3 ms·

Facebook’s product has always been highly targeted ad placement. Users are in no way the product, and for people to keep saying that is grossly misrepresenting

Facebook’s product has always been highly targeted ad placement. Users are in no way the product, and for people to keep saying that is grossly misrepresenting the business model and puts all sorts of weird ideas into people’s heads. Unless you are being bought and sold you are not a product. There are people in this world who ARE products, and we should be doing everything we can to liberate them.

losteric 9y ago
Facebook sells access to you, through their highly targeted advertising platform. Ads consume your mental focus, bandwidth, battery power, and screen real-estate. You are a product, in the same way that celebrities are products.
- matte_black 9y ago
  So not at all then. You don’t buy celebrities you buy their output. A billboard by a highway doesn’t mean that traffic is now the product. You’re selling placement.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    The placement is only worth anything because of the traffic. Your distinction is not false, but is it relevant in practice?
badrabbit 9y ago
If someone sold my body in part or whole then they are selling me. For most people,their intimate private lives and the essence of who they are is just as important as their body. So, if facebook collectes such intimate detail about a person and not only made it known to third parties but used that information to manipulate the person,then I would it is that person who is being traded. Who can I claim to be without my private life,secret thoughts,desires and my identity itself? Even 19th century american slaves had some private life and kept information about themselves secret from the slave masters (of course I am not comparing their hardship,but the small privacy they had) and they were literally sold at markets. The grand trick of the modern economy is that they have consumer behavioral psychology figured out: convince them they made the choice all on their own and take away as much of their intangible freedoms and possesions as you can -- "if you can't touch it, it isn't real"
- matte_black 9y ago
  The information Facebook collects on you isn’t for sale. And even if was, that stuff is basically data exhaust that is collected from usage of a platform they own. By using the platform you have made the choice to give up some of this data all on your own. But that’s not what they do. Their product is selling ad space. You yourself are still not being sold.
  - badrabbit 9y ago
    The ad space is worth exactly $0 without targeting. It wouldn't pay for day to day ops let along make a profit. The advertisers are the consumers and the ability to target the consumer is the product. Look at it this way, an actor or a singer sells himself when he works,the entertainment industry sells actors to consumers. In the same way facebook and google sell their users to advertisers.
- willoremus 9y ago
  Facebook doesn't share your personal info with third parties--at least, not with advertisers. The fact that it allowed you to hand over that information to third-party developers (not advertisers) is the root of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

losteric 9y ago

Facebook sells access to you, through their highly targeted advertising platform. Ads consume your mental focus, bandwidth, battery power, and screen real-estate. You are a product, in the same way that celebrities are products.

matte_black 9y ago
So not at all then. You don’t buy celebrities you buy their output. A billboard by a highway doesn’t mean that traffic is now the product. You’re selling placement.
- icebraining 9y ago
  The placement is only worth anything because of the traffic. Your distinction is not false, but is it relevant in practice?

badrabbit 9y ago

If someone sold my body in part or whole then they are selling me. For most people,their intimate private lives and the essence of who they are is just as important as their body. So, if facebook collectes such intimate detail about a person and not only made it known to third parties but used that information to manipulate the person,then I would it is that person who is being traded. Who can I claim to be without my private life,secret thoughts,desires and my identity itself? Even 19th century american slaves had some private life and kept information about themselves secret from the slave masters (of course I am not comparing their hardship,but the small privacy they had) and they were literally sold at markets. The grand trick of the modern economy is that they have consumer behavioral psychology figured out: convince them they made the choice all on their own and take away as much of their intangible freedoms and possesions as you can -- "if you can't touch it, it isn't real"

matte_black 9y ago
The information Facebook collects on you isn’t for sale. And even if was, that stuff is basically data exhaust that is collected from usage of a platform they own. By using the platform you have made the choice to give up some of this data all on your own. But that’s not what they do. Their product is selling ad space. You yourself are still not being sold.
- badrabbit 9y ago
  The ad space is worth exactly $0 without targeting. It wouldn't pay for day to day ops let along make a profit. The advertisers are the consumers and the ability to target the consumer is the product. Look at it this way, an actor or a singer sells himself when he works,the entertainment industry sells actors to consumers. In the same way facebook and google sell their users to advertisers.
willoremus 9y ago
Facebook doesn't share your personal info with third parties--at least, not with advertisers. The fact that it allowed you to hand over that information to third-party developers (not advertisers) is the root of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.