This reads like a tragic story. Once you've collected enough data on every internet user out there to group them into different advertising cohorts, the remaining ungrouped users, by process of elimination (due to privacy or targeted advertising laws), are children; and now they can be targeted just as easily.
Google has yet to experience significant penalties due to their Jedi Blue price-fixing scheme ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue ). Perhaps this story covers some other set of claims that will be broken out of the larger Jedi Blue case.
Edit: this is actually a recent campaign, the story says 2023 but some other outlets said it executed this year in 2024.
I remember from my 80's/90's childhood candy cigarettes [essentially sugar compressed into long cylinders]... just the other day, at a Southern US sporting goods store, I saw "Big Chew Gum," which had a baseball player with a wad of tobacco ("gum") in his mouth.
Thought this was strange, as chewing tobacco is probably more addictive than cigarettes, and the gum's packaging was clearly set at child-height.
A tragic story would be one where folks in positions of power in these organizations saw these crises coming from a million miles away, tried to avoid disaster, and failed.
I don't think this is a tragic story.
I think this is a rather boring and formulaic plot we're seeing over and over: the story of late-stage capitalism and the application of value-extraction to human social structures resulting in comically terrible outcomes.
I'm beyond being shocked by this kind of behavior but it is still striking to me how some of the most profitable companies in history will go out of their way to do shady deals for a slight short term increase in their record profits.
The resulting reputational damage and future risk to their monopoly revenue has got to make deals like this -EV for the company in the long run, but decision makers at these companies are paid more for short term profits and they know it.
The line has to go up, and the slack has to be taken out of every last source of revenue. Like that story that was here yesterday about insurance companies monitoring customer's insured assets with drones and AI. Every unexploited dollar left on the table is slack, and a perfect market leaves no dollar unexploited. Therefore a more perfect market can be built with more perfect machine-powered decisions to more perfectly screw you out of every nickel they can.
"Oops, sorry your brother cut his leg and you had to speed to the hospital, but you better get a second job if you wanna keep your car."
Fuck this shit. Fuck all of it. And fuck all the status quo warriors sitting on the sidelines bleating about "it's just the way it is" because the axe hasn't swung for them yet. You're safe now because the market has more vulnerable people to grind up first, but rest assured, as it churns through them, your time will come too.
Someone on HN [1] recommended "Broken Code," [2] a book about the various people who tried to fix Facebook/Meta from the inside and noped out. Highly recommend having purchased and read. "Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” -- Captain G. M. Gilbert
Looking at the stories here in the last two days, lots in HN are more worried with the location of Twitter headquarters...( Will never mention that letter...)
Don't want to go too off topic, but I legitmately don't understand the fuss. It went from California to California. If there's any forced moves to SoCal, my condolances, but I didn't get that vibe from that thread that there were a bunch of disgruntled workers.
Are people still that interested in trying to join Twitter c. 2024? I'm desperate enough in terms of money to accept if I was just handed an offer, but I sure as hell am not doing anything more than 2 interviews before my interest nosedives.
For all the speculation about the move, the reason is simple. Twitter is going to launch a payments system, San Francisco has a tax on gross receipts, which is so unfair to payments processing companies that several others - square, stripe, and block - moved out of SF to avoid paying that tax, and Twitter is simply following suite. it's too inside baseball for the average reader to follow, so we're left with baseless speculation and conspiracy theories on why they're moving HQ when it's a subplot business decision that has made made by others already.
" nce you've collected enough data on every internet user " I guess by legal I can force companies not to collect data from me. (I am not a kid). I just happen not to live in the US. But this article reads more like a US problem.
> the remaining ungrouped users, by process of elimination..."
This being hacker news, I can't help but appreciate the pure evil genius of this. It reminds me of some other cases cunning corporate ingenuity:
- Monsanto and their "terminator" seeds that prevents farmers from planting seeds they harvest, requiring them to purchase new seeds for every planting.[1]
- Volkswagen and how they programmed diesel engines to activate emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing.[2]
> Monsanto and their "terminator" seeds that prevents farmers from planting seeds they harvest, requiring them to purchase new seeds for every planting.
Kind of misleading to just state it like this if your source points out that Monsanto never sold this, pledged 25 years ago they won’t do this, and according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_tech... , they also didn’t invent it.
This is already the case for e.g. gambling ads in certain countries. Recently I saw the first website that was basically begging the user to "please be honest" on the age popup, indicating a good number of people have caught on to just clicking "under 21". Of course I still clicked "under 21".
There should be operating systems just for minkrs that are devoid of tracking and using software for kids like the kiddle search engine and social media for kids (not the one we all know of)
Heaven forbid someone being shown ads for things that interest him. All this hand-wringing about privacy seems to me to be producing a lot of noise for minimal practical benefit. I don't see harms in ad targeting.
The harms, in my opinion, is that hyper-consumerism is an addiction. These methods are intended as a way to get impressionable and vulnerable groups hooked on various products, for the benefit of the manufacturer.
Children cannot make good decisions (generally) and they often have poor impulse control. Building the habit of spending money on random sparkly shit they don't need ensure that, as adults, they will be good consumers. And by that I mean materialistic and poorer than they have to be.
It's no surprise that these ads play into the most intrinsic human emotions for manipulation. They target social status, perception of self, pleasure. I see it as no different than sparkling lights on a slot machine. A way to manipulate the mind and build a money-burning addiction.
> “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies.”
Useful would be a chronology of when:
* Individuals learned/knew about the rule violations.
* Individuals were arguably rewarded.
* Individuals were disciplined.
That might give a sense of how bad the infection is, and whether their immune system is on top of it.
The problem, at least in some countries, is that the laws regarding targeting children and teenagers are VERY strict, to the point where it almost doesn't make sense to do it.
By having an "unknown" category, you could argue that you had no way of knowing that you where targeting children, so you can't be responsible. The other party could also easily argue that they put those under 18 in that group to protect their privacy and age.
If you however DO know that these are primarily children and teenagers, then you have to follow the rather strict laws. In Denmark for instance, that means that you cannot encourage purchasing or even advertise certain products. Take the stupid product that is Prime (the drink), health professionals argues that it's harmful to children, but their are also the only ones who really buy it in any meaningful volume. If you knew that you where targeting Prime ads to those under 16 in Denmark, you would be breaking the law.
If advertising companies where to follow the laws online (technically they have to, but tries to avoid it), you could effectively reduce the number of ads you see on social media by stating that you're only 16, because you couldn't be targeted in the same way.
I believe one can observe the targeting by only observing the children. I ALSO believe this applies to all children in a social network where X between 1 out of 100 000 & 9 out of 10 have access to sites that are the works of the corporate.
The entirely new mechanics seems to be that most humans' will run on metaphorical stimulants & steroids on the metaphorical Wheel of Status. Humane behaviour (e.g. honor, respect, sincere curiosity) will become subject of learned helplessness. Before the child realizes that their toys are not the real things and the real things may be much more interesting; or before the child realizes they don't need to use the toys to satisfy X desires, they will have learned that status, EG pretty videos of using the toys, gets them what they want EG toys & attention from companies, parents & peers alike.
> The project disregarded Google’s rules that prohibit personalising and targeting ads to under-18s, including serving ads based on demographics. It also has policies against the circumvention of its own guidelines, or “proxy targeting”.
People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
Wait... Nintendo and Disney targets children, including those too young to know what Ads are.
Why are these different ethics?
(They are not, both of those companies have created literal fanatics by adulthood. Even I cannot avoid beating each Zelda game despite not enjoying a single Zelda game since WW)
I live in an area where advertising is not allowed to target children directly.
As a result, the adverts don't show children playing with the toys, but present the toys in a bland setting as potential gifts for adults to buy. They will show an adult happy with a purchase. In short, they simply cannot address children directly through television. However, it's a fine line and you hardly ever see advertisements for toys unless there's a clear educational value. That's my understanding at least.
Most Nintendo adverts show young adults playing on a sofa or on the go in a train.
Having grown up on cartons filled with ads for toys showing kids playing with the toys, it literally never even crossed my mind that anyone would consider that objectionable, let alone pass laws against it.
At most parents would be annoyed because their kid would pester them for a toy, but I've literally never heard anyone suggest that the advertising should be banned.
(Advertising alcohol or tobacco of course is today different.)
You've definitely made me wonder how childhood might be different without ads for children. On the other hand, when I grew up you couldn't avoid commercials. Now kids watch everything through streaming where you can generally eliminate the commercials anyways.
The Instagram campaign deliberately targeted a group of users labelled as “unknown” in its advertising system, which Google knew skewed towards under-18s, these people said. Meanwhile, documents seen by the FT suggest steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised.
The project disregarded Google’s rules that prohibit personalising and targeting ads to under-18s, including serving ads based on demographics. It also has policies against the circumvention of its own guidelines, or “proxy targeting”.
…However, Google did not deny using the “unknown” loophole, adding: “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies.”
Yup, those crafty sales reps orchestrated a multimillion dollar agreement between a chief competitor. While also adapting the code to find the gaps and target the desired under 18s.
As always with these massive corporate failures/crimes it turns out no one in any important position knew anything and it was a small group of low-level bad actors causing all the trouble. How sad that all these companies are plagued with this while the leadership is just trying to virtuously do good business!
Readit News
Edit: this is actually a recent campaign, the story says 2023 but some other outlets said it executed this year in 2024.
After all, Google fought very hard and farted out a cashier's check to the US Gov to avoid a jury trial in one of their ad monopoly cases https://apnews.com/article/google-antitrust-ad-tech-virginia...
Thought this was strange, as chewing tobacco is probably more addictive than cigarettes, and the gum's packaging was clearly set at child-height.
I don't think this is a tragic story.
I think this is a rather boring and formulaic plot we're seeing over and over: the story of late-stage capitalism and the application of value-extraction to human social structures resulting in comically terrible outcomes.
The resulting reputational damage and future risk to their monopoly revenue has got to make deals like this -EV for the company in the long run, but decision makers at these companies are paid more for short term profits and they know it.
"Oops, sorry your brother cut his leg and you had to speed to the hospital, but you better get a second job if you wanna keep your car."
Fuck this shit. Fuck all of it. And fuck all the status quo warriors sitting on the sidelines bleating about "it's just the way it is" because the axe hasn't swung for them yet. You're safe now because the market has more vulnerable people to grind up first, but rest assured, as it churns through them, your time will come too.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40969211
[2] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712678/broken-code-...
(keep those book recommendations coming)
You mean the MBAs. Ban anything related to business administration degrees and fix the problem.
Dead Comment
Are people still that interested in trying to join Twitter c. 2024? I'm desperate enough in terms of money to accept if I was just handed an offer, but I sure as hell am not doing anything more than 2 interviews before my interest nosedives.
This being hacker news, I can't help but appreciate the pure evil genius of this. It reminds me of some other cases cunning corporate ingenuity:
- Monsanto and their "terminator" seeds that prevents farmers from planting seeds they harvest, requiring them to purchase new seeds for every planting.[1]
- Volkswagen and how they programmed diesel engines to activate emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#%22Terminator%22_seed...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
Kind of misleading to just state it like this if your source points out that Monsanto never sold this, pledged 25 years ago they won’t do this, and according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_tech... , they also didn’t invent it.
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Dead Comment
Children cannot make good decisions (generally) and they often have poor impulse control. Building the habit of spending money on random sparkly shit they don't need ensure that, as adults, they will be good consumers. And by that I mean materialistic and poorer than they have to be.
It's no surprise that these ads play into the most intrinsic human emotions for manipulation. They target social status, perception of self, pleasure. I see it as no different than sparkling lights on a slot machine. A way to manipulate the mind and build a money-burning addiction.
Useful would be a chronology of when:
* Individuals learned/knew about the rule violations.
* Individuals were arguably rewarded.
* Individuals were disciplined.
That might give a sense of how bad the infection is, and whether their immune system is on top of it.
Dead Comment
I am surprised that this is something that has to be kept secret. What is the main problem with it?
By having an "unknown" category, you could argue that you had no way of knowing that you where targeting children, so you can't be responsible. The other party could also easily argue that they put those under 18 in that group to protect their privacy and age.
If you however DO know that these are primarily children and teenagers, then you have to follow the rather strict laws. In Denmark for instance, that means that you cannot encourage purchasing or even advertise certain products. Take the stupid product that is Prime (the drink), health professionals argues that it's harmful to children, but their are also the only ones who really buy it in any meaningful volume. If you knew that you where targeting Prime ads to those under 16 in Denmark, you would be breaking the law.
If advertising companies where to follow the laws online (technically they have to, but tries to avoid it), you could effectively reduce the number of ads you see on social media by stating that you're only 16, because you couldn't be targeted in the same way.
That's not how it works!
I believe one can observe the targeting by only observing the children. I ALSO believe this applies to all children in a social network where X between 1 out of 100 000 & 9 out of 10 have access to sites that are the works of the corporate.
The entirely new mechanics seems to be that most humans' will run on metaphorical stimulants & steroids on the metaphorical Wheel of Status. Humane behaviour (e.g. honor, respect, sincere curiosity) will become subject of learned helplessness. Before the child realizes that their toys are not the real things and the real things may be much more interesting; or before the child realizes they don't need to use the toys to satisfy X desires, they will have learned that status, EG pretty videos of using the toys, gets them what they want EG toys & attention from companies, parents & peers alike.
No? I didn't think so either.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.
– Banksy
Why are these different ethics?
(They are not, both of those companies have created literal fanatics by adulthood. Even I cannot avoid beating each Zelda game despite not enjoying a single Zelda game since WW)
As a result, the adverts don't show children playing with the toys, but present the toys in a bland setting as potential gifts for adults to buy. They will show an adult happy with a purchase. In short, they simply cannot address children directly through television. However, it's a fine line and you hardly ever see advertisements for toys unless there's a clear educational value. That's my understanding at least.
Most Nintendo adverts show young adults playing on a sofa or on the go in a train.
Having grown up on cartons filled with ads for toys showing kids playing with the toys, it literally never even crossed my mind that anyone would consider that objectionable, let alone pass laws against it.
At most parents would be annoyed because their kid would pester them for a toy, but I've literally never heard anyone suggest that the advertising should be banned.
(Advertising alcohol or tobacco of course is today different.)
You've definitely made me wonder how childhood might be different without ads for children. On the other hand, when I grew up you couldn't avoid commercials. Now kids watch everything through streaming where you can generally eliminate the commercials anyways.
Dictator: "You mentioned a... reeducation project of some kind...?"
Minister of Internal Affairs: "Yes sir, it's been taken care of already."
I read the article, but it didn’t go into the content of those documents. Would be interesting to know.
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