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One aspect that shouldn't be lost - the implicit framing of the platforms being "under attack" by the bots is wrong - the bots are likely a net positive for the
by thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
One aspect that shouldn't be lost - the implicit framing of the platforms being "under attack" by the bots is wrong - the bots are likely a net positive for the platforms - they're very much complicit with the fraud, or at least condone it. They sell views and clicks - if bots create more views and clicks, so be it. It's the advertisers who bear the cost.
Taking Facebook as an example:
Creating an account, linking Oculus Quest to it and leaving the account dormant - accounts locked en masse.
US account that logs in from Indonesian IPs, never posts anything, likes 5000 random things ranging from a shampoo to a cafe in a small Ohio town, to the new shirts of an Albanian soccer club - in Facebook's view that's a perfectly legitimate account.
- im3w1l 5y agoMaybe in the short term it works like that, but ultimately a platform's value comes from its real users. And bots make the platform less attractive to real users.
- funcDropShadow 5y agoBut Facebook, like most social media platforms, is addictive, so it is not obvious that in the long term a reasonable usage of them will emerge.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoLack of movement in sales after paying Facebook for advertisements will emerge, and that will certainly be noticed.
- dghlsakjg 5y agoYou may overestimate the sophistication of ad buyers, and underestimate the ability of Facebook to convince buyers that their ads are working
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThe increased ability to track the efficacy of ads is the value of the tracking that the internet enabled, hence the value of Facebook. Hampering this ability to match ads to purchases reduces the price these ads can be sold at, it is what the whole article and situation are talking about.
- alisonkisk 5y agoMovies make billions of dollars from users who don't contribute any content. As long as users consume content, who cares who makes it?
- gleenn 5y agoThe people bearing the real cost are the people trying to sell products with ads. Facebook more or less sets up the system to pass that cost along.
- Nextgrid 5y agoTo be fair the cost of ads varies based on demand; advertisers wouldn't pay more than the ROI they're seeing from their ads, so the prices have the cost of ad fraud somewhat priced in?
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoMost marketing departments I've met don't check their ROI. They request budget, spend it on campaign, then make power points to tell the rest of the company that they were successful.
- alisonkisk 5y agoThats not Facebook's fault, that ad people lying to product people or product people not caring.
- carbine 5y agoDunno who you’ve worked with but in 2021 that’s patently false. Optimizing Facebook ad performance for ROAS is a precise science. Marketing budgets are heavily scrutinized and hard to defend precisely because of dismissive attitudes like this, so you better believe most marketers are working their tails off to measure and deliver ROI.