5 ms·

I don't mean to be snide, but what gives you the right to know what everyone else is seeing? Tons of posts on HN are about how individuals should own their dat

• rbecker 6y ago
  That's a good point, and the distinction is subtle. I think it lies in using "their data" to describe both what pages they choose to look at, and what ads Facebook decides to show them. These two types of data should really be treated separately. Of course, one could argue that Facebook has a right to communicate with their users confidentially. But it's a bit of a stretch to treat ads as private communication.
  • pbalau 6y ago
    The ad itself is not private information. The fact that I match the targeting for said ad, is.
    • Xylakant 6y ago
      What needs to be published is not that you match the targeting. The information that needs publishing is „who is targeting which ad with what criteria.“ That is: The advertiser, The ad, the targeting given. None of this contains private information and it‘s equivalent to what‘s known about ads in a newspaper.
• gostsamo 6y ago
  Because this is not private data, this is public discourse. How can we have conversations with people and argue about issues, if we and them have been different information and basically think that the same words have different meanings?
  • nickff 6y ago
    What other people are seeing is public discourse? I'm not sure I follow. Is their search history also public discourse?
    • Barrin92 6y ago
      >What other people are seeing is public discourse advertisement is part of public discourse, in particular political advertisement.
      • bryan_w 6y ago
        All FB political ads are listed in Facebook's Ad Library
        • Barrin92 6y ago
          also directly from the article >But that library excludes information about the targeting that determines who sees the ads. >The researchers behind the NYU Ad Observatory said they wanted to provide journalists, researchers, policy makers, and others with the ability to search political ads by state and contest to see what messages are targeted to specific audiences and how those ads are funded. The point of the research is to figure out what ads Facebook shows to which users, which is of course particularly important for people who try to do research on how ads on Facebook intersect with politics.
    • gostsamo 6y ago
      Political ads, political commentaries, memes. I have someone on my contact list in fb who honestly thinks that QAnon exposes pedophiles. I can't wrap my head around how the heck they've reached that conclusion.
      • m0zg 6y ago
        It's actually kind of weird. It seems like the left is _obsessed_ with QAnon for some reason. I'm firmly on the right, and I hardly hear anything about it at all. Take a look at right-wing news sources and community websites - nobody treats it seriously, and it's hardly mentioned at all, other than in the context of the left-wing having a raging hard-on for banning it. If you asked me about any of their "conspiracies" I wouldn't know how to respond.
  • tjpnz 6y ago
    The technical term for that is "theory of mind". Without it you've basically lost the ability to have and participate in civil society.
    • toxik 6y ago
      Interesting observation. Would make for a great sci-fi novel premise.
      • Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
        Wouldn't the Truman show be an example here? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show Non mobile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show
        • toxik 6y ago
          Tangentially at best, The Truman Show is great but there is complete theory of mind between all characters; there is just a big conspiracy. A real breakdown of theory of mind would mean that there is a breakdown in common understanding. Like with an animal, you don't have complete theory of mind with an animal, and it certainly does not with you -- there is an inability to account for the reasoning of a dog.
      • Kim_Bruning 6y ago
        I think it is arguable that one could plausibly make a Documentary already! The way current social media and search engines optimize for engagement and tailor information to each user, people have really different views on the universe right now as is; and this has already had real-world consequences. (eg. corona-response, motivations for or against Brexit, etc. )
• srtjstjsj 6y ago
  I don't care what other people are seeing. I care what advertisers are saying to the public, much like I care about other carbon dioxide emissions.
  • nickff 6y ago
    Parent poster wasn't just talking about aggregate data; they want to see what their acquaintances are seeing. Should we also force disclosure of what petitioners are saying? What about individual phone calls regarding political matters? Party newsletters?
    • aspenmayer 6y ago
      All political correspondence to the public ought be publicly accessible and publicly auditable.
      • nickff 6y ago
        Including phone calls and in-person communication? Many organizations hire or otherwise compel individuals to perform one-to-one communications for the purpose of furthering a political agenda.
      • labster 6y ago
        We tried that during the 1950s with the Communist Party as the early adopter, didn’t work out too well.
        • aspenmayer 6y ago
          If GM killed the electric car, the establishment killed the Communist Party in America.
• thunderbong 6y ago
  You misunderstand. What parent poster mentioned is that he wants to know which ads are targeted towards their parents and the only way to know that is stand behind them, because there is no easy way to get this data from Facebook.
  • polyomino 6y ago
    Should everyone be able to see which ads targeted at their peers? Still seems like an invasion of privacy.
    • weareallcowards 6y ago
      The invasion of privacy starts with the act of tracking peoples' behavior and using that data to target ads. It's also not about knowing what a specific user sees. The targeting configurations that advertisers use should be made public, but nobody needs to know which individual users see which individual ads. So, you should be able to click a "?" link in the corner of any ad and see which demographics or groups the ad is targeting. And likewise, you should be able to look at individual demographics or groups and see which ads are targeting them at any given moment. This sort of transparency would go a long way towards restoring trust, but I suspect that it would also reveal what a cesspit their ad market is. The advertisers would also probably object, because many would consider their targeting parameters to be a sort of trade secret. And whoever pays the piper calls the tune.
      • disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        > So, you should be able to click a "?" link in the corner of any ad and see which demographics or groups the ad is targeting. You can do this on Facebook, for maybe four years now. It's not particularly informative, but it exists.
    • baq 6y ago
      A third party paid another third party to show very specific content to very specific people based on their very very private data - this is the primary violation of privacy. Being able to tell who pays who to show what is fundamental to transparency in democracy.
• tehjoker 6y ago
  The problem is FB microtargeting. Maybe microtargeting should be banned?
  • disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    Just as an FYI, micro-targeting is very difficult to make work (i.e. measure) on Facebook, or indeed any digital ads platform. FB/Google/Twitter etc work by measuring some kind of conversion (pixel hit, app install etc). Micro-targeting in terms of voting doesn't have this signal, and as such any of these ads will be difficult to make work on FB. You can optimise for engagement, but I suspect an ad targeting black voters saying about the 94 crime bill is unlikely to elicit much engagement.
    • tehjoker 6y ago
      Don't you just need to present the ads? It's about providing targeted information that other people can't see, not about feedback.