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> These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser

> These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Typically this information is your email address or phone number. Newsflash, BuzzFeed's ad networks onboard and sync information about their readers in exactly the same way. Do people think that BF loads Quantcast, Scorecard Research etc onto their site for the good of their health? That's not to mention the viral quizzes and other data gathering exercises that BuzzFeed invented and sold as a product. I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way.

en-us 8y ago
I think it's possible that the author doesn't even know this. Does BuzzFeed have an interface where a user can go to see this information? The level of understanding that most people have about online tracking is just really, really low, and this author probably wouldn't know about any of this if Facebook didn't have that particular page.
- HenryBemis 8y ago
  EFF's Privacy Badger, NoScript, Unlock, AdblockPlus has many lists, and many many more add-ons can show you all the nasties in each page, and you click-block them once and for all. Same add-ons are also for the Firefox on Android. Edit: yes most likely the author is someone that may be seldonmly writing for the site, or just sells his texts and doesn't really pay attention/care where this is posted.
  - hhs 8y ago
    OP here. Please note that the author is a senior reporter for BuzzFeed News, as cited here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/author/katienotopoulos https://www.buzzfeednews.com/author/katienotopoulos.
    - justtopost 8y ago
      That just makes it worse imho.
  - Endy 8y ago
    I know & use three of those four addons, what's Unlock?
    - HenryBemis 8y ago
      apologies for that, my autocorrect kicked in. I wrote uBlock and my phone did its own thing, and I missed it when I read it again prior to hitting 'reply'. It's called 'Muphry's Law' [1] and I fell right in it! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law
  - en-us 8y ago
    Yes I use many of those. I whitelist every domain allowed to execute JavaScript on my machine, and for the most part I get a better browsing experience for it. So with regards to BuzzFeed I'm very aware of what garbage their site is. Right now on BuzzFeedNews I see 9 third party domains running ads or tracking pixels via JavaScript. Ironically, one of those 9 is Facebook. So Facebook is tracking the people reading this article about how Facebook is tracking them. But most people aren't technologically savvy enough or can't be bothered to run tools like these, and just browse the internet with basically no understanding of what is happening as they do.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  If that's the case, the author shouldn't be writing articles about online advertising.
  - throwaway2048 8y ago
    why? what bearing does that have on any factual information being communicated?
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      Expertise and experience in the field and with analytic tools.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  If as a reporter investigating online advertising, you don't know what's going on in your own backyard, there's clearly something very wrong going on.
- godshatter 8y ago
  NoScript shows buzzfeed.com when you initially load it, when you (temporarily) accept that domain you get lots of others... including facebook.net. Allowing any one of those (which I didn't do) may bring up others in this very fun game of javascript domain whackamole. Using that extension or one of many others that work similarly will enlighten even the most technophobic of journalists as to how this all works. I find it hard to believe they looked into the subject and didn't run across these. But I suppose it's possible.
reaperducer 8y ago
I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way. Three reasons: 1. In most responsible news organizations, there is a significant firewall between advertising and news. In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even allowed to go into the newsroom. 2. News organizations are not IT departments. A reporter is not involved in how a web site is built, or what goes on behind the scenes. There are different people in different departments for that. 3. Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad. SV needs to get over the whole "But Bobby jumped off the bridge, too!" mentality.
- SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
  > Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad. Absolutely it does. The prevailing narrative is that SV tech companies are innovators in this space, invading your privacy in ways that normal companies would never dream of. "Facebook engages in industry standard data collection" is a very different story, even if the industry standard is still bad.
  - stingraycharles 8y ago
    Indeed. The minimum they can do is properly disclose their own position in this, because it makes them appear very hypocritical.
  - big_onion 8y ago
    I think this is an example of Tu Quoque[1] logical fallacy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
    - o10449366 8y ago
      Are you just making an observation or do you think that disqualifies the parent's point somehow? If so, your comment is probably an example of the argument from fallacy fallacy. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
helios893 8y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-york-times-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-yo...
- kristianc 8y ago
  > Yet all of this journalism was paid for, in part, by The Times’s engaging in the type of collecting, using and sharing of reader data that we sometimes report on. Nice passive voice. A writer good enough to write for the New York Times only writes a sentence that passive and convoluted for a very good reason. "We track, use and share the data of you, the reader, and sell this to advertisers."
lotu 8y ago
More to the point building up lists of people's phone numbers and physical/electronic addresses has been how direct marketing has been done for literally centuries. From wikipedia: > In 1667, the English gardener, William Lucas, published a seed catalogue, which he mailed to his customers to inform them of his prices. I just have trouble seeing how adding computers to this practice is the line that is too far for people.
- revvx 8y ago
  For me: there's a world of difference between giving someone your private data and having third-party services (Scorecard, Quantcast, Criteo, Tapad, others) give it to them. Just because I happen windowshop some store doesn't mean I gave them permission to ask for my info around. They're free to ask me. But that's just me.
o10449366 8y ago
Hypocrisy aside, news publications also have significant incentive to go after Facebook because Facebook has become their biggest competitor for attention. You don't need to visit NYT or WaPo for news if your social circle keeps you up to date on the issues you care about. The substitution of real investigative journalism for unverified word-of-mouth stories via acquaintance is definitely something we should be concerned about as a society, but it's also important to recognize that there are significant profit motives at play that should also be examined.
Tarean 8y ago
BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed News aren't really the same thing. They switched to a seperate url because a lot of people got confused. Though even if they weren't that wouldn't really invalidate the points made in the article.
mayneack 8y ago
It's definitely fair to criticize Buzzfeed etc for these practices, but don't want to stop the reporting on facebook because the buzzfeed business model has overlap. That would surely reduce the total amount of scrutiny on such practices because of all the sites that can't throw stones from their glass houses.
papermill 8y ago
I call BS on news orgs all the time, but whenever I do, I "flagged" or censored/my comments removed. The real question is when is buzzfeednews going to close their facebook account? https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedNews https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedNews
tardo99 8y ago
And, if people are so upset about it, just run uBlock and Ghostery, like I do.
stirfrykitty 8y ago
I have no idea why everyone isn't blocking all ads, trackers, beacons, or even using Facebook to begin with. Everyone knows what they are about. An ad-free Internet is a good Internet. Personally I have not seen a single ad online on my computers or mobile in years. You already pay to use the Internet. Keeping a website alive is the cost of doing business, not tracking people and allowing their ads to infect, slow down, or interfere with content.
csallen 8y ago
> I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way. Not only is the media guilty of many of the popular tech company sins, but they originated them. * Putting us all into filter bubbles where a few big players control and curate the information seen by the masses? The media did it first. * Using the aforementioned powers to affect elections and democracy, sometimes adversely? The media did it first. * Advertiser-supported business models? The media did it first. * Obsessively optimizing the product for reads/clicks, thus leading to sensationalist clickbait headlines, an overabundance of negativity, and an extreme focus on novelty above all else? The media did it first. The media doesn't like tech for the same reason you almost always see when any two industries feud with each other: because they're competitors and one feels threatened by other.
CharlesColeman 8y ago
>> These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Typically this information is your email address or phone number. > Newsflash, BuzzFeed's ad networks onboard and sync information about their readers in exactly the same way. Do people think that BF loads Quantcast, Scorecard Research etc onto their site for the good of their health? ... > I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way. What you're advocating is basically a circular firing squad. If you have to be impeccably pure to call out a wrong (and furthermore, only associate with impeccably pure people and organizations), then no one will ever call out any wrongs and they'll fester and grow.
mirimir 8y ago
Right. You'd expect the reporter to compare Facebook's disclosure page with BuzzFeed's disclosure page. And if BuzzFeed has no such disclosure page, you'd expect the reporter to mention that, and credit Facebook more strongly for having one.
3xblah 8y ago
You might be interested in this: https://www.crowdtangle.com/privacy https://www.crowdtangle.com/privacy The company's clients include many news publications like Buzzfeed. This company is part of Facebook.

en-us 8y ago

I think it's possible that the author doesn't even know this. Does BuzzFeed have an interface where a user can go to see this information? The level of understanding that most people have about online tracking is just really, really low, and this author probably wouldn't know about any of this if Facebook didn't have that particular page.

HenryBemis 8y ago
EFF's Privacy Badger, NoScript, Unlock, AdblockPlus has many lists, and many many more add-ons can show you all the nasties in each page, and you click-block them once and for all. Same add-ons are also for the Firefox on Android. Edit: yes most likely the author is someone that may be seldonmly writing for the site, or just sells his texts and doesn't really pay attention/care where this is posted.
- hhs 8y ago
  OP here. Please note that the author is a senior reporter for BuzzFeed News, as cited here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/author/katienotopoulos https://www.buzzfeednews.com/author/katienotopoulos.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    That just makes it worse imho.
- Endy 8y ago
  I know & use three of those four addons, what's Unlock?
  - HenryBemis 8y ago
    apologies for that, my autocorrect kicked in. I wrote uBlock and my phone did its own thing, and I missed it when I read it again prior to hitting 'reply'. It's called 'Muphry's Law' [1] and I fell right in it! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law
- en-us 8y ago
  Yes I use many of those. I whitelist every domain allowed to execute JavaScript on my machine, and for the most part I get a better browsing experience for it. So with regards to BuzzFeed I'm very aware of what garbage their site is. Right now on BuzzFeedNews I see 9 third party domains running ads or tracking pixels via JavaScript. Ironically, one of those 9 is Facebook. So Facebook is tracking the people reading this article about how Facebook is tracking them. But most people aren't technologically savvy enough or can't be bothered to run tools like these, and just browse the internet with basically no understanding of what is happening as they do.
malvosenior 8y ago
If that's the case, the author shouldn't be writing articles about online advertising.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  why? what bearing does that have on any factual information being communicated?
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    Expertise and experience in the field and with analytic tools.
ehsankia 8y ago
If as a reporter investigating online advertising, you don't know what's going on in your own backyard, there's clearly something very wrong going on.
godshatter 8y ago
NoScript shows buzzfeed.com when you initially load it, when you (temporarily) accept that domain you get lots of others... including facebook.net. Allowing any one of those (which I didn't do) may bring up others in this very fun game of javascript domain whackamole. Using that extension or one of many others that work similarly will enlighten even the most technophobic of journalists as to how this all works. I find it hard to believe they looked into the subject and didn't run across these. But I suppose it's possible.

reaperducer 8y ago

I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way. Three reasons: 1. In most responsible news organizations, there is a significant firewall between advertising and news. In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even allowed to go into the newsroom. 2. News organizations are not IT departments. A reporter is not involved in how a web site is built, or what goes on behind the scenes. There are different people in different departments for that. 3. Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad. SV needs to get over the whole "But Bobby jumped off the bridge, too!" mentality.

SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
> Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad. Absolutely it does. The prevailing narrative is that SV tech companies are innovators in this space, invading your privacy in ways that normal companies would never dream of. "Facebook engages in industry standard data collection" is a very different story, even if the industry standard is still bad.
- stingraycharles 8y ago
  Indeed. The minimum they can do is properly disclose their own position in this, because it makes them appear very hypocritical.
- big_onion 8y ago
  I think this is an example of Tu Quoque[1] logical fallacy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
  - o10449366 8y ago
    Are you just making an observation or do you think that disqualifies the parent's point somehow? If so, your comment is probably an example of the argument from fallacy fallacy. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

helios893 8y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-york-times-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-yo...

kristianc 8y ago
> Yet all of this journalism was paid for, in part, by The Times’s engaging in the type of collecting, using and sharing of reader data that we sometimes report on. Nice passive voice. A writer good enough to write for the New York Times only writes a sentence that passive and convoluted for a very good reason. "We track, use and share the data of you, the reader, and sell this to advertisers."

lotu 8y ago

More to the point building up lists of people's phone numbers and physical/electronic addresses has been how direct marketing has been done for literally centuries. From wikipedia: > In 1667, the English gardener, William Lucas, published a seed catalogue, which he mailed to his customers to inform them of his prices. I just have trouble seeing how adding computers to this practice is the line that is too far for people.

revvx 8y ago
For me: there's a world of difference between giving someone your private data and having third-party services (Scorecard, Quantcast, Criteo, Tapad, others) give it to them. Just because I happen windowshop some store doesn't mean I gave them permission to ask for my info around. They're free to ask me. But that's just me.

o10449366 8y ago

Hypocrisy aside, news publications also have significant incentive to go after Facebook because Facebook has become their biggest competitor for attention. You don't need to visit NYT or WaPo for news if your social circle keeps you up to date on the issues you care about. The substitution of real investigative journalism for unverified word-of-mouth stories via acquaintance is definitely something we should be concerned about as a society, but it's also important to recognize that there are significant profit motives at play that should also be examined.

Tarean 8y ago

BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed News aren't really the same thing. They switched to a seperate url because a lot of people got confused. Though even if they weren't that wouldn't really invalidate the points made in the article.

mayneack 8y ago

It's definitely fair to criticize Buzzfeed etc for these practices, but don't want to stop the reporting on facebook because the buzzfeed business model has overlap. That would surely reduce the total amount of scrutiny on such practices because of all the sites that can't throw stones from their glass houses.

papermill 8y ago

I call BS on news orgs all the time, but whenever I do, I "flagged" or censored/my comments removed. The real question is when is buzzfeednews going to close their facebook account? https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedNews https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedNews

tardo99 8y ago

And, if people are so upset about it, just run uBlock and Ghostery, like I do.

stirfrykitty 8y ago

I have no idea why everyone isn't blocking all ads, trackers, beacons, or even using Facebook to begin with. Everyone knows what they are about. An ad-free Internet is a good Internet. Personally I have not seen a single ad online on my computers or mobile in years. You already pay to use the Internet. Keeping a website alive is the cost of doing business, not tracking people and allowing their ads to infect, slow down, or interfere with content.

csallen 8y ago

> I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way. Not only is the media guilty of many of the popular tech company sins, but they originated them. * Putting us all into filter bubbles where a few big players control and curate the information seen by the masses? The media did it first. * Using the aforementioned powers to affect elections and democracy, sometimes adversely? The media did it first. * Advertiser-supported business models? The media did it first. * Obsessively optimizing the product for reads/clicks, thus leading to sensationalist clickbait headlines, an overabundance of negativity, and an extreme focus on novelty above all else? The media did it first. The media doesn't like tech for the same reason you almost always see when any two industries feud with each other: because they're competitors and one feels threatened by other.

CharlesColeman 8y ago

>> These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Typically this information is your email address or phone number. > Newsflash, BuzzFeed's ad networks onboard and sync information about their readers in exactly the same way. Do people think that BF loads Quantcast, Scorecard Research etc onto their site for the good of their health? ... > I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way. What you're advocating is basically a circular firing squad. If you have to be impeccably pure to call out a wrong (and furthermore, only associate with impeccably pure people and organizations), then no one will ever call out any wrongs and they'll fester and grow.

mirimir 8y ago

Right. You'd expect the reporter to compare Facebook's disclosure page with BuzzFeed's disclosure page. And if BuzzFeed has no such disclosure page, you'd expect the reporter to mention that, and credit Facebook more strongly for having one.

3xblah 8y ago

You might be interested in this: https://www.crowdtangle.com/privacy https://www.crowdtangle.com/privacy The company's clients include many news publications like Buzzfeed. This company is part of Facebook.