Next level targeted advertising/propaganda etc

[ska invita]

I've had a couple of experiences that have unnerved me a little


First off I've got a youtube account with just a couple of channels on alert (the little bell thing), so if they post something new my phone pings and I get a link to the new video...it happens quite rarely in practice as the channels I subscribe to don't post much.

For the first time ever my phone pinged with a link to something I wasn't subscribed to - it was billed as a "suggestion". The video was from The Sun and it was called
Boris Johnson's explosive attack at Corbyn
...this was his first PMQs was it? Something like that (Ive been avoiding all tv coverage). The video was liked to high heaven and had lots of no doubt bot-positive comments ramping it up.

Having specifically targeted links come on your facebook feed saying Promoted on them is one thing, but this felt a whole different level of propaganda and pushing.
I'm presuming someone paid for it to be pushed to me - but there was no "promoted" text.



Second I've been having some serious burnout this summer - struggling in all honesty - and I had an article about burnout shared a couple of times on Whatsapp. Then earlier in the week I received an email from a Mayfair acupuncturist saying "are you having burnout? It then linked to the article that has been shared and read on whatsapp and offered a discount appointment.

I wrote back and asked where he got my email from. He lied and said I had been there before. I wrote back and said that wasn't the case and asked if he had done any kind of advertising with facebook over this email - he didn't answer.

Both these feel like a different level to say a targeted cookie advert popping up.

Anyone else had anything similiar happen? Thoughts?

I guess there's a reason why Facebook paid £12BILLION for Whatsapp....

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

I was up on the roof of my workplace the other day, doing some repairs to drains. I took a photo of the view, and a few minutes later I got an alert from Google with a photo of the same view taken by someone else.

A few minutes later I got a second alert containing my own photo, run through some sort of filter. Seemed like an advert for a photo editing app.

I'm now considering ditching the smartphone completely. Proper creepy.

 

[oryx]

A few months ago a friend and I were in a restaurant in Forest Hill and got talking to the waiter after the meal.

He said that he and his girlfriend had been chatting about the possibility of a trip to Japan. Just chatting, nothing more - hadn't checked stuff out online or anything.

The next day he was getting ads pop up about flights/trips to Japan.

He reckoned his phone microphone had picked up the conversation. I asked if he had a home hub and he said not.

'Orwellian' is a clichéd term to use about this type of thing, but it really is!

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

myactivity.google.com

I think this has something to do with it

 

[binka]

I try not to use too many apps, if I have the option I'll use the opera browser on my phone and use websites instead. Seems every app wants full access to everything so I limit them where I can - still have to use WhatsApp and FB messenger though and I've also had the adverts that are related to chats I've had with friends on WhatsApp.

Don't know what the solution is really apart from resigning yourself to it being the price you pay for convenience

 

[weltweit]

Yes, these things are a bit creepy.

Someone was pushing me to try remarketing on Google Ads, I refused, I don't want people to think we are following them about the net all the time.

Reminds me, I meant to take a good look through all the cookies I must have accumulated on this machine.

 

[IC3D]

Okay bit personal but I got a pile in my bum last week, np had one before when I was riding a bike a lot. Chemist, cream, seems to be getting better.
FB has been flooding my feed advertising bowel cancer testing kits.
No googling just bought some cream on my card and obv not discussing the subject on SM.
WTF

 

[SpackleFrog]

Was chatting to my mate on WhatsApp about sectarianism in Scottish football.

A few minutes later a comedy clip about sectarianism in Scottish football pops up in Facebook feed.

E2A: I don't really care though just thought it was funny.

 

[ska invita]

Use Signal a bit instead of Whatsapp but it doesn't give me notifications for some reason (its broken basically), and Im not the only one who doesn't get notifications with it...annoying that.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Was chatting to my mate on WhatsApp about sectarianism in Scottish football.

A few minutes later a comedy clip about sectarianism in Scottish football pops up in Facebook feed.

E2A: I don't really care though just thought it was funny.

There was a radio program I caught a bit of the other day about this sort of thing. Some expert was asked whether FaceBook listen in on WhatsApp conversations, and the expert answered something along the lines of "well they claim that they don't, but we can't be sure"

 

[Miss-Shelf]

I get this all the time

So much targeted advertising after just chatting about stuff
-via Google
-on WhatsApp
-on Facebook
And even just with my phone in my pocket or bag

(people have advised me to turn record or mic functions off in all apps. But they probably go back on after every update. Also my android camera wont work if I turn mic/record off )

I've started to get adverts when I'm just thinking * about something

*probably not, but it feels like it

ska invita sorry to hear about your struggles

 

[ska invita]

I went on a Vimeo trawl recently, and came across this - best thing I saw on there (kind of related to this topic) - highly recommend
The Future>>>

 

[oryx]

And even just with my phone in my pocket or bag

(people have advised me to turn record or mic functions off in all apps. But they probably go back on after every update. Also my android camera wont work if I turn mic/record off )

I've started to get adverts when I'm just thinking * about something

*probably not, but it feels like it

Yes, it really does! It messes with my head a bit, TBH, and I don't even do Facebook. It's very hard to avoid WhatsApp as I have two groups I belong to of people I want to stay in touch with, that I otherwise wouldn't.

I've read stuff recently about, for want of a better term, Big Data listening in to conversations via Alexa, Siri etc. They seemed to be saying that voice recordings were only used for monitoring purposes.

Apple and Google stop workers playing back voices

Are they being economical with the truth?

I remember reading an article about the late, great writer Angela Carter. She was asked about what she feared most from the future and answered, definitely and not hesitantly, 'Surveillance.'. This was back in the 80s or 90s (she died in 1992).

 

[ska invita]

Theres been this major new book on the subject (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zubof) thats meant to be great, but its too long + physically heavy for me
'The goal is to automate us': welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism
"Once we searched Google, but now Google searches us. Once we thought of digital services as free, but now surveillance capitalists think of us as free."

 

[extra dry]

I was just got a load of lite far right vids on my feed, its being sent in part via anger bots/fake accounts.

 

[ska invita]

Id really love to know if my Boris Johnson/Sun "suggested" video with a ping alert was paid for...and if that's legal (without deceleration of paid for promotion).

A key point made by Shoshana Zubof is that these companies havent stopped to ask whats legal, they happily went ahead and did it anyway and let any legal challenge come after the fact

 

[NoXion]

There are pro-active measures that you can take if you don't like the idea of Google sniffing around everything you do online.

Ditch Chrome and get Firefox instead. Install the uBlock Origin add-on. Install the ghostery addon. Install NoScript if you don't mind how much it breaks most websites.

It won't be 100% effective compared to not using any of the tech giants' services at all, but that's becoming increasingly inconvenient these days due to their monopolistic behaviour.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

This isn't new though is it? Even if they hadn't been developing new tech and consolidating datasets - which they have - the level of targeting gets better the more data you give it, so it will always get creepier and more specific as time goes on. And people have been saying "don't use FB or at least use it incognito, use ad blockers, etc etc" for many years now.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Everyone should just assume that anything they post online will be sold to the highest bidder, because that's pretty much how it works these days.
Do people think the likes of Google and Facebook are giving away all this 'free' stuff out of the goodness of their little hearts?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

That's not how it works either. It's not at all about what you post about yourself online - that's just icing. It's trackable behaviour. If you use Facebook it doesn't matter whether you post anything at all.

 

[newbie]

Id really love to know if my Boris Johnson/Sun "suggested" video with a ping alert was paid for...and if that's legal (without deceleration of paid for promotion).

A key point made by Shoshana Zubof is that these companies havent stopped to ask whats legal, they happily went ahead and did it anyway and let any legal challenge come after the fact

Isn't that presumption how Common Law legal systems are supposed to work? Napoleonic Code systems are the opposite, assume everything is illegal unless explicitly declared otherwise.

 

[Dogsauce]

I did get an ad yesterday for something I’d only been thinking about, not having said anything to anyone or googling anything. Can’t actually remember what it was, some equipment related to camping as we did that last weekend, but was still relatively obscure and nothing I’d made any indication of interest about other than the thoughts in my head.

Also a while back I was looking at eBay in a ‘private’ browsing session (had the session open for something else and opened a new tab while I was there - wasn’t looking at anything dodgy or being secretive) and later on while browsing normally I started getting ads showing things I’d looked at, which could have been dodgy if I was looking at something I had wanted to be secretive about. Seemed like a breach of trust.

This stuff is all dodgy as fuck.

I’d complain about the promotion of that Johnson Sun video, stuff like that shouldn’t be opaque.

 

[oryx]

Not in reply to anyone in particular, but the thing is, I think people expect/accept being bombarded with ads as being the price you pay for using the internet.

It's the tracking/use of data/breaches of privacy that are so worrying and actually quite sinister.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

it is possible to leave the matrix.

 

[Gerry1time]

 

[ska invita]

I’d complain about the promotion of that Johnson Sun video, stuff like that shouldn’t be opaque.

I'd like to, don't know where to begin though

 

[Dogsauce]

I'd like to, don't know where to begin though

I’m not actually sure stuff like that is regulated outside of election periods. Tories or their mates are throwing a lot of this around now, trying to find what works and who to target so that they don’t have to spend money crunching the data within an election period where spending is controlled.

 

[Part 2]

Posted this in the Netflix thread but The Great Hack is a good film about the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data election stuff.

 

[mango5]

That film has a scene where an American Prof asks a room how many think they've been listened in to via their phone and after most people raise their hands, says they're not because 'the algorithms *are* that good'.

 

[NoXion]

I did get an ad yesterday for something I’d only been thinking about, not having said anything to anyone or googling anything. Can’t actually remember what it was, some equipment related to camping as we did that last weekend, but was still relatively obscure and nothing I’d made any indication of interest about other than the thoughts in my head.

Also a while back I was looking at eBay in a ‘private’ browsing session (had the session open for something else and opened a new tab while I was there - wasn’t looking at anything dodgy or being secretive) and later on while browsing normally I started getting ads showing things I’d looked at, which could have been dodgy if I was looking at something I had wanted to be secretive about. Seemed like a breach of trust.

This stuff is all dodgy as fuck.

I’d complain about the promotion of that Johnson Sun video, stuff like that shouldn’t be opaque.

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