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See, the trick here is to put all the personal data onto an oddly specific t-shirt that's for sale. Available now, size "Large" t-shirt for sale! "I'm a proud
by sharkweek 5y ago
See, the trick here is to put all the personal data onto an oddly specific t-shirt that's for sale.
Available now, size "Large" t-shirt for sale!
"I'm a proud dad living in Seattle who attended the University of Washington and once went on a trip to Central America for a while. I have a dog and like to read and occasionally complain about politics."
I'd buy this if I saw it, if just for the lulz and nihilistic outlook when it comes to privacy.
In fact... if I were a privacy-focused company, I'd 100% do this as a marketing stunt.
- _bohm 5y agoIt hurts to admit, but I would probably actually buy one of these
- nemothekid 5y agoYou aren't alone - I know of a company that bootstrapped themselves by abusing the graph API to sell t-shirts.
- gnicholas 5y agoConsidering this is the top post on HN, it's only a matter of time before someone offers these for sale and has a Show HN post about it. I just hope they have a coupon code for HNers!
- hangonhn 5y agoOMG. This is just brilliant on so many levels. It's not just subversive against FB's rules but also can be the start of some kind of art project as a statement about what tech companies know about us. But the project itself gives us a choice in what is shown to others whereas FB doesn't give us that choice when selling the info to advertisers. It'll probably get shut down real quick by FB though once they know about this. Edited: as my sibling comment mentioned, I too would buy one of these shirts.
- disgruntledphd2 5y agoThis has existed since 2014, in embryonic form. The exploit was that FB put your name in the public response from the Graph API. I remember discovering that, saying that might be abusable, and moved on with my life. About a year later, I started getting oddly specific t-shirts like all <last names> do <x good>.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- spamalot159 5y agoI would buy one that describes the total opposite of me and watch the confusion on people's faces. I so wish this was a thing but I doubt Facebook would allow using their graph for this kind of marketing.
- rchaud 5y agoA crude version of this exists: https://www.reddit.com/r/TargetedShirts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TargetedShirts/ Except this is Tshirt manufacturers coming up with generic slogans on Tshirt ads that correspond to your interests.
- roflc0ptic 5y agoRelevant facebook group: Shirts marketed to extremely specific demographics https://www.facebook.com/groups/smtesdthemain https://www.facebook.com/groups/smtesdthemain
- oceliker 5y agoRidiculously targeted t-shirt ads on Facebook are actually a thing, but probably not for privacy awareness purposes: https://thehustle.co/who-makes-those-insanely-specific-t-shirts-on-the-internet/ https://thehustle.co/who-makes-those-insanely-specific-t-shi...
- sharkweek 5y agoThis article got dark very fast
- rootusrootus 5y agoEven without seeing the result, it was entirely predictable what was going to happen when someone let a computer generate phrases from word lists. The guy who went out of business generated 700 different combos algorithmically and then did not proofread them. That seems absurd. 700 isn't really that many, a few hours of manual labor to cull the bad ones, and his business may have made money.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- an_opabinia 5y agoAs someone else pointed out, personal attributes are prohibited from ads. My feeling is, communicating a compelling data collection story, even strictly positivist things like how much data is collected, let alone normative ones like we should collect less data or prohibit collecting it - you're not going to tell that story with some neat hack inside the system.
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoI remember seeing a t-shirt ad that said something along the lines of "March people are X"... and I'm born in March. It just made me that I contributed to Zuck's data hoard.
- naturalauction 5y agoYou can get very close, I had an ad on Facebook the other day with transliterations of hindi/urdu words on it. When I clicked to see why, Facebook thought I was interested in a Pakistani newspaper (I think I'd read some articles on it on my phone, I guess the trackers picked that up). I guarantee you 99% of readers of the newspaper where I am (or probably anywhere) are of Pakistani descent. The ad wasn't telling me my race/national origin, but it was clear Facebook knew.
- johnmoonyy 5y agothis.. would have worked and I would've believe the shirt was made for me..
- mrtksn 5y agoI wonder if this tactics could be used to increase click rate. Sound like a good idea to grab someones attention and maybe reduce spending by targeting niches.
- gnicholas 5y agoEven better: phrase it in relation to the person reading the shirt, not the person wearing it: "You are seeing this shirt because [advertiser] wants to reach people who are friends with individuals who are [age], interested in [topic], located in or near [city], who wear [size] shirts.
- corobo 5y agoOoooh I like the idea of wearing those types of shirts ironically I'm probably not going to, but I do like the idea
- magicroot75 5y agoAs a FB marketing expert, this wouldn't work. Yes we could target you, but the market is too small and not worth the effort. The minimum audience worth targeting