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My mother got a new laptop, and at some point I got remote access to help her get a few things set up (password manager/ad-blocker/backups/etc). I was really a
by furyg3 6y ago
My mother got a new laptop, and at some point I got remote access to help her get a few things set up (password manager/ad-blocker/backups/etc). I was really amazed at what her Facebook feed looks like. Actual Facebook advertisements for literal scams. 'Michelle Obama's investment tips' for some bitcoin platform. 'Patagonia Outlet' with items at 25% of the cost, at domains like patagonia-outlet.shjss72828.sub.domain.pl, etc. I scrolled for a while and more than half of the advertisements were like this. This is what senior citizens are dealing with.
This is just not ok. I understand that screening everyone in the world's personal posts/shares for 'fake news' is a daunting task, but KYC-ing advertisers and screening/auditing ads for blatant and obvious scams or false marketing is many orders of magnitude less resource intensive... and should be required by laws with teeth.
If the costs of doing so mean that it's impossible to make a profit as an ad platform, then that business model should die.
- dspillett 6y ago> but KYC-ing advertisers and screening/auditing ads for blatant and obvious scams or false marketing is many orders of magnitude less resource intensive And very easy to automate. We know they can do it. But until there is sufficient threat of action if they don't then they are happy to let their users get fleeced in exchange for the advertising $. There is an argument that "if they crack down on the easy to detect stuff, the scams will just get more clever" but that is not at all why they aren't making more effort. One funny thing I've noticed with facebook, is that if you start responding to such adverts with comments along the lines of "this is obviously a scam because..." responses, they start showing you more and more of that sort of scam presumably because you have shown engagement with the previous ones.
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoFor an extra dose of cynicism keep in mind Youtube is demonetizing countless videos supposedly because advertisers don’t want to be associated with such content. Garbage ads certainly aren’t exempt from that logic, yet there doesn’t seem to be as much of a crackdown on them.
- furyg3 6y agoThe content creators aren't paying them, the advertisers are.
- tehWeeb 6y agoSo what your saying is Facebook is a grocery store checkout? Glad I deleted mine in 2010.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago> This is just not ok. "Not OK" is forgetting to clean up your table after the meal. What these scammers are doing is simply fraud and Facebook should be liable as they enable it. I remember when I set up my first FB ad (maybe 10 years ago?) it took a few days because some of them were manually reviewed. Fast forward 10 years and they accept any fraudster who pays them a few bucks. Just low scum, that's all.