5 ms·

These ads follows along in the proud tradition of banned ads that were designed to be banned from the onset because saying "we got banned" is useful for positio

These ads follows along in the proud tradition of banned ads that were designed to be banned from the onset because saying "we got banned" is useful for positioning yourself as dangerous to the establishment.

worik 4y ago
That is untrue. If Facebook were not shy about their algorithmic approach there would be nothing wrong with these ads. Not so much "...ads that were designed to be banned..." but ads designed to test an hypothesis.
- reb 4y ago
  Meta: I'm familiar with "an historic", but I've never seen "an hypothesis" before. Is "an before h-" a broader grammatical pattern than I realized?
  - lionkor 4y ago
    My guess would be people who primarily write, not speak, English. 'h' is a consonant after all, the fact that its like that here may not be apparent to people who write more than they speak English (as a second/third language)
  - hammock 4y ago
    Yes >In English, the pronunciation of ⟨h⟩ as /h/ can be analyzed as a voiceless vowel. That is, when the phoneme /h/ precedes a vowel, /h/ may be realized as a voiceless version of the subsequent vowel. For example the word ⟨hit⟩, /hɪt/ is realized as [ɪ̥ɪt] For words beginning with h and where the first syllable is unstressed (historic, hypothesis, but not hitter, happy) it can be appropriate to use "an" rather than "a" as the associated indefinite article.
    - Pfiffer 4y ago
      Anecdata point of one, but I voice the H on hypothesis. Im a native American English speaker, but from the northwest.
      - hammock 4y ago
        "Voiceless" in this context means you dont engage your larnyx/vocal cords (you don't create a pitch), not that you don't sound it out. Compare a whispered "ahhh" - voiceless - vs the "ahh" you say at the doctor - voiced.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      Isn't this an american english vs british english thing? I was puzzled by "an historic" for a long time and then I heard a british person say it and it made sense. Because personally I pronounce the h in historic, hypothesis, hitter, and happy virtually identically.
      - kelnos 4y ago
        Native American English speaker here (from northeast/mid-Atlantic, but living in NorCal for 20 years now), and I generally mostly drop the "h" in "historic", such that "an" sounds reasonable. Agree that dropping the "h" from the other words you mention would feel weird, though.
        kennywinker 4y ago
        I’m in the PNW, so a fairly different accent. If I say “an historic” the h gets minimized, but “a historic” sounds perfectly natural to my ear and “an” sounds wrong with all the other example words.
        alistairSH 4y ago
        Mid-Atlantic here. I'd say "a historic" with the harder 'h' sound. "an historic" sounds to me like "anhistoric" (as in "lacking history" kind of like "amoral")
        hammock 4y ago
        The word is "ahistoric," and ask yourself why you thought it was "anhistoric"... it's related to the reason why some say "an historic." ;) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ahistoric https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ahistoric
        alistairSH 4y ago
        Language is so messy. I say "a historic" and "ahistoric" differently, I think. The first with a hard 'h' and a slight pause between words. The second with soft/no 'h' and no pause. If I heard somebody say "anhistoric" (soft 'h', no pause), I'd think they meant "ahistoric" not "an historic". Of course, context probably makes it clear regardless. Growing up in DC with Scottish parents was always fun. Rolled Rs, different "wh" sound (Scottish English: wheels vs US English: weels) (noticeable expulsion of air on the 'wh' sound). Mary (lady), merry (happy), marry (get hitched) all should sound different to me, but in MidAtlantic English they're often the same. Same for Kerrie vs Carrie.
    - drexlspivey 4y ago
      All the words in this thread are coming from Ancient Greek (hypnosis, history, homo, hoplite, hero etc). In Ancient Greek these words don’t start with an h (υπνοση, ιστορια, ομο, οπλίτης, ηρωας etc). In Ancient Greek polytonic orthography, vowels can have one of two diacritic marks: οξεία and δασεία. The second one is used to denote the /h/ sound (rough breathing). Words starting with vowels with this mark in their translation to English added the H before the vowel to denote this sound because of the lack of diacritic marks/accents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_breathing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_breathing
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kraftman 4y ago
    The 'n' is really to help the flow as you are talking, so it depends on if you pronounce the 'h' or not. In british english you would nont say 'an historical' or 'an hyphothesis' since both are pronounced with the 'h'.
  - izzydata 4y ago
    The only example I had previously ever heard of was "an hour" because the H isn't pronounced. As far as I've ever heard it spoken the H in both hypothesis and historical are well pronounced so "an hypothesis" sounds jarringly incorrect to me.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  > but ads designed to test an hypothesis. I guess I don't really agree. The goal of an ad is to get new customers, not test hypotheses. If it was designed to test where the edges are, they wouldn't be blogging about it. I believe they tested the edges so they could find something that crossed the line, and then get publicity for being banned. But that's a question of intent, so who knows. Maybe they really thought this would be an awesome campaign, and are making lemonaid out of it getting banned.
  - thayne 4y ago
    Or it's possible that it was a hedged bet. If the ads were run, they would have an ad campaign that showed how much Facebook knows about you, if they were blocked, the would be able to write this blog post.
- Beldin 4y ago
  > ads designed to test an hypothesis. Just so we're clear on this: Experimentation on human subjects without consent and informing them is an ethical violation. It truly doesn't matter how justified you think your particular research question is, or how small you would rate your ethical transgression.
  - tacotacotaco 4y ago
    Then you agree that Facebook shouldn’t have run psychological experiments[0] on its own users to manipulate their emotional state? [0] https://www.wired.com/2014/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-facebooks-manipulative-experiment/ https://www.wired.com/2014/06/everything-you-need-to-know-ab...
  - worik 4y ago
    It is not "Experimentation on human subjects" to inform them of the things that drive ads to them.
  - paledot 4y ago
    By your reasoning, only ads like this should be permitted, since they're the only ads that explicitly inform the user that they've been targeted.
Waterluvian 4y ago
Which doesn’t exactly invalidate them. Sometimes manifestly unjust laws are challenged via an index violation of the law with the specific goal of getting the law thrown out.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Sure, totally. I wasn't suggesting it's invalid, just that sometimes "we got banned, oh no!" was the plan all along.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    My mistake for misinterpreting. I agree!

worik 4y ago

That is untrue. If Facebook were not shy about their algorithmic approach there would be nothing wrong with these ads. Not so much "...ads that were designed to be banned..." but ads designed to test an hypothesis.

reb 4y ago
Meta: I'm familiar with "an historic", but I've never seen "an hypothesis" before. Is "an before h-" a broader grammatical pattern than I realized?
- lionkor 4y ago
  My guess would be people who primarily write, not speak, English. 'h' is a consonant after all, the fact that its like that here may not be apparent to people who write more than they speak English (as a second/third language)
- hammock 4y ago
  Yes >In English, the pronunciation of ⟨h⟩ as /h/ can be analyzed as a voiceless vowel. That is, when the phoneme /h/ precedes a vowel, /h/ may be realized as a voiceless version of the subsequent vowel. For example the word ⟨hit⟩, /hɪt/ is realized as [ɪ̥ɪt] For words beginning with h and where the first syllable is unstressed (historic, hypothesis, but not hitter, happy) it can be appropriate to use "an" rather than "a" as the associated indefinite article.
  - Pfiffer 4y ago
    Anecdata point of one, but I voice the H on hypothesis. Im a native American English speaker, but from the northwest.
    - hammock 4y ago
      "Voiceless" in this context means you dont engage your larnyx/vocal cords (you don't create a pitch), not that you don't sound it out. Compare a whispered "ahhh" - voiceless - vs the "ahh" you say at the doctor - voiced.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Isn't this an american english vs british english thing? I was puzzled by "an historic" for a long time and then I heard a british person say it and it made sense. Because personally I pronounce the h in historic, hypothesis, hitter, and happy virtually identically.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      Native American English speaker here (from northeast/mid-Atlantic, but living in NorCal for 20 years now), and I generally mostly drop the "h" in "historic", such that "an" sounds reasonable. Agree that dropping the "h" from the other words you mention would feel weird, though.
      - kennywinker 4y ago
        I’m in the PNW, so a fairly different accent. If I say “an historic” the h gets minimized, but “a historic” sounds perfectly natural to my ear and “an” sounds wrong with all the other example words.
        alistairSH 4y ago
        Mid-Atlantic here. I'd say "a historic" with the harder 'h' sound. "an historic" sounds to me like "anhistoric" (as in "lacking history" kind of like "amoral")
        hammock 4y ago
        The word is "ahistoric," and ask yourself why you thought it was "anhistoric"... it's related to the reason why some say "an historic." ;) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ahistoric https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ahistoric
        alistairSH 4y ago
        Language is so messy. I say "a historic" and "ahistoric" differently, I think. The first with a hard 'h' and a slight pause between words. The second with soft/no 'h' and no pause. If I heard somebody say "anhistoric" (soft 'h', no pause), I'd think they meant "ahistoric" not "an historic". Of course, context probably makes it clear regardless. Growing up in DC with Scottish parents was always fun. Rolled Rs, different "wh" sound (Scottish English: wheels vs US English: weels) (noticeable expulsion of air on the 'wh' sound). Mary (lady), merry (happy), marry (get hitched) all should sound different to me, but in MidAtlantic English they're often the same. Same for Kerrie vs Carrie.
  - drexlspivey 4y ago
    All the words in this thread are coming from Ancient Greek (hypnosis, history, homo, hoplite, hero etc). In Ancient Greek these words don’t start with an h (υπνοση, ιστορια, ομο, οπλίτης, ηρωας etc). In Ancient Greek polytonic orthography, vowels can have one of two diacritic marks: οξεία and δασεία. The second one is used to denote the /h/ sound (rough breathing). Words starting with vowels with this mark in their translation to English added the H before the vowel to denote this sound because of the lack of diacritic marks/accents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_breathing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_breathing
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kraftman 4y ago
  The 'n' is really to help the flow as you are talking, so it depends on if you pronounce the 'h' or not. In british english you would nont say 'an historical' or 'an hyphothesis' since both are pronounced with the 'h'.
- izzydata 4y ago
  The only example I had previously ever heard of was "an hour" because the H isn't pronounced. As far as I've ever heard it spoken the H in both hypothesis and historical are well pronounced so "an hypothesis" sounds jarringly incorrect to me.
kennywinker 4y ago
> but ads designed to test an hypothesis. I guess I don't really agree. The goal of an ad is to get new customers, not test hypotheses. If it was designed to test where the edges are, they wouldn't be blogging about it. I believe they tested the edges so they could find something that crossed the line, and then get publicity for being banned. But that's a question of intent, so who knows. Maybe they really thought this would be an awesome campaign, and are making lemonaid out of it getting banned.
- thayne 4y ago
  Or it's possible that it was a hedged bet. If the ads were run, they would have an ad campaign that showed how much Facebook knows about you, if they were blocked, the would be able to write this blog post.
Beldin 4y ago
> ads designed to test an hypothesis. Just so we're clear on this: Experimentation on human subjects without consent and informing them is an ethical violation. It truly doesn't matter how justified you think your particular research question is, or how small you would rate your ethical transgression.
- tacotacotaco 4y ago
  Then you agree that Facebook shouldn’t have run psychological experiments[0] on its own users to manipulate their emotional state? [0] https://www.wired.com/2014/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-facebooks-manipulative-experiment/ https://www.wired.com/2014/06/everything-you-need-to-know-ab...
- worik 4y ago
  It is not "Experimentation on human subjects" to inform them of the things that drive ads to them.
- paledot 4y ago
  By your reasoning, only ads like this should be permitted, since they're the only ads that explicitly inform the user that they've been targeted.

Waterluvian 4y ago

Which doesn’t exactly invalidate them. Sometimes manifestly unjust laws are challenged via an index violation of the law with the specific goal of getting the law thrown out.

kennywinker 4y ago
Sure, totally. I wasn't suggesting it's invalid, just that sometimes "we got banned, oh no!" was the plan all along.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  My mistake for misinterpreting. I agree!