4 ms·

All Facebook ads have a button that let's you see what advertising targeting the advertiser used to show you that ad.

by cm2012 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
newacct583 5y ago
This is true for "ads". I also get a flood of "suggested for you" links which seem indistinguishable, are almost certainly paid content, and have no such labeling. Some of this is benign enough, like all the inexplicable videos of rollercoaster rides or the Crafty Panda nonsense. Some of it seems somewhat nefarious, like the very family-friendly, feel-good, decidedly non-political suggestions for things like Cute Cat Content at the EXTREMELY political Epoch Times. I mean, come on. All systems can be gamed. Facebook will still, for a fee, put any content you want in front of any user you want in a completely untrackable way. And that's why they freaked out about this extension.
- cm2012 5y ago
  On Facebook "suggested for you" is not paid, all paid stuff is clearly marked. That's just the algorithm guessing at what you'll enjoy.
  - newacct583 5y ago
    And it only guesses that I'll enjoy clearly commercial content and not any of the community stuff related to things I actually interact with? Really? That seems oddly suspicious. I gotta say, I don't believe you. I've never once seen a Suggested link that wasn't to some kind of obvious click farm. Never once. If you want to make a technical argument that Facebook drives revenue via other means than direct payments, then that seems reasonably likely (if deliberately misleading). If you want to argue that these folks aren't spending money that ends up in Facebook's pocket in order for Facebook to put their content in front of my eyeballs... then I'm just going to laugh at you, sorry. I mean, just on first principles your argument is ridiculous. If Facebook didn't see benefit from putting this garbage in front of me that I never click on, then why would it be putting garbage in front of me that I never click on? Clearly Facebook wants me to click on it!
    - 55555 5y ago
      You're wrong but don't seem willing to have your mind changed.
      - newacct583 5y ago
        Change my mind then. Like every other sentence I wrote has a funny '?' symbol at the end. That's your cue to provide information.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        55555 5y ago
        Fine. But remember, you can still hate Facebook and it can still be a crappy platform even though you're wrong about the explicit claims you've been arguing. > And it only guesses that I'll enjoy clearly commercial content and not any of the community stuff related to things I actually interact with? Really? That seems oddly suspicious. Yeah, they're kinda "dumb." These companies have incredible engineers but they still screw up really simple things. > I gotta say, I don't believe you. I've never once seen a Suggested link that wasn't to some kind of obvious click farm. This is clickbait content created by professional view arbitrage firms who use natural virality to make a buck. They are making money, but they aren't buying ads, they're selling them on their own websites. > Never once. If you want to make a technical argument that Facebook drives revenue via other means than direct payments, then that seems reasonably likely (if deliberately misleading). This is exactly the argument. And it's not an argument, it's a fact, assuming you aren't just missing the "sponsored/ad" labels on Facebook.com. Facebook is promoting this crap because most people are likely to click it and they are optimizing for engagement so people come back and click more, including on ads. > If you want to argue that these folks aren't spending money that ends up in Facebook's pocket in order for Facebook to put their content in front of my eyeballs... then I'm just going to laugh at you, sorry. This is not what was said and nobody intelligent would say this. (Strawman argument) > If Facebook didn't see benefit from putting this garbage in front of me that I never click on, then why would it be putting garbage in front of me that I never click on? Clearly Facebook wants me to click on it! Their algorithm hasn't figured you out as well as it has others. They promote low quality clickbait content BECAUSE it leads to "engagement" and clicks. They want you to like being on Facebook, and constant clicking = addiction. But these are not ads, unless you're missing an obvious "sponsored/ads" label.
- kapp_in_life 5y ago
  Suggested for you content is not paid advertisements, this is straight up conspiracy peddling.
  - teknopaul 5y ago
    highly doubt that
    - beebeepka 5y ago
      The FB drones had you downvoted but you're right. Suggestions from people with power over what you see are advertisements. That is, if we're being generous Edit: clearly there are many FB employees in this thread. Keep downvoting the truth, fellows. That'll teach us!
alasdair_ 5y ago
It’s very very vague in practice.
- strken 5y ago
  Is it? Why can't you show the configured audience for a given ad to the user who was matched to the audience?
  - ascorbic 5y ago
    Almost always it's just a custom audience or lookalike, with no way of knowing how that audience was assembled.
Vinnl 5y ago
Sounds like the difference is that only I can see how Facebook targeted me, rather than e.g. consumer interests organisations or government watchdogs being able to see how an organisation targets in general.
moksly 5y ago
Which is great, but what we need is campaign wise transparency. Facebook is actually ahead of its competition in that you can see things like advertising spending, as an example I can see how much each Danish political party spend on Facebook campaigns. Of course I could already do this by looking in their budgets, but it’s still more than other social media platforms. What we need, however, is it to be able to pull data from each campaign, see what democracies they target and how many times they appear on peoples wall. It doesn’t have to go into “moksly saw this 15 times” more in the range of “in the group of x, y individuals were shown this add z times at these hours” and so on. This would make it more akin to the advertisement data we have on almost all other mediums. I personally think we should require something similar from Google, but they manage to sneak below political and public notice enough for that to have widespread support.

All Facebook ads have a button that let's you see what advertising targeting the advertiser used to show you that ad.

by cm2012 5y ago

All Facebook ads have a button that let's you see what advertising targeting the advertiser used to show you that ad.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

newacct583 5y ago

This is true for "ads". I also get a flood of "suggested for you" links which seem indistinguishable, are almost certainly paid content, and have no such labeling. Some of this is benign enough, like all the inexplicable videos of rollercoaster rides or the Crafty Panda nonsense. Some of it seems somewhat nefarious, like the very family-friendly, feel-good, decidedly non-political suggestions for things like Cute Cat Content at the EXTREMELY political Epoch Times. I mean, come on. All systems can be gamed. Facebook will still, for a fee, put any content you want in front of any user you want in a completely untrackable way. And that's why they freaked out about this extension.

cm2012 5y ago
On Facebook "suggested for you" is not paid, all paid stuff is clearly marked. That's just the algorithm guessing at what you'll enjoy.
- newacct583 5y ago
  And it only guesses that I'll enjoy clearly commercial content and not any of the community stuff related to things I actually interact with? Really? That seems oddly suspicious. I gotta say, I don't believe you. I've never once seen a Suggested link that wasn't to some kind of obvious click farm. Never once. If you want to make a technical argument that Facebook drives revenue via other means than direct payments, then that seems reasonably likely (if deliberately misleading). If you want to argue that these folks aren't spending money that ends up in Facebook's pocket in order for Facebook to put their content in front of my eyeballs... then I'm just going to laugh at you, sorry. I mean, just on first principles your argument is ridiculous. If Facebook didn't see benefit from putting this garbage in front of me that I never click on, then why would it be putting garbage in front of me that I never click on? Clearly Facebook wants me to click on it!
  - 55555 5y ago
    You're wrong but don't seem willing to have your mind changed.
    - newacct583 5y ago
      Change my mind then. Like every other sentence I wrote has a funny '?' symbol at the end. That's your cue to provide information.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - 55555 5y ago
        Fine. But remember, you can still hate Facebook and it can still be a crappy platform even though you're wrong about the explicit claims you've been arguing. > And it only guesses that I'll enjoy clearly commercial content and not any of the community stuff related to things I actually interact with? Really? That seems oddly suspicious. Yeah, they're kinda "dumb." These companies have incredible engineers but they still screw up really simple things. > I gotta say, I don't believe you. I've never once seen a Suggested link that wasn't to some kind of obvious click farm. This is clickbait content created by professional view arbitrage firms who use natural virality to make a buck. They are making money, but they aren't buying ads, they're selling them on their own websites. > Never once. If you want to make a technical argument that Facebook drives revenue via other means than direct payments, then that seems reasonably likely (if deliberately misleading). This is exactly the argument. And it's not an argument, it's a fact, assuming you aren't just missing the "sponsored/ad" labels on Facebook.com. Facebook is promoting this crap because most people are likely to click it and they are optimizing for engagement so people come back and click more, including on ads. > If you want to argue that these folks aren't spending money that ends up in Facebook's pocket in order for Facebook to put their content in front of my eyeballs... then I'm just going to laugh at you, sorry. This is not what was said and nobody intelligent would say this. (Strawman argument) > If Facebook didn't see benefit from putting this garbage in front of me that I never click on, then why would it be putting garbage in front of me that I never click on? Clearly Facebook wants me to click on it! Their algorithm hasn't figured you out as well as it has others. They promote low quality clickbait content BECAUSE it leads to "engagement" and clicks. They want you to like being on Facebook, and constant clicking = addiction. But these are not ads, unless you're missing an obvious "sponsored/ads" label.
kapp_in_life 5y ago
Suggested for you content is not paid advertisements, this is straight up conspiracy peddling.
- teknopaul 5y ago
  highly doubt that
  - beebeepka 5y ago
    The FB drones had you downvoted but you're right. Suggestions from people with power over what you see are advertisements. That is, if we're being generous Edit: clearly there are many FB employees in this thread. Keep downvoting the truth, fellows. That'll teach us!

alasdair_ 5y ago

It’s very very vague in practice.

strken 5y ago
Is it? Why can't you show the configured audience for a given ad to the user who was matched to the audience?
- ascorbic 5y ago
  Almost always it's just a custom audience or lookalike, with no way of knowing how that audience was assembled.

Vinnl 5y ago

Sounds like the difference is that only I can see how Facebook targeted me, rather than e.g. consumer interests organisations or government watchdogs being able to see how an organisation targets in general.

moksly 5y ago

Which is great, but what we need is campaign wise transparency. Facebook is actually ahead of its competition in that you can see things like advertising spending, as an example I can see how much each Danish political party spend on Facebook campaigns. Of course I could already do this by looking in their budgets, but it’s still more than other social media platforms. What we need, however, is it to be able to pull data from each campaign, see what democracies they target and how many times they appear on peoples wall. It doesn’t have to go into “moksly saw this 15 times” more in the range of “in the group of x, y individuals were shown this add z times at these hours” and so on. This would make it more akin to the advertisement data we have on almost all other mediums. I personally think we should require something similar from Google, but they manage to sneak below political and public notice enough for that to have widespread support.