question, I guess, is what is a good alternative model? Something has to pay for the server / bandwidth costs and upkeep. Coming up with a better business model (or at least one that focuses on different values, such as the atypical billboard bans) is the only real way to "get rid of the ads".
vezirynn 9y ago
Evidently it's working on SOME front or they'd be putting more profitable ads in. Still brings up the question of whether the extra revenue is worth annoying part of your user base - but from my experience I'll only ever see 1-2 ads even if I scroll for 5-10 minutes.
- nukeop 9y ago
  That's how targeted ads work - if you bought a product in the past, you must be interested in buying the same type of products, every week, forever, and you'll be interested in seeing ads for these products.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    And it works extremely well. That’s why, thanks to Amazon ads, I’ve bought 14 vacuums in the last two months. Sigh. I really wish the algorithms were smart enough to distinguish between things that you might rebuy frequently (bras are closer to this end) and things that you probably won’t buy again for a long time (like vacuums).
  - vezirynn 9y ago
    From my experience (engineer at ad retargeting company) the models used for retargeting are very advanced/optimized. They're shown repeatedly because the data suggests that it IS the optimal policy despite the reaction people have to it.
  - glandium 9y ago
    I wonder if they take into account that you made the purchase, or even know about it. If you consider that the only information they have is that you were looking for the product, but may or may not have bought one (or may have returned the one you bought), then their strategy starts making sense.
- dgoldstein 9y ago
  I don't think "annoying" is quite the right word to summarize this blog post. Sure, ads are often annoying, but the point she was trying to make is that this pattern is somewhat harmful.
u801e 9y ago
I suspect that ads like this will show regardless whether she's using Instagram or some other website. For example, while at work, I searched for some documentation on syslog-ng. After that, page ads on multiple websites would refer to syslog.
epx 9y ago
Try to use average women (and men) to see how many bras you are going to sell :)
UweSchmidt 9y ago
Strange, I find the ads instagram decides to show to me extremely on point and highly interesting. And I can easily see how they did it, since I keep clicking and liking pictures that are very well tagged. What is your experience?
booleandilemma 9y ago
Well that’s advertising for you.
nukeop 9y ago
I don't have that problem. A model's job is to look good in photographs, my job is to create computer programs. I'm good at my job, somebody else is good at their job. I don't see this as a personal failure or even irritation that I'm not good at all possible jobs in the world.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  You sound not entirely unlike someone who gets to sleep at night by telling themselves they only designed them guidance system for a missile, or the fuse for a mine. Hopefully it’s that... the alternative is the absence of a conscience.
  - nukeop 9y ago
    I don't think seeing ads that make you feel bad is equal to stepping on a landmine. And I don't work in advertising industry, I hate it with a passion.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      It’s definitely not equivalent, but the coping mechanism and means of dissipating personal responsibility are identical.
      - nukeop 9y ago
        I think you're making too many wild assumptions here, I don't need to "cope" with anything here and I'm definitely not responsible for the content of ads a large company whose services I don't use serves.
mirimir 9y ago
So really, there's no way to block ads?
- williamscales 9y ago
  I don't know of any straightforward (i.e. that does not require root access) way to block the ads in the Instagram app. I would guess that this is why they push the app so hard (as with Twitter).
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Apps are one of the main reasons why I refuse to use smartphones. They're broken-by-design, from user perspective. So how come there aren't uber-apps (ha ha) that can spoof apps, looking to servers like real apps, but protecting users?
    - williamscales 9y ago
      So how come there aren't uber-apps (ha ha) that can spoof apps, looking to servers like real apps, but protecting users? Well there are such things, but due to the security model they typically require root access. This is not great because rooting your phone makes it much more insecure. The other option would be to implement an alternative Instagram app that does not show ads. I assume that Instagram has various measures in place that preclude this.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        I was imagining more like "alternative Instagram app". Maybe more like a browser with macro capabilities. But obviously, Instagram would try to block it. Why not just use a browser with an ad blocker?
        williamscales 9y ago
        Why not just use a browser with an ad blocker? That's a viable option indeed. I don't do that because the Instagram mobile website is significantly less nice than the app-each tab of the app is a separate web page that loads fairly slowly for instance. So in the end, I use the app, report the ads I see as not relevant, and suck it up. I usually only see one ad per day so it's not the end of the world.
cgb223 9y ago
I think she kind of answered here own question here. She’s said that she’s purchased yoga equipment and bras in the past, so it makes a lot of sense that she’s seeing these ads Facebook’s algorithms take a look at all people who buy certain things, and look at similar things they also buy, as well as a host of demographic information to key in on it more They don’t do a perfect job. Facebook is not nearly as omniscient as people think it is. Trust me, I have some relevant work experience As for the ads themselves, they’re selling an ideal, not a product. If they ad just had a picture of a bra on a table with nobody wearing it, that ad would be less effective than if someone conventionally attractive was wearing it. That’s not going to change, because it sells more of the product. As for the body types, I think my sister (an accomplished Nuclear Engineer) put it best. Women often complain that they’re being pushed by advertising to conform to a certain body type. That’s valid. But those same women often then come to the conclusion to shame women who worked hard to have their body look like that. My sister feels its an attack (attack might be a strong word here) on someone like her, who puts in serious effort to her health and body, in addition to the hard work she does as an engineer and a mother. Why is she the bad guy for putting in effort. Why cant some women have bodies like that, and some not?
- skywhopper 9y ago
  Wow, way to dismiss her very valid points. In fact, no, if Instagram and Facebook think this is relevant advertising then they’ve scammed their investors far worse than we thought. And if the ads make the user feel unhappy, then they are really bad and they should do something about them. Finally, please get past the false notion that people with advertising-ideal bodies like your sister are somehow putting in more effort than other people. That’s demonstrably false. And in any case your final question is sort of the point of the post you are trying to dismiss. Why do all the women in those ads have one type of body, when there are so many other types out there?
  - aceofspad3s 9y ago
    As a user, I can't think of any ads that would make me happy. As an unattractive person, I wouldn't want to see unattractive people in ads either. Seeing fat people wouldn't make me happier. (Why was this thread collapsed?)
mayneack 9y ago
I don't know if it would work for instagram, but I habitually block brand accounts on twitter if they promote tweets to me. I can't quantify it, but I feel like I don't see as many ads on twitter as I used to. https://blocktogether.org/show-blocks/njFjyOn40oKxRW8XJLmN70CVaQcXZbgn5I9iN0OV https://blocktogether.org/show-blocks/njFjyOn40oKxRW8XJLmN70...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
saurik 9y ago
> Do men on Instagram contend with this many half-naked dudes and their butts all the time? I really want to know. I really feel for this comment, as women are hyper-sexualized and we have a broken culture of stuff that optimizes for the male gaze, and so this is a common complaint. But this isn't about sexuality, this is about insecurity. These specific ads are only showing skin so they can hit a weak spot in the viewer and break them down to buy stuff. The same patriarchal cultural BS about what it means to be a real woman also exists as a pressure against men, it just leads to a different set of insecurities. Example: I feel insecure about losing my hair. I still have hair... and it shouldn't really matter?... but it is thinning :/; and, when I think about it, it makes me sad. (edit:) To be clear, I mean the kind of "sad" where every time I see myself in a mirror and every time I wash my hair and even if my hair falls a weird way, it hits me. It is an ever-pervasive "insecurity" in my life that I fight with every day, and where I am dreading what it will be like in another two or three years :/. I manage to forget about it a lot, or even get to a place where I look at myself in a mirror and am like "this is fine... I don't mind how I look today, so I am happy" But like, one day, I decided to research products and procedures designed to prevent or hide hair loss. I spent hours on it. I didn't end up deciding to do anything. But the Internet remembers. The Internet now knows that I have an insecurity, and people with an insecurity are profitable. People like me are why ads make money :/. So now, every few damned days, while going through my Instagram "stories", I am given a sponsored interstitial ad for hair loss prevention products and services. Fuck you, Instagram.
- askafriend 9y ago
  The advertising industry will find a way to do that regardless of the medium - whether it’s Instagram or whether it’s a shitty blog with AdSense on it. Your criticism should probably extend to the way the entire advertising industry conducts it’s operations and that’s a massive discussion with an incredible amount of nuance that we probably couldn’t do it justice here.
  - jbrennan 9y ago
    Yeah, it’s too prevalent. We best not talk about it.
tptacek 9y ago
Seriously what is the deal with the avocados and limes? Were those toasts procedurally generated?
- corysama 9y ago
  They make for an aesthetically pleasing picture as long as you don’t think about actually eating avocado skins.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    Or big chunks of lime.
yummy 9y ago
Bra-free? I hoped we would finally be able to see titties... Very disappointed
- dang 9y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. That's the opposite of what this site is for. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
nostrademons 9y ago
My favorite advertising sequence was on Hulu a couple years ago. First I'm shown an ad for Rogaine. I click "not interested". Then I'm shown an ad for Viagra. I click "not interested". Then I'm shown an ad for Victoria's Secret. I'm male. It's like some algorithm is going "Balding? Nope, then you must be impotent. Wait, you're not impotent either? You must be a woman." (Putting on my data-scientist hat, this is actually pretty rational. My actual status is "I'm just not interested in buying things from you", but this is a useless result to an advertiser; as someone not interested in buying things or paying for content, I'm irrelevant, so they can afford to piss me off in the hopes that they'll find someone who is balding/impotent/female and insecure about it, and I'm just a cost of doing business.)
- nickparker 9y ago
  The roughly equally bad take on that sequence is that after confirming you're neither balding nor impotent, it assumed there was someone in your life to purchase Victoria's Secret for.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    I am amazed at how incredibly accurate it is. And they're not just showing a stupid ad. They are giving a major brand name that most males may know.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
If you're not paying, you're the product. How this caches out is that you will never be served the ads that are best for you. Instead, you'll be shown whatever the most expensive targeting options are for you, given the information the advertising platform knows about you. In this case, since you buy bras, it's ads for bras. Visit a coding bootcamp website and get tracked and you'll get ads for coding bootcamps - even if you're currently attending the bootcamp you're getting advertised for. Practical advice: start doing a lot of online web shopping and trackable stuff for mattresses. You'll probably get ads for mattresses instead. "Interested in buying a mattress" is a very high-value category for marketers to target.
- cardiffspaceman 9y ago
  I can validate and top the mattress thing. I get ads for expensive cruise ship voyages most of the time ($25K for two portholes looking out at Antarctica for two weeks, per person; one can dream). Practically speaking, do a decent research session on something that presses pleasant buttons. Of course, if a California King pillow-top mattress is your thing, then go (search) for it (they are nice).
Waterluvian 9y ago
I hate how laser focused ads can be. I don't know what I talked about but almost all of my mobile Gmail ads are about meeting mature singles. Which makes no sense because I'm an immature spouse.
williamscales 9y ago
If I could pay to use Instagram without ads, I would do it in a heartbeat. I used to pay for Flickr pro but now all the cool kids are on Instagram so I post there. I cannot identify a single time in my life when I have been happy to see an ad. Why is there no option to pay for Instagram?
- dannyw 9y ago
  Facebook’s ARPU is about $20 per year from financial releases last year. However, people who would pay to block ads probably are in a demographic that makes significantly more ARPU for Facebook; possibly 3-4 times. I know Google’s ARPU off me (prior to installing an ad blocker) is in the $100s per year (calculated by an extension that looks at your search terms, what ads you click on, and how much they cost). I don’t think I’ll pay a few hundreds a year for Google.
LeoNatan25 9y ago
Report every “sponsored” shit content as spam, sexually inappropriate, inciting violence, etc. Just do it. If enough people do it, these assholes are going to feel it. Do it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  It might also get you flagged…
  - LeoNatan25 9y ago
    It’s a question of volume. If enough people do it, they can’t flag all accounts because then no real reporting will be possible.
- samschooler 9y ago
  They did feel it. Last year this strategy worked and I didn’t see any ads at all. Until about 3 months ago. I actually think those buttons do nothing now, or your account’s reports are thrown away because I get a ton of ads, and they don’t change.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  Or they'll begin to ignore your reports.
jasonshen 9y ago
My biggest takeaway is that people can have vastly different experiences in "the same product". Just as liberal and conservative Facebook users saw very different streams of content and news, men and women. I don't check Instagram very often anymore but I just logged in now and here are the ads I see: * Pluralsight - 10 technologies shaking up business Monday.com - visual project management tool * 241 Atlantic - Brooklyn's newest residential rental development * Playstation - Monster Hunter World game * Whichdoor - some kind of rental search engine * Marvel Strike Force - action RPG game prob on mobile These ads reflect my interests in tech, business, gaming, and NYC rentals (my lease is up later this year) and are interesting + don't make me feel bad about myself. But if all the ads I saw were for clothing to "slim your dad bod" or featured really attractive men in skimpy outfits, with the implication that that's how I was supposed to look - I wouldn't like that. I would feel like the world was telling me that my personality, my intelligence, and my creativity didn't matter and that I am only valued for how I look. That sucks and I think it's understandable that someone wouldn't want to see that. These advertising messages go deep into our psyches.
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  If you buy any clothing online you'll start getting similar ads as you describe. I regularly get ads for men's underwear, tight-fitting workout clothes, and ads featuring ruggedly handsome 5'11" men with lush, immaculately-groomed beards in well-tailored clothes.
KaoruAoiShiho 9y ago
The problem is not with instagram but with capitalism. Capitalism is a system designed to optimize for profit, so the only advertisers that want to target you are advertisers who can profit from those ads. Vices make profit, insecurity makes profit, promoting positive mental health does not make profit. In time we'll look back on this wild west of social media consumption just like how we look back on smoking. This stuff needs to be regulated.
- randyrand 9y ago
  Socialism would not solve this "problem". It's still profit seeking. Communism is also a profit seeking system -- just one where the everyday person no longer has the ability to make profit and only the leaders are the ones seeking profit. It may solve this bra problem, but will lead to other ones.
snomad 9y ago
The suicide rate for teens, especially teen girls, has risen along with the explosion in social media https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/health/teen-suicide-cdc-study-bn/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/health/teen-suicide-cdc-study.... Instinctively, above cyber bullying and public body shaming, it is these kind of ad / algo quirks that would seem like a key contributing factor. As the author points out, the constant barrage can't help but make you consider your own body.
- thirdsun 9y ago
  > the constant barrage can‘t help but make you consider your own body. Apart from the method of using ads and tracking, which I despise, I wonder if this is actually such a bad thing - at least in this particular case: If you aren‘t satisfied with your body there are ways to change that - eating healthy, being active. Of course, that‘s a whole different discussion. I‘m simply wondering if someone should be offended if confronted with healthy and fit people. Or put differently: Would you complain about ads that show people succesful in their career? A status that is probably harder to achieve and than being fit.
  - urahara 9y ago
    Sure, something leading to cyberbullying and girls committing suicides is obviously a very, very bad thing along with objectification. Many people are not even in control over their health and body for physical, psychological or social reasons. "Successful in their career" doesn't work the same way, it is a bad analogy. For one, this doesn't influence kids/teens, career success is all about grownups and doesn't degrade people to mere objects.
    - thirdsun 9y ago
      Some thoughts: - How many people are really not in control of their health and body? Sure, there are physical exceptions and I‘m not saying it‘s easy, but is it really common that eating healthy and living an active lifestyle is prevented by psychological and social reasons? And if so, isn‘t that an excuse for missing pretty much any goal that requires to overcome some barriers? - With cyberbullying, suicide and objectification you‘re throwing terms into the discussion that are a major escalation of the ads in question. I don‘t necessarily make that connection or at least think that it‘s a very subjective one and in my opinion those issues rather require work on a personal, individual level for those affected. However, that’s a different discussion. - Wouldn‘t you agree that one‘s career and professional status is very much related to the perceived self-worth? How is that not relevant to teenagers that are about to start their careers, whether it‘s a high paying tech job or being a cashier at Walmart, very soon. Considering one‘s career options doesn‘t require to already have one - it also applies to future prospects - or lack thereof. And even then grownups aren‘t immune to these considerations and their effects.
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
The secret is to not let them create an accurate profile in the first place.
- jbrennan 9y ago
  I think this line of reasoning is victim blaming. It’s not the author’s fault that Instagram works the way it works. I think she’s entitled to want them to do a better job.
  - kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
    She's consuming free computing resources in exchange for the implied social contract of having ads presented to her. If she doesn't like that, she has to find a way to subvert that contract or stop using free services. She'd have more of a leg to stand on if she was a customer of Instagram.
  - leetcrew 9y ago
    I don't disagree that this type of advertising is unsavory, but I do think it is a bit simplistic to call people like the author victims of evil oppressive Instagram and call it a day. I notice that in today's society people make an awful lot of demands on the services and apps they use, while not directly paying for hardly any of what they consume. Facebook/Instagram definitely has a lot more power than any individual user, but it doesn't have more power than all of its users. If people were offended enough to actually walk away from the platform en masse, I bet we would see substantial reform pretty quickly. The "if you don't like it, leave" argument is cruel when applied to cities, countries, or essential services, but I think it is pretty fair when we are talking about totally superfluous apps that don't even cost anything.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
nezzle 9y ago
As much as I'd like to turn this into social commentary about the patriarchy, this is the result of women like her buying these items. The return on investment for bra ads to her cohort is superior to other ads, so that's what they see. It's the same problem with click bait, tv, news, nigerian scams, penis enhancement drugs, etc. Unfortunately this comes down to a 'blame the people' - or at least our psychological weaknesses.
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  it's the thing modern consumerism is best at - optimising for what we want, despite what we tell ourselves about what we want. Oftentimes that results in tapping into reward system hacks like chained clickbait articles or "get X quick" products.
mnm1 9y ago
Lauren needs to get an ad blocker asap. Or not use Instagram. Seriously, what else can one expect from ads? A good experience? That's fucking delusional.
- jmcgough 9y ago
  Can't ad-block an instagram app, and she uses Instagram to stay in touch with friends/family. Not that easy of a problem to solve.
  - mnm1 9y ago
    She can use the website version to read her feed or use a DNS resolver that blocks ad domains. If her primary purpose is to stay in touch with friends and family, there are also plenty of other apps for that.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
Oh. My. Goodness. Nevermind negative body image. I would feel sexually harassed or something for having that many boobs and butts shoved in my face over and over and over. That veers weirdly into soft porn territory. If I want to look at naked bodies all the live long day, fine. But she says I mostly just came here to see pictures of my friends’ dogs and kids. If I were visiting a site to talk to friends about their kids and almost exclusively saw these kinds of ads, I would feel like this would be a bit like leaving a stack of Playboy magazines on the desk of a teacher at an elementary school.
- tdb7893 9y ago
  I think it's a matter of differing opinions, I didn't find those ads particularly suggestive. I see people in similar outfits at the gym all the time and for the bra ads there's no good way to sell it without the model being shirtless (and I see people in less at the beach all the time, too).
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    But when you go to the beach or gym, you know it will be there. When you go to, say, an elementary school or other child oriented environment, you generally don't expect to see it. There is a difference.
- newscracker 9y ago
  I don't condone these ads. They do look like stalking and harassment. One word I would use to describe these is "crass". She says "I just mostly came here to see pictures of my friends' dogs and kids", but what she wants from Instagram is different from what Instagram thinks she's interested in. It's obvious (leaving aside bugs in Instagram) that she has visited other websites to look up information on yoga and also probably on bras, or shown some kind of engagement with these topics in a place where FB/Instagram was watching, so to speak. This is where things become confounding, because the actual sellers of bras and other clothing have decided that they want to target people doing yoga, which is related to general fitness, which is related to feeling comfortable while engaging in fitness related activities, which they also believe is about looking good — it's a broad net that they cast so that they get more people to look at ads and buy their products. The sellers have also decided that these kind of pictures are what help them (oblivious to the actual experiences of those seeing the ads and the consequences). Of course, this seems like the targeting is actually pointless and that they're wasting their money, but this is how a lot of ads work and how a lot of these ad serving products (FB, Insta, Google, etc.) work. They're still not good enough to target people who're more likely to buy, but competition in a specific product/service space makes sellers wanting to grab as much as possible based on ill informed hypotheses of "their target customer is ____, _____, ____". It's also clear that Instagram and FB working together isn't really that good for the users, and whatever services FB and Instagram use to profile people around the web look shady as well in how and where they collect information and how they use that information to make inferences that are creating such experiences. If it's not bras, it may be lipsticks or moisturizers or slimming products or bags or so many other things that are sold as things that we should aspire for. This problem is not going anywhere unless people get more educated about online tracking, how to have at least some control over it and also demand more from these companies that provide "things for free". In this context, this book "The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy" [1] is something more people should read. [1]: https://www.nostarch.com/smartgirlsguide https://www.nostarch.com/smartgirlsguide
conroy 9y ago
One of my goals in 2018 is to see fewer ads. For Twitter, that means using a dedicated app (Tweetbot) that doesn't display any ads. I looked into similar applications for Instagram, but it appears they shut down their feed APIs two years ago. However, I just discovered that the Instagram website doesn't show sponsored posts. I'm not sure if has something to do with my setup, but I just scrolled through the last hundred photos and didn't see a single ad. It looks great and functions just like the mobile app. The icon is even the same! Just go to instagram.com on your phone and sign in.
- sunsetMurk 9y ago
  this is a good tip for any of Facebook's products... Mobile site > native app. The mobile sites usually support the features you're actually trying to use, are faster, have fewer privacy implications, and don't kill your phone's battery.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Another advantage of the mobile Facebook site for iOS is that you can use an ad blocker plug in Safari.
- newscracker 9y ago
  I would suggest that you also install and use ad blockers. Every user who does that sends a signal across that it's unacceptable (the entire tracking, profiling, sending malware, etc.). We need more people to do this because it's clear that the ad industry and the conduits don't care enough.
imsofuture 9y ago
Similar issues with alcohol if you've gotten slated into the algorithmic 'finer things club'. Non stop booze ads. Not all of us appreciate, or are okay with/at drinking.
4minute 9y ago
I can't believe people get offended over ads on a free product. Don't use the product if the ads upset you so much or just block them. Why care this much? They are ads, we all know why they are there and what they are suppose to do. So why are we acting like they are some mind manipulating images. I could understand the confusion if the writer was an 8 year old girl. The reason these ads use skinny people, is the same reason why people dress up nicely for a job interview.
- ComputerGuru 9y ago
  It’s not about being offended. If that’s what you got out of it, you are missing the point. The author even wrote that there’s an option to report an ad as offensive but she chose not to use it because she wasn’t offended. Clearly the author is comfortable with her body and sexuality enough to not find these images and ads offensive per se, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with them and the industry that pushes them. I’ll go do far as to say people thinking the way you do is the reason these exist. I can just see a timid voice at a meeting about ad content venturing “what if people find these intrusive, creepy, or esteem damaging?” And a brusque and carefree reply from the loud alpha male in the room “psssh it’s 2017! I can’t believe people get offended over an ad! But ok, well just add an “hide because it’s offensive” link and we’re good.”
  - 4minute 9y ago
    Well advertisers push these ads cause they work. It's not like they would keep pushing the same ads if they didn't sell anything.
atc 9y ago
> our value as women in this world Jesus Christ give me a break from this "Western women are oppressed" bullshit already! This has fucking NOTHING to do with your oppression complex and everything to do with a shitty advert algorithm.
oculusthrift 9y ago
devils advocate, but what’s so wrong about this? why is it a corporations fault if you feel insecure about yourself? if you’re unhappy you’re the only one who can chance that, why complain to a corporation to fix your insecurities by avoiding them?
- analog31 9y ago
  I'm thinking of an analogy, maybe it isn't a good one, but it's if you're trying to quit smoking, and somebody is deliberately applying stresses to you, that are known to be associated with the desire to smoke. I don't think it's OK for anybody -- corporation or otherwise -- to saturate me with messages that are tailored to my psychological characteristics that are only partially under my own control.
- jji990 9y ago
  It's not as if the advertisers are blind to the your insecurities. They are targeting your insecurity with ads. I should know. Worked for a small agency. First did print ads. Then specialized in PPC. Find the thing that keeps your target market up at night. That's what gets them to click. When I ran campaigns for "wellness" companies (which were scammy to begin with), the "stay healthy" angle never worked. The ads that performed the best were the ones that made the user feel anxious: Feeling tired? Weak? Gaining weight? Looking older? That sort of thing. Think about that for a second. Is that nice? To intentionally make someone feel bad about themselves, to sell them something? Of course not. Is it legal? Yeah. Should it be? Probably. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Unfortunately, that's not the win-at-all-cost mentality of business.
  - dannyw 9y ago
    Allowing opting out of “interest based” (aka surveillance based) advertising would be good regulation.
ACow_Adonis 9y ago
First, the obvious lesson: everyone install an ad blocker. Secondly, my own anecdote: at work I cannot install an ad blocker, nor manage other aspects of being tracked online. As part of that employment, I recently had to do some research on equity-release products/reverse mortgages. These are products targeted at the elderly. I am not elderly, despite what my 20 year old sister in-law might say :p My workplace online advertising experience has now become an endless omnipresent stream of older couples looking wistfully out into the sunset, perhaps on a boat or over an ocean, or smiling lovingly into each others faces in that aspirational retirement way, always with the message: sell us the equity in your home so your life can be like this. And it's not just instagram. It's following me everywhere. Anecdote 2:my mother before she died, was basically a paranoid schizophrenic. Imagine, for a second, the subjective experience the internet advertising system has on these people and their families. I had an eye opening conversation with her a few years ago, where she proclaimed that "they" were watching her through the computer, and she knew because of the coincidences in how the content changed across the internet to target her specifically. I had the failed experience of trying to explain what was going on, and the observation that, dismally, she was essentially, on some level, right. The ability to make a mentally ill person's ramblings essentially correct is a sobering dystopian realization...
- craftyguy 9y ago
  No, the obvious lesson is to purge the app from your device and stop using services that make you feel like shit.
- lzecon 9y ago
  How are you supposed to install an ad blocker on an app?
  - etherealG 9y ago
    Stop using that app. Stop using ecosystems that allow for it to take it a step further.
  - jiert 9y ago
    I'm sure there's... an app for that. ;-)
Kenji 9y ago
> there isn’t really a way to opt out of it. There is a way to opt out of it: a) leave instagram or b) stop being butthurt and envious of other people's appearance Your choice.
danjoc 9y ago
The author is misdirected. This isn't really an Instagram problem. Instagram didn't make the ads. The advertisers did. If the ad is successful, it continues. If it is unsuccessful, it is removed. Clearly, these are the successful ads. The fact that author is triggered by them seems to indicate the problem is with the author, not the ads. The vast majority of users have no problems with the ads, or the ads would change. The vast majority don't write 5 pages of medium.com screed about the ads. The vast majority are imagining themselves as the woman in the ad and buying the products. That is simply how the algorithm works. The nice thing about the internet is everyone can have their say. The less nice thing about the internet is that includes everyone, including people with serious mental issues. Articles like this one, or infowars, or any other sort of militant fringe generally attracts more of the same sort of voices. It makes the fringe seem legitimate, because there's a balance of for and against in the discussion. The vast majority disagrees with the author. That's how the algorithm works.
- olefoo 9y ago
  Wasn't the internet supposed to liberate us from one size fits all cultural norms? The author isn't asking for a ban on bra ads; she just wants to be able to control her feed and see ads that are more relevant to her life. She is trying to have a conversation about the stereotypes that the advertisers are using but neither the advertisers nor the channel appear to be interested. I'm reminded of the Cluetrain Manifesto [1] and it's successes and failures in the current context. 1. http://www.cluetrain.com/ http://www.cluetrain.com/
rdlecler1 9y ago
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. If Insta offered an ad free option for $10/month I wonder if the author would pay for it.
oliwarner 9y ago
Why haven't advertisers noticed this is why we install blockers? Deep-tracking, ultra-personalisation ending in creepy ads were bad enough. But the flip-side is if there's only one industry interested in your activities, you only see those ads, whatever you're looking at. Lets go back to the 2000s, where ads targeted content, not users. Before you start fretting about CTRs, you can't click what you don't see. That's the hole advertisers need to dig themselves out of. And even before ad-blockers ruled supreme, targeted advertising was sold to publishers as a way of increasing CPM. Truth is payouts have been in free-fall since online advertising began.
- jdboyd 9y ago
  > Why haven't advertisers noticed this is why we install blockers? Maybe because not enough people install blockers for it to matter.
nbanks 9y ago
For apps where an ad blocker doesn't work, I tend to click on ads that I want to see in the future. This means someone is paying for my clicks even when I go back immediately instead of reading the content, but at least this leads to less annoying ads in the future.
clouddrover 9y ago
> there isn’t really a way to opt out of it. Yes there is: don't use Facebook or Instagram. I see little value in being surprised that a surveillance based advertising platform does indeed surveil and advertise at you. That's what these things are built to do. Regardless of whether the ads are repetitive or not, why pollute your life with advertising in the first place? Reduce your exposure to advertising pollution and you really will feel better. That's what I do.
- sodosopa 9y ago
  Don't forget, opt out of everything else too. Your buying choices are tracked in so many different ways, should we just give up and sign off, run off to the country and not buy anything on or offline? Of course not, but saying "well duh, logout" isn't identifying the true problem. The content of the ads in the example are questionable in context. It's not that she or we're being tracked, it's the psychological triggers used to shame or bait people.
  - clouddrover 9y ago
    > Don't forget, opt out of everything else too. I don't forget. I pay cash whenever possible, I don't join so-called "loyalty" programs, I don't give out my number or email address to businesses freely, etc. The world is a hostile place and you must always guard against the exploitation of your data. I wish this was a paranoid perspective but it has sadly become a pragmatic one. It's unfortunate that this is the world we've built for ourselves. > it's the psychological triggers used to shame or bait people Made more possible and better targeted through tracking. These days it's simply good computer hygiene to install a blocker in your browser (such as uBlock Origin) and to also turn on your browser's built-in tracking protection if it has it (like Firefox does: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection).
    - newscracker 9y ago
      I feel happy when I read comments like this and see that there are many people who think this way. I've started the move to using more cash myself, and one of the triggers was this Aeon article titled "In praise of cash" that impressed me and influenced me. [1] As a strong pro-privacy advocate in my circles, I also feel the despair that comes when I see that most people don't understand or don't care much, which (I believe) is a detriment to humanity as a whole. [1]: https://aeon.co/essays/if-plastic-replaces-cash-much-that-is-good-will-be-lost https://aeon.co/essays/if-plastic-replaces-cash-much-that-is...
anonu 9y ago
Here's the solution: get off of Instagram. Ask yourself: does it provide any real value in your life? If the answer is no, just delete the app and get on with your life.
smsm42 9y ago
I once did research on some garbage removal services on Google. Months after that, on any device that didn't have adblock and was logged into same Google account, I've got garbage ads (literally in this case). That's how their targeting works, as it seems - which is also quite stupid since I didn't need the service once I used it, certainly not for a long time afterwards, and if I'll need it again, I'd have long forgotten the ads they have shown me back then.

241 points by koolhead17 9y ago

So some woman is sad ("triggered") because she doesn't look like a model from an ad on Instagram. How is this relevant to Hacker news? Maybe the message is that uBlock origin should be installed by default on every browser?

dang 9y ago
I don't think it's "some woman" who was triggered here. The article is intellectually interesting and therefore clearly on topic for Hacker News. It takes a path through some provocative material, of course, but hardly gratuitously. Meanwhile, your comment violates the site guidelines, first by crossing into personal attack, and second by failing to do this: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." And I'm sorry to see that you've been violating the site rules quite a bit, already. We eventually ban accounts that do this, so please read the rules and take the spirit of this site to heart. That means civil, substantive comments only, and no more rants or flamebait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nukeop 9y ago
  So what is the strongest plausible interpretation here? Because the article is full of body image issues and being jealous that somebody else in the ads looks better.
  - dang 9y ago
    That's an exercise for the reader, and not a difficult one. I'm not here to argue the point so much as let you know that if you don't study the site rules and follow them properly, we will ban you.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    So let’s take away the sexualized imagery aspect. If huge percentage of the ads you saw on Instagram were pictures of legs with varicose veins advertising some sort of treatment… would you want to see that all the time? Wouldn’t you start to get annoyed and grossed out that they keep shoving that in your face when you’re trying to look at pictures of cats/cars/landscapes/buildings/whatever? The author doesn’t seem to be complaining the ads exist, they seem to be complaining about the quantity/frequency of that kind of imagery.
  - nperez 9y ago
    It's food for thought if you work in ad tech. Targeting based on tags/interests can be effective, but understanding the visual content of an ad and how it will be received by the user is a different problem that could result in better targeting if solved. Suppose all ads were tagged for their visual content and their ad-hiding functionality looked for categories of content that you frequently hide. That data could be used for better targeting and passed all the way back to creative agencies to influence design decisions. How is that not relevant to HN?
    - tinymollusk 9y ago
      It is my belief that adtech companies' top priority is to make money. They do this by increasing clickthrough rate and cost per click. As long as they don't fall below some "trust" threshold (subjective emotional judgement from ill-informed customers pulling threads from obfuscated-at-best PR releases), they are golden. From that perspective, why would they want to "better" target using proxy metrics for the ones you really care about? Focusing on the CTR[0], why use tags or interests when you can use clickthrough rate itself? There are so many factors in what causes someone to click; it's a more effective strategy to treat all those factors as a black box, and optimize for the direct behavior you want to encourage. Added bonus, those black box / supercomplex problems can be efficiently optimized by ML. [0] CPC is driven by the advertiser side
- epx 9y ago
  I feel this is just the pound of posts that HN allows to feed the hive.
  - dang 9y ago
    I'm afraid I don't understand.
- aceofspad3s 9y ago
  Not defending the gp's harsh tone, but there's nothing particularly interesting about this post. We all know how ad algorithms are stupidly repetitive and how ads only show attractive people. This is just flamebait.
  - jji990 9y ago
    But we don't all realize the effect this shit is having. And if we did, we wouldn't be reacting so non-chalant about it. I think it's an interesting post, and it's a more nuanced criticism than just "too many repetitive ads with attractive people."
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Hnrobert42 9y ago
Why is it not relevant? Because it is a woman or because she used the word triggered?
QAPereo 9y ago
I think that her point is... why? What’s the point of this? What is the long term societal impact? It’s not just that she wants to avoid that crap, but that she feels she shouldn’t have to.
- nukeop 9y ago
  She has been clustered into a group most likely to click bra ads by a data-mining algorithm that maximizes click through rate based on available data. There's no other consideration given and no deeper meaning to it. The bottom line is that you should use ad, script, and tracking blockers on every website you visit. It should be common sense by now.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    That algorithm is not a natural phenomenon, it’s made for a purpose it serves, and I’m so tired of “the algorithm did it” as an excuse. Please try again. I agree on the ad blocking, but if everyone actually did it the internet would implode for a while, and most don’t know how to use good versions anyway. No offense, but pretending that anything remotely technological is “common sense” for most of the world is either idealistic, or delusional.
  - jji990 9y ago
    Somebody made that algorithm, and ran it. They should be held accountable for what that algorithm does. We all know we can block the ads, stop using the product, etc. Now when is Instagram going to acknowledge that their product is user-hostile?
throwaway_98554 9y ago
Because many people on Hacker News think that caring about what women say is the same as bringing interesting and thoughts provoking topics. And when pointing out that such content is not worthy, as per the site guidelines, people will at best ignore the policy, at worse say you're a sexist.

moltar 9y ago

Well, it’s easy. Don’t use Instagram.

jrockway 9y ago
Why does it have to be all or nothing? She likes the product, she just doesn't like the bra ads.
- analognoise 9y ago
  Then she doesn't like the product. If you're not paying for it, you are the product. You are a faceless, nameless consumer #320981093, with preference code hash #AB7ZXJAL. We have determined that, when lumped into this preference code, you have a click-through advertising rate of XY% on said preference hash. We sell this, and you. Your 'triggering' doesn't matter, neither does your mental health - we don't care about either because, again, you are the product. If you get depressed about this enough for our algorithm to detect, you will be moved to preference hash #WNXI802N, which will include advertisements for antidepressants and churches into your mainly bra-based advertising stream. There is a delta of ZA% in your net worth to us, because your click-through rate is now BC% {higher or lower}. This data is aggregated again and incorporated into our quarterly financial statements. Thank you for being a part of The Machine.
  - askafriend 9y ago
    This is so silly. That’s all I have to say. So you’re telling me that because I pay for Coca Cola - that somehow makes it a more noble and more pure product than Instagram? Have you considered that perhaps I don’t mind “being the product” in exchange for a platform where I can share photos with the world that I’m proud of and follow some cool people relevant to my interests? Have you considered that perhaps there are trade offs involved, and that just because you’re not OK with them doesn’t mean that somehow I’m not as “enlightened” as you are? Look, social media is not all good and it’s not all bad. Like most things, it’s in large part what you make it (sure there’s nuance around this - but I’m gonna keep it short). You can definitely abuse it and it’s easy to do, but it’s also possible to use it in a way that is a net positive to your life. Social media is many things to many people so don’t project your unhappiness with the way you use the product onto other people.

hello_asdf 9y ago

Are there common domains to Instagram sponsored posts? I'm wondering if blocking DNS on routers / devices would give some temporary relief for this situation. I'm sorry that you're being bombarded with this, it'd be nice if Facebook provided topic blocking for ads beyond alcohol and parenting.

na85 9y ago
I believe this highlights a problem with the web in general: ads are a blight and should be excised from it entirely. If some ad-supported sites have to go under, well, that's just the cost of social progress.
- dominotw 9y ago
  What about highway Billboards, how can we bring progress there?
  - soundwave106 9y ago
    Different business models and different focus. In the US, billboards are banned in four American states (Vermont, Maine, Alaska and Hawaii) and various other counties or cities. Generally speaking, these are places that put high value on tourism driven by natural beauty (which, of course, roadside billboards tend to undermine). In photo sharing communities where there is less focus on the "social" aspects, ads are often less of a problem. From what I see, for instance, Instagram is not used as a primary resource by a lot by professional / semi-pro photographers. Many of them build online portfolios to catalog their work, and I imagine most photographers would not be terribly thrilled to see bra ads or any other ads being inserted into their portfolio of works. So these people more go to sites like Smugmug and Zenfolio. Which as far as I know is ad-free, but also isn't zero cost to set up either. Intrusive, often creepily-targeted advertising seems to be the norm now for any large social-focused Internet business. It's what keeps things "free". The question, I guess, is what is a good alternative model? Something has to pay for the server / bandwidth costs and upkeep. Coming up with a better business model (or at least one that focuses on different values, such as the atypical billboard bans) is the only real way to "get rid of the ads".

vezirynn 9y ago

Evidently it's working on SOME front or they'd be putting more profitable ads in. Still brings up the question of whether the extra revenue is worth annoying part of your user base - but from my experience I'll only ever see 1-2 ads even if I scroll for 5-10 minutes.

nukeop 9y ago
That's how targeted ads work - if you bought a product in the past, you must be interested in buying the same type of products, every week, forever, and you'll be interested in seeing ads for these products.
- MBCook 9y ago
  And it works extremely well. That’s why, thanks to Amazon ads, I’ve bought 14 vacuums in the last two months. Sigh. I really wish the algorithms were smart enough to distinguish between things that you might rebuy frequently (bras are closer to this end) and things that you probably won’t buy again for a long time (like vacuums).
- vezirynn 9y ago
  From my experience (engineer at ad retargeting company) the models used for retargeting are very advanced/optimized. They're shown repeatedly because the data suggests that it IS the optimal policy despite the reaction people have to it.
- glandium 9y ago
  I wonder if they take into account that you made the purchase, or even know about it. If you consider that the only information they have is that you were looking for the product, but may or may not have bought one (or may have returned the one you bought), then their strategy starts making sense.
dgoldstein 9y ago
I don't think "annoying" is quite the right word to summarize this blog post. Sure, ads are often annoying, but the point she was trying to make is that this pattern is somewhat harmful.

u801e 9y ago

I suspect that ads like this will show regardless whether she's using Instagram or some other website. For example, while at work, I searched for some documentation on syslog-ng. After that, page ads on multiple websites would refer to syslog.

epx 9y ago

Try to use average women (and men) to see how many bras you are going to sell :)

UweSchmidt 9y ago

Strange, I find the ads instagram decides to show to me extremely on point and highly interesting. And I can easily see how they did it, since I keep clicking and liking pictures that are very well tagged. What is your experience?

booleandilemma 9y ago

Well that’s advertising for you.

nukeop 9y ago

I don't have that problem. A model's job is to look good in photographs, my job is to create computer programs. I'm good at my job, somebody else is good at their job. I don't see this as a personal failure or even irritation that I'm not good at all possible jobs in the world.

QAPereo 9y ago
You sound not entirely unlike someone who gets to sleep at night by telling themselves they only designed them guidance system for a missile, or the fuse for a mine. Hopefully it’s that... the alternative is the absence of a conscience.
- nukeop 9y ago
  I don't think seeing ads that make you feel bad is equal to stepping on a landmine. And I don't work in advertising industry, I hate it with a passion.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    It’s definitely not equivalent, but the coping mechanism and means of dissipating personal responsibility are identical.
    - nukeop 9y ago
      I think you're making too many wild assumptions here, I don't need to "cope" with anything here and I'm definitely not responsible for the content of ads a large company whose services I don't use serves.

mirimir 9y ago

So really, there's no way to block ads?

williamscales 9y ago
I don't know of any straightforward (i.e. that does not require root access) way to block the ads in the Instagram app. I would guess that this is why they push the app so hard (as with Twitter).
- mirimir 9y ago
  Apps are one of the main reasons why I refuse to use smartphones. They're broken-by-design, from user perspective. So how come there aren't uber-apps (ha ha) that can spoof apps, looking to servers like real apps, but protecting users?
  - williamscales 9y ago
    So how come there aren't uber-apps (ha ha) that can spoof apps, looking to servers like real apps, but protecting users? Well there are such things, but due to the security model they typically require root access. This is not great because rooting your phone makes it much more insecure. The other option would be to implement an alternative Instagram app that does not show ads. I assume that Instagram has various measures in place that preclude this.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      I was imagining more like "alternative Instagram app". Maybe more like a browser with macro capabilities. But obviously, Instagram would try to block it. Why not just use a browser with an ad blocker?
      - williamscales 9y ago
        Why not just use a browser with an ad blocker? That's a viable option indeed. I don't do that because the Instagram mobile website is significantly less nice than the app-each tab of the app is a separate web page that loads fairly slowly for instance. So in the end, I use the app, report the ads I see as not relevant, and suck it up. I usually only see one ad per day so it's not the end of the world.

cgb223 9y ago

I think she kind of answered here own question here. She’s said that she’s purchased yoga equipment and bras in the past, so it makes a lot of sense that she’s seeing these ads Facebook’s algorithms take a look at all people who buy certain things, and look at similar things they also buy, as well as a host of demographic information to key in on it more They don’t do a perfect job. Facebook is not nearly as omniscient as people think it is. Trust me, I have some relevant work experience As for the ads themselves, they’re selling an ideal, not a product. If they ad just had a picture of a bra on a table with nobody wearing it, that ad would be less effective than if someone conventionally attractive was wearing it. That’s not going to change, because it sells more of the product. As for the body types, I think my sister (an accomplished Nuclear Engineer) put it best. Women often complain that they’re being pushed by advertising to conform to a certain body type. That’s valid. But those same women often then come to the conclusion to shame women who worked hard to have their body look like that. My sister feels its an attack (attack might be a strong word here) on someone like her, who puts in serious effort to her health and body, in addition to the hard work she does as an engineer and a mother. Why is she the bad guy for putting in effort. Why cant some women have bodies like that, and some not?

skywhopper 9y ago
Wow, way to dismiss her very valid points. In fact, no, if Instagram and Facebook think this is relevant advertising then they’ve scammed their investors far worse than we thought. And if the ads make the user feel unhappy, then they are really bad and they should do something about them. Finally, please get past the false notion that people with advertising-ideal bodies like your sister are somehow putting in more effort than other people. That’s demonstrably false. And in any case your final question is sort of the point of the post you are trying to dismiss. Why do all the women in those ads have one type of body, when there are so many other types out there?
- aceofspad3s 9y ago
  As a user, I can't think of any ads that would make me happy. As an unattractive person, I wouldn't want to see unattractive people in ads either. Seeing fat people wouldn't make me happier. (Why was this thread collapsed?)

mayneack 9y ago

I don't know if it would work for instagram, but I habitually block brand accounts on twitter if they promote tweets to me. I can't quantify it, but I feel like I don't see as many ads on twitter as I used to. https://blocktogether.org/show-blocks/njFjyOn40oKxRW8XJLmN70CVaQcXZbgn5I9iN0OV https://blocktogether.org/show-blocks/njFjyOn40oKxRW8XJLmN70...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

saurik 9y ago

> Do men on Instagram contend with this many half-naked dudes and their butts all the time? I really want to know. I really feel for this comment, as women are hyper-sexualized and we have a broken culture of stuff that optimizes for the male gaze, and so this is a common complaint. But this isn't about sexuality, this is about insecurity. These specific ads are only showing skin so they can hit a weak spot in the viewer and break them down to buy stuff. The same patriarchal cultural BS about what it means to be a real woman also exists as a pressure against men, it just leads to a different set of insecurities. Example: I feel insecure about losing my hair. I still have hair... and it shouldn't really matter?... but it is thinning :/; and, when I think about it, it makes me sad. (edit:) To be clear, I mean the kind of "sad" where every time I see myself in a mirror and every time I wash my hair and even if my hair falls a weird way, it hits me. It is an ever-pervasive "insecurity" in my life that I fight with every day, and where I am dreading what it will be like in another two or three years :/. I manage to forget about it a lot, or even get to a place where I look at myself in a mirror and am like "this is fine... I don't mind how I look today, so I am happy" But like, one day, I decided to research products and procedures designed to prevent or hide hair loss. I spent hours on it. I didn't end up deciding to do anything. But the Internet remembers. The Internet now knows that I have an insecurity, and people with an insecurity are profitable. People like me are why ads make money :/. So now, every few damned days, while going through my Instagram "stories", I am given a sponsored interstitial ad for hair loss prevention products and services. Fuck you, Instagram.

askafriend 9y ago
The advertising industry will find a way to do that regardless of the medium - whether it’s Instagram or whether it’s a shitty blog with AdSense on it. Your criticism should probably extend to the way the entire advertising industry conducts it’s operations and that’s a massive discussion with an incredible amount of nuance that we probably couldn’t do it justice here.
- jbrennan 9y ago
  Yeah, it’s too prevalent. We best not talk about it.

tptacek 9y ago

Seriously what is the deal with the avocados and limes? Were those toasts procedurally generated?

corysama 9y ago
They make for an aesthetically pleasing picture as long as you don’t think about actually eating avocado skins.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Or big chunks of lime.

yummy 9y ago

Bra-free? I hoped we would finally be able to see titties... Very disappointed

dang 9y ago
We've banned this account for repeatedly posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. That's the opposite of what this site is for. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nostrademons 9y ago

My favorite advertising sequence was on Hulu a couple years ago. First I'm shown an ad for Rogaine. I click "not interested". Then I'm shown an ad for Viagra. I click "not interested". Then I'm shown an ad for Victoria's Secret. I'm male. It's like some algorithm is going "Balding? Nope, then you must be impotent. Wait, you're not impotent either? You must be a woman." (Putting on my data-scientist hat, this is actually pretty rational. My actual status is "I'm just not interested in buying things from you", but this is a useless result to an advertiser; as someone not interested in buying things or paying for content, I'm irrelevant, so they can afford to piss me off in the hopes that they'll find someone who is balding/impotent/female and insecure about it, and I'm just a cost of doing business.)

nickparker 9y ago
The roughly equally bad take on that sequence is that after confirming you're neither balding nor impotent, it assumed there was someone in your life to purchase Victoria's Secret for.
- user5994461 9y ago
  I am amazed at how incredibly accurate it is. And they're not just showing a stupid ad. They are giving a major brand name that most males may know.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

If you're not paying, you're the product. How this caches out is that you will never be served the ads that are best for you. Instead, you'll be shown whatever the most expensive targeting options are for you, given the information the advertising platform knows about you. In this case, since you buy bras, it's ads for bras. Visit a coding bootcamp website and get tracked and you'll get ads for coding bootcamps - even if you're currently attending the bootcamp you're getting advertised for. Practical advice: start doing a lot of online web shopping and trackable stuff for mattresses. You'll probably get ads for mattresses instead. "Interested in buying a mattress" is a very high-value category for marketers to target.

cardiffspaceman 9y ago
I can validate and top the mattress thing. I get ads for expensive cruise ship voyages most of the time ($25K for two portholes looking out at Antarctica for two weeks, per person; one can dream). Practically speaking, do a decent research session on something that presses pleasant buttons. Of course, if a California King pillow-top mattress is your thing, then go (search) for it (they are nice).

Waterluvian 9y ago

I hate how laser focused ads can be. I don't know what I talked about but almost all of my mobile Gmail ads are about meeting mature singles. Which makes no sense because I'm an immature spouse.

williamscales 9y ago

If I could pay to use Instagram without ads, I would do it in a heartbeat. I used to pay for Flickr pro but now all the cool kids are on Instagram so I post there. I cannot identify a single time in my life when I have been happy to see an ad. Why is there no option to pay for Instagram?

dannyw 9y ago
Facebook’s ARPU is about $20 per year from financial releases last year. However, people who would pay to block ads probably are in a demographic that makes significantly more ARPU for Facebook; possibly 3-4 times. I know Google’s ARPU off me (prior to installing an ad blocker) is in the $100s per year (calculated by an extension that looks at your search terms, what ads you click on, and how much they cost). I don’t think I’ll pay a few hundreds a year for Google.

LeoNatan25 9y ago

Report every “sponsored” shit content as spam, sexually inappropriate, inciting violence, etc. Just do it. If enough people do it, these assholes are going to feel it. Do it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

saagarjha 9y ago
It might also get you flagged…
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  It’s a question of volume. If enough people do it, they can’t flag all accounts because then no real reporting will be possible.
samschooler 9y ago
They did feel it. Last year this strategy worked and I didn’t see any ads at all. Until about 3 months ago. I actually think those buttons do nothing now, or your account’s reports are thrown away because I get a ton of ads, and they don’t change.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
Or they'll begin to ignore your reports.

jasonshen 9y ago

My biggest takeaway is that people can have vastly different experiences in "the same product". Just as liberal and conservative Facebook users saw very different streams of content and news, men and women. I don't check Instagram very often anymore but I just logged in now and here are the ads I see: * Pluralsight - 10 technologies shaking up business Monday.com - visual project management tool * 241 Atlantic - Brooklyn's newest residential rental development * Playstation - Monster Hunter World game * Whichdoor - some kind of rental search engine * Marvel Strike Force - action RPG game prob on mobile These ads reflect my interests in tech, business, gaming, and NYC rentals (my lease is up later this year) and are interesting + don't make me feel bad about myself. But if all the ads I saw were for clothing to "slim your dad bod" or featured really attractive men in skimpy outfits, with the implication that that's how I was supposed to look - I wouldn't like that. I would feel like the world was telling me that my personality, my intelligence, and my creativity didn't matter and that I am only valued for how I look. That sucks and I think it's understandable that someone wouldn't want to see that. These advertising messages go deep into our psyches.

jschwartzi 9y ago
If you buy any clothing online you'll start getting similar ads as you describe. I regularly get ads for men's underwear, tight-fitting workout clothes, and ads featuring ruggedly handsome 5'11" men with lush, immaculately-groomed beards in well-tailored clothes.

KaoruAoiShiho 9y ago

The problem is not with instagram but with capitalism. Capitalism is a system designed to optimize for profit, so the only advertisers that want to target you are advertisers who can profit from those ads. Vices make profit, insecurity makes profit, promoting positive mental health does not make profit. In time we'll look back on this wild west of social media consumption just like how we look back on smoking. This stuff needs to be regulated.

randyrand 9y ago
Socialism would not solve this "problem". It's still profit seeking. Communism is also a profit seeking system -- just one where the everyday person no longer has the ability to make profit and only the leaders are the ones seeking profit. It may solve this bra problem, but will lead to other ones.

snomad 9y ago

The suicide rate for teens, especially teen girls, has risen along with the explosion in social media https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/health/teen-suicide-cdc-study-bn/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/health/teen-suicide-cdc-study.... Instinctively, above cyber bullying and public body shaming, it is these kind of ad / algo quirks that would seem like a key contributing factor. As the author points out, the constant barrage can't help but make you consider your own body.

thirdsun 9y ago
> the constant barrage can‘t help but make you consider your own body. Apart from the method of using ads and tracking, which I despise, I wonder if this is actually such a bad thing - at least in this particular case: If you aren‘t satisfied with your body there are ways to change that - eating healthy, being active. Of course, that‘s a whole different discussion. I‘m simply wondering if someone should be offended if confronted with healthy and fit people. Or put differently: Would you complain about ads that show people succesful in their career? A status that is probably harder to achieve and than being fit.
- urahara 9y ago
  Sure, something leading to cyberbullying and girls committing suicides is obviously a very, very bad thing along with objectification. Many people are not even in control over their health and body for physical, psychological or social reasons. "Successful in their career" doesn't work the same way, it is a bad analogy. For one, this doesn't influence kids/teens, career success is all about grownups and doesn't degrade people to mere objects.
  - thirdsun 9y ago
    Some thoughts: - How many people are really not in control of their health and body? Sure, there are physical exceptions and I‘m not saying it‘s easy, but is it really common that eating healthy and living an active lifestyle is prevented by psychological and social reasons? And if so, isn‘t that an excuse for missing pretty much any goal that requires to overcome some barriers? - With cyberbullying, suicide and objectification you‘re throwing terms into the discussion that are a major escalation of the ads in question. I don‘t necessarily make that connection or at least think that it‘s a very subjective one and in my opinion those issues rather require work on a personal, individual level for those affected. However, that’s a different discussion. - Wouldn‘t you agree that one‘s career and professional status is very much related to the perceived self-worth? How is that not relevant to teenagers that are about to start their careers, whether it‘s a high paying tech job or being a cashier at Walmart, very soon. Considering one‘s career options doesn‘t require to already have one - it also applies to future prospects - or lack thereof. And even then grownups aren‘t immune to these considerations and their effects.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

The secret is to not let them create an accurate profile in the first place.

jbrennan 9y ago
I think this line of reasoning is victim blaming. It’s not the author’s fault that Instagram works the way it works. I think she’s entitled to want them to do a better job.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  She's consuming free computing resources in exchange for the implied social contract of having ads presented to her. If she doesn't like that, she has to find a way to subvert that contract or stop using free services. She'd have more of a leg to stand on if she was a customer of Instagram.
- leetcrew 9y ago
  I don't disagree that this type of advertising is unsavory, but I do think it is a bit simplistic to call people like the author victims of evil oppressive Instagram and call it a day. I notice that in today's society people make an awful lot of demands on the services and apps they use, while not directly paying for hardly any of what they consume. Facebook/Instagram definitely has a lot more power than any individual user, but it doesn't have more power than all of its users. If people were offended enough to actually walk away from the platform en masse, I bet we would see substantial reform pretty quickly. The "if you don't like it, leave" argument is cruel when applied to cities, countries, or essential services, but I think it is pretty fair when we are talking about totally superfluous apps that don't even cost anything.
deleted 9y ago
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nezzle 9y ago

As much as I'd like to turn this into social commentary about the patriarchy, this is the result of women like her buying these items. The return on investment for bra ads to her cohort is superior to other ads, so that's what they see. It's the same problem with click bait, tv, news, nigerian scams, penis enhancement drugs, etc. Unfortunately this comes down to a 'blame the people' - or at least our psychological weaknesses.

beaconstudios 9y ago
it's the thing modern consumerism is best at - optimising for what we want, despite what we tell ourselves about what we want. Oftentimes that results in tapping into reward system hacks like chained clickbait articles or "get X quick" products.

mnm1 9y ago

Lauren needs to get an ad blocker asap. Or not use Instagram. Seriously, what else can one expect from ads? A good experience? That's fucking delusional.

jmcgough 9y ago
Can't ad-block an instagram app, and she uses Instagram to stay in touch with friends/family. Not that easy of a problem to solve.
- mnm1 9y ago
  She can use the website version to read her feed or use a DNS resolver that blocks ad domains. If her primary purpose is to stay in touch with friends and family, there are also plenty of other apps for that.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

Oh. My. Goodness. Nevermind negative body image. I would feel sexually harassed or something for having that many boobs and butts shoved in my face over and over and over. That veers weirdly into soft porn territory. If I want to look at naked bodies all the live long day, fine. But she says I mostly just came here to see pictures of my friends’ dogs and kids. If I were visiting a site to talk to friends about their kids and almost exclusively saw these kinds of ads, I would feel like this would be a bit like leaving a stack of Playboy magazines on the desk of a teacher at an elementary school.

tdb7893 9y ago
I think it's a matter of differing opinions, I didn't find those ads particularly suggestive. I see people in similar outfits at the gym all the time and for the bra ads there's no good way to sell it without the model being shirtless (and I see people in less at the beach all the time, too).
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  But when you go to the beach or gym, you know it will be there. When you go to, say, an elementary school or other child oriented environment, you generally don't expect to see it. There is a difference.
newscracker 9y ago
I don't condone these ads. They do look like stalking and harassment. One word I would use to describe these is "crass". She says "I just mostly came here to see pictures of my friends' dogs and kids", but what she wants from Instagram is different from what Instagram thinks she's interested in. It's obvious (leaving aside bugs in Instagram) that she has visited other websites to look up information on yoga and also probably on bras, or shown some kind of engagement with these topics in a place where FB/Instagram was watching, so to speak. This is where things become confounding, because the actual sellers of bras and other clothing have decided that they want to target people doing yoga, which is related to general fitness, which is related to feeling comfortable while engaging in fitness related activities, which they also believe is about looking good — it's a broad net that they cast so that they get more people to look at ads and buy their products. The sellers have also decided that these kind of pictures are what help them (oblivious to the actual experiences of those seeing the ads and the consequences). Of course, this seems like the targeting is actually pointless and that they're wasting their money, but this is how a lot of ads work and how a lot of these ad serving products (FB, Insta, Google, etc.) work. They're still not good enough to target people who're more likely to buy, but competition in a specific product/service space makes sellers wanting to grab as much as possible based on ill informed hypotheses of "their target customer is ____, _____, ____". It's also clear that Instagram and FB working together isn't really that good for the users, and whatever services FB and Instagram use to profile people around the web look shady as well in how and where they collect information and how they use that information to make inferences that are creating such experiences. If it's not bras, it may be lipsticks or moisturizers or slimming products or bags or so many other things that are sold as things that we should aspire for. This problem is not going anywhere unless people get more educated about online tracking, how to have at least some control over it and also demand more from these companies that provide "things for free". In this context, this book "The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy" [1] is something more people should read. [1]: https://www.nostarch.com/smartgirlsguide https://www.nostarch.com/smartgirlsguide

conroy 9y ago

One of my goals in 2018 is to see fewer ads. For Twitter, that means using a dedicated app (Tweetbot) that doesn't display any ads. I looked into similar applications for Instagram, but it appears they shut down their feed APIs two years ago. However, I just discovered that the Instagram website doesn't show sponsored posts. I'm not sure if has something to do with my setup, but I just scrolled through the last hundred photos and didn't see a single ad. It looks great and functions just like the mobile app. The icon is even the same! Just go to instagram.com on your phone and sign in.

sunsetMurk 9y ago
this is a good tip for any of Facebook's products... Mobile site > native app. The mobile sites usually support the features you're actually trying to use, are faster, have fewer privacy implications, and don't kill your phone's battery.
- scarface74 9y ago
  Another advantage of the mobile Facebook site for iOS is that you can use an ad blocker plug in Safari.
newscracker 9y ago
I would suggest that you also install and use ad blockers. Every user who does that sends a signal across that it's unacceptable (the entire tracking, profiling, sending malware, etc.). We need more people to do this because it's clear that the ad industry and the conduits don't care enough.

imsofuture 9y ago

Similar issues with alcohol if you've gotten slated into the algorithmic 'finer things club'. Non stop booze ads. Not all of us appreciate, or are okay with/at drinking.

4minute 9y ago

I can't believe people get offended over ads on a free product. Don't use the product if the ads upset you so much or just block them. Why care this much? They are ads, we all know why they are there and what they are suppose to do. So why are we acting like they are some mind manipulating images. I could understand the confusion if the writer was an 8 year old girl. The reason these ads use skinny people, is the same reason why people dress up nicely for a job interview.

ComputerGuru 9y ago
It’s not about being offended. If that’s what you got out of it, you are missing the point. The author even wrote that there’s an option to report an ad as offensive but she chose not to use it because she wasn’t offended. Clearly the author is comfortable with her body and sexuality enough to not find these images and ads offensive per se, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with them and the industry that pushes them. I’ll go do far as to say people thinking the way you do is the reason these exist. I can just see a timid voice at a meeting about ad content venturing “what if people find these intrusive, creepy, or esteem damaging?” And a brusque and carefree reply from the loud alpha male in the room “psssh it’s 2017! I can’t believe people get offended over an ad! But ok, well just add an “hide because it’s offensive” link and we’re good.”
- 4minute 9y ago
  Well advertisers push these ads cause they work. It's not like they would keep pushing the same ads if they didn't sell anything.

atc 9y ago

> our value as women in this world Jesus Christ give me a break from this "Western women are oppressed" bullshit already! This has fucking NOTHING to do with your oppression complex and everything to do with a shitty advert algorithm.

oculusthrift 9y ago

devils advocate, but what’s so wrong about this? why is it a corporations fault if you feel insecure about yourself? if you’re unhappy you’re the only one who can chance that, why complain to a corporation to fix your insecurities by avoiding them?

analog31 9y ago
I'm thinking of an analogy, maybe it isn't a good one, but it's if you're trying to quit smoking, and somebody is deliberately applying stresses to you, that are known to be associated with the desire to smoke. I don't think it's OK for anybody -- corporation or otherwise -- to saturate me with messages that are tailored to my psychological characteristics that are only partially under my own control.
jji990 9y ago
It's not as if the advertisers are blind to the your insecurities. They are targeting your insecurity with ads. I should know. Worked for a small agency. First did print ads. Then specialized in PPC. Find the thing that keeps your target market up at night. That's what gets them to click. When I ran campaigns for "wellness" companies (which were scammy to begin with), the "stay healthy" angle never worked. The ads that performed the best were the ones that made the user feel anxious: Feeling tired? Weak? Gaining weight? Looking older? That sort of thing. Think about that for a second. Is that nice? To intentionally make someone feel bad about themselves, to sell them something? Of course not. Is it legal? Yeah. Should it be? Probably. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Unfortunately, that's not the win-at-all-cost mentality of business.
- dannyw 9y ago
  Allowing opting out of “interest based” (aka surveillance based) advertising would be good regulation.

ACow_Adonis 9y ago

First, the obvious lesson: everyone install an ad blocker. Secondly, my own anecdote: at work I cannot install an ad blocker, nor manage other aspects of being tracked online. As part of that employment, I recently had to do some research on equity-release products/reverse mortgages. These are products targeted at the elderly. I am not elderly, despite what my 20 year old sister in-law might say :p My workplace online advertising experience has now become an endless omnipresent stream of older couples looking wistfully out into the sunset, perhaps on a boat or over an ocean, or smiling lovingly into each others faces in that aspirational retirement way, always with the message: sell us the equity in your home so your life can be like this. And it's not just instagram. It's following me everywhere. Anecdote 2:my mother before she died, was basically a paranoid schizophrenic. Imagine, for a second, the subjective experience the internet advertising system has on these people and their families. I had an eye opening conversation with her a few years ago, where she proclaimed that "they" were watching her through the computer, and she knew because of the coincidences in how the content changed across the internet to target her specifically. I had the failed experience of trying to explain what was going on, and the observation that, dismally, she was essentially, on some level, right. The ability to make a mentally ill person's ramblings essentially correct is a sobering dystopian realization...

craftyguy 9y ago
No, the obvious lesson is to purge the app from your device and stop using services that make you feel like shit.
lzecon 9y ago
How are you supposed to install an ad blocker on an app?
- etherealG 9y ago
  Stop using that app. Stop using ecosystems that allow for it to take it a step further.
- jiert 9y ago
  I'm sure there's... an app for that. ;-)

Kenji 9y ago

> there isn’t really a way to opt out of it. There is a way to opt out of it: a) leave instagram or b) stop being butthurt and envious of other people's appearance Your choice.

danjoc 9y ago

The author is misdirected. This isn't really an Instagram problem. Instagram didn't make the ads. The advertisers did. If the ad is successful, it continues. If it is unsuccessful, it is removed. Clearly, these are the successful ads. The fact that author is triggered by them seems to indicate the problem is with the author, not the ads. The vast majority of users have no problems with the ads, or the ads would change. The vast majority don't write 5 pages of medium.com screed about the ads. The vast majority are imagining themselves as the woman in the ad and buying the products. That is simply how the algorithm works. The nice thing about the internet is everyone can have their say. The less nice thing about the internet is that includes everyone, including people with serious mental issues. Articles like this one, or infowars, or any other sort of militant fringe generally attracts more of the same sort of voices. It makes the fringe seem legitimate, because there's a balance of for and against in the discussion. The vast majority disagrees with the author. That's how the algorithm works.

olefoo 9y ago
Wasn't the internet supposed to liberate us from one size fits all cultural norms? The author isn't asking for a ban on bra ads; she just wants to be able to control her feed and see ads that are more relevant to her life. She is trying to have a conversation about the stereotypes that the advertisers are using but neither the advertisers nor the channel appear to be interested. I'm reminded of the Cluetrain Manifesto [1] and it's successes and failures in the current context. 1. http://www.cluetrain.com/ http://www.cluetrain.com/

rdlecler1 9y ago

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. If Insta offered an ad free option for $10/month I wonder if the author would pay for it.

oliwarner 9y ago

Why haven't advertisers noticed this is why we install blockers? Deep-tracking, ultra-personalisation ending in creepy ads were bad enough. But the flip-side is if there's only one industry interested in your activities, you only see those ads, whatever you're looking at. Lets go back to the 2000s, where ads targeted content, not users. Before you start fretting about CTRs, you can't click what you don't see. That's the hole advertisers need to dig themselves out of. And even before ad-blockers ruled supreme, targeted advertising was sold to publishers as a way of increasing CPM. Truth is payouts have been in free-fall since online advertising began.

jdboyd 9y ago
> Why haven't advertisers noticed this is why we install blockers? Maybe because not enough people install blockers for it to matter.

nbanks 9y ago

For apps where an ad blocker doesn't work, I tend to click on ads that I want to see in the future. This means someone is paying for my clicks even when I go back immediately instead of reading the content, but at least this leads to less annoying ads in the future.

clouddrover 9y ago

> there isn’t really a way to opt out of it. Yes there is: don't use Facebook or Instagram. I see little value in being surprised that a surveillance based advertising platform does indeed surveil and advertise at you. That's what these things are built to do. Regardless of whether the ads are repetitive or not, why pollute your life with advertising in the first place? Reduce your exposure to advertising pollution and you really will feel better. That's what I do.

sodosopa 9y ago
Don't forget, opt out of everything else too. Your buying choices are tracked in so many different ways, should we just give up and sign off, run off to the country and not buy anything on or offline? Of course not, but saying "well duh, logout" isn't identifying the true problem. The content of the ads in the example are questionable in context. It's not that she or we're being tracked, it's the psychological triggers used to shame or bait people.
- clouddrover 9y ago
  > Don't forget, opt out of everything else too. I don't forget. I pay cash whenever possible, I don't join so-called "loyalty" programs, I don't give out my number or email address to businesses freely, etc. The world is a hostile place and you must always guard against the exploitation of your data. I wish this was a paranoid perspective but it has sadly become a pragmatic one. It's unfortunate that this is the world we've built for ourselves. > it's the psychological triggers used to shame or bait people Made more possible and better targeted through tracking. These days it's simply good computer hygiene to install a blocker in your browser (such as uBlock Origin) and to also turn on your browser's built-in tracking protection if it has it (like Firefox does: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection).
  - newscracker 9y ago
    I feel happy when I read comments like this and see that there are many people who think this way. I've started the move to using more cash myself, and one of the triggers was this Aeon article titled "In praise of cash" that impressed me and influenced me. [1] As a strong pro-privacy advocate in my circles, I also feel the despair that comes when I see that most people don't understand or don't care much, which (I believe) is a detriment to humanity as a whole. [1]: https://aeon.co/essays/if-plastic-replaces-cash-much-that-is-good-will-be-lost https://aeon.co/essays/if-plastic-replaces-cash-much-that-is...

anonu 9y ago

Here's the solution: get off of Instagram. Ask yourself: does it provide any real value in your life? If the answer is no, just delete the app and get on with your life.

smsm42 9y ago

I once did research on some garbage removal services on Google. Months after that, on any device that didn't have adblock and was logged into same Google account, I've got garbage ads (literally in this case). That's how their targeting works, as it seems - which is also quite stupid since I didn't need the service once I used it, certainly not for a long time afterwards, and if I'll need it again, I'd have long forgotten the ads they have shown me back then.