this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
980 points (99.7% liked)
Technology
69421 readers
2460 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That's how targeted advertising works yes. Not much of a reveal there?
I guess people need the obvious pointed out, and yeah fair enough.
Before I get dogpiled: I'm not defending them. I'm saying it's sad people actually think or thought the bar was higher than this. You can tell me Google, Xhitter, whatever did the same and I'd say the same thing. You're the product. You. Are. The. Product.
It is absolutely baffling that people don't realize that people are the product. I've had some folks tell me that they understand and "don't care" because the service is "free" or whatever, but then they get angry and freaked out when the platform knows exactly what they're thinking, or at least seems to know.
There's definitely a deficit in understanding and education on what corporate social media really does.
a) yes
b) what I find really concerning is that they may have already figured out how to change people's behaviour: what they think is funny, what they think is appropriate to say/do, where they want to travel to (if at all), how they feel about certain celebrities they like or dislike, what is believable or not believable, how they feel about certain politicians, who to vote for. Some people are probably more easy to sway on certain topics than others are. It's not a stretch to guess that they probably already know various paths to make individuals into something they currently are not.
Yes
People downvoting you don't realize how much of a science advertising is.
I think that's true in general, but not why I was downdooted.
My guess was the downvotes are people assuming I don't think it's worse to manipulate children vs adults and that I was somehow okay with it apathetically.
I'm also an asshole occasionally when I see frustrating and disturbing things like this, so my kneejerk response is maybe where I fucked up.
I really need to get into the habit of letting a post stew in preview for a hot second before I let loose my mental vomit lol because I sometimes get my ass kicked for not communicating what I'm actually trying to say effectively.
Edit: Lemmy has been pretty kind to me for my clarifying edits when I do this to myself though, so thanks guys. Like this one :)
I wonder how prevalent adblocking is among the younger generations. Even among my peer group I'd see people browsing the web with no adblock and a bunch of ads on websites when I'd glance at a sea of laptops. It was eye opening that outside of the social media I use that many people are just not tech literate. Is ad acceptance trending upward as people get younger and younger?
Speaking of advertising being a science like another person commented, it means it's data driven.
https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-july-global-statshot
Lots and lots: https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=how+prevalent+is+adblocking+by+generation
But more to the point:
collapsed inline media
Women in every generation block less ads however, which I found interesting.
My theory is women, while they do look at porn, look at porn less. Men will seek out a particular type of porn or a specific video and will not stop until they find it. They are also less likely to go on websites that abuse popups like sports streaming channels.
Also I think women are also more likely to use social media which usually don't have ad blockers.
The difference is this is tracking and targeting minors.
And just because it is the status quo does not mean the general public is aware of it or the actual extent. It needs to be spelled out to them how and why.
Honestly I find it hard to believe any teens are on Facebook now, maybe IG is still cool? Nothing like before. Idk I don't think teens are on those platforms really
IG is like the most important place for teens right now…