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I'm completely unsurprised. I cannot be the only sucker in here who bought something off of a Facebook ad, and got a token piece of China-shipped junk instead.

I'm completely unsurprised. I cannot be the only sucker in here who bought something off of a Facebook ad, and got a token piece of China-shipped junk instead. Mine was a video of a steel light saber being disassembled and put together, with all working parts. I was stupid, I paid $30 for it, and a month later, a box from China shows up with a $1 plastic sword. After that, I started commenting on every Facebook scam ad I saw, and guess what? That just got me into the queue for MORE scam ads! Facebook sees me commenting "SCAM" on ads about cheap Legos, and it says "Hey, this guy likes cheap Lego scam ads!" Plus, these ads go to different sites, have different company names, and different images every time, but they are the EXACT same scam, guaranteed. It's like Facebook is incapable of having a legitimate and ethical advertising business at some genetic level, and all the money from these obvious scam ads is just too good. This shit is so prevalent and so brazen, I've considered setting up my own scam ad, maybe sell a Qanon book that's blank and say "Fuck you, idiot" inside... I mean, why not? It seems like people are getting rich by fucking over Facebook users, and Facebook LOVES it! They have such utter contempt for their users. And here I am still using it because it's the only platform I can see pictures of my family members on, as they are non-technical users. Am I supposed to run some kind of internal family campaign to get them all to move to some non-existent alternative? I hate this so much. I feel trapped by Zuck's heartless machine.

Nextgrid 6y ago
> That just got me into the queue for MORE scam ads! I once created a Facebook account to test something and for some reason it decided I was some sort of gambling addict (that e-mail was registered on a legitimate gambling website and I guess they leaked it) and the "people you may know" was full of fake accounts all related to some kind of scummy mobile casino game (I guess the game requires login with FB or maybe gives new people free tokens so they just register tons of fake accounts?). I've spent a good 20 minutes reporting every single one of them (up to actually hitting the rate limit on the report endpoint) and not only did the algorithm not take the hint that maybe it wasn't a good idea to recommend me more accounts out of that category but their support didn't deem the majority of them as violating the community guidelines despite them being obviously fake (and I couldn't notice any difference between those that were deemed as violating their guidelines and those that don't).
- fencepost 6y ago
  It may be that there were cultural clues that cued you into them being fake but that would be completely meaningless for someone being paid pennies to review those reports in another country.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Yes but it is that person's job is to spot those things. If I as a user can do a better job than them then something is very wrong with the resources/training they are provided. They should be better than I am, not worse.
    - VonGuard 6y ago
      I reported every single ad for Legos I saw for a week. I ended up with more ads for Lego scams, too.

Nextgrid 6y ago

> That just got me into the queue for MORE scam ads! I once created a Facebook account to test something and for some reason it decided I was some sort of gambling addict (that e-mail was registered on a legitimate gambling website and I guess they leaked it) and the "people you may know" was full of fake accounts all related to some kind of scummy mobile casino game (I guess the game requires login with FB or maybe gives new people free tokens so they just register tons of fake accounts?). I've spent a good 20 minutes reporting every single one of them (up to actually hitting the rate limit on the report endpoint) and not only did the algorithm not take the hint that maybe it wasn't a good idea to recommend me more accounts out of that category but their support didn't deem the majority of them as violating the community guidelines despite them being obviously fake (and I couldn't notice any difference between those that were deemed as violating their guidelines and those that don't).

fencepost 6y ago
It may be that there were cultural clues that cued you into them being fake but that would be completely meaningless for someone being paid pennies to review those reports in another country.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Yes but it is that person's job is to spot those things. If I as a user can do a better job than them then something is very wrong with the resources/training they are provided. They should be better than I am, not worse.
  - VonGuard 6y ago
    I reported every single ad for Legos I saw for a week. I ended up with more ads for Lego scams, too.