See, the trick here is to put all the personal data onto an oddly specific t-shirt that's for sale.
Available now, size "Large" t-shirt for sale!
"I'm a proud dad living in Seattle who attended the University of Washington and once went on a trip to Central America for a while. I have a dog and like to read and occasionally complain about politics."
I'd buy this if I saw it, if just for the lulz and nihilistic outlook when it comes to privacy.
In fact... if I were a privacy-focused company, I'd 100% do this as a marketing stunt.
OMG. This is just brilliant on so many levels. It's not just subversive against FB's rules but also can be the start of some kind of art project as a statement about what tech companies know about us. But the project itself gives us a choice in what is shown to others whereas FB doesn't give us that choice when selling the info to advertisers. It'll probably get shut down real quick by FB though once they know about this.
Edited: as my sibling comment mentioned, I too would buy one of these shirts.
Even better: phrase it in relation to the person reading the shirt, not the person wearing it:
"You are seeing this shirt because [advertiser] wants to reach people who are friends with individuals who are [age], interested in [topic], located in or near [city], who wear [size] shirts.
As someone else pointed out, personal attributes are prohibited from ads.
My feeling is, communicating a compelling data collection story, even strictly positivist things like how much data is collected, let alone normative ones like we should collect less data or prohibit collecting it - you're not going to tell that story with some neat hack inside the system.
I wonder if this tactics could be used to increase click rate. Sound like a good idea to grab someones attention and maybe reduce spending by targeting niches.
As a FB marketing expert, this wouldn't work. Yes we could target you, but the market is too small and not worth the effort. The minimum audience worth targeting
"Avoid too much text on the image itself. We've found that images with less than 20% text perform better, though there is no limit on the amount of text that can exist in your ad image."
This actually violates the “personal attributes” rule. In my experience, this rule is enforced quite strictly — although you can still see the same targeting criteria under the “why did I see this ad” feature.
I don't think the point here was to actually run these ads. They don't look like they'd drive a lot of conversion, and there's a big risk that quite a few would actually be inaccurate in practice - Facebook's algorithms, while they know a lot about you, can also be quite wrong.
But you can't see that in an article like this, and it's far more likely to reach the right people.
This is both an ad for Signal and an ad for Facebook Ad's ability to target depending on who is reading it.
What I mean is that for your average consumer, they'll read this and be horrified that Facebook is using the information they voluntarily gave Facebook to make money. But someone who is buying ads will read this same thing, be impressed by just how tightly Facebook can target, and put $10K into an Ad Account to try it out.
As to me, I use Facebook, I am willing to see ads within Facebook using the information I share with Facebook but where I draw the line is Facebook "leaking" into my wider web browsing history (either tracking me, or using my non-Facebook browsing to advertise to me on Facebook). Therefore, I use Mozilla's Facebook Container extension and blacklist Facebook/Instagram's "Share" tracking buttons.
I also access Facebook from a mobile browser rather than app and use Signal instead of Facebook Messager, to limit Facebook's ability to track my location and other phone meta-data.
It's absolutely transparent then that, without intervention, companies act in ways that are against individual's and society's best interests in order to make more money.
With that evident fact, we to face the reality, however uncomfortable, that manufacturing desire at this scale has become unambiguously unethical.
Years ago I added a widget to the user interface on wikipedia for logged in users so that people were able to add geography specific notification to tell editors about meetups that were coming up in their area.
It turned out that if the message displayed was too specific, like "Upcoming meetup in your area: [New York meetup]" people got rather angry about the privacy invasion.
So instead the instructions for setting the messages had to tell the authors to instead say stuff like "Find out about upcoming meetups!" -- which of course was only displayed if there actually was an upcoming meetup near where you geolocated.
Of course, regardless of if any message is displayed the site could guess your geography based on your IP address. The exposure of private information was nearly identical-- actually arguably worse because someone might mention that they're currently seeing a notice without realizing that this fact leaked their geography... but the more generic messages didn't generate complaints.
(and WP policy effectively makes it impossible to edit via Tor, even for established users in good standing)
Sometimes it seems people care a lot more about enjoying the illusion of privacy than they care about actually having privacy.
> The ad would simply display some of the information collected about the viewer which the advertising platform uses. Facebook was not into that idea.
Genius! But it’s unclear to me if the examples in the blog were actual ads shown to users before their account was blocked, or the campaign never got off the ground at all. If it’s the latter, the blog should make it clearer otherwise it makes it look like those were real ads
Facebook already has a way in-app for you to see why you were targeted with an ad (on any ad click the 3-dot menu -> "Why am I seeing this ad?"). The tool will tell you things like whether you were retargeted vs targeted using lookalike audiences, targeted based off of your age, gender, location, interests, etc.
I don't think this is the "slam dunk" the author intends it to be, but I'm sure it will resonate with the Woke™ hackernews crowd regardless.
This isn't shocking at all. If anything, it makes me want to make a business account so I can see first hand what targeting criteria would be available to me.
I'm not an FB user, but I might as well be, since I have an Instagram account that I mindlessly scroll from time to time.
This doesn't seem very effective to me. 99% of people who see an ad like that will not care. It's already common knowledge that Zuck's gonna take your data.
"Facebook knows I'm a single teacher in Moscow who likes soccer? ... So what?
And that's before taking into account that the labels FB/etc. put on you are often incorrect, further diluting the perceived seriousness of this privacy leak.
The point of ads isn't always to get a reaction. Clicks are the grand goal of course but mere impressions are valued by marketing standards as well. The fact that the target audience sees the ad, even if only passing by while scrolling is widely considered a success by marketing standards. And equally needless to say but I'll say it anyway; that's the very point of Zuck leeching, so the ads will find the target audience.
Agree with you there that this isn't much of a privacy leak as the average user mostly knows what's going on. I'd guess the article wasn't really meant to point out a threat to privacy, maybe more on the lines of "FB doesn't want to share it's methods of using the information it gathers". Shocking...
It's about how it's framed. People don't know how to feel until you tell them.
Take for example the obesity epidemic. Obesity is a factor in 20% of all US deaths. People know it is killing them, their friends and their families and don't do anything.
I agree that these are extremely general categories that could be reproduced by scraping a person's public LinkedIn.
What's trickier is when the ads make assumptions about your taste based on the Facebook groups you participate in, and the websites you visit outside Facebook. Those are still connected to you via the Facebook beacons (share widgets) embedded in practically every website.
What do I care if Facebook shows me ads for the things I browsed on Amazon or Etsy. I often discover fun stuff directly from those ads for websites I wasn't even familiar with. On the contrary (and I could be wrong to do so) but I trust some website when I have seen its ad on Facebook, as I know it has been vetted by Facebook to not be some fraud.
I've run ads on FB before, but this is an incredibly simple article to share with my non-technically minded friends and family as to why these services collect too much data. We need more of these simple and concise posts to share outside of the tech-bubble we live in.
That said, nothing about this is new. Whether Facebook, Google, or any of the other countless (yes, thousands) of players in the AdTech ecosystem, this kind of targeting can be done with ease and for pennies per user.
The deprecation of third-party data, cookies, and cross-domain tracking couldn't happen soon enough. It's not a perfect solution but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
This isn't some attack on Signal specifically the personal ads policy has already existed and it was enforced against us once with a somewhat similar idea for voter locality. It would have been approved likely if took out the 'you' voice examples in the policy below.
Though I understand the point of this as marketing & article to educate on what data FB does have and the ads look really cool!
Ha, when the Ledger Nano database was leaked a few months ago it published the address data of roughly 300k users, including their email. Given the fact that you can upload e-mail adresses to Facebook for more directed targetting (really nice feature lol), I thought it might be fitting to advertise a 5$ wrench offer to each of these users and if they might be interested in one. Really weird actually that it's OK to upload other peoples contacts to such services without any checks whatsoever.
You can use that feature to do some incredibly specific targeting to mess with people - as in, make some incredibly targeted ads that will only show up for a single person.
[+] [-] sharkweek|4 years ago|reply
Available now, size "Large" t-shirt for sale!
"I'm a proud dad living in Seattle who attended the University of Washington and once went on a trip to Central America for a while. I have a dog and like to read and occasionally complain about politics."
I'd buy this if I saw it, if just for the lulz and nihilistic outlook when it comes to privacy.
In fact... if I were a privacy-focused company, I'd 100% do this as a marketing stunt.
[+] [-] hangonhn|4 years ago|reply
Edited: as my sibling comment mentioned, I too would buy one of these shirts.
[+] [-] oceliker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnicholas|4 years ago|reply
"You are seeing this shirt because [advertiser] wants to reach people who are friends with individuals who are [age], interested in [topic], located in or near [city], who wear [size] shirts.
[+] [-] an_opabinia|4 years ago|reply
My feeling is, communicating a compelling data collection story, even strictly positivist things like how much data is collected, let alone normative ones like we should collect less data or prohibit collecting it - you're not going to tell that story with some neat hack inside the system.
[+] [-] roflc0ptic|4 years ago|reply
https://www.facebook.com/groups/smtesdthemain
[+] [-] _bohm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrtksn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] magicroot75|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corobo|4 years ago|reply
I'm probably not going to, but I do like the idea
[+] [-] an_opabinia|4 years ago|reply
Too bad they have to use text to make their point. It would essentially reach zero people due to rules (https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/lessons/how-to-adher...). Then there's personal attributes (https://m.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/perso...). Then ads that do not sell products/services follow murky rules, and talking about Facebook itself is usually prohibited. (edited from: because the rule they're actually breaking is the "No Text" rule in Facebook ad creatives.)
Is there non-symbolic imagery that they could have used to say the same thing?
Perhaps they should have retained someone with this kind of creative experience.
Looking critically, the most narrow and serious obstacle to advocate for privacy is storytelling.
[+] [-] tgsovlerkhgsel|4 years ago|reply
Where can this rule be found? That seems like a really odd rule, and https://www.facebook.com/business/help/388369961318508?id=12... says the opposite:
"Avoid too much text on the image itself. We've found that images with less than 20% text perform better, though there is no limit on the amount of text that can exist in your ad image."
[+] [-] mkmk|4 years ago|reply
https://m.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/perso...
[+] [-] davidedicillo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcfaj7obqrkayhn|4 years ago|reply
maybe breaking the rule was intentional, to make this article work
[+] [-] Vinnl|4 years ago|reply
But you can't see that in an article like this, and it's far more likely to reach the right people.
[+] [-] DisjointedHunt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fgonzag|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enragedcacti|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Someone1234|4 years ago|reply
What I mean is that for your average consumer, they'll read this and be horrified that Facebook is using the information they voluntarily gave Facebook to make money. But someone who is buying ads will read this same thing, be impressed by just how tightly Facebook can target, and put $10K into an Ad Account to try it out.
As to me, I use Facebook, I am willing to see ads within Facebook using the information I share with Facebook but where I draw the line is Facebook "leaking" into my wider web browsing history (either tracking me, or using my non-Facebook browsing to advertise to me on Facebook). Therefore, I use Mozilla's Facebook Container extension and blacklist Facebook/Instagram's "Share" tracking buttons.
I also access Facebook from a mobile browser rather than app and use Signal instead of Facebook Messager, to limit Facebook's ability to track my location and other phone meta-data.
[+] [-] benjaminjosephw|4 years ago|reply
With that evident fact, we to face the reality, however uncomfortable, that manufacturing desire at this scale has become unambiguously unethical.
[+] [-] jerf|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nullc|4 years ago|reply
It turned out that if the message displayed was too specific, like "Upcoming meetup in your area: [New York meetup]" people got rather angry about the privacy invasion.
So instead the instructions for setting the messages had to tell the authors to instead say stuff like "Find out about upcoming meetups!" -- which of course was only displayed if there actually was an upcoming meetup near where you geolocated.
Of course, regardless of if any message is displayed the site could guess your geography based on your IP address. The exposure of private information was nearly identical-- actually arguably worse because someone might mention that they're currently seeing a notice without realizing that this fact leaked their geography... but the more generic messages didn't generate complaints.
(and WP policy effectively makes it impossible to edit via Tor, even for established users in good standing)
Sometimes it seems people care a lot more about enjoying the illusion of privacy than they care about actually having privacy.
[+] [-] pyjug|4 years ago|reply
Genius! But it’s unclear to me if the examples in the blog were actual ads shown to users before their account was blocked, or the campaign never got off the ground at all. If it’s the latter, the blog should make it clearer otherwise it makes it look like those were real ads
[+] [-] crakhamster01|4 years ago|reply
I don't think this is the "slam dunk" the author intends it to be, but I'm sure it will resonate with the Woke™ hackernews crowd regardless.
[+] [-] dannyw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SmellTheGlove|4 years ago|reply
I'm not an FB user, but I might as well be, since I have an Instagram account that I mindlessly scroll from time to time.
[+] [-] the_pwner224|4 years ago|reply
"Facebook knows I'm a single teacher in Moscow who likes soccer? ... So what?
And that's before taking into account that the labels FB/etc. put on you are often incorrect, further diluting the perceived seriousness of this privacy leak.
[+] [-] roachpepe|4 years ago|reply
Agree with you there that this isn't much of a privacy leak as the average user mostly knows what's going on. I'd guess the article wasn't really meant to point out a threat to privacy, maybe more on the lines of "FB doesn't want to share it's methods of using the information it gathers". Shocking...
[+] [-] octocop|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErikVandeWater|4 years ago|reply
Take for example the obesity epidemic. Obesity is a factor in 20% of all US deaths. People know it is killing them, their friends and their families and don't do anything.
[+] [-] rchaud|4 years ago|reply
What's trickier is when the ads make assumptions about your taste based on the Facebook groups you participate in, and the websites you visit outside Facebook. Those are still connected to you via the Facebook beacons (share widgets) embedded in practically every website.
[+] [-] dharmin007|4 years ago|reply
What do I care if Facebook shows me ads for the things I browsed on Amazon or Etsy. I often discover fun stuff directly from those ads for websites I wasn't even familiar with. On the contrary (and I could be wrong to do so) but I trust some website when I have seen its ad on Facebook, as I know it has been vetted by Facebook to not be some fraud.
[+] [-] spamalot159|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlimJaffer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wodenokoto|4 years ago|reply
There’s a similar story about a guy who sets up an add targeted to his wife or fiancé or something.
Later Facebook apparently made it so whatever group your targeting has a minimum size.
[+] [-] monkeywork|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] schwinn140|4 years ago|reply
That said, nothing about this is new. Whether Facebook, Google, or any of the other countless (yes, thousands) of players in the AdTech ecosystem, this kind of targeting can be done with ease and for pennies per user.
The deprecation of third-party data, cookies, and cross-domain tracking couldn't happen soon enough. It's not a perfect solution but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
[+] [-] quacked|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tempest_|4 years ago|reply
https://www.facebook.com/help/212802592074644
[+] [-] dillondoyle|4 years ago|reply
Though I understand the point of this as marketing & article to educate on what data FB does have and the ads look really cool!
https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/per...
[+] [-] hetspookjee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pta2002|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hart_russell|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martimarkov|4 years ago|reply