Former Facebook exec: Facebook lying about not targeting vulnerable teens, sells ability to swing elections

[Delicieuxz]

 

I'm an ex-Facebook exec: don't believe what they tell you about ads - Facebook told advertisers it can identify teens feeling 'insecure' and 'worthless'

 

Article excerpt:

Quote

 

For two years I was charged with turning Facebook data into money, by any legal means. If you browse the internet or buy items in physical stores, and then see ads related to those purchases on Facebook, blame me. I helped create the first versions of that, way back in 2012.

 

The ethics of Facebook’s micro-targeted advertising was thrust into the spotlight this week by a report out of Australia. The article, based on a leaked presentation, said that Facebook was able to identify teenagers at their most vulnerable, including when they feel “insecure”, “worthless”, “defeated” and “stressed”.

Facebook claimed the report was misleading, assuring the public that the company does not “offer tools to target people based on their emotional state”. If the intention of Facebook’s public relations spin is to give the impression that such targeting is not even possible on their platform, I’m here to tell you I believe they’re lying through their teeth.

 

 

Just as Mark Zuckerberg was being disingenuous (to put it mildly) when, in the wake of Donald Trump’s unexpected victory, he expressed doubt that Facebook could have flipped the presidential election.

 

Facebook deploys a political advertising sales team, specialized by political party, and charged with convincing deep-pocketed politicians that they do have the kind of influence needed to alter the outcome of elections.

 

I was at Facebook in 2012, during the previous presidential race. The fact that Facebook could easily throw the election by selectively showing a Get Out the Vote reminder in certain counties of a swing state, for example, was a running joke.

Converting Facebook data into money is harder than it sounds, mostly because the vast bulk of your user data is worthless. Turns out your blotto-drunk party pics and flirty co-worker messages have no commercial value whatsoever.

 

But occasionally, if used very cleverly, with lots of machine-learning iteration and systematic trial-and-error, the canny marketer can find just the right admixture of age, geography, time of day, and music or film tastes that demarcate a demographic winner of an audience. The “clickthrough rate”, to use the advertiser’s parlance, doesn’t lie.

 

Without seeing the leaked documents, which were reportedly based around a pitch Facebook made to a bank, it is impossible to know precisely what the platform was offering advertisers. There’s nothing in the trade I know of that targets ads at emotions. But Facebook has and does offer “psychometric”-type targeting, where the goal is to define a subset of the marketing audience that an advertiser thinks is particularly susceptible to their message.

 

And knowing the Facebook sales playbook, I cannot imagine the company would have concocted such a pitch about teenage emotions without the final hook: “and this is how you execute this on the Facebook ads platform”. Why else would they be making the pitch?

 

The question is not whether this can be done. It is whether Facebook should apply a moral filter to these decisions. Let’s assume Facebook does target ads at depressed teens. My reaction? So what. Sometimes data behaves unethically.

 

 

I think people need to be aware that lying to the public is what big corporation PR and legal teams are about. And just as Facebook lied when it told the public that it doesn't deliberately target vulnerable teenagers to sell advertisements, so also do other companies, such as Microsoft, 'lie through their teeth' when they tell customers and press about how customer data is collected and handled, that it is anonymous (none of it is), and how it is used (it is used in every way imaginable).

[Shodapop98]

I don't think it surprises me that facebook has been doing that, I mean they probably know more about you (if you use it often) than people in your family

[PlayStation 2]

Welcome to the world of the deep state.

[mrchow19910319]

that's the thing about "free service"... there is not a single thing that comes free in this world. 

 

in the end we all become a part of the product line. 

 

Also I am pretty sure that everytime I went to facebook I just felt terrible. lol. 

And nowadays facebook pushes out TONS of ads in between people's post. 

 

Havn't been using it that much for a few years now.. 

[PlayStation 2]

1 minute ago, Nicholatian said:

So when do we get our shit together and start writing regulations for this kind of behaviour?

 

It’s only a matter of time, honestly. Eventually we’ll come to a crossroads, something will set the people off, and Facebook will be put on a leash… because as stupid as people are, the people in charge aren’t that bright either.

They're all poking the bear. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, all of them.

It's really inevitable. And frankly, it's gonna be something that's gonna really divide opinions.

[JuNex03]

[Tech_Dreamer]

Relate~able :

 

"You provide the pictures, I'll provide the war."

 

                                                                                     - William Randolph Hearst
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[JoseGuya]

39 minutes ago, Nicholatian said:

So when do we get our shit together and start writing regulations for this kind of behaviour?

 

It’s only a matter of time, honestly. Eventually we’ll come to a crossroads, something will set the people off, and Facebook will be put on a leash… because as stupid as people are, the people in charge aren’t that bright either.

 Deep pocket politicians use that, the same people that you ask to make those regulations. 

[ARikozuM]

Welcome to the age of electronic data...

 

We have whine and cheesy puns. 

[mr moose]

You mean they are using targeted ads?  Who would have thought it even possible. Did you really need someone to tell you this.

 

The biggest issue with facebook is it affords one set of morons a platform to speak with perceived authority by another complete set of morons.  The intelligence vacuum within that site is so dense that actual scientists are starting to create their own pages to combat the complete idiocy of it all.  You can't get more than three clicks in to encounter a conspiracy theory, some moron promoting anti vaccination or MMS enema's to cure autism. 

[Prysin]

5 hours ago, Nicholatian said:

So when do we get our shit together and start writing regulations for this kind of behaviour?

 

It’s only a matter of time, honestly. Eventually we’ll come to a crossroads, something will set the people off, and Facebook will be put on a leash… because as stupid as people are, the people in charge aren’t that bright either.

uhm, never?

 

You see, aslong as the political establishment, in the west, which is massively left leaning, continue to reign or have any noticeable influence, then this will continue.

 

The whole purpose of this sort of targeting, is to indirectly, legally, controll and pacify the public at large. This is done by self-inflicted censorship (PC), mild ad-hominem threats, fearmongering, vague laws (hate speech/hate crime) and social labeling (racist, misogynist, sexist etc.. do note that "misandry" is not a thing. After all, everything is to blame on the patriarchy). 

 

Through careful management of economy and policy, the established forces in government and the ruling elite in the private sector set to vastly benefit from such policies or favors keep controlling the narrative.

 

And to give you JUST how unlikely it is that this is going to be dealt with, let us get the perspective of one of the most recently elected heads of state in the west, Emanuel Macron, "Terrorism is something we will have to get used to"....

The political establishment, which he is part of, is well aware of how to control and stop terrorism, just like they are well aware of how invasive facebook and other big corporations are to our privacy. But you see, they do not care, because it is an mean to an end for their political agenda. Which justifies the injustice the public faces.

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Does it really matter to the people who have the 'smarts' to use Facebook?

It matters if they are being targeted by predatory practices that would otherwise be illegal, yes. Imagine if, say, schools sold teenagers' data and the insecure kids met a viagra salesman on the way home.

46 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You mean they are using targeted ads?  Who would have thought it even possible. Did you really need someone to tell you this.

There is a difference between automatically targeting ads based on interest patterns, and deliberately selling "depressed teenager" ad slots.

[Sauron]

5 minutes ago, Prysin said:

You see, aslong as the political establishment, in the west, which is massively left leaning, continue to reign or have any noticeable influence, then this will continue.

pfffft.... hahahahhahahaha

 

sorry, I just had to laugh my ass off right there.

this guy is left leaning? was bush left leaning too?

what about europe where the most influential governments have been right wing for decades? only recently we got a couple of terms with the left wing in some countries.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

 

There is a difference between automatically targeting ads based on interest patterns, and deliberately selling "depressed teenager" ad slots.

no there isn't. All ads are deliberately sold slots.   It's all intentional, it's all targeted.   IF you ever thought facebook didn't take your profile or post history into account when targeting ads you have been living under a rock.

[Prysin]

7 minutes ago, Sauron said:

pfffft.... hahahahhahahaha

 

sorry, I just had to laugh my ass off right there.

this guy is left leaning? was bush left leaning too?

what about europe where the most influential governments have been right wing for decades? only recently we got a couple of terms with the left wing in some countries.

that guy is a centre-right then actual right.

 

You also have to remember, Nazi's were leftist. NOT right. Infact, if you want to learn which side of the political landscape has caused the most atrocities, go look up the communist and socialist death count. We are at 130 million + since 1900s, and we are still counting, venezuela should add a few thousand if not hundreds of thousands more to that count.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Parents have a duty too? 

I dunno about kids learning to use Facebook in school, sounds contradictory to me. 

Kids feeling insecure is not always the parents' fault. Not that it matters in this case.

You misunderstood the second part, I meant to say that if another institution that has access to lots of your data (for example a school) were to sell your personal data to advertisers and tell them you were an insecure kid they would get sued to death.

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

no there isn't. All ads are deliberately sold slots.   It's all intentional, it's all targeted.   IF you ever thought facebook didn't take your profile or post history into account when targeting ads you have been living under a rock.

I expected nothing different, however that's where the line between "annoying but acceptable" and "unacceptable" lies. They should not be allowed to target weakened psyches for profit.

4 minutes ago, Prysin said:

that guy is a centre-right then actual right.

 

You also have to remember, Nazi's were leftist. NOT right. Infact, if you want to learn which side of the political landscape has caused the most atrocities, go look up the communist and socialist death count. We are at 130 million + since 1900s, and we are still counting, venezuela should add a few thousand if not hundreds of thousands more to that count.

Sure, because modern day left and right have much in common with what they were 100 years ago. Is that how you argue over politics, by mentioning Stalin and Hitler when they have nothing to do with the topic at hand nor with any current (relevant) political faction? I'm sure your arguments are very compelling.

 

Just to get the facts straight, RIGHT NOW fascism is extreme right and socialism is extreme left. Or are you telling me they are one and the same because hiter and stalin where considered "left wing" inside their respective countries at the time?

 

What does the deah count of socialist dictatorships have to do with what I said? I called bullshit on your statement

23 minutes ago, Prysin said:

You see, aslong as the political establishment, in the west, which is massively left leaning, continue to reign or have any noticeable influence, then this will continue.

which remains bullshit regardless of how many times you mention the nazis.

 

And let's just take a moment to appreciate the hypocrisy on display here:

26 minutes ago, Prysin said:

This is done by self-inflicted censorship (PC), mild ad-hominem threats, fearmongering, vague laws (hate speech/hate crime) and social labeling (racist, misogynist, sexist etc.. do note that "misandry" is not a thing. After all, everything is to blame on the patriarchy). 

social labeling? you just called all left wing parties nazis and socialists at the same time. And vague laws? I could mention a slew of bullshit laws right wing parties have written and are writing right now. No political force has been completely innocent of this in the past decades, get off your high horse and tone down the mud throwing campaign.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I expected nothing different, however that's where the line between "annoying but acceptable" and "unacceptable" lies. They should not be allowed to target weakened psyches for profit.

 

 

As someone who has worked with and has extensive experience with depression/anxiety and bipolar disorder amongst other mental illnesses. What makes you think these people are any less intelligent or easily swayed by targeted ads than others are?  They are no more dangerous to the mentally ill than they are to everyday joe blow who isn't even aware of his mental state.

Just in case anyone was wondering, taking advantage by directing ads toward people in easily led states is definitely not new. This from 2012:

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-incredible-story-of-how-target-exposed-a-teen-girls-pregnancy-2012-2

 

As I said earlier, there are much more dangerous things on facebook than the ads they serve.  Groups dedicated to alternative medicine, anti-vaxxers, organic woo fuckery, people promoting a fear of doctors and trying to convince everyone that the whole health system is a con designed to keep you sick.  That is the danger with facebook, not a fucking ad on the side.

[Sauron]

53 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

As someone who has worked with and has extensive experience with depression/anxiety and bipolar disorder amongst other mental illnesses. What makes you think these people are any less intelligent or easily swayed by targeted ads than others are?  They are no more dangerous to the mentally ill than they are to everyday joe blow who isn't even aware of his mental state.

Just in case anyone was wondering, taking advantage by directing ads toward people in easily led states is definitely not new. This from 2012:

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-incredible-story-of-how-target-exposed-a-teen-girls-pregnancy-2012-2

 

As I said earlier, there are much more dangerous things on facebook than the ads they serve.  Groups dedicated to alternative medicine, anti-vaxxers, organic woo fuckery, people promoting a fear of doctors and trying to convince everyone that the whole health system is a con designed to keep you sick.  That is the danger with facebook, not a fucking ad on the side.

I don't question the intelligence of anyone, however as far as I know certain ads and messages can have a negative effect on someone's state of mind if they are already struggling with depression, anxhiety or insecurity.

 

Sure, it may not be the worst thing on facebook, that doesn't mean it's fine. furthermore it's the part corporate facebook can actually do something about without going down the rabbit hole of closing "inaccurate" pages.

[Misanthrope]

This entire thing boils down to this:

 

Quote

Without seeing the leaked documents, which were reportedly based around a pitch Facebook made to a bank, it is impossible to know precisely what the platform was offering advertisers.

 

In other words everything said is useless fucking conjecture without evidence anything specific being done to target vulnerable things or influence elections. Their capacity to "do" something is useless: We know they have a ton of metadata and personally identifiable information. It's evidence of what they actually do with it that needs to come out not this nonsense.

[Taf the Ghost]

Welcome to the real world.  You're information and something to be controlled.  1984 & A Brave New World weren't fictional stories to entertain; they were always dystopian futures of trends that already existed.  We're just seeing them play out.

 

This is also why Google is, generally, more dangerous than than all but the NSA when it comes to data collection. They have reams of analytical tools that they can come up with an extremely accurate profile of a person in seconds.  And all of this has always been funded by major Countries.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel

 

The USA has a Venture Capital arm that's been involved in all of these companies.  For years.  While it makes logical sense that they would, that also means that whatever "safeguards" are supposed to exist have been obliterated a long time ago. The Power & Control are simply too valuable.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)

 

People also need to understand that we're approaching nearly 100 years into the Propaganda Age. There's big money in Control & Influence.  Some groups are a lot better at it than others, but it is still real.  And we're barely scratching the surface of how deep the the rabbit hole goes with this stuff.  Ask yourself, how can Uber be worth Billions (and be funded with 100s of Millions) when it's losing money hand over fist?  You don't control 100s of Millions by being stupid; so what is so valuable about the Silicon Valley "unicorns"?

 

This isn't "the government is controlling me with satellite beams!" stuff. Most of it is more simple in the collection + targeted propaganda approach. We know for a fact that me typing this, you reading this and everyone that passes through this page is being logged in a database in Utah.  Along with whatever other Beacons are being used to track this specific page.  This is the world you live in.  And why we're going to see civil wars break out in much of the Western economies over the next two decades. The Elites have set the trend, and we will reap the whirlwind for it.

[Teddy07]

facebook is old. I log in twice just to see if someone wrote me or post something interesting but I usually leave within 5 minutes.

[Notional]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Sure, because modern day left and right have much in common with what they were 100 years ago. Is that how you argue over politics, by mentioning Stalin and Hitler when they have nothing to do with the topic at hand nor with any current (relevant) political faction? I'm sure your arguments are very compelling.

 

Just to get the facts straight, RIGHT NOW fascism is extreme right and socialism is extreme left. Or are you telling me they are one and the same because hiter and stalin where considered "left wing" inside their respective countries at the time?

Nothing you say makes sense. To get a better understanding of the political spectrum, look at the political compass:

 

 

Left and right describe the size of the public sector (and thus also the taxation burden). Authoritarian and liberal describe the power of said public sector (liberal being personal freedom, authoritarian being state dictates. Americans don't seem to understand what liberal means. Maybe that's why they claim America is the land of the free, despite being more surveilled than the eastern germans under DDR). Fascism is authoritarian. Because a large public sector, marxism and ultimately plan-economy, can only work if you control the markets 100% (markets are people), all left wing economical implementation will always, ALWAYS lead to massive oppression of the people. 

 

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were all extreme authoritarian from the extreme left to about middle.

[Prysin]

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

Kids feeling insecure is not always the parents' fault. Not that it matters in this case.

You misunderstood the second part, I meant to say that if another institution that has access to lots of your data (for example a school) were to sell your personal data to advertisers and tell them you were an insecure kid they would get sued to death.

I expected nothing different, however that's where the line between "annoying but acceptable" and "unacceptable" lies. They should not be allowed to target weakened psyches for profit.

Sure, because modern day left and right have much in common with what they were 100 years ago. Is that how you argue over politics, by mentioning Stalin and Hitler when they have nothing to do with the topic at hand nor with any current (relevant) political faction? I'm sure your arguments are very compelling.

 

Just to get the facts straight, RIGHT NOW fascism is extreme right and socialism is extreme left. Or are you telling me they are one and the same because hiter and stalin where considered "left wing" inside their respective countries at the time?

 

What does the deah count of socialist dictatorships have to do with what I said? I called bullshit on your statement

which remains bullshit regardless of how many times you mention the nazis.

 

And let's just take a moment to appreciate the hypocrisy on display here:

social labeling? you just called all left wing parties nazis and socialists at the same time. And vague laws? I could mention a slew of bullshit laws right wing parties have written and are writing right now. No political force has been completely innocent of this in the past decades, get off your high horse and tone down the mud throwing campaign.

the intolerant left strikes again

[Prysin]

1 hour ago, Notional said:

Nothing you say makes sense. To get a better understanding of the political spectrum, look at the political compass:

 

 

Left and right describe the size of the public sector (and thus also the taxation burden). Authoritarian and liberal describe the power of said public sector (liberal being personal freedom, authoritarian being state dictates. Americans don't seem to understand what liberal means. Maybe that's why they claim America is the land of the free, despite being more surveilled than the eastern germans under DDR). Fascism is authoritarian. Because a large public sector, marxism and ultimately plan-economy, can only work if you control the markets 100% (markets are people), all left wing economical implementation will always, ALWAYS lead to massive oppression of the people. 

 

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were all extreme authoritarian from the extreme left to about middle.

Libertarian = controlled anarchy

Liberal =/= Libertarian.

 

just saying

[Notional]

1 minute ago, Prysin said:

Libertarian = controlled anarchy

Liberal =/= Libertarian.

 

just saying

Anarchy yes. Calling it controlled is an oxymoron. Liberal = liberalism. As in liberty and equality. Liberalism cannot exist in an authoritarian system.