5 ms·

The headline makes it sound uniquely sinister, but most of what's described here is just the modern adtech stack doing what it's been doing for a decade. The re

The headline makes it sound uniquely sinister, but most of what's described here is just the modern adtech stack doing what it's been doing for a decade. The real tension is that advertisers want attribution, sites want revenue, and users want privacy and the current system optimizes almost entirely for the first two

elischleifer 8mo ago
100% - targeted advertising lives and breathes on data - this is par for the course
- Intralexical 8mo ago
  It may not be news to you personally, but that doesn't mean it's not newsworthy for the general public.
  - red-iron-pine 8mo ago
    the average person doesn't know jack about how data mining works and would be hard pressed to understand what a heap or stack is. no surprises here, but the public should hear this, even if it's a given to the technical folks
    - JeanMarcS 8mo ago
      Perhaps the title should be extend " as Facebook, X, and everyone else does"
  - hulitu 8mo ago
    I bet you never heard of Google or Meta.
allthetime 8mo ago
advertisers act for themselves. sites act for themselves. users need to act for themselves and optimize their own privacy.
- idle_zealot 8mo ago
  Advertisers are organized, site owners are organized, and users are not. You need coordination if you want to see the balance changed.
  - recursive 8mo ago
    I'm organized enough not to use Tiktok. Anything else is probably going to be ineffective. Not sure if this is effective either though.
  - Intralexical 8mo ago
    > users need to act for themselves and optimize their own privacy. > You need coordination if you want to see the balance changed. Which is, actually, what the BBC author of TFA is doing, by writing an article as a user, to inform other users so they too can act to protect their privacy. Seems like industry insiders passing responsibility for their bad practices on to consumers really means they want consumers to stay divided.
    - godelski 8mo ago
      > Seems like industry insiders passing responsibility for their bad practices on to consumers really means they want consumers to stay divided. I think this is why they also encourage the old trope of "It's not just <X>". It's a truth, but used in a way that makes people feel powerless. Like the war is already lost. It makes people apathetic, because it makes people overwhelmed. It causes the evangelists to quiet themselves as they become exhausted. It normalizes the behavior. It just becomes another one of the many things we're powerless to fight against, so why even try. I'm not accusing the OP of doing this, but I do want to point out that it is a strategy being used. Not misinformation, not disinformation, but malinformation. Truths used in a specific way, often lacking context. It is the same way people dog whistle, hiding their true intent in normalized speech (it's not a dog whistle if everyone can hear it, that's just a whistle).
    - hulitu 8mo ago
      > Which is, actually, what the BBC author of TFA is doing, by writing an article as a user, to inform other users so they too can act to protect their privacy. No. The author only singles out TikTok. Looks like a paid piece. A real journalist would have made some research.
thinkingtoilet 8mo ago
The real tension is users don't want to pay for anything which is why the ad landscape is what it is.
- Intralexical 8mo ago
  Framed another way: The market rejects the product at the price it would cost to provide, so companies have turned to addictive designs, skeevy tracking, and information asymmetry/user ignorance to recoup their investment.
  - AlienRobot 8mo ago
    The market isn't rejecting the product, it's taking the product and rejecting paying for it. If it were rejecting the product, ads wouldn't appear anywhere.
- Dylan16807 8mo ago
  Ads optimize for getting every single penny without any pushback from bad effects, which is why the ad landscape is what it is. Tossing in more paying users wouldn't fix scummy ads. And ads could exist without being scummy, but it would take some other kind of pressure.
- godelski 8mo ago
  Why should they pay?[0] You point to the market but these market giants gain a lot of their stature from the free and open work done by others. The market is not the decider of the value of utility. If it was we'd not hear about donation campaigns for FOSS. We wouldn't hear stories of how there's a single developer working on critical software on nights and weekends. We wouldn't hear about yet another FFMPEG wrapper making millions while trying to demand free work from FFMPEG. We wouldn't hear that stuff because the market would be compensating them. While there are some things where there is no alternative, you can get pretty far with FOSS, if you know where to look. I'm not trying to say people shouldn't be paid, but I am saying that just pointing to the market is too simplistic of an answer. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software
Intralexical 8mo ago
The modern adtech stack is uniquely sinister, especially compared to its antecedents in society. TikTok is not only one of a select few big tech companies that dominate it, but (according to the article), it's becoming increasingly invasive "in unusual ways compared to its competitors". (I have no idea whether that second part is true, as most of the article seems to be spent explaining the concept of the tracking pixel for non-technical readers.)
godelski 8mo ago
> The headline makes it sound uniquely sinister, but [it's not] Does this matter? TikTok is one of the, if not the, most popular apps in the US and the world[0]. It makes sense to talk about the biggest offenders. You're right that the problems are more systemic and TikTok is far from alone, but at the end of the day, if this is the gateway to having the broader conversation, I would not dismiss it[4]. Laws that reduce the harm that TikTok is doing applies much more broadly than to TikTok. That is a win for us. It is difficult to write laws to specifically target a single company, and whenever that happens they serve as leverage to go after others too. Treating TikTok as the face does not absolve others of their actions. It may shift focus off of others, but frankly, we're living in a time where focus is incredibly difficult to achieve. I don't think you're wrong, but we've been trying to have the more nuanced conversation for over a decade and it doesn't catch people. So I'm personally okay with targeting an extremely popular platform like TikTok or Meta and using them as the gateway to the more nuanced conversations. IME if you just start by talking about "Surveillance Capitalism" it is common for people's eyes glaze over or they throw up their arms as the problem seems so large it is insurmountable. IME being more specific, talking about specific companies and specific actions[5] is the right gateway. It enables the deeper conversations without overloading people. Remember, you've had years to process all this and they're still new. Give them time. -- [0] In the US looks like >136M adult users[1], which looks to be about half of all adult Americans[2], or 66% of Americans between 18 and 65[3] [1] https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/us-tiktok-users-statistics/ https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/us-tiktok-users-statisti... [2] (Adults = 136e6 / (340,110,988 * (1-0.215)): https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045224 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045224 [3] Intended as upper bound as certainty there are some seniors on TikTok. [4] Unfortunately I think it is easy for bad actors to use whataboutism and that while I don't think you're doing this, bad actors try to snake in through claims like yours. Using the legitimacy of your claim to control the conversation and shift focus (the same way dog whistles are only intended to be heard by dogs). [5] DO NOT start with the most egregious, as that's too abstract and leads people to believe you're a conspiracy nut. Same shit as when talking about Snowden, it doesn't matter if you can show them the evidence, the claims appear more like that out of a movie than reality and it doesn't feel like we live in the dystopia where we see this kind of tech on screen.
- 8mo ago

elischleifer 8mo ago

100% - targeted advertising lives and breathes on data - this is par for the course

Intralexical 8mo ago
It may not be news to you personally, but that doesn't mean it's not newsworthy for the general public.
- red-iron-pine 8mo ago
  the average person doesn't know jack about how data mining works and would be hard pressed to understand what a heap or stack is. no surprises here, but the public should hear this, even if it's a given to the technical folks
  - JeanMarcS 8mo ago
    Perhaps the title should be extend " as Facebook, X, and everyone else does"
- hulitu 8mo ago
  I bet you never heard of Google or Meta.

allthetime 8mo ago

advertisers act for themselves. sites act for themselves. users need to act for themselves and optimize their own privacy.

idle_zealot 8mo ago
Advertisers are organized, site owners are organized, and users are not. You need coordination if you want to see the balance changed.
- recursive 8mo ago
  I'm organized enough not to use Tiktok. Anything else is probably going to be ineffective. Not sure if this is effective either though.
- Intralexical 8mo ago
  > users need to act for themselves and optimize their own privacy. > You need coordination if you want to see the balance changed. Which is, actually, what the BBC author of TFA is doing, by writing an article as a user, to inform other users so they too can act to protect their privacy. Seems like industry insiders passing responsibility for their bad practices on to consumers really means they want consumers to stay divided.
  - godelski 8mo ago
    > Seems like industry insiders passing responsibility for their bad practices on to consumers really means they want consumers to stay divided. I think this is why they also encourage the old trope of "It's not just <X>". It's a truth, but used in a way that makes people feel powerless. Like the war is already lost. It makes people apathetic, because it makes people overwhelmed. It causes the evangelists to quiet themselves as they become exhausted. It normalizes the behavior. It just becomes another one of the many things we're powerless to fight against, so why even try. I'm not accusing the OP of doing this, but I do want to point out that it is a strategy being used. Not misinformation, not disinformation, but malinformation. Truths used in a specific way, often lacking context. It is the same way people dog whistle, hiding their true intent in normalized speech (it's not a dog whistle if everyone can hear it, that's just a whistle).
  - hulitu 8mo ago
    > Which is, actually, what the BBC author of TFA is doing, by writing an article as a user, to inform other users so they too can act to protect their privacy. No. The author only singles out TikTok. Looks like a paid piece. A real journalist would have made some research.

thinkingtoilet 8mo ago

The real tension is users don't want to pay for anything which is why the ad landscape is what it is.

Intralexical 8mo ago
Framed another way: The market rejects the product at the price it would cost to provide, so companies have turned to addictive designs, skeevy tracking, and information asymmetry/user ignorance to recoup their investment.
- AlienRobot 8mo ago
  The market isn't rejecting the product, it's taking the product and rejecting paying for it. If it were rejecting the product, ads wouldn't appear anywhere.
Dylan16807 8mo ago
Ads optimize for getting every single penny without any pushback from bad effects, which is why the ad landscape is what it is. Tossing in more paying users wouldn't fix scummy ads. And ads could exist without being scummy, but it would take some other kind of pressure.
godelski 8mo ago
Why should they pay?[0] You point to the market but these market giants gain a lot of their stature from the free and open work done by others. The market is not the decider of the value of utility. If it was we'd not hear about donation campaigns for FOSS. We wouldn't hear stories of how there's a single developer working on critical software on nights and weekends. We wouldn't hear about yet another FFMPEG wrapper making millions while trying to demand free work from FFMPEG. We wouldn't hear that stuff because the market would be compensating them. While there are some things where there is no alternative, you can get pretty far with FOSS, if you know where to look. I'm not trying to say people shouldn't be paid, but I am saying that just pointing to the market is too simplistic of an answer. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software

Intralexical 8mo ago

The modern adtech stack is uniquely sinister, especially compared to its antecedents in society. TikTok is not only one of a select few big tech companies that dominate it, but (according to the article), it's becoming increasingly invasive "in unusual ways compared to its competitors". (I have no idea whether that second part is true, as most of the article seems to be spent explaining the concept of the tracking pixel for non-technical readers.)

godelski 8mo ago

> The headline makes it sound uniquely sinister, but [it's not] Does this matter? TikTok is one of the, if not the, most popular apps in the US and the world[0]. It makes sense to talk about the biggest offenders. You're right that the problems are more systemic and TikTok is far from alone, but at the end of the day, if this is the gateway to having the broader conversation, I would not dismiss it[4]. Laws that reduce the harm that TikTok is doing applies much more broadly than to TikTok. That is a win for us. It is difficult to write laws to specifically target a single company, and whenever that happens they serve as leverage to go after others too. Treating TikTok as the face does not absolve others of their actions. It may shift focus off of others, but frankly, we're living in a time where focus is incredibly difficult to achieve. I don't think you're wrong, but we've been trying to have the more nuanced conversation for over a decade and it doesn't catch people. So I'm personally okay with targeting an extremely popular platform like TikTok or Meta and using them as the gateway to the more nuanced conversations. IME if you just start by talking about "Surveillance Capitalism" it is common for people's eyes glaze over or they throw up their arms as the problem seems so large it is insurmountable. IME being more specific, talking about specific companies and specific actions[5] is the right gateway. It enables the deeper conversations without overloading people. Remember, you've had years to process all this and they're still new. Give them time. -- [0] In the US looks like >136M adult users[1], which looks to be about half of all adult Americans[2], or 66% of Americans between 18 and 65[3] [1] https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/us-tiktok-users-statistics/ https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/us-tiktok-users-statisti... [2] (Adults = 136e6 / (340,110,988 * (1-0.215)): https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045224 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045224 [3] Intended as upper bound as certainty there are some seniors on TikTok. [4] Unfortunately I think it is easy for bad actors to use whataboutism and that while I don't think you're doing this, bad actors try to snake in through claims like yours. Using the legitimacy of your claim to control the conversation and shift focus (the same way dog whistles are only intended to be heard by dogs). [5] DO NOT start with the most egregious, as that's too abstract and leads people to believe you're a conspiracy nut. Same shit as when talking about Snowden, it doesn't matter if you can show them the evidence, the claims appear more like that out of a movie than reality and it doesn't feel like we live in the dystopia where we see this kind of tech on screen.

8mo ago