[HN Gopher] Instagram ads Facebook won't show you
___________________________________________________________________
Instagram ads Facebook won't show you
Author : HieronymusBosch
Score : 886 points
Date : 2021-05-04 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (signal.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (signal.org)
| Someone1234 wrote:
| This is both an ad for Signal _and_ an ad for Facebook Ad 's
| ability to target depending on who is reading it.
|
| What I mean is that for your average consumer, they'll read this
| and be horrified that Facebook is using the information they
| voluntarily gave Facebook to _make money_. But someone who is
| buying ads will read this same thing, be impressed by just how
| tightly Facebook can target, and put $10K into an Ad Account to
| try it out.
|
| As to me, I use Facebook, I am willing to see ads within Facebook
| using the information I share with Facebook but where I draw the
| line is Facebook "leaking" into my wider web browsing history
| (either tracking me, or using my non-Facebook browsing to
| advertise to me on Facebook). Therefore, I use Mozilla's Facebook
| Container extension and blacklist Facebook/Instagram's "Share"
| tracking buttons.
|
| I also access Facebook from a mobile browser rather than app and
| use Signal instead of Facebook Messager, to limit Facebook's
| ability to track my location and other phone meta-data.
| jerf wrote:
| Any ad person in 2021 who isn't aware of this must be a
| sophomore in college still.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| This claim seems to be predicated on some unrealistic
| standard wherein all businesses have dedicated professional
| in SEO and or advertisement management (or outsourcing to
| media management companies who do).
|
| That exists of course, but sole proprietors, small
| businesses, and medium businesses also purchase online ads in
| high volume and therefore people from other domains are
| commonly buying ads (or more importantly for this discussion:
| deciding _where_ to spend limited ad dollars).
| benjaminjosephw wrote:
| It's absolutely transparent then that, without intervention,
| companies act in ways that are against individual's and
| society's best interests in order to make more money.
|
| With that evident fact, we to face the reality, however
| uncomfortable, that manufacturing desire at this scale has
| become unambiguously unethical.
| fzzzy wrote:
| Have we also reached a point where no intervention will fix
| the problem?
| einpoklum wrote:
| Facebook is terrible.
|
| However, Signal has its own failings as well. From what I
| understand, it:
|
| * Refuses to federate.
|
| * Hostile to independent clients.
|
| * Run as a one-man show.
|
| That's not Facebook-bad, but it's sad that Signal is consistently
| exhibiting this attitude, meaning that it can't be a good basis
| for personal instant messaging going into the future.
| gempir wrote:
| They have good reasons for doing so. Watch this talk if you
| actually want to learn why
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8
|
| If you don't, use something else. But using Signal is for sure
| a lot better than using Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.
| rhizome wrote:
| In what way are those failings?
| warkdarrior wrote:
| In that it is similar to how Facebook operates:
|
| * Facebook refuses to federate.
|
| * Facebook is hostile to independent clients.
|
| * Facebook is run as a one-man show.
|
| And everyone agrees Facebook is Bad(TM).
| crakhamster01 wrote:
| Facebook already has a way in-app for you to see why you were
| targeted with an ad (on any ad click the 3-dot menu -> "Why am I
| seeing this ad?"). The tool will tell you things like whether you
| were retargeted vs targeted using lookalike audiences, targeted
| based off of your age, gender, location, interests, etc.
|
| I don't think this is the "slam dunk" the author intends it to
| be, but I'm sure it will resonate with the Woke(tm) hackernews
| crowd regardless.
| not2b wrote:
| Facebook's "Why am I seeing this ad?" info is deliberately
| incomplete and does not reveal exactly how the advertiser
| targeted the ad.
|
| https://qz.com/1245941/why-am-i-seeing-this-ad-explanations-...
| crakhamster01 wrote:
| Hit a paywall so I can't comment on the article, but just
| from the hero image the current implementation has more
| detail than what's being shown there. It looks like this
| article was last updated in 2018 though, so its claims might
| be dated?
| notsobig wrote:
| guess what this guy does for a living...
| lucasnortj wrote:
| only a fool has a social media account, I followed Jaron Lanier's
| advice and delete them all years ago. I have not missed them for
| a second
| quacked wrote:
| For any that haven't seen it- a great essay on advertising and
| how it relates to cancer:
| http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html
| mNovak wrote:
| Is it just me though, that for how targeted FB and Google try to
| be, they're usually still way off?
|
| I mean sure they'll know things like relationship status that I
| directly input, but the inferences are often very incorrect.
| achairapart wrote:
| I don't know if it's just me but I can't stop thinking about the
| day Facebook & Co will get bored with selling those stupid ads
| and will use all their powerful datasets to do more dangerous,
| scary things.
|
| Will then everybody think _" Oh, I really didn't see this
| coming..."_?
| not2b wrote:
| Or perhaps they'll set their algorithms free to figure out how
| to better monetize all the info Facebook has on people, and the
| machines will figure out that blackmail is a possibility: maybe
| FB could sell ads that would let you pay _not_ to have certain
| information shared.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Or someone else will do something with their data.
| jayzalowitz wrote:
| Reduce the amount of text, theyll let you run it.
| [deleted]
| tempest_ wrote:
| You can export the data Facebook has on you and see what could be
| used to populate these ads for you.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/help/212802592074644
| spamalot159 wrote:
| Signal hitting hard as always. I wonder if they are trying to get
| people to stop talking about their cryptocurrency hiccup.
| enahs-sf wrote:
| Would be cool to sign in with Facebook and then generate the ad
| set for yourself that they WOULD have made. I think it'd be quite
| telling.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Ha, when the Ledger Nano database was leaked a few months ago it
| published the address data of roughly 300k users, including their
| email. Given the fact that you can upload e-mail adresses to
| Facebook for more directed targetting (really nice feature lol),
| I thought it might be fitting to advertise a 5$ wrench offer to
| each of these users and if they might be interested in one.
| Really weird actually that it's OK to upload other peoples
| contacts to such services without any checks whatsoever.
| pta2002 wrote:
| You can use that feature to do some incredibly specific
| targeting to mess with people - as in, make some incredibly
| targeted ads that will only show up for a single person.
| djanogo wrote:
| And they are building signal for peddling their ecoin?
| meepmorp wrote:
| I believe they're making a point about privacy and ad targeting
| that's somehow orthogonal to their cryptocurrency.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| It is not orthogonal, they are clearly positioning their own
| cryptocurrency-via-chat as preserving privacy and are
| signaling that they are better than Facebook in that respect.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Signal is a non-profit that was primarily funded by a WhatsApp
| co-founder who left Facebook because they didn't like the plans
| to add Ads to WhatsApp.
| monocasa wrote:
| From what I've heard, that was a zero interest loan that
| needs to be slowly paid back.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| I don't see how people believe the founders of Whatsapp
| didn't know what was going to happen. They are getting a free
| pass and even more than that - praise. No one gives you $19
| billion dollars for a product..only to barely monetize it and
| do it inconsistently with how the rest of the related company
| operates.
| dannyw wrote:
| I like whoever is running Signal's blog.
| hiq wrote:
| There are several writers, you can see their handle and pic at
| the top of the article. In this case, Jun Harada.
| snotrockets wrote:
| The editors and ghost writers aren't named.
| spoonjim wrote:
| It's definitely the executives. You don't get to say something
| like "a Cellebrite fell off a truck" if you're anyone besides
| the CEO.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Anyone with basic legal training would definitely say the
| same. Anyone reading too much hacking/legal/mafia fiction may
| say the same. Anyone from France could say the same, given
| that expression [0] entered common language back in the
| 70-80's when expropriating logistics trucks to redistribute
| wealth to poorer neighborhoods was very common practice.
|
| [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tomb%C3%A9_du_camion
| rideontime wrote:
| It's not about the commonly-known phrase, it's about the
| fact that it was used in an official blog post.
| spoonjim wrote:
| And even cute staged pictures of the Cellebrite in the
| road. Nobody other than the CEO even would think of doing
| something so provocative in a space with national
| security interests and regulators involved.
| [deleted]
| robinj6 wrote:
| Moxie wrote the Cellebrite article.
| [deleted]
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| This isn't shocking at all. If anything, it makes me want to make
| a business account so I can see first hand what targeting
| criteria would be available to me.
|
| I'm not an FB user, but I might as well be, since I have an
| Instagram account that I mindlessly scroll from time to time.
| xmprt wrote:
| I'd be surprised if there weren't different tiers of
| advertising accounts just to prevent normal people from having
| access to this. For example, you have to spend at least $10k
| before you get the next level of targeted information.
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| So you're saying Tom Cruise can probably target ads better
| than I can?
|
| In all seriousness, I wouldn't doubt that either - spend
| more, target more. But based on the screenshots someone else
| posted up a bit, it's pretty granular (I presume) by default.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Even without a business account, you can click the 'why are you
| showing me this ad' button on FB and it'll give you similar
| text (although sometimes it's more vague depending on how the
| ad is targeted)
| capableweb wrote:
| > If anything, it makes me want to make a business account so I
| can see first hand what targeting criteria would be available
| to me.
|
| Here are some examples: https://imgur.com/a/7YVH3ch
|
| There are likely thousands more, that's just the browsing
| section.
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| Damnit. That is very granular.
| fgonzag wrote:
| You don't need a business account but you do need a personal
| account (or rather a personal account can be a business acct).
|
| The targeting is relatively specific. Think of a (general)
| category and it'll be available. I use it for bars and
| restaurants at a local level, and the granularity is quite nice
| vs other media (target people who like bars or restaurants, are
| into music, are into drinks, are into cocktails, are into
| concerts currently in the city or who are traveling to this
| city)
|
| It really helps a small budget go a long a way, assuming the
| stats they give are correct.
| ska wrote:
| > assuming the stats they give are correct.
|
| And herein lies the rub.
| octocop wrote:
| If you can't beat them, join them
| dillondoyle wrote:
| This isn't some attack on Signal specifically the personal ads
| policy has already existed and it was enforced against us once
| with a somewhat similar idea for voter locality. It would have
| been approved likely if took out the 'you' voice examples in the
| policy below.
|
| Though I understand the point of this as marketing & article to
| educate on what data FB does have and the ads look really cool!
|
| https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/per...
| xyst wrote:
| cant this be fooled though? I believe there is a site where you
| could select a "profile" and it would open up these links in your
| browser to give off the impression of that profile.
|
| For example, if you selecting "wealthy" it would just open up a
| bunch of urls to expensive brands, luxury items, private charter
| jets. I am not entirely sure if it actually worked or not.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| This is brilliant and I love it.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| This is a great pr stunt.
|
| There's a similar story about a guy who sets up an add targeted
| to his wife or fiance or something.
|
| Later Facebook apparently made it so whatever group your
| targeting has a minimum size.
| monkeywork wrote:
| I remember a story told on reddit about a guy who targeted his
| roommate with incredibly specific ads until it freaked him out.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| https://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-
| pranking...
| tandav wrote:
| [not related but] I don't understand why people keep telling that
| signal app which uses a central server and phone number as
| identification and verification is secure and safe to use.
|
| the future is decentralized
| edoceo wrote:
| did you read their home page?
|
| ""State-of-the-art end-to-end encryption (powered by the open
| source Signal Protocol) keeps your conversations secure. We
| can't read your messages or listen to your calls, and no one
| else can either. Privacy isn't an optional mode -- it's just
| the way that Signal works. Every message, every call, every
| time.""
|
| Have you observed them get sued for records and be unable to
| deliver?
| Forbo wrote:
| Because your threat model is not everyone's threat model.
| eingaeKaiy8ujie wrote:
| And it can only be used on insecure platforms, iOS and Android.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| And then there is me who has no idea about ads. NoScript, PiHole
| and uBlock Origin tend to do that so -\\_(tsu)_/-
| philshem wrote:
| That doesn't mean that you aren't being micro-targeted by ads.
| It just means you don't see to whom your personal information
| is being sold.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| I wonder how your post and posts like yours would be received
| if you said you have no idea about the purchase button or
| pricing of apps in app stores because you had ways to get
| around app and in app purchases.
|
| Probably not well. At least usually not well. Depends on the
| day and the audience of course.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| A pretty cool piece.
|
| Too bad they have to use text to make their point. It would
| essentially reach zero people due to rules
| (https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/lessons/how-to-
| adher...). Then there's personal attributes (https://m.facebook.c
| om/policies/ads/prohibited_content/perso...). Then ads that do
| not sell products/services follow murky rules, and talking about
| Facebook itself is usually prohibited. (edited from: because the
| rule they're actually breaking is the "No Text" rule in Facebook
| ad creatives.)
|
| Is there non-symbolic imagery that they could have used to say
| the same thing?
|
| Perhaps they should have retained someone with this kind of
| creative experience.
|
| Looking critically, the most narrow and serious obstacle to
| advocate for privacy is storytelling.
| davidedicillo wrote:
| The rule doesn't exists anymore. Ads with a lot of text simply
| get penalized when it comes to distribution.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > "No Text" rule in Facebook ad creatives.
|
| Where can this rule be found? That seems like a really odd
| rule, and
| https://www.facebook.com/business/help/388369961318508?id=12...
| says the opposite:
|
| "Avoid too much text on the image itself. We've found that
| images with less than 20% text perform better, though there is
| no limit on the amount of text that can exist in your ad
| image."
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| The story goes that one of the founders hated text in ads,
| and decreed that it should be banned.
|
| They later converted text in ads into a penalty, so you pay
| more (as an advertiser) for it.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I'm so glad they changed this rule from a blanket
| prohibition, since it precluded my company from effectively
| advertising on FB. We have developed a novel way to display
| text on screen that makes it easier and faster to read, and
| improves accessibility for people with dyslexia and ADHD.
|
| With a screenshot of text, it's super easy to understand how
| our tech works and whether it is useful for a particular
| person. But FB wouldn't let us boost posts that had images of
| our product in use.
|
| I'd be curious to hear from others how much FB penalizes
| advertisers in terms of cost/reach if they have lots of text.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| The policy recently changed and now officially allowable.
| They used to even have a tool to test the old 20% rule [1]
|
| But still their algo doesn't promote heavy text as much. It's
| a black box; ads aren't as simple as highest bidder, FB takes
| engagement on a per user basis into account and evidently
| heavy text lowers.
|
| Which is ironic given they added those text only posts & the
| takeover of Memes which at least for me drove my personal
| browsing to IG only. And now that's starting to go the same
| way. maybe meme-ification is humanly inherent lol. I'm
| starting to unfollow friends who only post those
| inspirational memes and crap. I just want photos, inspiring
| content from creators/athletes that are relevant to me, and
| family updates.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/business/help/980593475366490?id=12.
| ..
| 13415 wrote:
| FB uses a rather obscure and proprietary internal scoring
| system. You may be able to publish an ad campaign with lots
| of text once or twice, but it will make your ads account
| score go down and at some point it will likely be disabled -
| temporarily first, after one or two more incidents forever.
|
| The recommended amount of text on the image is less than 20%.
| Their system also doesn't like text because of potential
| "circumventions of policy" with putting text in images. Weird
| fonts that are not machine-readable will likely get the
| account banned fast.
| mdoms wrote:
| Do you have a source for this? I find it very hard to
| believe considering it's in conflict with the explicit
| unambiguous wording in their policy.
| gnicholas wrote:
| This actually matches with my experience. My product is
| text-related and I ran a couple ads with allowable amounts
| of text (back when there were limits). The ads performed
| just fine, but FB decided to stop running them, claiming
| they were low-quality.
| mkmk wrote:
| This actually violates the "personal attributes" rule. In my
| experience, this rule is enforced quite strictly -- although
| you can still see the same targeting criteria under the "why
| did I see this ad" feature.
|
| https://m.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/perso...
| meowkit wrote:
| This rule reads as "don't tell the target about our
| assumptions of them". Isn't that kind of the point of Signals
| post?
| thelean12 wrote:
| I'm assuming the rule is around because FB knows it's
| targeting isn't 100% accurate and it might ruffle feathers
| if an ad claims you're something you're not. I don't see
| that specifically as nefarious.
|
| Especially because FB tells me why I am being shown an ad
| already.
| defaultname wrote:
| In the early days of COVID I was curious what the
| difference between types of viruses. e.g. how herpes and
| HIV hides in cells compared to viruses like influenza and
| SARS-CoV-2.
|
| One of those sites clearly had Facebook integration
| because now Facebook is sure that I'm an HIV-positive gay
| man, with ads that correspond. It is one thing to get the
| ads but it would be a bit more overt if there was a text
| ad declaring that I was an HIV positive gay man.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Yes it is. Signals ads might still get approved if they
| took out the 'you' voice. But that dilutes the awareness
| they are bringing.
| bonzini wrote:
| They could just turn it into questions ("Are you...?")
| rcfaj7obqrkayhn wrote:
| > because the rule they're actually breaking is the "No Text"
| rule in Facebook ad creatives
|
| maybe breaking the rule was intentional, to make this article
| work
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Signal should sell this exact design on a targeted t-shirt and
| then advertise that.
| fgonzag wrote:
| Though you can't have text in the image, you could put the
| target filters as the post's text and use the image to grab the
| attention.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| The no text rule has not been enforced to disable an adaccount
| for years now. It merely de-ranks you. Source: Worked in
| advertising.
| octocop wrote:
| Signal has been putting out 10/10 content lately, I hope they
| keep it up and in the mean time I will continue to use their
| services!
| AlimJaffer wrote:
| I've run ads on FB before, but this is an incredibly simple
| article to share with my non-technically minded friends and
| family as to why these services collect too much data. We need
| more of these simple and concise posts to share outside of the
| tech-bubble we live in.
| martimarkov wrote:
| I wonder what the reasoning for disabling the account is. It
| would be extremely funny if the T&Cs said you can't expose FB as
| creepy. :D
| martimarkov wrote:
| Someone mentioned that it's the "No Text" if anyone else was
| wondering
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Which contradicts Facebook's written policy, so I doubt it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27040800
|
| (although Instagram could have different rules)
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| It's probably the personal data clause. Something like you
| may not call out personal characteristics of an individual
| in your ad.
| shakna wrote:
| That rule no longer exists, so it isn't that.
|
| It's far more likely to be the "no personal attributes" [0]
| rule.
|
| [0] https://facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/pers
| ona...
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| For personalized ads, Google bans [1] ads that "Imply knowledge
| of personally identifiable or sensitive information".
|
| Facebook has something similar [2] but much narrower. "Gender
| Identity" is among the categories though ("LGBTQ adoption" in
| the first ad), as are medical conditions ("pregnancy exercises"
| in the second ad).
|
| [1] https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/143465 [2]
| https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/per...
| josephcsible wrote:
| "Imply knowledge of personally identifiable or sensitive
| information" That's golden. It's perfectly okay to track
| users and collect their personally identifiable or sensitive
| information, and to serve them targeted ads based on it, but
| you must never let them know you're doing so.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Claiming that "LGBTQ" is a claim of gender identity is a
| stretch.
|
| And, wait, does that rule apply to marketing manly products
| for men? If they're using "gender identity" as a euphemism
| for "non-cis gender identity" that's kind of awful. It
| reminds me of the people that say they don't have pronouns.
| sharkweek wrote:
| See, the trick here is to put all the personal data onto an oddly
| specific t-shirt that's for sale.
|
| _Available now, size "Large" t-shirt for sale!_
|
| "I'm a proud dad living in Seattle who attended the University of
| Washington and once went on a trip to Central America for a
| while. I have a dog and like to read and occasionally complain
| about politics."
|
| I'd buy this if I saw it, if just for the lulz and nihilistic
| outlook when it comes to privacy.
|
| In fact... if I were a privacy-focused company, I'd 100% do this
| as a marketing stunt.
| _bohm wrote:
| It hurts to admit, but I would probably actually buy one of
| these
| gnicholas wrote:
| Considering this is the top post on HN, it's only a matter of
| time before someone offers these for sale and has a Show HN
| post about it. I just hope they have a coupon code for HNers!
| nemothekid wrote:
| You aren't alone - I know of a company that bootstrapped
| themselves by abusing the graph API to sell t-shirts.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| As someone else pointed out, personal attributes are prohibited
| from ads.
|
| My feeling is, communicating a compelling data collection
| story, even strictly positivist things like how much data is
| collected, let alone normative ones like _we should collect
| less data or prohibit collecting it_ - you 're not going to
| tell that story with some neat hack inside the system.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| I remember seeing a t-shirt ad that said something along the
| lines of "March people are X"... and I'm born in March. It
| just made me that I contributed to Zuck's data hoard.
| naturalauction wrote:
| You can get very close, I had an ad on Facebook the other day
| with transliterations of hindi/urdu words on it. When I
| clicked to see why, Facebook thought I was interested in a
| Pakistani newspaper (I think I'd read some articles on it on
| my phone, I guess the trackers picked that up). I guarantee
| you 99% of readers of the newspaper where I am (or probably
| anywhere) are of Pakistani descent. The ad wasn't telling me
| my race/national origin, but it was clear Facebook knew.
| hangonhn wrote:
| OMG. This is just brilliant on so many levels. It's not just
| subversive against FB's rules but also can be the start of some
| kind of art project as a statement about what tech companies
| know about us. But the project itself gives us a choice in what
| is shown to others whereas FB doesn't give us that choice when
| selling the info to advertisers. It'll probably get shut down
| real quick by FB though once they know about this.
|
| Edited: as my sibling comment mentioned, I too would buy one of
| these shirts.
| spamalot159 wrote:
| I would buy one that describes the total opposite of me and
| watch the confusion on people's faces.
|
| I so wish this was a thing but I doubt Facebook would allow
| using their graph for this kind of marketing.
| rchaud wrote:
| A crude version of this exists:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/TargetedShirts/
|
| Except this is Tshirt manufacturers coming up with generic
| slogans on Tshirt ads that correspond to your interests.
| duxup wrote:
| The scale of 'my boyfriend has anger issues' shirts is
| really dark...
| klyrs wrote:
| Dog mom's got anger issues, too... it's kinda fb's bread
| & butter
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| This has existed since 2014, in embryonic form.
|
| The exploit was that FB put your name in the public response
| from the Graph API. I remember discovering that, saying that
| might be abusable, and moved on with my life.
|
| About a year later, I started getting oddly specific t-shirts
| like all <last names> do <x good>.
| [deleted]
| johnmoonyy wrote:
| this.. would have worked and I would've believe the shirt was
| made for me..
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| Relevant facebook group: Shirts marketed to extremely specific
| demographics
|
| https://www.facebook.com/groups/smtesdthemain
| gnicholas wrote:
| Even better: phrase it in relation to the person reading the
| shirt, not the person wearing it:
|
| "You are seeing this shirt because [advertiser] wants to reach
| people who are friends with individuals who are [age],
| interested in [topic], located in or near [city], who wear
| [size] shirts.
| oceliker wrote:
| Ridiculously targeted t-shirt ads on Facebook are actually a
| thing, but probably not for privacy awareness purposes:
| https://thehustle.co/who-makes-those-insanely-specific-t-shi...
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I really really like those cell phone cases.
| fzzzy wrote:
| They made me laugh out loud for a few minutes. Did anybody
| actually buy those? There has to be someone with the right
| sense of humor.
| sharkweek wrote:
| This article got dark very fast
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Even without seeing the result, it was entirely predictable
| what was going to happen when someone let a computer
| generate phrases from word lists. The guy who went out of
| business generated 700 different combos algorithmically and
| then did not proofread them. That seems absurd. 700 isn't
| really that many, a few hours of manual labor to cull the
| bad ones, and his business may have made money.
| fzzzy wrote:
| Where did you get the number 700? The article says they
| had 22 million shirts
| dorkwood wrote:
| From the article:
|
| "In the end, he generated about 700 variations of the
| phrase on t-shirts, and put them up on Amazon."
| crtasm wrote:
| 700 "Keep Calm and ___" shirts, they also generated 22
| million "___ a ___ who ___ and __ " style ones for their
| catalog and listed 550k of them on Amazon.
| schoen wrote:
| I think other people have made money successfully with
| the few hours of manual labor version. At least, I think
| I've seen their customized products continue to exist and
| be available...
| oplav wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/TargetedShirts
| mrtksn wrote:
| I wonder if this tactics could be used to increase click rate.
| Sound like a good idea to grab someones attention and maybe
| reduce spending by targeting niches.
| [deleted]
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Some more fun reading on Facebook targeting from 2014:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112559
| hart_russell wrote:
| Brilliant ad campaign. So scummy that facebook allows advertisers
| these insights, but immediately shuts it down when you try to
| inform their users.
| pyjug wrote:
| > The ad would simply display some of the information collected
| about the viewer which the advertising platform uses. Facebook
| was not into that idea.
|
| Genius! But it's unclear to me if the examples in the blog were
| actual ads shown to users before their account was blocked, or
| the campaign never got off the ground at all. If it's the latter,
| the blog should make it clearer otherwise it makes it look like
| those were real ads
| dannyw wrote:
| Those are real targetable attributes under Facebook. They would
| be real ads if approved.
| spamalot159 wrote:
| I highly doubt they would ever be approved.
| crowbahr wrote:
| Right because they're ads critical of facebook designed to
| scare facebook users into not using facebook.
|
| Why would facebook green light ads that are detrimental to
| them?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| They're explaining something facebook does without any
| bias at all. Facebook should be proud to show off their
| technology! If it's "detrimental" then the problem isn't
| the ad, so rejecting the ad for that reason is scummy.
| jedberg wrote:
| It's an ad for a competitor. Why would they do that?
| schwinn140 wrote:
| Their campaign execution is brilliant...love it.
|
| That said, nothing about this is new. Whether Facebook, Google,
| or any of the other countless (yes, thousands) of players in the
| AdTech ecosystem, this kind of targeting can be done with ease
| and for pennies per user.
|
| The deprecation of third-party data, cookies, and cross-domain
| tracking couldn't happen soon enough. It's not a perfect solution
| but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
| nullc wrote:
| Years ago I added a widget to the user interface on wikipedia for
| logged in users so that people were able to add geography
| specific notification to tell editors about meetups that were
| coming up in their area.
|
| It turned out that if the message displayed was too specific,
| like "Upcoming meetup in your area: [New York meetup]" people got
| rather angry about the privacy invasion.
|
| So instead the instructions for setting the messages had to tell
| the authors to instead say stuff like "Find out about upcoming
| meetups!" -- which of course was only displayed if there actually
| was an upcoming meetup near where you geolocated.
|
| Of course, regardless of if any message is displayed the site
| could guess your geography based on your IP address. The exposure
| of private information was nearly identical-- actually arguably
| worse because someone might mention that they're currently seeing
| a notice without realizing that this fact leaked their
| geography... but the more generic messages didn't generate
| complaints.
|
| (and WP policy effectively makes it impossible to edit via Tor,
| even for established users in good standing)
|
| Sometimes it seems people care a lot more about enjoying the
| illusion of privacy than they care about actually having privacy.
| southerntofu wrote:
| Seriously how is advertisement legal?
|
| If you truly believe in free market then surely you must agree
| advertisement is a mass manipulation technique that should be
| illegal as anti-competitive technique (reinforces dominant
| positions).
|
| If you're an anarchist/socialist then surely you've read or seen
| some talks by Noam Chomsky about "Manufacturing consent" and by
| now you want to burn down every TV station, bank and police
| station you can think of.
|
| Even if you don't mind printed ads, if you're just a little bit
| concerned about privacy, you must be out of your mind that
| certain data obtained about you may be used against you and your
| loved ones
|
| Who's left to defend that kind of degrading practice? How can we
| put enough social pressure on these people so they stop and
| develop healthier activities than to hijack our brains remotely?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Advertisement is good because it lets me know who is supplying
| goods and services I may desire or need.
|
| There are a lot of methods allowed in advertising that are
| basically fraud, and a lot of methods to deliver advertising
| that are basically stalking. That doesn't mean that people
| shouldn't be allowed to post what they have for sale.
| southerntofu wrote:
| > goods and services I may desire or need
|
| Well the thing is the amount of resources spent on
| advertisement is usually inversely proportional to the amount
| of resources spent on "goods and services i may desire or
| need".
|
| I'm not saying it should be illegal to post about what you
| do. But advertisement is paying people to relay your message
| they couldn't care less about. It's not the same as people
| recommending products/services, although the frontier has
| become blurrier now with all those "sponsored"
| articles/videos.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| This doesn't seem very effective to me. 99% of people who see an
| ad like that will not care. It's already common knowledge that
| Zuck's gonna take your data.
|
| "Facebook knows I'm a single teacher in Moscow who likes soccer?
| ... So what?
|
| And that's before taking into account that the labels FB/etc. put
| on you are often incorrect, further diluting the perceived
| seriousness of this privacy leak.
| dharmin007 wrote:
| Exactly my thought. The "So what.
|
| What do I care if Facebook shows me ads for the things I
| browsed on Amazon or Etsy. I often discover fun stuff directly
| from those ads for websites I wasn't even familiar with. On the
| contrary (and I could be wrong to do so) but I trust some
| website when I have seen its ad on Facebook, as I know it has
| been vetted by Facebook to not be some fraud.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Plus, it will likely lead me to think "How does this company
| that advertises on Facebook know so much about me? What kind
| of shady information practices do they have?"
| Spivak wrote:
| You're missing an /s for the last bit, right? Like I'm
| actually with you that really specific targeting is actually
| great for product discovery and I wish I could harness it for
| myself not via ads sometimes but there is so much obvious
| crap and scams on FB/IG ads that it's not even funny. I have
| more faith that I'll actually get the product choosing a
| random AliExpress seller than a random Facebook ad.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| It's about how it's framed. People don't know how to feel until
| you tell them.
|
| Take for example the obesity epidemic. Obesity is a factor in
| 20% of all US deaths. People know it is killing them, their
| friends and their families and don't do anything.
| roachpepe wrote:
| The point of ads isn't always to get a reaction. Clicks are the
| grand goal of course but mere impressions are valued by
| marketing standards as well. The fact that the target audience
| sees the ad, even if only passing by while scrolling is widely
| considered a success by marketing standards. And equally
| needless to say but I'll say it anyway; that's the very point
| of Zuck leeching, so the ads will find the target audience.
|
| Agree with you there that this isn't much of a privacy leak as
| the average user mostly knows what's going on. I'd guess the
| article wasn't really meant to point out a threat to privacy,
| maybe more on the lines of "FB doesn't want to share it's
| methods of using the information it gathers". Shocking...
| octocop wrote:
| >99% of people who see an ad like that will not care. You're
| making quite the assumption here mate.
| Spivak wrote:
| Flip the number. If your ad for literally anything had a
| conversion rate of 1/100 you would be over the moon. I think
| it's quite the overestimation that even 1/100 would do
| _anything_ on seeing this ad.
| rchaud wrote:
| I agree that these are extremely general categories that could
| be reproduced by scraping a person's public LinkedIn.
|
| What's trickier is when the ads make assumptions about your
| taste based on the Facebook groups you participate in, and the
| websites you visit outside Facebook. Those are still connected
| to you via the Facebook beacons (share widgets) embedded in
| practically every website.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Facebook business model will not be banned as they do what
| services always wanted to have - a large network of wilful
| informants. Keep feeding them data.
| dartharva wrote:
| The irony that Signal itself has an Instagram account...
|
| https://www.instagram.com/signal_app/
| Forbo wrote:
| When it comes to guerrilla warfare, sometimes you have to use
| your opponent's own tools against them.
| onassar wrote:
| Could be seen as ironic, but I frame it more in the light of
| being critical of something, yet also understanding the value
| it can bring.
|
| I may be critical of industrial farming, large corporate
| environmental policies and/or Facebook, but I still might buy
| corn, own a Toyota and use Facebook to keep up with friends
| overseas.
|
| I think it can be super hard to take an ideological position at
| the expense of functionality (obviously depends on how strongly
| you hold your views, and what the cost of forgoing engagement
| with that company/person is).
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I may be critical of industrial farming, large corporate
| environmental policies and/or Facebook, but I still might buy
| corn, own a Toyota and use Facebook to keep up with friends
| overseas.
|
| This could just another example of inconsistency of thought,
| or frivolousness of opinion.
| onassar wrote:
| ;)
| Jsharm wrote:
| Is there a way I can see this for myself? Ie who facebook thinks
| I am? Is there something similar for google or other ad networks?
| Karunamon wrote:
| You can get an extremely limited look on the ad preferences
| page. "Categories used to reach you" and "audience-based
| advertising". Nothing quite as slick as this little instagram
| hack.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/adpreferences/ad_settings
| labseven wrote:
| Sam Lavigne did a similar project in 2017, generating targeted
| video ads on twitter.
|
| https://lav.io/projects/the-infinite-campaign/
| cercatrova wrote:
| I didn't know there was this level of detail in FB ads, I'll have
| to start targeting more specific audiences for my ads then. Very
| useful info.
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