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Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers
- achempion 2y agounpaywalled: https://archive.ph/20240808040427/https://www.ft.com/content/b3bb80f4-4e01-4ce6-8358-f4f8638790f8 https://archive.ph/20240808040427/https://www.ft.com/content...
- smcin 2y agohttps://archive.ph/AVRL9 https://archive.ph/AVRL9
- adamors 2y agoThank you
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoThe Instagram campaign deliberately targeted a group of users labelled as “unknown” in its advertising system, which Google knew skewed towards under-18s, these people said. Meanwhile, documents seen by the FT suggest steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised. The project disregarded Google’s rules that prohibit personalising and targeting ads to under-18s, including serving ads based on demographics. It also has policies against the circumvention of its own guidelines, or “proxy targeting”. …However, Google did not deny using the “unknown” loophole, adding: “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies.” Yup, those crafty sales reps orchestrated a multimillion dollar agreement between a chief competitor. While also adapting the code to find the gaps and target the desired under 18s.
- alex_suzuki 2y ago> Meanwhile, documents seen by the FT suggest steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised. I read the article, but it didn’t go into the content of those documents. Would be interesting to know.
- LiquidSky 2y agoAs always with these massive corporate failures/crimes it turns out no one in any important position knew anything and it was a small group of low-level bad actors causing all the trouble. How sad that all these companies are plagued with this while the leadership is just trying to virtuously do good business!
- sandspar 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised if upper level people tend to hire reports with discretion, people who let them keep their hands clean. Dictator: "You mentioned a... reeducation project of some kind...?" Minister of Internal Affairs: "Yes sir, it's been taken care of already."
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- TekMol 2y agoSo this was about ads for Instagram on YouTube, targeting people under 18? I am surprised that this is something that has to be kept secret. What is the main problem with it?
- esperent 2y agoThe main problem is that it's targeted advertising of children.
- brainwad 2y agoSo is all the advertising run during morning cartoons, and that targets an even younger demo than 13-17 year olds.
- piva00 2y agoChildren can't interact with these ads to get into the wheel of more ads targeting their specific tastes. Very different level, and degree.
- tgv 2y agoThose ads are bad, but instagram and its ilk are quite addictive. If don't think it's ok to turn a large group of children into screen zombies because "ads during cartoons".
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kreyenborgi 2y agoAnd it's frankly disgusting that some countries allow such ads.
- nope1000 2y agoYes
- meiraleal 2y ago
- a2128 2y agoThis reads like a tragic story. Once you've collected enough data on every internet user out there to group them into different advertising cohorts, the remaining ungrouped users, by process of elimination (due to privacy or targeted advertising laws), are children; and now they can be targeted just as easily.
- throw12347825 2y agoA tragic story would be one where folks in positions of power in these organizations saw these crises coming from a million miles away, tried to avoid disaster, and failed. I don't think this is a tragic story. I think this is a rather boring and formulaic plot we're seeing over and over: the story of late-stage capitalism and the application of value-extraction to human social structures resulting in comically terrible outcomes.
- ath3nd 2y ago[flagged]
- adamc 2y agoThis is a problem that could be solved with serious penalties (say, 20 years in prison for executives involved) and serious enforcement.
- ssklash 2y agoIt's really not though. All that money goes somewhere, and not just in their pockets. Some goes to make sure that serious penalties and serious enforcement doesn't happen, because that too is another avenue of ensuring maximum profit.
- throw10920 2y ago> Some goes to make sure that serious penalties and serious enforcement doesn't happen Representatives aren't emotionless puppets that respond to money. They're people, and they can be good or bad. In this case, they're bad, and they're the ones to blame, because they're responsible for protecting consumers from bad companies. > that too is another avenue of ensuring maximum profit This is also insanely deluded and ignorant of reality. Every communist country in existence has power deals between bureaucrats in charge of the state, and bureaucrats in charge of producing things. This is a result of human nature, and capitalism doesn't come into it at all.
- miki123211 2y agoFunnily enough, this is one case where contextual advertising would actually work better than what we have now. With contextual advertising, you could very easily target children with very specific interests and/or in specific age groups by targeting the ads at the videos they most often watch.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago> this is one case where contextual advertising would actually work better than what we have now. No. No. No. That a) would involve tracking and b) what we have now are ads based on what you bought/ have looked at. I already have an 'x', why would i want more ads for it...or ads for what some algorithm thinks i might be interested in, related to it. Unless I choose to.
- iamacyborg 2y agoContextual ads wouldn’t require tracking as it’s just advertising based on the page context, ie a video about a videogame will have different ads than an article about remortgaging. There should probably be laws in place to prevent advertising targeting children though, regardless of the advertising mechanism.
- tantalor 2y agoThis might violate the policy against "proxy targeting"
- miki123211 2y ago> There should probably be laws in place to prevent advertising targeting children though, regardless of the advertising mechanism How would you even implement that? Do you mean no ads on TV channels for children and websites that are rarely frequented by adults?
- soared 2y agoSame way you implement all the other advertising laws - make it a law, identify companies breaking the law. Anyone could run a commercial where someone drinks alcohol, but that would be illegal.
- edpichler 2y agoMarket data science is tragically fascinating. It's a superpower, capable of being used for eithger good or bad.
- Nasrudith 2y agoWhat would it look like when it is being used for good? Not being a smartass implying its existence, legitimately wondering.
- polotics 2y agoFrom what I hear the chinese Tik-Tok equivalent Douyin does manage to educate and raise STEM interest and help... https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/10i4gks/tiktok_in_china_versus_the_united_states_60/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/10i4gks/tiktok_in_c...
- gretch 2y agoThere's lots of products that people really need and could help improve their lives, but they don't know about the existence of the problem/solution. For example "Hey do you have hip pain when walking down the stairs? Turns out this is extremely common and we solved it with this special walking stick. Click here to buy the walking stick" "Were you an Iraq war veteran who served between 2004 and 2006? Turns out the government owes you money. Click here to get it" "Do you like Blink 182? Turns out they are actually touring again and they are in your city next weekend. Buy tickets now" There's tons of stuff out there that would be a win-win transaction, if only ppl knew about it.
- rchaud 2y ago> Hey do you have hip pain when walking down the stairs? Turns out this is extremely common and we solved it with this special walking stick. Click here to buy the walking stick" This is where a forward thinking marketer would say "we have a database of email addresses of people reporting hip problems, how much will you pay me for access to them?", aka what Google did.
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- fergonco 2y agoSince I got kids I realized how they are the weakest link in the chain and are targeted by everyone. From tobacco (at the end nobody starts smoking at 30), to "free" cartoons (peppa pig backpack is not free, though), school book sellers. Heck, even the school this year pressured to put my kid in their social media. There is a whole world of people making their living out of your kids. Sorry for the rant. This is just another two. Does not surprise me.
- Unbefleckt 2y agoAlso sugary sweets are aimed at children, for whom a dose of sugar probably hits much harder. As someone who managed to quit sugar, it was like a drug addiction.
- pickledoyster 2y ago> This is just another two. These two control around half of the online ad industry, though
- lnsru 2y agoYes. And as parent one must fight against multiple multibillion dollar industries. Starting with food ending with toys, games, influencers and everything in between. I was neutral when I started working in cellphone industry and kids were small. Now when I see how teens siting in the corner watching worthless stupid YouTube videos on the phone for hours I don’t feel well. Luckily I quit that industry and think it’s a cousin of big tobacco at the end despite advertisements telling some other things.
- imiric 2y ago"We're sorry." This is not surprising. Google has a history violating the privacy of and targetting ads to not only teenagers, but children: - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/business/youtube-ads-kids-children-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/business/youtube-ads-kids... - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/business/media/youtube-kids-ftc-complaint.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/business/media/youtube-ki... - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/media/google-youtube-children-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/business/media/google-you... - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube-fine-ftc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube... - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/technology/youtube-google-children-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/technology/youtube-google... When will governments wake up and put a stop to this? Their inaction is simply a sign of complicity. Absolutely disgraceful and criminal behavior. Everyone working at these companies: you're partly to blame, whether you're directly involved or not. Reconsider the behavior you're supporting, and quit.
- throw12347825 2y ago[flagged]
- londons_explore 2y agoNot allowing advertising to children I think isn't the correct route for society. Instead we should prevent children having money. Until you're 16, you may not handle money. You may not buy things for money. You may not sell things. You may not enter into contracts to exchange money. Your parents however can do all of those things on your behalf. At that point, advertising to children no longer is relevant - the children cannot buy the advertised things.
- throw12347825 2y agoYep, drawing red lines around age of consent has worked so well in the past, I think this is the way. I'm so glad we have simple and effective solutions like this. Otherwise can you imagine the kinds of problems we'd have with kids vaping, buying lootboxes and scrolling social media designed to hijack their not-yet-fully-developed-brains?
- slimjimgrin 2y ago[dead]
- xlii 2y agoI think that nowadays industry flavored joke of “you either die a hero or live long enough to become…” should end with Google/Meta. What a dirtbags.
- anal_reactor 2y agoRemember when everyone cheered when Google was winning lawsuits because they were the small guys?
- joemaller1 2y agoYes. How gray is your beard? "Don't be evil."
- Modified3019 2y agoFunny enough, fireship had a good take on it just the other day. "As a tech company you either go bankrupt as a hero or live long enough to become an illegal monoply" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jx2dDV2eWBM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jx2dDV2eWBM
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- okdood64 2y agoThere's plenty of marketing targeted towards children outside of Big Tech. What's the difference when they do it?
- Nasrudith 2y agoThey aren’t new players with potential electoral influence, and the old media players are in decline.
- rchaud 2y agoTV, radio and newspaper ads are regulated by the FTC. Advertising on these mediums is limited (24 hours in a day, X number of pages in a paper) and illegal content can be easily tracked and archived, and prosecuted. Big Tech serves an ungodly number of ads from all kinds of scrupulous and unscrupulous parties. Ad content is almost impossible to track and monitor. Big Tech says "let us self-regulate" while also saying "it's not possible to ensure thaf every single ad we serve complies with the law, we're doing our best".
- jl6 2y agoTeenage mental health crisis is web scale!
- andrepd 2y ago"How we scaled depressify.js to over 100 million consumers"
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- aeurielesn 2y agoNothing will change as long as C-suite roles keep breaking the law and walking away scott free. Also goes for the investors promoting this behavior at startup level.
- andrepd 2y agoIt's all a natural consequence of capitalism. Heavy regulation is needed for even a semblance of a healthy society, but unfortunately capitalism's incentives themselves make regulation an uphill battle. A mixed economy with strong regulation seems to be the best system we've come up with so far. Unfortunately it's a tough sell because we're obsessed about GDP numbers and making like go up instead of actually improving our lives. We prefer having a couple trillion-$ companies wreaking havoc on our societies and especially on teenagers and children than not having those companies.
- riedel 2y agoThis seems to be the motivation of EU regulators. However, regulation also needs to be enforcible in a global setting. Also one needs to understand collateral damage to smaller enterprises (recent EU regulations only tries to target large platforms) and economy as a whole by leaving large legal uncertainties. In the end also with heavy regulations often the most ignorant players will survive. We should rather make sure try that taxes are paid where the potential damages occur.
- andrepd 2y agoThe "big company clauses" as you say do solve most of those issues: they avoid burdening small enterprises with unreasonable amounts of regulation, but they ensure (very) big companies with huge influence which act for all purposes as public platforms, and not merely as "normal" companies which happen to be very big, do have extra impositions.
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- kgbcia 2y agoStill waiting for cookies to be removed
- wslh 2y agoWhen I was a child, the conspiracy theory among kids was that Coca-Cola inserted subliminal ads by interlacing a can of Coke within TV series or movies. I cannot believe reality surpasses all those fantasies without scrutiny. Even political propaganda between left and right wings, 1984, and other similar scenarios sound like satire.
- Terretta 2y ago> When I was a child, the conspiracy theory among kids was that Coca-Cola inserted subliminal ads by interlacing a can of Coke within TV series or movies. I cannot believe reality surpasses all those fantasies. Reader: Yeah, that happened... Narrator: It did: https://www.businessinsider.com/subliminal-ads-2011-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/subliminal-ads-2011-5
- crazygringo 2y agoNo, the idea that you can insert a single frame into standard video formats and have it subliminally influence you is an urban legend. You can try it with any video editing software. A single frame at 30 or 60 fps is extremely visible. It's not passing by your conscious awareness undetected. The flash is obvious and you can easily read a word of text or recognize a logo or someone's face.
- wslh 2y agoYes, scientific source "Beyond Vicary’s fantasies: The impact of subliminal priming and brand choice" [1]. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103105001496 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221...
- crazygringo 2y agoThat link literally starts by describing how the idea of flashing a frame of Coca-Cola was a hoax. It completely supports what I said. Like I said, test it yourself in a video editor. You'll immediately see how implausible it is.
- smackeyacky 2y ago[flagged]
- lupire 2y agoThis behavior is not new, as a long series of lawsuits attests. The slogan was always just marketing pablum.
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- lupire 2y ago[flagged]
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- resource_waste 2y agoWait... Nintendo and Disney targets children, including those too young to know what Ads are. Why are these different ethics? (They are not, both of those companies have created literal fanatics by adulthood. Even I cannot avoid beating each Zelda game despite not enjoying a single Zelda game since WW)
- quotemstr 2y agoShould they show adult ads to children instead?
- impossiblefork 2y agoHere in Sweden it's illegal to do so and you only find advertisements directed at children on stations operating from abroad.
- Karawebnetwork 2y agoI live in an area where advertising is not allowed to target children directly. As a result, the adverts don't show children playing with the toys, but present the toys in a bland setting as potential gifts for adults to buy. They will show an adult happy with a purchase. In short, they simply cannot address children directly through television. However, it's a fine line and you hardly ever see advertisements for toys unless there's a clear educational value. That's my understanding at least. Most Nintendo adverts show young adults playing on a sofa or on the go in a train.
- crazygringo 2y agoWow, that's really interesting. Having grown up on cartons filled with ads for toys showing kids playing with the toys, it literally never even crossed my mind that anyone would consider that objectionable, let alone pass laws against it. At most parents would be annoyed because their kid would pester them for a toy, but I've literally never heard anyone suggest that the advertising should be banned. (Advertising alcohol or tobacco of course is today different.) You've definitely made me wonder how childhood might be different without ads for children. On the other hand, when I grew up you couldn't avoid commercials. Now kids watch everything through streaming where you can generally eliminate the commercials anyways.
- neilv 2y ago> “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies.” Useful would be a chronology of when: * Individuals learned/knew about the rule violations. * Individuals were arguably rewarded. * Individuals were disciplined. That might give a sense of how bad the infection is, and whether their immune system is on top of it.
- throwawaymanbot 2y ago[dead]
- dwighttk 2y agoIf the executives figure out a way to actually guarantee no ads targeting children, Mr Beast will be crushed.
- unshammer 2y agoLet's call the practice "pedomarketing". Half of the US, you know which half, would be soon voting for a ban on it.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agoWorks where archive.ph is blocked: https://on.ft.com/3WyKE85 https://on.ft.com/3WyKE85
- tacocataco 2y agoPeople are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs. – Banksy
- 93po 2y ago"Advertising Shits in Your Head" is a good book for further reading on this