8 ms·

I think any company should be able to target ads by age. The Ad a teenager would click on is different than one a 40something would click on. Ads are expensive,

I think any company should be able to target ads by age. The Ad a teenager would click on is different than one a 40something would click on. Ads are expensive, so it makes sense to target the ad to make it relevant to the user. Facebook clearly does have a bug here, where they didn't warn the ad buyer that they were excluding an age range. Someone operating in good faith could have one ad for 18-29, another for 31-40, and one for 41 and up. According to the 'outrage' this is highly illegal. But clearly a simple mistake, an off by one error if you would :D. Facebook knows you don't want to excluded anyone, so they should warn about the excluded age range. No matter where it shows up. Also, is advertising to (demographic) most likely to buy your service really exclusion/discrimination? To the level of a crime? I'm unconvinced I agree it should be.

robin_reala 6y ago
I don’t think any ad company should be able to target people based on their age. I think ad companies should be able to target based on their context. If the context is primarily younger people then you’ll hit your market, but won’t exclude the odd older person that is also interested.
- 3np 6y ago
  What about recreational drugs (incl tobacco and alcohol), gambling, adult entertainment, etc? Surely those should not be targeted at minors.
  - cerved 6y ago
    vice advertising is typically regulated in a different manner, excluding minors for example
  - vineyardmike 6y ago
    Generally, targeting minors is treated differently in discrimination cases as a whole.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    > What about recreational drugs (incl tobacco and alcohol) Alcohol and tobacco advertising is banned or massively regulated in most countries. Facebook circumvents rules in various places due to their media platform being newer than the rules or because Facebook just sort of ignores the rule. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_nicotine_marketing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_nicotine_marke... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_advertising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_advertising https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/28/1/67 https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/28/1/67
    - saddlerustle 6y ago
      Facebook's ad policies prohibit all tobacco advertising, and alcohol advertising targeting users under 18
      - yunohn 6y ago
        When it comes to ads, HNers will make up anything and believe anything, while refusing to do the most basic research.
        lostlogin 6y ago
        What’s made up? It’s not hard to find good sources stating Facebook still advertise tobacco, though you appear not to have noticed the links stating this fact. Here are some more recent links. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/17/british-american-tobacco-circumventing-ad-ban-experts-say https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/17/british-ame... https://www.independent.co.uk/health_and_wellbeing/big-tobacco-cigarettes-facebook-ban-instagram-influencers-a9309971.html https://www.independent.co.uk/health_and_wellbeing/big-tobac...
        yunohn 6y ago
        The headline and byline from your links: “British American Tobacco circumventing ad ban” “Smoking giants are flouting rules set by Facebook and Instagram” As always, regardless of the digital or print medium, Big Tobacco (& others) have always tried to flout the rules. Same goes for Alcohol and Gambling ad bans.
- version_five 6y ago
  Why is using age to approximate context worse than using some other factor to approximate it?
- grayhatter 6y ago
  Why? I understand the argument for restricting access to things needed to function (housing, banking, etc). But I made a flashy twitch shooter. Why is it wrong for me to advertise by age? Ads cost money, why is it in the public good that I spend money to bother people with ads they'll never take part in?
intricatedetail 6y ago
I think companies should only be able to target by site. For instance if you sell tires, you should buy advert on a car forum. All other forms of targeting is a manipulation and should be illegal along with any form of tracking.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  Who even uses dedicated forums anymore? Outside Hacker News and subreddits, the only one I somewhat infrequently visit is xda-developers and that's it.
  - intricatedetail 6y ago
    Then a Facebook group for car owners. Facebook then should split proceeds with the group admins.
    - Rastonbury 6y ago
      This seems absurd. Why should the group admins get paid when the value is generated by the community?
      - mschuster91 6y ago
        A value is also, and not to a small part, generated by the group admins and moderators - which is also why there have been a fair share of controversies regarding subreddits whose mods sold out (e.g. r/wallstreetbets). Fostering a community is hard work... kicking out spammers, fraudsters and peddlers of illegal material (cp and DMCA), dealing with trolls and shills, directing newbies to useful resources for example. Without moderation (or too lax moderation criteria) your forum will end up overrun with legally questionable material (4chan, 8chan, 8kun), alt-right conspiracy theories (Parler, gab.ai), porn (r/worldpolitics) or questionable "advice" (r/legaladvice). The problem is that moderating content is rarely positively rewarded - HN with the constant praise of u/dang for their moderation work is the example proving the rule. You're too lax? Users complain that the community is "devolving" from its purpose. You're too strict? People will raise off-site shitstorms or run organized brigading attacks. This is why group admins deserve to be compensated for their efforts (and in the case of FB mods, way more compensation given the constant onslaught of cp, gore and other extremely vile stuff).
ChrisRR 6y ago
Exactly. I get so many "Seniors don't know they can get this benefit" adverts, that I wouldn't mind if they got replaced with something more targeted
a_imho 6y ago
I think ads are an euphemism for spam and deserve the same legal status.
- andrepd 6y ago
  The world would certainly be a better place without ads.
- grayhatter 6y ago
  What about paid reviews? Are there any types of marketing you don't think is harmful?
PaulHoule 6y ago
I would turn it around the other way. Often on OTA TV you see nothing but ads for "old people" products, not just things that "old people dig" (Black Sabbath?) but for things aimed at the indignities of age (adult diapers, ...) as well as the people who will file a fake medicare claim on your behalf,... You could easily got the whole day and see mostly ads for things you could spend government services on, lawyers who might help you if you are hit by a car (and you have a slam dunk case) -- the one thing you might see advertised that people spend their own money on is cars. I guess if they didn't have any cars nobody would get hit by a car and need a personal injury lawyer. Scam and near-scam financial services targeted at the elderly is another big theme. Add that up and if you're under 50, TV sends messages that "I want to die before I get old", "everybody else is just out to chisel from the government", etc. It makes me wonder if taking Grandma's phone away so she can't get scammed is worth her not being able to call 911. Because there is no ad targeting by age on TV, TV is flooded by old people ads that drive away even a middle aged audience. By the time we get old we won't be watching TV because of it. If TV had age-targeted ads it might be tolerable to watch again.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  That’s not a feature of targeting, but of declining audience. There’s enough injured people watching TV in waiting rooms that structured settlement ads have a ROI. The reality is that you could easily segment the tv audience in the 80s and 90s. There was a time when dudes would tune into Wheel of Fortune to gawk at Vanna White. CNN once attracted a high end audience. Likewise, the ads on the Spider-Man Saturday cartoon, GI-Joe, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, and Nightline were very different, and targeted by age.
geoduck14 6y ago
>Also, is advertising to (demographic) most likely to buy your service really exclusion/discrimination? Hi! I work at a bank, that specializes in Credit Cards. I take a bunch of mandated training. The answer to your question is a RESOUNDING YES It is DEFINITELY discrimination for me to exclude Black people from lending money, or from OFFERING (aka advertising) to lend money. It is discrimination for me to offer different rates to Seniors than non seniors. It is discrimination for me to offer different TYPES (think: low APR with annual fee) of credit cards to poor people. I'm not sure if FB should be in trouble, but the credit card issuer will have to explain this to the regulators.
- ThrustVectoring 6y ago
  How is any advertising for credit products legal, then? Each TV channel you might advertise on will have known-to-you differences in how often particular demographics will view it, which in principle means that you're excluding someone. While sure, a 35 year old professional might be watching soap operas at 1pm on a Wednesday, it's far more likely to be a senior, so advertising then excludes the non-retired demographic.
  - geoduck14 6y ago
    Good question! Discrimination can pop up at many points throughout the on boarding process, so it is important that you check who your people are often and at multiple check points. At the point of advertising, we check things like: demographics of who viewed the add (sometimes we have to run ADDITIONAL targeted adds to balance out an initial add placement), demographics of who "clicked" to our website, demographics of who applied Are all possible places to monitor. Also, we get to use FUN MATH!
    - jliptzin 6y ago
      That sounds like something maybe 0.1% of credit card issuers actually do.
      - 6y ago
southerntofu 6y ago
> I think any company should be able to target ads by age. I think private companies should not exist and advertisement should be strictly illegal as a mass manipulation technique. Profit and the engineering of consent are the explanation why people are starving or sleeping on the streets despite there being an abundance of resources to be wasted by companies and rich people.
- OGWhales 6y ago
  I wouldn't go so far, but I did always think it was funny economist like to stipulate how markets work with "rational actors", failing to acknowledge just how much advertising (an utterly massive industry) drives people away from being rational actors.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    Rational actors can still be deceived or wrong. It doesn't cease to make them rational to think smoke coming from the hills means a fire. It also explains how price manipulation techniques can work, such rising prices causing people to rush out and buy before it rises further. More reasons why false advertising is an offense along with the fights sparked by pissed off customers and fraud adjacency. Beating up on rational actors on is a pretty tired take akin to deriding psychiatry because of Freud's Oedipus Complex. Which is ignoring the contextually it made sense with what we now know as Westermarcke effect combined with the norms of his time. His privledged son clients, being upper class were raised by nannies as the norm. Now put yourself in the proverbial Oedipus's shoes and imagine richer person who rules over you and directs your life direction and has sex with a hot woman you are attracted to. Sounds understandable except that they are your father and mother. With the lack of bonding in the life style it is both more consistent with modern proven effects and showing how society's twisted norms deeply screwed people up.
- grayhatter 6y ago
  Wow, that escalated quickly. And this may be a hot take deserving of more thought... but I don't think companies existing is why there is homelessness nor general food insecurity. I think it' more than likely there's another, more important factor in play.

robin_reala 6y ago

I don’t think any ad company should be able to target people based on their age. I think ad companies should be able to target based on their context. If the context is primarily younger people then you’ll hit your market, but won’t exclude the odd older person that is also interested.

3np 6y ago
What about recreational drugs (incl tobacco and alcohol), gambling, adult entertainment, etc? Surely those should not be targeted at minors.
- cerved 6y ago
  vice advertising is typically regulated in a different manner, excluding minors for example
- vineyardmike 6y ago
  Generally, targeting minors is treated differently in discrimination cases as a whole.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  > What about recreational drugs (incl tobacco and alcohol) Alcohol and tobacco advertising is banned or massively regulated in most countries. Facebook circumvents rules in various places due to their media platform being newer than the rules or because Facebook just sort of ignores the rule. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_nicotine_marketing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_nicotine_marke... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_advertising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_advertising https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/28/1/67 https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/28/1/67
  - saddlerustle 6y ago
    Facebook's ad policies prohibit all tobacco advertising, and alcohol advertising targeting users under 18
    - yunohn 6y ago
      When it comes to ads, HNers will make up anything and believe anything, while refusing to do the most basic research.
      - lostlogin 6y ago
        What’s made up? It’s not hard to find good sources stating Facebook still advertise tobacco, though you appear not to have noticed the links stating this fact. Here are some more recent links. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/17/british-american-tobacco-circumventing-ad-ban-experts-say https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/17/british-ame... https://www.independent.co.uk/health_and_wellbeing/big-tobacco-cigarettes-facebook-ban-instagram-influencers-a9309971.html https://www.independent.co.uk/health_and_wellbeing/big-tobac...
        yunohn 6y ago
        The headline and byline from your links: “British American Tobacco circumventing ad ban” “Smoking giants are flouting rules set by Facebook and Instagram” As always, regardless of the digital or print medium, Big Tobacco (& others) have always tried to flout the rules. Same goes for Alcohol and Gambling ad bans.
version_five 6y ago
Why is using age to approximate context worse than using some other factor to approximate it?
grayhatter 6y ago
Why? I understand the argument for restricting access to things needed to function (housing, banking, etc). But I made a flashy twitch shooter. Why is it wrong for me to advertise by age? Ads cost money, why is it in the public good that I spend money to bother people with ads they'll never take part in?

intricatedetail 6y ago

I think companies should only be able to target by site. For instance if you sell tires, you should buy advert on a car forum. All other forms of targeting is a manipulation and should be illegal along with any form of tracking.

mschuster91 6y ago
Who even uses dedicated forums anymore? Outside Hacker News and subreddits, the only one I somewhat infrequently visit is xda-developers and that's it.
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  Then a Facebook group for car owners. Facebook then should split proceeds with the group admins.
  - Rastonbury 6y ago
    This seems absurd. Why should the group admins get paid when the value is generated by the community?
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      A value is also, and not to a small part, generated by the group admins and moderators - which is also why there have been a fair share of controversies regarding subreddits whose mods sold out (e.g. r/wallstreetbets). Fostering a community is hard work... kicking out spammers, fraudsters and peddlers of illegal material (cp and DMCA), dealing with trolls and shills, directing newbies to useful resources for example. Without moderation (or too lax moderation criteria) your forum will end up overrun with legally questionable material (4chan, 8chan, 8kun), alt-right conspiracy theories (Parler, gab.ai), porn (r/worldpolitics) or questionable "advice" (r/legaladvice). The problem is that moderating content is rarely positively rewarded - HN with the constant praise of u/dang for their moderation work is the example proving the rule. You're too lax? Users complain that the community is "devolving" from its purpose. You're too strict? People will raise off-site shitstorms or run organized brigading attacks. This is why group admins deserve to be compensated for their efforts (and in the case of FB mods, way more compensation given the constant onslaught of cp, gore and other extremely vile stuff).

ChrisRR 6y ago

Exactly. I get so many "Seniors don't know they can get this benefit" adverts, that I wouldn't mind if they got replaced with something more targeted

a_imho 6y ago

I think ads are an euphemism for spam and deserve the same legal status.

andrepd 6y ago
The world would certainly be a better place without ads.
grayhatter 6y ago
What about paid reviews? Are there any types of marketing you don't think is harmful?

PaulHoule 6y ago

I would turn it around the other way. Often on OTA TV you see nothing but ads for "old people" products, not just things that "old people dig" (Black Sabbath?) but for things aimed at the indignities of age (adult diapers, ...) as well as the people who will file a fake medicare claim on your behalf,... You could easily got the whole day and see mostly ads for things you could spend government services on, lawyers who might help you if you are hit by a car (and you have a slam dunk case) -- the one thing you might see advertised that people spend their own money on is cars. I guess if they didn't have any cars nobody would get hit by a car and need a personal injury lawyer. Scam and near-scam financial services targeted at the elderly is another big theme. Add that up and if you're under 50, TV sends messages that "I want to die before I get old", "everybody else is just out to chisel from the government", etc. It makes me wonder if taking Grandma's phone away so she can't get scammed is worth her not being able to call 911. Because there is no ad targeting by age on TV, TV is flooded by old people ads that drive away even a middle aged audience. By the time we get old we won't be watching TV because of it. If TV had age-targeted ads it might be tolerable to watch again.

Spooky23 6y ago
That’s not a feature of targeting, but of declining audience. There’s enough injured people watching TV in waiting rooms that structured settlement ads have a ROI. The reality is that you could easily segment the tv audience in the 80s and 90s. There was a time when dudes would tune into Wheel of Fortune to gawk at Vanna White. CNN once attracted a high end audience. Likewise, the ads on the Spider-Man Saturday cartoon, GI-Joe, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, and Nightline were very different, and targeted by age.

geoduck14 6y ago

>Also, is advertising to (demographic) most likely to buy your service really exclusion/discrimination? Hi! I work at a bank, that specializes in Credit Cards. I take a bunch of mandated training. The answer to your question is a RESOUNDING YES It is DEFINITELY discrimination for me to exclude Black people from lending money, or from OFFERING (aka advertising) to lend money. It is discrimination for me to offer different rates to Seniors than non seniors. It is discrimination for me to offer different TYPES (think: low APR with annual fee) of credit cards to poor people. I'm not sure if FB should be in trouble, but the credit card issuer will have to explain this to the regulators.

ThrustVectoring 6y ago
How is any advertising for credit products legal, then? Each TV channel you might advertise on will have known-to-you differences in how often particular demographics will view it, which in principle means that you're excluding someone. While sure, a 35 year old professional might be watching soap operas at 1pm on a Wednesday, it's far more likely to be a senior, so advertising then excludes the non-retired demographic.
- geoduck14 6y ago
  Good question! Discrimination can pop up at many points throughout the on boarding process, so it is important that you check who your people are often and at multiple check points. At the point of advertising, we check things like: demographics of who viewed the add (sometimes we have to run ADDITIONAL targeted adds to balance out an initial add placement), demographics of who "clicked" to our website, demographics of who applied Are all possible places to monitor. Also, we get to use FUN MATH!
  - jliptzin 6y ago
    That sounds like something maybe 0.1% of credit card issuers actually do.
    - 6y ago

southerntofu 6y ago

> I think any company should be able to target ads by age. I think private companies should not exist and advertisement should be strictly illegal as a mass manipulation technique. Profit and the engineering of consent are the explanation why people are starving or sleeping on the streets despite there being an abundance of resources to be wasted by companies and rich people.

OGWhales 6y ago
I wouldn't go so far, but I did always think it was funny economist like to stipulate how markets work with "rational actors", failing to acknowledge just how much advertising (an utterly massive industry) drives people away from being rational actors.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  Rational actors can still be deceived or wrong. It doesn't cease to make them rational to think smoke coming from the hills means a fire. It also explains how price manipulation techniques can work, such rising prices causing people to rush out and buy before it rises further. More reasons why false advertising is an offense along with the fights sparked by pissed off customers and fraud adjacency. Beating up on rational actors on is a pretty tired take akin to deriding psychiatry because of Freud's Oedipus Complex. Which is ignoring the contextually it made sense with what we now know as Westermarcke effect combined with the norms of his time. His privledged son clients, being upper class were raised by nannies as the norm. Now put yourself in the proverbial Oedipus's shoes and imagine richer person who rules over you and directs your life direction and has sex with a hot woman you are attracted to. Sounds understandable except that they are your father and mother. With the lack of bonding in the life style it is both more consistent with modern proven effects and showing how society's twisted norms deeply screwed people up.
grayhatter 6y ago
Wow, that escalated quickly. And this may be a hot take deserving of more thought... but I don't think companies existing is why there is homelessness nor general food insecurity. I think it' more than likely there's another, more important factor in play.