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True, and it's so ironic when the situation reverses... Of the ads that recently slipped through my adblockers, one was a xenophobic piece of Hungarian propaga

True, and it's so ironic when the situation reverses... Of the ads that recently slipped through my adblockers, one was a xenophobic piece of Hungarian propaganda against illegal immigrants. It was shown in the middle of a Minecraft video (a game without binary gender); that was made by a disabled person; to people living in a city where ~50% of the population was born elsewhere. Google does have all of that context, and yet this is what their ad selection algorithm picks. This is one among many reasons why I have absolutely zero moral reservations about blocking YouTube ads. (inb4 ad money: I do support creators directly, as my budget allows.)

kmeisthax 3y ago
Google doesn't care about the context, they care about who pays the most for the ad. Hungarian fascists have deep pockets[0] and are willing to spend shittons of money to make you watch lies about immigrants[1]. Most of that money is wasted, but if they can radicalize even one out of a million viewers, they won. So they pay loads for it. Yes, this is the same math that scammers run on - because fascism is a scam category, alongside advanced-fee fraud, refund scammers, and fake tech support companies. Your grandpa thinks the immigrants are invading the country for the same reason he thinks he needs to wire $10,000 to the 'bank' of a Nigerian 'prince'. also > It was shown in the middle of a Minecraft video (a game without binary gender) For the same reasons as above, the creator of Minecraft went from "I don't want gender in my game" to "all women are evil", because he isolated himself in an LA mansion and read nothing but Twitter. He also had a girlfriend he broke up with. This makes you vulnerable to being fed bullshit that agrees with you - in the same way that expecting a UPS package might make you vulnerable to clicking a fake UPS text that steals your login info. Either that, or Notch was a trans inclusive radical misogynist[2] the whole time! Now, let's say you're a scammer. Your 1-in-a-million odds suck - but what if you could pay more money to find more vulnerable people to send texts to? Like, even if you went from paying $1 CPM[3] for 1-in-a-million odds to $10 CPM for 1-in-ten-thousand, which is mathematically identical, you still get an advantage because less people can see what you're trying to steal. Targeted advertising lets you do this[4], and for unrelated reasons, legitimate advertisers will pay more to target their ads to a smaller but more lucrative cohort as well. So Google inherently makes more money the more they build out tools for scammers to do their scamming. You are perfectly in the right to block ads. I pay for YouTube Premium but I won't yell at anyone who uses uBlock Origin. [0] To be clear, we don't know exactly where the money comes from, though I can guess either Russia or Saudi Arabia [1] The core irony of fascism is that the most efficient way to demonize the other is to point out that the other also has a fascist wing. e.g. in America, Christofascists yell and scream that we need a Muslim ban to keep Islamofascist terrorists out. [2] See also: James Somerton [3] Cost per French thousand [4] If you read between the lines I'm accusing Google for the last decade of democratic backsliding.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >because fascism is a scam category, alongside advanced-fee fraud, refund scammers, and fake tech support companies. Facism or not, those heavy ad campaigns come from the most extreme ends of the spectrum. And the new age will adapt to new tech faster. It's no suprise this is the result of it all, especially when platforms can claim article 243 to prevent any litigation against them. >For the same reasons as above, the creator of Minecraft went from "I don't want gender in my game" to "all women are evil", because he isolated himself in an LA mansion and read nothing but Twitter. ehh, who knows. 10 years is a long time and the first statement was made some 8 years prior to the 2nd. Could be bad experiences IRL or on the net, or both. Could be wounds much much older than Minecraft coming up. >You are perfectly in the right to block ads. I pay for YouTube Premium but I won't yell at anyone who uses uBlock Origin. Google has plenty of money and adtech as a concept is the antithesis to how I operate (let's COMPLETELY TANK the performance of your web browsing because people will pay us to be hostile t the user. And then tank it more so we have proof that the user actually got successfully harassed). But from a purely logical perspective, I don't like the argument of "google has bad ads, therefore I block all ads". That just doesn't track well.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    The problem isn't just bad ads, it's ad targeting. Bad advertisers love targeting because it does surveillance work for them, at scale. If Google did not offer targeted advertising, bad advertising would be far less effective and easier to spot. In fact, we know this because after Apple turned ad tracking IDs into an opt-in affair, iPhone users suddenly stopped falling for scams as often. > especially when platforms can claim article 243 to prevent any litigation against them CDA Section 230 (or just "CDA 230"), and this actually isn't the reason why platforms get away with this shit. All CDA 230 says is that moderating your platform doesn't mean you're liable for defamation that you miss. This is because of a prior court case that litigated the opposite. The Wolf of Wall Street[0] sued two online services for not taking down speech he wanted to censor. One of them was ruled as not liable because they didn't take down anything; the other was ruled as liable because they took down something. So taking away CDA 230 would do is turn every forum more moderated than 4chan into a censorship hellscape as rich people perpetually demanded any speech they didn't like be taken down, or worse, sued companies into oblivion for hosting your own speech. You would not be able to sue Google because they served you a fake Elon Musk crypto grift ad any more than you already are able to. What you really want is to copypaste EU GDPR into US law. This would make ad targeting illegal, which thus would make scam advertising ineffective, because scams rely on surveillance in order to scale. [0] As in, the guy the movie was about
kazinator 3y ago
Youtube puts ads for investment funds in the middle of videos for three-year-olds.

kmeisthax 3y ago

Google doesn't care about the context, they care about who pays the most for the ad. Hungarian fascists have deep pockets[0] and are willing to spend shittons of money to make you watch lies about immigrants[1]. Most of that money is wasted, but if they can radicalize even one out of a million viewers, they won. So they pay loads for it. Yes, this is the same math that scammers run on - because fascism is a scam category, alongside advanced-fee fraud, refund scammers, and fake tech support companies. Your grandpa thinks the immigrants are invading the country for the same reason he thinks he needs to wire $10,000 to the 'bank' of a Nigerian 'prince'. also > It was shown in the middle of a Minecraft video (a game without binary gender) For the same reasons as above, the creator of Minecraft went from "I don't want gender in my game" to "all women are evil", because he isolated himself in an LA mansion and read nothing but Twitter. He also had a girlfriend he broke up with. This makes you vulnerable to being fed bullshit that agrees with you - in the same way that expecting a UPS package might make you vulnerable to clicking a fake UPS text that steals your login info. Either that, or Notch was a trans inclusive radical misogynist[2] the whole time! Now, let's say you're a scammer. Your 1-in-a-million odds suck - but what if you could pay more money to find more vulnerable people to send texts to? Like, even if you went from paying $1 CPM[3] for 1-in-a-million odds to $10 CPM for 1-in-ten-thousand, which is mathematically identical, you still get an advantage because less people can see what you're trying to steal. Targeted advertising lets you do this[4], and for unrelated reasons, legitimate advertisers will pay more to target their ads to a smaller but more lucrative cohort as well. So Google inherently makes more money the more they build out tools for scammers to do their scamming. You are perfectly in the right to block ads. I pay for YouTube Premium but I won't yell at anyone who uses uBlock Origin. [0] To be clear, we don't know exactly where the money comes from, though I can guess either Russia or Saudi Arabia [1] The core irony of fascism is that the most efficient way to demonize the other is to point out that the other also has a fascist wing. e.g. in America, Christofascists yell and scream that we need a Muslim ban to keep Islamofascist terrorists out. [2] See also: James Somerton [3] Cost per French thousand [4] If you read between the lines I'm accusing Google for the last decade of democratic backsliding.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>because fascism is a scam category, alongside advanced-fee fraud, refund scammers, and fake tech support companies. Facism or not, those heavy ad campaigns come from the most extreme ends of the spectrum. And the new age will adapt to new tech faster. It's no suprise this is the result of it all, especially when platforms can claim article 243 to prevent any litigation against them. >For the same reasons as above, the creator of Minecraft went from "I don't want gender in my game" to "all women are evil", because he isolated himself in an LA mansion and read nothing but Twitter. ehh, who knows. 10 years is a long time and the first statement was made some 8 years prior to the 2nd. Could be bad experiences IRL or on the net, or both. Could be wounds much much older than Minecraft coming up. >You are perfectly in the right to block ads. I pay for YouTube Premium but I won't yell at anyone who uses uBlock Origin. Google has plenty of money and adtech as a concept is the antithesis to how I operate (let's COMPLETELY TANK the performance of your web browsing because people will pay us to be hostile t the user. And then tank it more so we have proof that the user actually got successfully harassed). But from a purely logical perspective, I don't like the argument of "google has bad ads, therefore I block all ads". That just doesn't track well.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  The problem isn't just bad ads, it's ad targeting. Bad advertisers love targeting because it does surveillance work for them, at scale. If Google did not offer targeted advertising, bad advertising would be far less effective and easier to spot. In fact, we know this because after Apple turned ad tracking IDs into an opt-in affair, iPhone users suddenly stopped falling for scams as often. > especially when platforms can claim article 243 to prevent any litigation against them CDA Section 230 (or just "CDA 230"), and this actually isn't the reason why platforms get away with this shit. All CDA 230 says is that moderating your platform doesn't mean you're liable for defamation that you miss. This is because of a prior court case that litigated the opposite. The Wolf of Wall Street[0] sued two online services for not taking down speech he wanted to censor. One of them was ruled as not liable because they didn't take down anything; the other was ruled as liable because they took down something. So taking away CDA 230 would do is turn every forum more moderated than 4chan into a censorship hellscape as rich people perpetually demanded any speech they didn't like be taken down, or worse, sued companies into oblivion for hosting your own speech. You would not be able to sue Google because they served you a fake Elon Musk crypto grift ad any more than you already are able to. What you really want is to copypaste EU GDPR into US law. This would make ad targeting illegal, which thus would make scam advertising ineffective, because scams rely on surveillance in order to scale. [0] As in, the guy the movie was about

kazinator 3y ago

Youtube puts ads for investment funds in the middle of videos for three-year-olds.