Technology

They took all that data and used it to exploit the kids.

Not ignored. They weaponized that info internally. And had a road map of potential liabilities and damages that may be involved.

Ignored? Yeah I suppose so, but they sure as shit used the data for their own gain. That team really was the road of good intentions

When the news about that came out, around a decade ago now, I deleted my Facebook profile and tried to tell all my friends/family using FB that ... this is pure fucking evil and they should also get off FB.

They all gaslit me, pretended that news wasn't real, and acted like I was a paranoid delusional maniac.

Nowadays we have basically the same kind of conclusions regarding TikTok and other platforms that focus on short form video content... well, actually even worse conclusions... and they come from actual peer reviewed scientific journals...

But you'll still get people saying 'brainrot isn't real'... when uh, yes thats a clumsy term, but it is basically confirmed at this point that TikTok is as addictive as a drug, ruins your motivation and attention span, fills your with mis and disinformatiin, ruins and warps your self image and self esteem, promotes wildly irresponsible and often illegal financial mindsets/strategies... etc etc...

I am sure you already know, but the objection here is going after kids. literally profiling and then abusing their vulnerabilities for profit. this isnt your standard cereal box advertising, I think this is something much darker and more disgusting.

edit: added word

I didn't see the testimony, but I did read her book.

When most people think "targeted advertising", I think they are thinking about something like: this user is a middle-class woman between 18 and 25 who enjoys bicycles, so we'll show her ad X.

According to Wynn-Williams, Facebook/Meta is doing things like detecting when a user uploads, then immediately removes a photo--detecting that as a moment of emotional vulnerability (that is, the user was feeling self-conscious about their appearance), then bombarding them with ads in that moment for beauty products.

I think the former is 'obvious' to most people, but the latter probably isn't--probably because Meta and other advertising companies have put a lot of effort in to keep this on the down low--which is why Wynn-Williams is speaking about it publically.

(not accusing you of defending them BTW, just my 2¢ that this goes beyond what most people would consider obvious, imo)

It is absolutely baffling that people don't realize that people are the product. I've had some folks tell me that they understand and "don't care" because the service is "free" or whatever, but then they get angry and freaked out when the platform knows exactly what they're thinking, or at least seems to know.

There's definitely a deficit in understanding and education on what corporate social media really does.

People downvoting you don't realize how much of a science advertising is.

I wonder how prevalent adblocking is among the younger generations. Even among my peer group I'd see people browsing the web with no adblock and a bunch of ads on websites when I'd glance at a sea of laptops. It was eye opening that outside of the social media I use that many people are just not tech literate. Is ad acceptance trending upward as people get younger and younger?

The difference is this is tracking and targeting minors.

And just because it is the status quo does not mean the general public is aware of it or the actual extent. It needs to be spelled out to them how and why.

Honestly I find it hard to believe any teens are on Facebook now, maybe IG is still cool? Nothing like before. Idk I don't think teens are on those platforms really

They need to be jailed and their companied closed

Any structure which has hierarchy in it with control structures away from people suffers from the same issue. People must own things.

Who are the 3 people downvoting? This is very true and I don't see it ever changing as long as humans are humans. Pretty much all religions say treat each other nicely and don't kill. But then why are there war profiteering companies around?

No, it's not normal. Almost no internet companies around the world try to do anything similar to what Meta did and does. Even if you focus on social media companies, I believe that only a small minority try to do that kind of thing.

For example, here we are on social media. Do you see any targeted advertising? Is it being done by the Lemmy instance? And how many instances are there? Then we could look at Mastodon, or discussion forums, or comment boards, or you name it. Of course you would expect some targeted advertising, like you might find computer advertisements if you're on a computer tech forum, but that's different from targeting users who are in a weak state of mind, precisely because it's targeting their overtly expressed general interests and not their temporary vulnerabilities.

Finally, I think you should go back and read the article. You ranted about companies trying to shove things down your throats, but the article was about how to misuse targeted advertising.

Meta purposely pits extreme sides of every issue you could think of, gender, race, class, religion, even vegan, against each other. Every hate comment is great news for Meta. Hate comments mean that person is engaging so they will feed them more of that content and further drag them into their hateful beliefs. And why do they do that? To show them shirt and knicknack advertisements while they're frothing at the mouth.

Fuck Mark Zuckerberg. He's one of the worst humans on the planet and deserves terrible things to happen to him.

Worth noting by the way that instagram is owned by Meta - the very company the post is calling out.

I'm convinced insta knows your a guy and will blast you with reels full of chicks no matter what you do.

as if they don't have enough already.

Were you rooting for the shark?