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I get that this is outrageous, then again I find it hard to be outraged right now, this seems predictable given the rise of ad targeting and our past experience

by thih9 3y ago

I get that this is outrageous, then again I find it hard to be outraged right now, this seems predictable given the rise of ad targeting and our past experience, e.g.: - Ads that follow new mothers even after miscarriage [1], - Age discrimination in employment ads [2], - Cambridge Analytica was also mostly about targeting, - probably many more. Perhaps we should explore some actual transparency in the context of ad targeting. [1]: "How to stop pregnancy ads following you after a loss" https://www.tommys.org/about-us/charity-news/how-stop-pregnancy-ads-following-you-after-loss https://www.tommys.org/about-us/charity-news/how-stop-pregna... [2]: "Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads" https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-ads-age-discrimination-targeting https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-ads-age-discrimi...

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Obligatory reminder that advertising is a cancer on modern society? It's getting funny - in a sad, tragicomic way - to see people getting so worked up about other people having biases against them, afraid that such people being allowed to publish/speak/exist will somehow, somewhen lead to bad thing for you and yours. At the same time, people are completely ignoring that there exists a whole industry that's actively malicious, that's harming you right now - one that doesn't even hate you, but rather denies you your humanity, and cares only about extracting some money off you. If you become poor, or sick, or die in the process? This group couldn't care less. Yes, that's the advertising industry, and associated sales and marketing cultures. I suppose the trick is, it's hard for people to realize who's consistently screwing with their lives - with tragic outcomes such as those hinted in the comments above - when the perpetrator controls the very means people use to communicate and learn about the world. EDIT: It's doubly hard because this means the perpetrators are among us - among our friends, among our families, even ourselves - many whose work involves either directly or indirectly, to a greater or lesser degree, attempting to screw over innocent strangers. It shows that, the way modern economy is structured, it's really hard for anyone to be fully innocent. It's very uncomfortable to think about, even more uncomfortable to talk about. It's much easier to focus instead on hypothetical others, somewhere out there, that are out to get us.
- jon-wood 3y ago
  > If you become poor, or sick, or die in the process? This group couldn't care less. I was going to disagree with this, but then I was opening with a disclaimer along the lines of "other than the ones green washing the oil industry, and the ones who were encouraging people to smoke long after it was known to be dangerous, and the ones working for gambling companies, and the ones selling alcohol to alcoholics". I used to work for a big ad agency, and while I'm not aware of any projects we took on which were actively harmful to quite that degree there was definitely a general culture of not really caring about whether or not what we did was worthwhile. Several projects I worked could only be described as redistribution of money from one company to another, because we all knew they'd have no real benefit to anyone - the people being advertised at didn't want the ads, and the company being advertised for wasn't going to get any sales from them. I was explicitly told on a few occasions not to add detailed analytics because then the client would have hard numbers on how useless the campaign was.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    The Doonesbury comic featured Mike Doonesbury, an ad man, who invented the "Mr. Butts" character. It was too much, and he dropped out, to eventually become a successful software entrepreneur.
- bytehowl 3y ago
  Oof, you appear to have struck a nerve there, friend. Have an upvote, as I agree wholeheartedly.

by thih9 3y ago

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Obligatory reminder that advertising is a cancer on modern society? It's getting funny - in a sad, tragicomic way - to see people getting so worked up about other people having biases against them, afraid that such people being allowed to publish/speak/exist will somehow, somewhen lead to bad thing for you and yours. At the same time, people are completely ignoring that there exists a whole industry that's actively malicious, that's harming you right now - one that doesn't even hate you, but rather denies you your humanity, and cares only about extracting some money off you. If you become poor, or sick, or die in the process? This group couldn't care less. Yes, that's the advertising industry, and associated sales and marketing cultures. I suppose the trick is, it's hard for people to realize who's consistently screwing with their lives - with tragic outcomes such as those hinted in the comments above - when the perpetrator controls the very means people use to communicate and learn about the world. EDIT: It's doubly hard because this means the perpetrators are among us - among our friends, among our families, even ourselves - many whose work involves either directly or indirectly, to a greater or lesser degree, attempting to screw over innocent strangers. It shows that, the way modern economy is structured, it's really hard for anyone to be fully innocent. It's very uncomfortable to think about, even more uncomfortable to talk about. It's much easier to focus instead on hypothetical others, somewhere out there, that are out to get us.

jon-wood 3y ago
> If you become poor, or sick, or die in the process? This group couldn't care less. I was going to disagree with this, but then I was opening with a disclaimer along the lines of "other than the ones green washing the oil industry, and the ones who were encouraging people to smoke long after it was known to be dangerous, and the ones working for gambling companies, and the ones selling alcohol to alcoholics". I used to work for a big ad agency, and while I'm not aware of any projects we took on which were actively harmful to quite that degree there was definitely a general culture of not really caring about whether or not what we did was worthwhile. Several projects I worked could only be described as redistribution of money from one company to another, because we all knew they'd have no real benefit to anyone - the people being advertised at didn't want the ads, and the company being advertised for wasn't going to get any sales from them. I was explicitly told on a few occasions not to add detailed analytics because then the client would have hard numbers on how useless the campaign was.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  The Doonesbury comic featured Mike Doonesbury, an ad man, who invented the "Mr. Butts" character. It was too much, and he dropped out, to eventually become a successful software entrepreneur.
bytehowl 3y ago
Oof, you appear to have struck a nerve there, friend. Have an upvote, as I agree wholeheartedly.