Are there any positive uses of our online data beyond targeted advertising?

[acobb99]

Yesterday I had an interesting chat with a friend who works at Facebook. He explained how the company builds a detailed profile on each user based on their activity and then uses this for targeted advertisement and constructing a personalised feed that keeps you hooked on the platform.

This got me thinking: what do you think could be the actual beneficial uses of this data if it wasn’t being hoarded by big tech to sell us products? Could it be used in ways that actually improve our lives, society, or the world at large? And this goes beyond just Facebook, imagine if you could also consolidate someone’s Google, Instagram, Reddit etc. data together… surely this data could be used in so many ways that benefit the user?

Some ideas that I had included using it for social matching (e.g. dating or meeting people with similar interests), personalised recommendations, giving context to an LLM, or just some cool insights into your personality and digital footprint.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts and ideas.

[notinmykernel]

Human behaviors are commodities. For every "good" there is a "bad" under active exploitation.

For instance, health information can be used to recommend relevant product, and it can be sold to insurance companies who will dynamically adjust your rates based on your "health profile." All from an invasive tracking pixel. Thanks, Meta.

The only positive outcome is increased data privacy standards.

[keplerdos]

No. Facebook and Google are ad businesses. The data only exists to influence people into buying things they don’t need. It’s a net negative to society.

I don’t know how anyone justifies working at either place, given their mission is to separate people from their money.

[andrei_says_]

Separate people from their money while stealing their attention and time, intentionally triggering and maintaining addiction response, optimizing for engagement which in turn relies on negative emotions, conflict, fear, hate.

Attention x time is the most significant resource we have.

Joy, togetherness, happiness, is what makes life worth living.

The attention economy destroys all of these, causing an immeasurable amount of damage and misery.

So, yes, how much does Sauron pay again?

[acobb99]

Not that I'm disagreeing with your first line, but is there any business that doesn't exist to separate people from their money?

[dotcoma]

Sadly, it's full of places people work at that are net negatives to society.

Google and Facebook are two such places, but the list is long, and not limited to Big Tech.

[reice]

This is actually a very good question! made me think for a while now!. In my opinion a great use of our data would definatly benefit us while making a desiction now of course this isnt so realistic but hear me out! an AI that is always listening and records every step that you make online. and then uses its super advanced model to help you make descisions you ask it to make. like what should i but who should i date or if this or that is healthy, maybe with an advanced algorrithem it can find what you are going to do in a couple of seconds and load something into memory to make you os faster? I know i just typed a lot but this is actually interesting

[acobb99]

Interesting ideas. So you're learning more towards the recommendations (and eventually agent) use-case. I find having to provide ChatGPT / Claude with context before prompting to be a real inefficiency and them having access to your online history would streamline this more.

[082349872349872]

Careful what you wish for. The reason many jurisdictions have laws stating that public establishments have to treat all customers equally is that in the days before cars and large stores, shopkeepers tended to know all their customers, and if one was in the wrong kind of neighbourhood, that meant that weekly shopping turned into the sort of exercise in cliques and popularity that would make a high-drama high school proud.

[acobb99]

Didn't know this but super interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[brudgers]

To me, this is a core contributor to Walmart’s success. It’s not just price, but that the higher prices of “Main Street” were a mechanism for maintaining country club favoring social structures in small towns.

The Walmart in Fort Stockton gives the oil rancher who aint got time to drive to Dallas and the migrant hand living in a trailer between the tracks and I10 the same absence of bullshit.

[Yawrehto]

Yes, in theory. Tracking someone's health can help doctors diagnose issues. If you search for "nosebleed" and then "back pain", that can provide valuable information, particularly if you might forget to mention symptoms. Tracking what you search for and click on could be used to suggest news stories you'd be interested in, and not just funnel you towards sensationalism. Et cetera. However, good uses are pretty niche, and certainly not what most data is used for.

[acobb99]

Some nice ideas. I think recommendations (health, products, news etc.) would be really useful. But you're right, none are as big a market as ads.

[al_borland]

Even if there were some positive uses, the risk associated with misuse isn’t worth it. I don’t think these datasets should exist at all. Users should have a right to privacy and to not be manipulated for profit.

[acobb99]

True, but if the dataset already exists, why not use it to benefit you?

[MattGaiser]

I’d love Facebook and LinkedIn for relevant event recommendations if they didn’t regularly come well after the event occurred or the deadline to apply/buy tickets had passed.

[acobb99]

Yes I agree. An issue I have is hearing about a future event that has now sold out of tickets because when I heard about it so did everyone else. It's a catch-22.

Are you suggesting your online data could predict which events you might like before they sell out / actually happen?

[brudgers]

social matching

Facebook and Linkedin suggest people pretty regularly. The problem is that there’s often a good reason we havent already connected despite 15 years of opportunity.

[acobb99]

This made me laugh. I was thinking more social matching with people not already in your network. For example dating or finding a roommate.

[dotcoma]

> Could it be used in ways that actually improve our lives, society, or the world at large?

I doubt it.