
Facebook Australia allowed advertisers to target teens’ emotional states - reirob
https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/05/facebook-helped-advertisers-target-teens-who-feel-worthless/
======
rdxm
Totally unsurprising. I mean, people don't actually think FB is a positive
force in the world do they?

The science is clear on human's capacity for meaningful/real realtionships
(it's a pretty small number), the anecdotal evidence is also fairly clear on
FB's real contributions to society (it's not positive).

FB really is the poster child for just how willing we are as a species to roll
around in our own feces. It's most definetly a sad commentary on where we are
at in general as a society and the contribution it made to the last electoral
shitshow is just icing on the cake.

Hell, it's also sigularly unsurprising that Zuck is headed to politics, in
fact that morass of crap is just about a perfect fit for him.

~~~
dominotw
>FB is a positive force in the world do they?

Thats how I keep up with my extended family 1000 miles away. I do think it's a
positive force in the world.

~~~
sbarre
I am not trying to demean your comment in any way but I will give you an
alternate viewpoint..

Back in 2011 I also used Facebook to "keep up" with my distant friends and
family. I read their posts, looked at their photos, liked their comments, left
notes here and there.. Chatted with them..

Then one day I realized that these were all (for me) extremely shallow
interactions, and I decided I would make a better effort to stay in touch.

I closed my Facebook account, and made a commitment to reach out directly to
the people I cared about. Perhaps less often, but in more meaningful ways.

I started sending monthly emails, and scheduling Skype or (eventually)
FaceTime calls, and so on..

Fast-forward 6 years of that and I feel much more connected to the distant
people I care about in my life than I ever did via Facebook, and almost all of
them have reciprocated my efforts at maintaining a better connection..

Again, this is just my story, but you really don't need Facebook to stay in
touch with the people you care about, no matter where they are in the world.

~~~
jsharf
But you can only do that with so many people. Facebook is more convenient. And
it has the random factor. Sometimes there's a friend d who you weren't super
close with but always thought well of. With Facebook you can see when they're
visiting your city (if they make a post about it). It gives you the
opportunity to know that that friend is around and reach out to them.

I think there are a lot of positives to Facebook, but a lot of potential
negatives for certain kinds of personalities (people who are negative or
addictive). With the right attitude though, it's certainly helpful

~~~
5ilv3r
That's not random, that's the algorithm. It might not show you anything if it
decides you won't find that friend interesting.

~~~
AstralStorm
Not that this is "what you decide is interesting". Which makes it much less
useful, prone to social signalling and what is worse, actually less meaningful
than more direct contact. Remember, it is mostly text, not even time of voice
is carried in it. Even a picture is static.

Contrast with realtime voice and video. (Facebook has those features but
they're nowhere near as utilized. And they definitely do boot show up in
feeds.)

------
sandstrom
How do people working at FB feel about spending their time building a huge
advertising engine, compared to working at, say, Tesla? Genuinely curious!

~~~
deprave
People working at Facebook and Google lie to themselves that they're doing
something important while working for a "cool" tech company. They're ignorant
to the fact that these companies make their entire revenue from
advertisements.

~~~
sebleon
They're not ignorant. They either don't care, or don't see source of revenue
as the defining quality of their work.

~~~
tendo6
I used to work at Intel and then Microsoft during the anti-trust years. We
were totally oblivious to what mgmt did and were quite happy to accept the
company line. It was after all delivered by nice respectable people and we
were getting paid well.

Also realized engineers are not revolutionaries. We like to work on things
that a textbook talks about. The kind of problems these articles talk about
most engineers have no idea how to solve. And it's in our nature to say so and
shrink away from such problem.

Look at Elon Musk today talking about how depressing it would be not to goto
space. Poverty and War are depressing too but Engineers know how to build
rockets better than they know how to address poverty and peace.

What ends up happening is the space we shrink away from gets filled with
characters who don't know what they are doing. They compensate by pandering to
the public and buying time mostly for themselves to retire to a nice little
island.

Having said all that as an Engineer reaching his retirement I feel quite
disappointed in the culture we have left behind for the next generation.

~~~
jacquesm
Another real problem is the willful ignorance of all things political. As if
there isn't a political dimension to almost everything we do. Engineers as a
rule have a lot of leverage, small changes in what we make have huge
consequences in the real world and a bit of understanding about how the two
are coupled would go a long way towards making this a better world. It would
also at times require engineers to take a stand and I suspect that that is
what drives the willful ignorance. After all it is much easier to do something
inherently bad if you can pretend there are no real world consequences.

~~~
akavel
Um, could you give some specific/concrete examples of what you mean, when
speaking of this leverage? I honestly have no slightest idea of what you may
have in your mind here, and am totally curious - at least as long as we're
talking, I assume, about legit/ethical/morally acceptable actions? (Also
please note I'm not in US, though I presume it's not relevant to this
discussion.)

~~~
jdietrich
Engineers build small things that have huge impacts. The Linux kernel, the ARM
core, the internal combustion engine, the atomic bomb.

As a profession, software engineers have very weak ethical standards. We have
no Hippocratic oath, we have no iron ring. We might not be happy about it, but
we'll release code that we know to be dangerously buggy, we'll cooperate with
surveillance agencies, we'll design systems that exploit users, we'll build
products that are sold to the governments of Saudi Arabia or Libya.

If software engineers were collectivised, we could refuse to do all of this
shady stuff. Any software engineer tasked with doing something unethical could
simply say "I'm not doing that, I'd lose my license". By establishing a
professional body equivalent to the Bar Association or the General Medical
Council, we could throw a giant wrench in the machinery of evil.

~~~
akavel
Hmm; so maybe I just misunderstood the original post at first, this or the
fact that I'm already trying hard to take into account ethics in what I do as
much as I can, so no big change for me? I dunno; still not quite convinced by
this interpretation. I understand and endorse the idea of "picking who you
work for" (though sometimes it's _very_ nontrivial, esp. in context of big
companies/corporations). I just thought that maybe the fragment about "a lot
of leverage" and "small changes in what we make have huge consequences" was
alluding to some other idea. Personally, I have extremely hard time seeing me
choosing a different employer as "a lot of leverage" or "huge consequences
[for the world]". I feel it's only a _very small_ , though potentially at
least nonzero, leverage and consequences for the world (I imagine someone else
with weaker spine will hire for a particular position anyway), but in my
perception notable (positive) consequences for feeling of personal integrity,
though potentially (but not necessarily) at a cost for personal material
situation.

------
ramblenode
The original headline was potentially misleading.

> Update, 5/1 12:12 p.m.: Facebook has issued a statement disputing The
> Australian's report. "The premise of the article is misleading," the company
> wrote in its authorless statement. "Facebook does not offer tools to target
> people based on their emotional state. The analysis done by an Australian
> researcher was intended to help marketers understand how people express
> themselves on Facebook. It was never used to target ads and was based on
> data that was anonymous and aggregated."

~~~
kafkaesq
Given the level of detail in the Australian article (or what we can see quoted
from it; the original seems to be not easily available at the moment), and
FB's past behavior[2], I'm not sure I believe their denial at this stage,
quite frankly. We'll know for sure when the original presentation that the
article refers to inevitably leeks out in full.

[1] _According to the Australian, the data available to advertisers includes a
young user’s relationship status, location, number of friends on the platform
and how often they access the site on mobile or desktop. The newspaper
reported that Facebook also has information on users who are discussing
“looking good and body confidence” and “working out & losing weight”._

[2]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-
users-emotions-news-feeds)

~~~
danderino
>The newspaper reported that Facebook also has information on users who are
discussing “looking good and body confidence” and “working out & losing
weight”

What's wrong with that exactly?

Is that any different than an option to advertise to people who are talking
about buying cars?

~~~
kafkaesq
Because it's creepy.

More specifically: it explicitly attempts to address a particular _mental and
psychological states_ (in particular, states associated with anxiety and the
need for approval from others) rather than an economic activity (like "needs a
car").

Yes, car ads (and all kind of ads) have implicitly been designed to work off
feelings of anxiety (and the need to fit i), since the beginning of time. But
it's the all-out brazenness off this effort (combined with the fact that,
again, it was explicitly designed to _target teenagers_ ) that pushes it over
the edge, in my view -- and well into the terrain of Creepy.

------
a3n
So, facebook was paid for data on users' poor emotional state.

And facebook experimented with adjusting news feeds to make people feel better
or worse.
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=facebook+news+feed+experiment&t=lm...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=facebook+news+feed+experiment&t=lm&ia=news)

I wonder how much it would cost to have facebook make people feel bad, and
then serve them ads to which they would be more susceptible because of their
low state.

~~~
artursapek
I'm sure there is already a price for that

------
some1else
I hoped they did it to prove themselves that advertisers will use such
capabilities to take advantage of innocent filterless future consumers, but
that would require a diametrically inverse interpretation of results. Having
worked in advertising, I feel we should have heavy-handed restrictions with
regard to advertising to minors. Given the potential for abuse, I would
recommend enforcing equal restrictions on targeting based on the current
emotional state. Irrational decisions are the motor of many successful
marketing campaigns (things like anchor pricing are the norm). Letting
advertisers sophisticate the message according to the customers emotional
state, is like giving sudo privilege to a bitlocker. The metrics on their
dashboards do not include morals. We have to stay on top of this.

------
linkregister
From the article, it just looks like a misunderstanding; this was at worst a
proposal and most likely the weird/inappropriate "Facebook Research" that gets
occasionally reported. It's easy to find out what controls are available to
advertisers: just open up an ad campaign on Facebook [1].

1\. [https://www.facebook.com/business/news/ads-manager-
app](https://www.facebook.com/business/news/ads-manager-app)

------
devoply
Zuckerberg was talking about all these programs to protect people at risk. I
guess this is what he really meant. If you can find people at risk, then you
can exploit them.

------
jpalomaki
What should we think about the future, where nobody is making the decision to
target teens' with specific emotional state, but instead the machine makes the
decision?

I see this as inevitable - probably something that is already happening to
some extend. Let's assume you are advertising something where the target
action takes place online. Something where you can establish a direct
connection between the events "Person A sees ad" and "Person A buys product".
Assuming the volumes are high enough, why would you put human in charge for
targeting the ads? Why not just put the machines to work, to analyse the
thousands weak signals your platform is collecting about each individual and
then determine which ads are most likely to result in purchase. If the sale
takes place through your own platform you have pretty nice feedback loop
there.

The machine of course does not think "hey, this person is depressed, let's
sell him some Happy Pills" but the end result is likely the same. Machine
learns some patterns in behavior which indicate the person is likely to be
interested in Happy Pills. Is this good or bad?

~~~
webkike
I can't say whether it's good or bad but I definitely can say I don't want to
live in a world like that.

------
type0
> a representative for Facebook Australia issued a formal and lengthy apology,
> saying in part, "We have opened an investigation to understand the process
> failure and improve our oversight. We will undertake disciplinary and other
> processes as appropriate."

What did they mean by that, oversight by whom?

~~~
morghus
Oversight by whoever dared leak this.

~~~
tendo6
Kudos to the leaker. I am quite happy to contribute to a patreon page or the
ACLU or whoever that makes sure these whistle blowers are taken care off.

------
OliverJones
Repeat after me: "If I don't pay for the product I am the product."

Teaching this to schoolkids is necessary for public mental health.

I'm sure FB, like gouging pharmaceutical companies, employs risk managers who
plan just how far they can go with this sort of thing and still get away with
"issuing a formal and lengthy apology."

~~~
davnicwil
I'm experimenting with building a subscription based social network:
[https://postbelt.com](https://postbelt.com) \- basically to entirely step
over the 'you are the product' problem and offer the type of social network I
actually want to exist.

Check it out if it sounds interesting!

~~~
ddorian43
Can't you just, like, make it free and just add very dumb ads, and few enough
to be worth it ? Nobody (meaning mainstream people) will pay.

~~~
3131s
The idea I had is to let users monetize their own data, as in by default there
are no ads or tracking, but if you choose you can turn them on and get paid to
do so (and the site takes a percentage of that money). It could easily grow
into a platform for users to monetize and sell other types of content that
they create too, like photos, videos, stories, etc.

~~~
davnicwil
That's very interesting, but obviously very difficult to bootstrap. As long as
it didn't, in any way, impact the UX of anyone else on the platform, it could
fit in and be workable. I guess working out those details is the difficult
part, and I've chosen to go with a simpler approach.

------
i_feel_great
All kids feel worthless at some time. This is evil.

------
thr0waway1239
To all those who supposedly "show they care" by "keeping in touch" with "folks
from around the world" (as a reason for explaining why FB provides an
important service). Whatever FB's lofty mission statement is on the inside,
the actual service Facebook is providing is estrangement, as mentioned in a
comment below.

Here is a very small way you can show you care, which will be actually
productive and hopefully makes you rethink that statement. There is _someone_
in your life who is technologically inept. Help them with their technology
related problems for an hour a week. Pull your hair out in frustration at your
complete failures (which will definitely happen initially). Persist with it
until they learn something. Continue for a while until you realize they have
mastered it so well that they are now teaching you something even you didn't
know.

In about 6 months, ask yourself if you would rather show that you care about
others by actually helping someone out, or if the better way is to press the
Like button like Pavlovian dogs. And then come and comment on how useful you
think FB is at that point.

I am not saying it is absolutely useless. I am just saying that FB's
engagement would dwindle down in proportion to its actual importance. The
funny thing is, anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that FB has been
designed to be like an entertaining movie, designed to appeal to our most base
instincts (the well studied combination of narcissism and voyeurism). You will
not watch such movies 24 x 7 x 365, would you?

------
wdr1
The title ("Facebook Australia allowed advertisers to target teens’ emotional
states") is fundamentally incorrect.

Update, 5/1 12:12 p.m.: "Facebook does not offer tools to target people based
on their emotional state."

------
snippyhollow
[https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/comments-on-research-and-
ad-t...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/comments-on-research-and-ad-
targeting/)

~~~
morghus
We really have no way of knowing for which purpose or in which way any data
that is collected about us is used by any company/person/entity.

------
reitanqild
And here is one reason why I'm busy trying to get people to abandon Whatsapp.

I don't want to support this company. I don't want them to have tons of
metadata including a list of everyone I talk to.

I definitely don't want them to track my kids.

So I hold my nose and say "try Telegram".

~~~
Shinkirou
Say 'try signal' instead. Good crypto is never be overrated.

~~~
reitanqild
_Good crypto is never be overrated._

Agree.

But for the rest of us: does Signal have group conversations and multi-device
support?

I think if we are going to replace Whatsapp we need to provide an alternative
that matches the features people use and feels better.

Telegram does all that and more.

Amd BTW if you can get people to use Signal then that is great too!

(Oh the irony of me trying to get people off WhatsApp, - I was an enthusiastic
user until they got bought.)

------
psyc
A bit like hitting the broad side of barn, though, isn't it?

I've been seeing a ton of backlash against Facebook lately. I know there's
always backlash against Facebook, but I've been seeing a lot more of it.
Especially devs calling out other devs for working there.

~~~
masterponomo
If you watch comment sections where shareholders hang out, such as Yahoo
Business site for FB, you see every negative allegation against FB ever
published, every single day. In comments sections, it is typically the shorts
railing against any uptick in share price. And while the main Yahoo Business
site does publish both pro and con articles year-round, there does always seem
to be one major "new" negative allegation right at earnings time (Q1 report is
in two days), like clockwork. Often, the "new" thing is not new at all. The
major themes they like to repackage as news at earnings time are 1) the young
are fleeing FB; 2) FB's revenue growth will slow as user growth slows; and 3)
FB uses their data to sell ads. It's really funny to see these things touted
as new revelations, when FB openly discusses all of these and more when
discussing risk factors in their own financial reporting.

------
delegate
[http://thoughtmaybe.com/facebook-cracking-the-
code/](http://thoughtmaybe.com/facebook-cracking-the-code/)

Watched it last night and I think it's very relevant to this discussion.

Now I don't think its _Facebook, the company_ that has these scary social side
effects, it is the concept of the 'social network' itself that's dangerous.

Facebook is just very good at promoting and monetizing it (and of course it's
also a technological marvel).

Give everyone a voice ? Nice idea in theory, but one bad apple ... what about
a million bad apples ?

------
return0
I don't understand, this has been a feature since forever. You can tell the
emotional state of people by the music they listen to.

------
nobodyorother
I don't think it's fair to say that marketers ruin everything...

Marketers _devalue_ everything.

------
i336_
Not sure why nobody has tried cache:-loading the news article. It gets around
the paywall just fine.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dRqAloI...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dRqAloIGKuoJ:www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/digital/facebook-
targets-insecure-young-people-to-sell-ads/news-
story/a89949ad016eee7d7a61c3c30c909fa6)

[http://archive.is/paAKu](http://archive.is/paAKu)

------
eveningcoffee
It is time to criminalize targeted advertising.

~~~
forinti
Especially advertising targeted at children. The way I see it, an advert is a
business proposal and children do not have the autonomy to engage in a deal.

~~~
vikeri
It used to be illegal to direct TV ads at kids in Sweden but it's now been
legalized to harmonize with the TV channels that were broadcasting from the
UK. Even though it's legal the networks have refrained from doing it as far as
I'm aware. Not sure about other mediums though.

------
mavdi
Live stream killing an elderly man, or hanging of your 2 year old kid, or want
to target the most volunrable in our society? Facebook.

They keep overstepping the mark and they keep getting away with it.

~~~
aaron695
I think this is so disingenuous it's insulting to those who died.

~~~
Neliquat
To their famlies maybe, dead people don't take offense. Impling the reaction
of someone is equally disingenuous. Not saying you are wrong, the conflation
is a bit overreaching.

------
golergka
A person has a need; a company wants to satisfy it. Whether the offering is
actually good for the person in long term is said persons' decision to make.
Currently fashionable imperative that society has to force it's members to
good choices and protect from bad ones is, in my, opinion, deeply immoral, and
strips society's members from their ability to make meaningful choices.

Now, this particular story includes teenagers, and I agree - the people who we
are not yet take as adults _should_ have some protection and guidance. But as
person closes to the 18 (or 21) years, this protection and guidance needs to
gradually go away. We cannot pretend that a 16 year old and 9 year old are on
the same responsibility and mental level.

~~~
mintplant
> A person has a need; a company wants to satisfy it. Whether the offering is
> actually good for the person in long term is said persons' decision to make.

A company doesn't "want" to satisfy anything; it _needs_ to make money. We're
talking mega-corporations with armies of psychologists and data scientists,
pouring billions of dollars and collective man-centuries into learning to
manipulate people to act in certain ways, irrespective of their own self-
interest, on a massive scale... versus individual human beings with inherently
limited time and access to information and, on average, predictable behavioral
patterns. The most successful ad isn't the most helpful, informative, or even
honest, it's the one which acts the most like a mind virus.

~~~
golergka
Still, the critical thing here is _personal_choice_. Any kind of interaction
is, in some respect, manipulation; you just used a lot of scare tactics right
now to inflate the role of manipulation in this particular one. May be fair,
may be not; having worked in an industry that usually gets a rep for being
manipulative (free2play gamedev), I don't believe in the black magic power of
the game designers and marketers anymore, but I don't have enough information
about topic at hand.

But regardless - we have to make a clear distinction between somewhere,
because otherwise we would be on a slippery slope to forbid any kind of
interaction where parties have conflicting interests at all. And in my
opinion, the perfect way to make distinction is whether the person is making
the decision out of a sane state of mind and voluntarily.

