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I increasingly believe that there are no legitimate uses of micro-targeted ads and only harmful ones. The only real distinction is whether or not it is harmful

I increasingly believe that there are no legitimate uses of micro-targeted ads and only harmful ones. The only real distinction is whether or not it is harmful to the target (user), the advertiser (failed impressions), and/or the advertisement network (Google allowing malware companies to spend pennies on the dollar to sell bad software malware launchers in turn makes Google look bad). Micro-targeting may go down as a multi-billion dollar industry-wide mistake by the time this plays out past logical extremes like this "most software download ads are now malware launchers and Google can't seem to or doesn't want to fix it".

bcrl 4y ago
I agree on that point. I believe that micro-targeting of ads is how harmful content (outright scams as well as conspiracy theories and other misinformation) is able to get promoted in ways that allow it to proliferate which was not possible in the past. My theory is that back when TV stations and newspapers were locally owned, editorial staff filtered out the extreme and harmful content as a means to protect their own reputation. Being trustworthy was important if the owner was an active member in the community. If you wanted to promote conspiracy theories, the reasonable people who saw those ads would complain about them and go to the editors and owners of the content delivery platforms to get those ads pulled. The whole system was self regulating in a way that online platforms have made impossible. As ownership of content platforms is disconnected from local communities, it becomes more profitable to engage in exploitative behaviour that would not be acceptable on a local scale. Computers simply don't care if you trust them or not, and we the programmers have yet to make that an important factor in how platforms decide which content is promoted to end users. I have no idea how to improve this situation outside of legislation by our governments.
- LocalH 4y ago
  >As ownership of content platforms is disconnected from local communities, it becomes more profitable to engage in exploitative behaviour that would not be acceptable on a local scale. Computers simply don't care if you trust them or not, and we the programmers have yet to make that an important factor in how platforms decide which content is promoted to end users. I believe this is by design, at some level. The programmers don't make that an important factor, because the ones who actually make the decisions don't make that an important factor.

bcrl 4y ago

I agree on that point. I believe that micro-targeting of ads is how harmful content (outright scams as well as conspiracy theories and other misinformation) is able to get promoted in ways that allow it to proliferate which was not possible in the past. My theory is that back when TV stations and newspapers were locally owned, editorial staff filtered out the extreme and harmful content as a means to protect their own reputation. Being trustworthy was important if the owner was an active member in the community. If you wanted to promote conspiracy theories, the reasonable people who saw those ads would complain about them and go to the editors and owners of the content delivery platforms to get those ads pulled. The whole system was self regulating in a way that online platforms have made impossible. As ownership of content platforms is disconnected from local communities, it becomes more profitable to engage in exploitative behaviour that would not be acceptable on a local scale. Computers simply don't care if you trust them or not, and we the programmers have yet to make that an important factor in how platforms decide which content is promoted to end users. I have no idea how to improve this situation outside of legislation by our governments.

LocalH 4y ago
>As ownership of content platforms is disconnected from local communities, it becomes more profitable to engage in exploitative behaviour that would not be acceptable on a local scale. Computers simply don't care if you trust them or not, and we the programmers have yet to make that an important factor in how platforms decide which content is promoted to end users. I believe this is by design, at some level. The programmers don't make that an important factor, because the ones who actually make the decisions don't make that an important factor.