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I hope that the conversation about this turns into a discussion about the business model of Facebook and most other social media sites that are designed around

I hope that the conversation about this turns into a discussion about the business model of Facebook and most other social media sites that are designed around maximizing engagement for advertising revenue. I realize the difference between buying advertisements for extremely popular television (like the super bowl) and buying advertisements targeting specific demographics on facebook is very subtle. But there is a difference between having the ability to target very specific demographics with ads that no one else sees and buying airtime during popular programs with ads that everyone sees.

photochemsyn 5y ago
It's not just product advertising, it's also political advertising which gets even creepier in my opinion. The two major outfits in 2016 (BlueLabs for Clinton, Cambridge Analytica for Trump) were spending hundreds of millions on these kind of targeted ad campaigns according to numerous disclosures. For example, I imagine Team Trump would target the white supremacist crowd (a relatively small % of the public) with one set of ads, and target Rust Belt voters (the key demographic that flipped the election) with trade issues and 'bringing back manufacturing' ads, although the latter group would likely have been turned off by the white supremacist content. Team Clinton's BlueLabs to be fair did the same thing and yet got much less media scrutiny than Cambridge Analytica. And that's not even counting the much-noted 'foreign influence' (hardly just Russia, Israel and Saudi Arabia have large targeted US-focused PR campaigns running all the time as well). Creepy dystopian mass surveillance and manipulation in the name of profit maximization, that's what I think of whenever someone talks about Facebook.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  And I'm sure someone targeted you with ads and false stories accusing Trump of being a white supremacist, which is why you believe crap like that.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I mean, there are numerous first hand reports of Trump saying pretty racist stuff that seem premised on the idea of white supremacy. "Only black people could live like that" when describing Chicago, for instance.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      "You ain't black if you don't vote for me" - Biden "You have poor kids and you have white kids" - Biden I don't know the context of the statement you mentioned, but I doubt it points to him being a white supremacist. Even what Biden says doesn't make someone a white supremacist (though his voting comment was bad), some things are just a slip of the tongue.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        I wasn't discussing Biden, I'm sure he's said plenty of racist stuff (although the second one was clear a slip of the tongue). "Only black people could live like that" when describing Chicago does not seem like a slip of the tongue, and seems more blatantly racist than either of the two things you've mentioned. “He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole'", etc. etc.
        hunterb123 5y ago
        That's hearsay from Michael Cohen, Trump's disgruntled, disgraced ex-lawyer. Trump has disputed the claim so we have no idea who's telling the truth. We should assume Trump innocent until Cohen proves it. But we have Biden on tape and audio saying people aren't black if they don't vote for him. One is a rumor, one is a fact. That's my point.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        Well he hasn't disputed the claim under oath :)
        5y ago
  - photochemsyn 5y ago
    I did a little dive on my own into the practices of BlueLabs and Cambridge Analytica just out of curiousity, and this kind of specific targeting seems to be the norm these days, as facilitated by outfits like Facebook and other data accumulators. Now, Trump is, like other politicians, a generally opportunisitic creature. I generally assume politicians either have no ideology at all (weathervanes), or have a quite flexible ideology that can change easily based on popular opinion. Not exactly straight shooters in other words. However, even if only 5% of the people who voted for Trump self-identified as 'white supremacists' - that's enough to put him in the winner's seat, isn't it? So his political affiliates and campaign managers could use Facebook's system to target that demographic with specific ads that would be disastrous with other demographics (Hispanic, Rust Belt, etc.). Now, the fact that they were willing to secretly woo this demographic is rather disturbing, I think. Of course Clinton's team could do the same thing; you could target, I don't know, trans activists with specific ads that would not fly with say, suburban wine moms or whatever. This is also creepy in my opinion. It's not that difficult of a concept to understand, is it?
suzzer99 5y ago
Same here. I think in 10-20 years the world will have come to the conclusion that blind algorithms to drive engagement are just too dangerous. Perhaps similar to how we eventually came to the conclusion that all cars should be required to have seatbelts.

photochemsyn 5y ago

It's not just product advertising, it's also political advertising which gets even creepier in my opinion. The two major outfits in 2016 (BlueLabs for Clinton, Cambridge Analytica for Trump) were spending hundreds of millions on these kind of targeted ad campaigns according to numerous disclosures. For example, I imagine Team Trump would target the white supremacist crowd (a relatively small % of the public) with one set of ads, and target Rust Belt voters (the key demographic that flipped the election) with trade issues and 'bringing back manufacturing' ads, although the latter group would likely have been turned off by the white supremacist content. Team Clinton's BlueLabs to be fair did the same thing and yet got much less media scrutiny than Cambridge Analytica. And that's not even counting the much-noted 'foreign influence' (hardly just Russia, Israel and Saudi Arabia have large targeted US-focused PR campaigns running all the time as well). Creepy dystopian mass surveillance and manipulation in the name of profit maximization, that's what I think of whenever someone talks about Facebook.

hunterb123 5y ago
And I'm sure someone targeted you with ads and false stories accusing Trump of being a white supremacist, which is why you believe crap like that.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I mean, there are numerous first hand reports of Trump saying pretty racist stuff that seem premised on the idea of white supremacy. "Only black people could live like that" when describing Chicago, for instance.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    "You ain't black if you don't vote for me" - Biden "You have poor kids and you have white kids" - Biden I don't know the context of the statement you mentioned, but I doubt it points to him being a white supremacist. Even what Biden says doesn't make someone a white supremacist (though his voting comment was bad), some things are just a slip of the tongue.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      I wasn't discussing Biden, I'm sure he's said plenty of racist stuff (although the second one was clear a slip of the tongue). "Only black people could live like that" when describing Chicago does not seem like a slip of the tongue, and seems more blatantly racist than either of the two things you've mentioned. “He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole'", etc. etc.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        That's hearsay from Michael Cohen, Trump's disgruntled, disgraced ex-lawyer. Trump has disputed the claim so we have no idea who's telling the truth. We should assume Trump innocent until Cohen proves it. But we have Biden on tape and audio saying people aren't black if they don't vote for him. One is a rumor, one is a fact. That's my point.
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        Well he hasn't disputed the claim under oath :)
        5y ago
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  I did a little dive on my own into the practices of BlueLabs and Cambridge Analytica just out of curiousity, and this kind of specific targeting seems to be the norm these days, as facilitated by outfits like Facebook and other data accumulators. Now, Trump is, like other politicians, a generally opportunisitic creature. I generally assume politicians either have no ideology at all (weathervanes), or have a quite flexible ideology that can change easily based on popular opinion. Not exactly straight shooters in other words. However, even if only 5% of the people who voted for Trump self-identified as 'white supremacists' - that's enough to put him in the winner's seat, isn't it? So his political affiliates and campaign managers could use Facebook's system to target that demographic with specific ads that would be disastrous with other demographics (Hispanic, Rust Belt, etc.). Now, the fact that they were willing to secretly woo this demographic is rather disturbing, I think. Of course Clinton's team could do the same thing; you could target, I don't know, trans activists with specific ads that would not fly with say, suburban wine moms or whatever. This is also creepy in my opinion. It's not that difficult of a concept to understand, is it?

suzzer99 5y ago

Same here. I think in 10-20 years the world will have come to the conclusion that blind algorithms to drive engagement are just too dangerous. Perhaps similar to how we eventually came to the conclusion that all cars should be required to have seatbelts.