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This article, like many many others, dances between two contradictory narratives. On one hand, it's claimed that targeted advertising just doesn't work, and it
by knzhou 7y ago
This article, like many many others, dances between two contradictory narratives.
On one hand, it's claimed that targeted advertising just doesn't work, and it's a bunch of pointless, flashy tech which advertisers are wasting their money on. I'm partly sympathetic to this view. But it is simultaneously claimed that targeted ads are so powerful that they are single-handedly responsible for every right-wing political victory in the past few years, which means they must be appropriately censored to prevent the "destruction of democracy".
This article doesn't even try to bridge the gap. It just jumps from the first narrative to the second by saying "I’ll tell you what’s not hype or exaggeration" without presenting a smidgen of evidence.
If I had to guess how the author reconciles the two, I imagine it would be the usual way: "targeted ads and clickbait and echo chambers and one-sided narratives obviously don't affect me and my educated friends, but those people are completely under their control!" This condescending attitude is actually what erodes democracy.
- catalogia 7y agoIt may also be the case that the author's first premise is wrong while their later is correct. Perhaps targeted ads do work, and that's why they're bad for our society. You needn't even resort to politics to make this point. There are many things consumers might be persuaded into doing that are contrary to their own interests but profitable to corporations with large advertising budgets. Buying and drinking sugar water is a trivial example. In fact, that example makes clear the problem is with advertising in general, not merely targeted advertising. Targeted advertising is bad insofar as normal advertising is bad, and targeting advertising is worse insofar as it's more effective.
- satya71 7y agoBoth can be true simultaneously. Targeted ads work where they reinforce and expand on existing inclinations and beliefs. They don't work so well when you're trying to sell in general or raise awareness of your brand. So someone who was mildly inclined toward right-wind ideas can be made into a alt-right supporter with the right targeted messaging. But when I'm trying to convince someone to buy my expensive gizmo, targeted ad won't actually do the job.
- sanxiyn 7y agoI mean, ad is not mind control. No good ads can save bad products. But that's not what ad is for. Ad works.
- the_narrator 7y agoI have seen right-wing brought up multiple times, how does the same not apply to the far left?
- knzhou 7y agoYou're perfectly correct. The advantage of social media, if it exists at all, is symmetric between right and left. The 2008 Obama campaign was universally celebrated in the press for its deft use of social media [0, 1, 2, 3, 4], which included data mining in the style of Cambridge Analytica but at several times the scale, and using that data to hyper-target its message. Strangely, at the time this was universally called the future of democracy, not its end. 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.htm... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/nov/07/barackobama-uselections2008 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/nov/07/barackoba... 2: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-the-facebook-election https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-ob... 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71bH8z6iqSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71bH8z6iqSc 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A
- beerandt 7y ago
- ignoramous 7y ago> On one hand, it's claimed that targeted advertising just doesn't work ~snip But it is simultaneously claimed that targeted ads are so powerful that they are single-handedly responsible for every right-wing political victory in the past few years... It is important to distinguish different kinds of ad campaigns here: The former qualifies as product/brand advertisement, whilst the latter is, in fact, propaganda.
- knzhou 7y agoAnd so why is the former consistently portrayed as useless, while the other (targeted in precisely the same way, in fact probably less accurately) is portrayed as literal mind control?
- ignoramous 7y agoBoth forms are literal mind control, but one is more devastating than the other due to the consequences that follow. The point is, data collection at such scale is unprecedented. And what we do know from history for sure is such dragnets tend to get abused by the ones who have access to it (propaganda is one such form of abuse and hence the outcry). Unforunately, there are no philosopher kings around anymore to trust with global scale surveillance. This can only end one way: Disaster. It is a matter of when and not if.
- ricebowlz420 7y agoGood analysis - you should check out credder.com - you might like it because you clearly have some skill with breaking down articles ... see what I just did there...
- c13u 7y ago> ...it is simultaneously claimed that targeted ads are so powerful that they are single-handedly responsible for every right-wing political victory in the past few years Not surely so. There's the argument[0] that political misinformation is: * Weak in high profile partisan races because pre-existing beliefs hardly change * Strong when people don't have string pre-existing opinions, e.g. misinformation about voter ID laws causing people to stay home from the polls I think targeting work best on people at the margins. There was also some good discussion this week on HN on the effectiveness of digital advertising[1] [0] https://www.vox.com/2017/11/6/16504454/misinformation-fake-news-media-trump https://www.vox.com/2017/11/6/16504454/misinformation-fake-n... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465873