Targeted ads are one of the world's most destructive trends

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/05/targeted-ads-fake-news-clickbait-surveillance-capitalism-data-mining-democracy

by elorant • 7 years ago

79 48 7 years ago

theguardian.com

largespoon• 7 years ago

I wonder how targeted tracking adds value to businesses in ways other than advertising profits. A large portion of interet users block ads, so what good is the data?

sanxiyn4• 7 years ago

What portion of targeted Facebook ads are blocked?

jazzyjackson2• 7 years ago

What portion of facebook apps are scrolled past by people who instinctively ignore "suggested posts" or are otherwise scrolling to find a post that was just there a minute ago?

Once I was looking for an event post to check what time it was at, and ended up scrolling for a while trying to find it, meanwhile thinking about how facebook is getting paid for every ad impression I'm zooming past...

fizx• 7 years ago

My brother built a wedding photography business in ~2008. He filled out the entire first summer of bookings with $50 of highly targeted facebook ads (female, engaged, 200mi radius).

The same ads today would be much more competitive, but there's a huge amount of leverage here.

sanxiyn4• 7 years ago

Facebook ads were so underpriced for a while, you could get 10x ROI. Nowadays you get what you pay for.

elorant• 7 years ago

One way is through re-targetting. You visit an e-commerce site looking for a pair of shoes. You browse for a while but nothing seems interesting so you leave. The site then targets you through Facebook with tailor made ads and probably limited time discounts. They can track you through Facebook pixel. It works like a charm because the need to buy the product never went away.

A large portion of users do indeed block ads, but most don't. The higher blocking percentage I've seen is in the region of 30%-35% (it's in Greece I think).

knzhou7• 7 years ago

This article, like many many others, dances between two contradictory narratives.

On one hand, it's claimed that targeted advertising just doesn't work, and it's a bunch of pointless, flashy tech which advertisers are wasting their money on. I'm partly sympathetic to this view. But it is simultaneously claimed that targeted ads are so powerful that they are single-handedly responsible for every right-wing political victory in the past few years, which means they must be appropriately censored to prevent the "destruction of democracy".

This article doesn't even try to bridge the gap. It just jumps from the first narrative to the second by saying "I’ll tell you what’s not hype or exaggeration" without presenting a smidgen of evidence.

If I had to guess how the author reconciles the two, I imagine it would be the usual way: "targeted ads and clickbait and echo chambers and one-sided narratives obviously don't affect me and my educated friends, but those people are completely under their control!" This condescending attitude is actually what erodes democracy.

catalogia• 7 years ago

It may also be the case that the author's first premise is wrong while their later is correct.

Perhaps targeted ads do work, and that's why they're bad for our society. You needn't even resort to politics to make this point. There are many things consumers might be persuaded into doing that are contrary to their own interests but profitable to corporations with large advertising budgets. Buying and drinking sugar water is a trivial example. In fact, that example makes clear the problem is with advertising in general, not merely targeted advertising. Targeted advertising is bad insofar as normal advertising is bad, and targeting advertising is worse insofar as it's more effective.

sanxiyn4• 7 years ago

Of course this is the correct answer... targeted ads totally work.

satya712• 7 years ago

Both can be true simultaneously. Targeted ads work where they reinforce and expand on existing inclinations and beliefs. They don't work so well when you're trying to sell in general or raise awareness of your brand.

So someone who was mildly inclined toward right-wind ideas can be made into a alt-right supporter with the right targeted messaging.

But when I'm trying to convince someone to buy my expensive gizmo, targeted ad won't actually do the job.

sanxiyn4• 7 years ago

I mean, ad is not mind control. No good ads can save bad products. But that's not what ad is for. Ad works.

the_narrator• 7 years ago

I have seen right-wing brought up multiple times, how does the same not apply to the far left?

mirimir• 7 years ago

This is it, I think.

There's a huge difference between propaganda that strengthens filter bubbles and ads for selling stuff to people.

But as other note, this is not just about one political group. For example, Obama bragged about his social media campaign, and Trump bragged about his.

Gibbon1• 7 years ago

If you're trying to sell towels a conversion rate of 1:1,000,000 is hopeless fail. If you're trying to goad some mentally ill asshole into shooting up a synagogue, 1:10,000,000 is worth it.

knzhou7• 7 years ago

And I can write a similarly plausible narrative in the opposite direction.

"Somebody who is starting to do yoga is definitely going to be affected by a yoga mat ad. But political opinions involve deeply held personal convictions, cultural values, and moral intuitions, and may even be determined in large part by fixed personality traits. How could an ad possibly change all that?"

That's why deciding on the conclusion you want and then writing a plausible narrative in support of it isn't good enough. A narrative can be made to support any conclusion. To decide which is true, you need actual evidence, which in the case of social media and politics is sorely lacking.

joe_the_user2• 7 years ago

Basically, targeted ads are a waste of time in a large percentage of cases but can be quite destructive if you can figure how to target a particular group that might be subject to just the sort of obsession you want to sell.

ignoramous2• 7 years ago

On one hand, it's claimed that targeted advertising just doesn't work ~snip But it is simultaneously claimed that targeted ads are so powerful that they are single-handedly responsible for every right-wing political victory in the past few years...

It is important to distinguish different kinds of ad campaigns here: The former qualifies as product/brand advertisement, whilst the latter is, in fact, propaganda.

knzhou7• 7 years ago

And so why is the former consistently portrayed as useless, while the other (targeted in precisely the same way, in fact probably less accurately) is portrayed as literal mind control?

ricebowlz420• 7 years ago

Good analysis - you should check out credder.com - you might like it because you clearly have some skill with breaking down articles

... see what I just did there...

c13u• 7 years ago

...it is simultaneously claimed that targeted ads are so powerful that they are single-handedly responsible for every right-wing political victory in the past few years

Not surely so. There's the argument[0] that political misinformation is:

* Weak in high profile partisan races because pre-existing beliefs hardly change

* Strong when people don't have string pre-existing opinions, e.g. misinformation about voter ID laws causing people to stay home from the polls

I think targeting work best on people at the margins. There was also some good discussion this week on HN on the effectiveness of digital advertising[1]

[0] https://www.vox.com/2017/11/6/16504454/misinformation-fake-n...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465873

mishraka• 7 years ago

One of the other reasons targeted ads are dangerous is coz we are totally oblivious to the fact that it's being served to us not as part of a bigger group of customers but to directly manipulate us into action.

umvi• 7 years ago

Targeted ads are still so incredibly stupid. Like... I watch anime. So then I start getting targeted ads for more anime.

Sometimes I'm watching an anime, and then during the ad break I'll see an ad for the anime I am currently watching.

It would be like if you were watching Jeopardy, and then during the commercials all you saw were ads for Jeopardy... so moronic

libertine• 7 years ago

Don't underestimate the power of Frequency.

While you're watching ads for that anime, you're not watching ads for other entertainment solutions that compete for your attention.

It's like people think if you watch an ad twice in the same comercial break in TV is a mistake, it's not. It's planned and paid for.

Now, I'm not saying everything is done with that intention. But it's done, depending on your objective it's a great tactic.

m463• 7 years ago

It would be like if you were watching Jeopardy, and then during the commercials all you saw were ads for Jeopardy... so moronic

This is a different sort of targeting. This is targeting the advertising dollars of the advertiser. "Look you advertised for Jeopardy and now he's watching Jeopardy, what a great ROI"

rudyfink• 7 years ago

I keep thinking about the reasoning of Twitter's Jack Dorsey for banning political ads--that the technology was too dangerous for use in politics:

"While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.

Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale."

https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952

But if modern targeted advertising is powerful enough to be dangerous in politics, why is that technology not also dangerous in the hands of commercial advertisers? It seems like it would be equally dangerous in either hands. If anything, it seems like commercial actors would be less likely to be benevolent and more likely to have the resources to use the technology even more effectively.

Maybe that's wrong though (and maybe there are reasons why there is a distinction), but it is something I keep finding myself thinking about.

xcavier• 7 years ago

I don’t think we can address the issue of the role of (any) technology without also factoring in the (multifaceted) issue of intent...

nloladze• 7 years ago

Advertising is the rot of late-stage capitalism.

Here's a question? Why am I not being paid to witness or watch your advertisements? Why don't I get a portion of the profits, regardless of the platform? I'm actually all for targeted ads; I shouldn't be getting alzheimer medication ads at 27 or diabetic medication ads when I'm not at risk. But hey, a new video game or movie ad? Sign me up.

I think blockchain will be the revolution to this nauseating ad-nonsensical world we live in. Already the Brave browser is trying to implement this (with admitted failure so far, but they're trying) and I see future platforms adopting this. The number of ads in Youtube have skyrocketed and I know most of the profits do not go to the content makers. I'm all for advertising but I want a fairer share of the pie for content makers, myself and more targeted information.

Where and how this data should reside, this digital fingerprint should reside is problematic. I don't trust any corporate or financial database as the experian hack has shown. Still, we should be asking these questions and continuing this dialogue. No more nonsensical ads, a fairer partition of the pie distributed and less ads, but more quality ads.

badrabbit• 7 years ago

Always wondered why anti-stalking laws and restraining orders can't be used against this

senectus1• 7 years ago

The thing is, targeted adverts work based on the information you put into it.

If you put garbage in you'll get garbage adverts come out of it.

The adverts you get tell you a lot about yourself, the prominent adverts the the average US citizen gets should tell you a lot about the average US citizen...

Targeted ads are one of the world's most destructive trends

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