Technology

I fully agree.

I think that the way in which we ask those questions is also very important.

They make a good case these tests are exploiting the political climate and illegally targeting minors to make themselves money.

I believe we do this conversation a disservice if we prejudge researchers and jump to conclusions too early when they point out this relationship might be inappropriate.

You’re classifying all of these as malicious by virtue of being ads, which the researchers obviously didn’t. Take that up with them.

I think you misunderstood the researchers. Quoting the article:

In terms of data protection, tracking is a gray area. “It actually involves psychological manipulation, because the online behavior of users is exploited to attract them with targeted advertising,” points out the Bochum-based researcher.

It appears as though the researchers in the article are the ones painting all targeted ads as inherently malicious, involving psychological manipulation.

Seventy-three percent of the ads that were analyzed used tracking. Generally, users only consent to this practice if they accept optional cookies. However, according to Article 8 of the General Data Protection Regulation, children cannot give valid consent; the parent should give consent instead.

Which is 73% of them. This is already supposed to be illegal.

“Technically, laws do exist that regulate which ads children may and may not be exposed to,” stresses Veelasha Moonsamy. “But they are not being complied with.” This is because, from a technical point of view, there’s no difference between websites designed for children and websites designed for adults.

As children are especially vulnerable to manipulation, there seems to be a correct moral stance and it's not "advertisers should be free to psychologically manipulate children".

It comes across like you feel we can't protect gay/minority children from being exploited by huge corporations online because it would be homophobic to protect gay kids from psychological manipulation.

I question the idea that the reason these were classified as inappropriate was because of sexual pop ups. If that was the case than many innocuous sites with crappy ad practices would have also made it onto the list.

The researchers didn't classify anything as inappropriate based on pop up ads. That was me explaining to you how they work.

The ad pages have links on them to other ad pages so it's all one big beast and in action clicking on a gay test could lead to an overtly sexual one or vice versa. Sometimes they both open at the same time in different tabs.

The article explains the researchers downloaded the ads offline and so didn't interact with them through normal means.

In the next step, the researchers downloaded the ads from these websites, accumulating approximately 70,000 files in total. This was partly because many pages contained several banner ads and partly because the researchers visited each page several times.

So it's a combo of pop ups and banner ads.

Knowing that queer people exist and that you could be queer isn’t “sexual advertisement,” by the way.

Yeah.. obviously I agree that a PSA on gay rights and an "are you gay?" test are not the same thing.

Letting the wider public know queer people exist, and then using psychological manipulation to (illegally remember) target gay children and try to exploit their vulnerabilities are two hugely different things.

The PSA is protecting gay kids, the spam test is attacking them.

What is your point?

Which is why I wanted to know more about how the researchers came to the conclusion that these particular ads were inappropriate.

Fair question, I'd like to know also. But while raising the question you assumed ill intent and were questioning their biases.

The pool that the researchers analyzed contained 1,003 inappropriate ads. Their content ranged from ads for engagement rings and racy underwear to weight loss drugs, dating platforms and tests for homosexuality and depression, as well as sex toys and invitations to chat with women in suggestive clothing and poses.

All it says is that it's considered inappropriate.

Ads for engagement rings being listed along the "are you gay?" tests shows me that both heterosexuality and homosexuality are being treated more or less equally here. Engagement rings aren't particularly inappropriate except that they're used for marriage.

Psychologically manipulating children using the most vulnerable groups as clickbait to try to get them to enter personal information is wrong and children haven't developed their brains enough to protect them.

These aren't tests made by queer people to promote innocuous queer products. These are tests made by soulless capitalists trying to exploit insecurity to make them money.

Why should these companies have a right to exploit the insecurities of young kids?

It's not homophobic to prevent minorities from being manipulated.