
Targeted ads are one of the world's most destructive trends - elorant
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/05/targeted-ads-fake-news-clickbait-surveillance-capitalism-data-mining-democracy
======
rudyfink
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](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
I don’t think we can address the issue of the role of (any) technology without
also factoring in the (multifaceted) issue of intent...

------
knzhou
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.

~~~
satya71
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.

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

~~~
knzhou
You're perfectly correct. The advantage of social media, if it exists at all,
is symmetric between right and left. The 2008 Obama campaign was universally
celebrated in the press for its deft use of social media [0, 1, 2, 3, 4],
which included data mining in the style of Cambridge Analytica but at several
times the scale, and using that data to hyper-target its message. Strangely,
at the time this was universally called the future of democracy, not its end.

0:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.htm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html)

1:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/nov/07/barackoba...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/nov/07/barackobama-
uselections2008)

2: [https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-
ob...](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-
the-facebook-election)

3:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71bH8z6iqSc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71bH8z6iqSc)

4:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Obama and the Democratic Party are, by no stretch of the imagination, far-
left.

I suspect whoever had used it first would have been celebrated at the time.
Every new innovation usually reveals its problems only later. Targeted ads 15
years ago were touted as being able to ensure we'd have a healthy relationship
with ads, and only get ads we desired. Didn't turn out like that, did it?

If Cambridge Analytica had come along 5 years earlier in the political cycle,
the Republicans would have been lauded for finding a marvellous new technique
to engage the electorate, and the Democrats caught the flak for breaking
democracy. Give it a couple more elections and I imagine much of the developed
world will have outlawed micro-targeted political ads.

~~~
knzhou
> Obama and the Democratic Party are, by no stretch of the imagination, far-
> left.

Indeed. My point is that social media works about equally well for both
mainstream left (the Obama campaign) and mainstream right (the Trump
campaign). It _also_ works for both far-left and far-right. I know people who
have been radicalized this way in both directions.

> I suspect whoever had used it first would have been celebrated at the time.
> [...] If Cambridge Analytica had come along 5 years earlier in the political
> cycle, the Republicans would have been lauded for finding a marvellous new
> technique to engage the electorate

I'm sorry, but this is such a naive take that I honestly don't know how to
respond to it. Even as a child I was able to deduce, from the obvious
editorial slant in the newspaper, that an inversion of tribal affiliations
like this would never happen. I challenge you to find any article in the NYT
or Guardian that paints any new election strategies by any right-wing
politicians favorably.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I'm not that naive. :p

Of course it wouldn't be the NYT or Guardian reporting were the cycle at the
opposite peak. It would be the Telegraph or I guess the US equivalent would be
WaPo?

Partisan newspapers aren't going to forget their party inclinations, though
they all have a fine track record attempting to borrow and reform any good
ideas that originate on the other side of the fence.

~~~
knzhou
Are you British by any chance? The UK press really is different from the US,
in that you guys have newspapers with a variety of slants, from left to right,
which most everyone is aware of. But in the US, the common perception is that
there is a “neutral” mainstream press (NYT, WaPo, etc.). However, these papers
would never ever publish anything approaching admiration for a Republican
campaign.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Yes I am a Brit. From my UK perspective NYT feels distinctly Democrat leaning
rather than neutral with the odd surprise opinion piece. I don't think I've
ever felt them independent or neutral. WaPo somewhere between Democrat and
Republican - I've never quite been sure if that's them simply unsure which
horse they want to ride. Though I admit I read rather less from WaPo, and am
not sure of the US Republican equivalent of The NYT, equivalent to the UK
Torygraph (though they're not really that since their last change of
ownership).

What I do notice distinctly, with both those and probably all US media to some
extent is the degree they come onside around "national issues" and military
action, often becoming distinctly non-neutral, _even when it against their
perceived political alignment._ A tendency that is far less pronounced in the
UK papers - though that is increasing.

UK media is often quite happy to lay the boot into the sitting government,
even if it is "their own". Neutrality usually gets bought and made partisan
(and crap) - Murdoch and Times, Lebedev and Independent. FT is probably the
closest we have left, and their buyer haven't yet ruined it.

------
mishraka
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.

------
largespoon
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?

~~~
fizx
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.

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

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

------
umvi
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
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.

------
senectus1
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...

------
nloladze
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.

