Facebook Tools Abuse

[Phi for All]

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17764480/facebook-ad-targeting-options-removal-housing-racial-discrimination

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/17/facebook-could-be-responsible-how-advertisers-use-its-platform-justice-department-says/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.aa51c1a63918

So I was arguing with a friend of mine Sunday about the tools FB has that let an advertiser discriminate regarding who sees their ads. My friend is a hairdresser who specializes in hard-to-treat black women's hair. I told him the same tools he uses to target his clientele is being used to discriminate against people some advertisers don't want to do business with. FB allows apartment building owners to exclude ethnicities and age ranges they don't want in their buildings. FB allows employers to discrimination against workers they don't want (such as only hiring young people). People with profiles that aren't in a "select" group simply don't see these ads, they don't show up on their feeds. 

My friend was trying to justify those tools as productive and useful. In the end, I told him I'm not saying a hammer can't be useful, but I object that the hardware store seems to be openly selling hammers to people they know are using them to hit people with. I think it's an abuse of a system, and I think it needs to stop.

How do you feel about this practice? 

[iNow]

I've not thought about the deeper ethics at play here. I suspect there are quality arguments I've not heard and which may change my mind. I also acknowledge that FB is a bit unique in its place in our society and economy right now.

All that said, my immediate reply is that FB is a technology platform and is trying to maximize revenue. I don't see a problem with this approach they've taken. In fact, it makes great sense to me from a business perspective.

I, for example, would find it wasteful and silly if they targeted ads at me for your friend who specializes in hard to treat black womens hair. I'm not a black woman with hard to treat hair last time I checked. Targeting that ad at me is wasting her money. I'm not the client they are seeking and they want to get in front of the clients they know have the highest probability of coming in to sit in that chair.

In short, if building owners are discriminating or if employers are using FB to filter out people based on race, sex, religion, etc., then you need attack them for doing so, not FB.

It's not a 1:1 analogy, but it's close enough... It's hardly the fault of the local newspaper if the person who placed the ad chooses not to accept the calls or applications from some protected class who happens to respond to that ad.

[Phi for All]

37 minutes ago, iNow said:

I, for example, would find it wasteful and silly if they targeted ads at me for your friend who specializes in hard to treat black womens hair. I'm not a black woman with hard to treat hair last time I checked. Targeting that ad at me is wasting her money. I'm not the client they are seeking and they want to get in front of the clients they know have the highest probability of coming in to sit in that chair.

As I told my friend, this is buying a hammer to drive nails. I have no problem with it.

38 minutes ago, iNow said:

In short, if building owners are discriminating or if employers are using FB to filter out people based on race, sex, religion, etc., then you need attack them for doing so, not FB.

It's not a 1:1 analogy, but it's close enough... It's hardly the fault of the local newspaper if the person who placed the ad chooses not to accept the calls or applications from some protected class who happens to respond to that ad.

If the local newspaper had a way to let the advertiser know that a person from a protected class was making the call so the advertiser could discriminate against the caller, would that be different? Would the local paper bear some of the blame then?

If the hardware store not only sold the hammer, but also had a silver version with a holster to conceal it on your person and instructions on how to remove blood, is the judge right when he only convicts Maxwell?

To me, it's like only holding the person who kills someone with a gun responsible, instead of also including the easy availability of guns as a factor. And I do acknowledge that FB is a unique entity in our society. No other company has so much product under the mis-assumption that it's the customer.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

If the local newspaper had a way to let the advertiser know that a person from a protected class was making the call so the advertiser could discriminate against the caller, would that be different? Would the local paper bear some of the blame then?

I’d very much enjoy peeling back this onion with you over a few beers on a patio somewhere.

Until then, I’ll need more time to figure out what I think about this and will be curious to read the contributions of others here. 

[Silvestru]

Hmm the initial reaction after reading your post Phi for All is judgemental towards Facebook but if I think more a business could target a certain demographic and same as "the baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple" discussion I will say that if you are selecting certain groups because your product is targeting those groups (like selling skateboards to the age range up to 30) then that's ok in my book and if you are deliberately discriminating against a certain group then: 1: you don't know how to run a business and 2: I wouldn't like to deal with that person anyway. Imagine someone wants to rent his apartment and is a huge homophobe. If facebook did not have the option to "target" and a gay person would rent this place, he would find out the hard way and there would be tension.

I really can't find too many actual cases where this targeting system can harm. But please let me know what's your opinion. I'm not convinced yet of any case.

 

9 hours ago, iNow said:

In short, if building owners are discriminating or if employers are using FB to filter out people based on race, sex, religion, etc., then you need attack them for doing so, not FB

I fully agree with this. It's a platform that can be used for good or bad. It's up to the individual.

[Sensei]

11 hours ago, Phi for All said:

FB allows employers to discrimination against workers they don't want (such as only hiring young people).

There are job offers which discriminate young people as not having experience, and promoting/requiring older person (who should have more experience, which might not be true).

If somebody will go to meeting and not meet company internal criterion, he/she will just waste time.. Better if somebody is filtered out at early stage.. This way save his/her personal time. If business owner is reluctant to hire somebody with certain age (because past experiences with e.g. unsolid similar age persons in the past), nobody will force him/her to hire.. After meeting face-to-face such person will be excluded anyway as not meeting criterion (without revealing true reasons why he/she was excluded).

(this example can be easily skipped/bypassed, by criterion e.g. "20 years of experience in business" (too young person can't have "20 years of experience in business") )

Suppose so I am Windows software producer. I want to exclude Macintosh, Linux, Unix, Android, or iOS users straight away, as I am not producing and selling software for them.. Why to show them ads when from their metadata it's clear they don't have operating system which allows running my application.. ? Somebody could say I am discriminating Macintosh, Unix or Android, or iOS users.. But product was not for them in the first place..

Suppose so I am advertising perfumes for man or woman. I would like to exclude the wrong sex, as it's not for them. In shops there are also shelf for man and woman (and the main question is whether it's self purchase or gift).

Actually everybody would LOVE to be all discriminated in showing ads.. as they would like NOT to see them at all..

 

[Silvestru]

6 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Suppose so I am advertising perfumes for man or woman. I would like to exclude the wrong sex, as it's not for them. In shops there are also shelf for man and woman (and the main question is whether it's self purchase or gift).

What if your add for female perfume that shows up in my feed makes me think: "Why the hell not? I will finally show Mrs. Polar Bear a nice token of my appreciation."
Or let's say I am a grandparent and I don't know what's hip today so a skateboard popping up in my feed might make me want to buy it for my grandson.

There are pros and cons to this subject. We can talk about this all week. And we probably will  

[Sensei]

51 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

What if your ad for female perfume that shows up in my feed makes me think: "Why the hell not? I will finally show Mrs. Polar Bear a nice token of my appreciation."

Buying perfumes through Internet was/is silly idea, regardless of sex, as we can't smell them anyway..

Buying perfumes as gift is also silly idea, as we don't know whether gift-recipient will like their smell..

One of many examples of things that should not be purchased through Internet. I never bought cloth and footwear through Internet. It would probably require couple times return back and forth (that is what for are fitting rooms in the real shops, to reduce chance of returning items back).

 

Edited August 22, 2018 by Sensei

[koti]

14 hours ago, Phi for All said:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17764480/facebook-ad-targeting-options-removal-housing-racial-discrimination

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/17/facebook-could-be-responsible-how-advertisers-use-its-platform-justice-department-says/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.aa51c1a63918

So I was arguing with a friend of mine Sunday about the tools FB has that let an advertiser discriminate regarding who sees their ads. My friend is a hairdresser who specializes in hard-to-treat black women's hair. I told him the same tools he uses to target his clientele is being used to discriminate against people some advertisers don't want to do business with. FB allows apartment building owners to exclude ethnicities and age ranges they don't want in their buildings. FB allows employers to discrimination against workers they don't want (such as only hiring young people). People with profiles that aren't in a "select" group simply don't see these ads, they don't show up on their feeds. 

My friend was trying to justify those tools as productive and useful. In the end, I told him I'm not saying a hammer can't be useful, but I object that the hardware store seems to be openly selling hammers to people they know are using them to hit people with. I think it's an abuse of a system, and I think it needs to stop.

How do you feel about this practice? 

I have a friend who worked on the targeted advertisment systems in the 90’s. Eventually they sild their products to Microsoft and switched to gathering information systems for various polls companies which they are one of at the moment. The idea behind the targeted add systems was simple - the seller gets to target potencial customers more accurately and the potencial buyer gets the accurate offers based on profiling. I noticed that sometimes when I do a certain action which might be treated as out of ordinary by algorithms like browsing a certain website or making a call to some conpany abroad, I get a related email form some other company with adds or offers or wahtever. As much as these algorithms are annoying and/or their justification questiinable I don’t think this should be discussed in context of discrimination. Unless we want to treat complex marketing as dicrimination which I think we shouldn’t...after all marketing (which this is and nothing more) has just one goal - to sell more to more clients when the goal of discrimination is not to provide something based on somebody’s features. FB and others need to use inteligent targeting so they don’t loose money on energy/bandwidth for you and me to see tampon offers. There are all kinds of anomalies coming from these technologies but I don’t think we should treat them as discrimination. I remember a few years back HP screwing up facial recognition in their line of laptops to a point in which dark skin faces were un-recognizable by the laptop rendering the user not capable of loging in...Google had a same issue a few years later. I think treating these things as discrimination (which is ofcourse the case by many) is plain silly.

Edited August 22, 2018 by koti

[studiot]

I notice several respondants assert that targeted ads save the recipient (target) time, that might be so in some cases.

But I am now having to waste my time filtering and deleting at least 50 Emails per day of targeted advertising.

Most is this is downright counterproductive since it merely repeats what I have just bought.

How many copies of War & Peace does a bear need or want?

 

At Sensei's comment in particular about perfume.

Many these days do online shopping and have their supermarket 'weekly run' delivered.
They may well include perfume, and presumably know what they ordering.

So there is nothing wrong with buying your perfume online per se.

However I do object if the supermarket company then harvests the data that I bought something and sees it as an additional income stream thus moving from the business of selling supermarket products to the business of selling supermarket customers to other businesses.

Particularly if it does it on the sly without first seeking my express permission.

[Sensei]

20 minutes ago, studiot said:

But I am now having to waste my time filtering and deleting at least 50 Emails per day of targeted advertising.

Most is this is downright counterproductive since it merely repeats what I have just bought.

How many copies of War & Peace does a bear need or want?

You would be the more irritated by not-targeted ads, reading about things that are simply not for you..

ps. FB allows to disable targeted ads, and simply receive the all random ads.

 

Edited August 22, 2018 by Sensei

[koti]

19 minutes ago, studiot said:

I notice several respondants assert that targeted ads save the recipient (target) time, that might be so in some cases.

But I am now having to waste my time filtering and deleting at least 50 Emails per day of targeted advertising.

Most is this is downright counterproductive since it merely repeats what I have just bought.

How many copies of War & Peace does a bear need or want?

I totally agree. But thats not discrimination at least in my view. By the way google’d addblock plus works really well for me.

Edited August 22, 2018 by koti

[Ten oz]

14 hours ago, Phi for All said:

My friend was trying to justify those tools as productive and useful. In the end, I told him I'm not saying a hammer can't be useful, but I object that the hardware store seems to be openly selling hammers to people they know are using them to hit people with. I think it's an abuse of a system, and I think it needs to stop.

How do you feel about this practice? 

I think these types of conversations are too often filtered down singular answers centered around principle. In application nothing is absolute. Micro targeting can be a very effective way for a business to find an audience and save on advertising costs. It can be a good thing. It can also be used to discriminate against people or promote disinformation. It can be a bad thing. Both are true and both should be addressed rather than one picked over the other out of principle. 

Cities with larger populations and heavier traffic have more street parking rules than those with less people and traffic. Problems should be addressed where problems exist. There is not a history of people being disenfranchised by the African American salon industry. There has been a history of disenfranchisement within housing and real estate. So the same rules which apply to marketing for a Hair Salon perhaps should not apply for a housing complex. While it seems unfair to burden one industry more so than another I would point out that different standards for different industries already exists. Liqueur companies have various rules specific to their industry regarding how they can advertise. Likewise so to does the adult modeling and film industries. When I was a kid Cigarettes use to have commercials that aired throughout the day, were sold in vending machines, and some companies had animated characters. Today all that has changed. Some industries need more attention paid to them than others. 

Housing and real estate is especially a sensitive area because of the investment opportunity. Their is an associated return on investment related to Real Estate which doesn't exist with getting ones hair done. Micro targeting specific costumers for housing developments is almost like insider trading. There should be public announcements made and everyone should have equal knowledge to the investment opportunity. 

Long story short both you and your friend are right with the the perspective industries you both referenced. 

 

 

[StringJunky]

29 minutes ago, studiot said:

However I do object if the supermarket company then harvests the data that I bought something and sees it as an additional income stream thus moving from the business of selling supermarket products to the business of selling supermarket customers to other businesses.

Particularly if it does it on the sly without first seeking my express permission.

I would think just about all large online retail outlets monetize every aspect of their business, including customer data, where possible. They also try not to let go of you when you leave their site because they'll try and track your behaviour across the net; it's ruthless.

[Ten oz]

42 minutes ago, studiot said:

However I do object if the supermarket company then harvests the data that I bought something and sees it as an additional income stream thus moving from the business of selling supermarket products to the business of selling supermarket customers to other businesses.

This is an excellent point. I think there should be a law which forced companies to let customers know when data is being collected on them. Costumers should have the options to opt out. If the label on a product at a grocerystore says $1 than the price should be $1 and not $1 plus the potential sales value of my data.  

3 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I would think just about all large online retail outlets monetize every aspect of their business, including customer data, where possible. They also try not to let go of you when you leave their site because they'll try and track your behaviour across the net; it's ruthless.

Considering how many retailers have been hack and lost their customers data (credit card info in particular) don't you think it is perhaps time for govts to interject with some better consumer protection laws?

 

[StringJunky]

4 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Considering how many retailers have been hack and lost their customers data (credit card info in particular) don't you think it is perhaps time for govts to interject with some better consumer protection laws?

 

I think it's heading in that direction, in Europe anyway. They are getting hot on how our data is handled. 

[studiot]

45 minutes ago, Sensei said:

You would be the more irritated by not-targeted ads, reading about things that are simply not for you..

ps. FB allows to disable targeted ads, and simply receive the all random ads.

 

I nearly gave you another +1 ( but then what would I receive ads for ?) for this comment since I am irritated by all ads, even those I have placed myself.

2 hours ago, Sensei said:

Actually everybody would LOVE to be all discriminated in showing ads.. as they would like NOT to see them at all..

 

48 minutes ago, koti said:

I totally agree. But thats not discrimination at least in my view. By the way google’d addblock plus works really well for me.

Thanks, koti but adblockers have their limitation.
When studiot was running as a business I used to help customers filter their Email.
Many of them were small hoteliers, who needed the Email for business purposes.
Unfortunately filters and adblocks persistently classified the government tourist body for the SouthWest ( a major source of customers) as spam.

[Strange]

32 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

This is an excellent point. I think there should be a law which forced companies to let customers know when data is being collected on them. Costumers should have the options to opt out.

We have such a law in the EU

[Sensei]

59 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Considering how many retailers have been hack and lost their customers data (credit card info in particular) don't you think it is perhaps time for govts to interject with some better consumer protection laws?

Credit card info should not be stored by regular or on-line stores.. Because what for they need it? I can't imagine any senseful answer.. They use it while purchase, which is done once, and then not need it anymore.. They store it just to "make easier second and third purchase from the same store" which might never happen. I am never buying using debit card (I don't have credit card). Using many other alternative methods. e.g. upload money to PayPal, then use it in store.

[koti]

13 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Credit card info should not be stored by regular or on-line stores.. Because what for they need it? I can't imagine any senseful answer.. They use it while purchase, which is done once, and then not need it anymore.. They store it just to "make easier second and third purchase from the same store" which might never happen. I am never buying using debit card (I don't have credit card). Using many other alternative methods. e.g. upload money to PayPal, then use it in store.

Are you sure PayPal doesn't sell your card data?

That doesn’t matter though, PayPal was hacked last year and 1,6mln users were compromised. I use PayPal too by the way but also use my card on sites directly. I have a card which I use just for online payments and keep the money short on it.

https://www.google.pl/amp/s/thehackernews.com/2017/12/paypal-tio-data-breach.html%3famp=1

Edited August 22, 2018 by koti

[Sensei]

4 minutes ago, koti said:

Are you sure PayPal doesn't sell your card data?

I didn't give PayPal my card data..

 

[koti]

1 minute ago, Sensei said:

I didn't give PayPal my card data..

 

Then your Paypal account is probably not „confirmed” and you’re considered a shady user

I edited my above post to add things.

[Sensei]

4 minutes ago, koti said:

Then your Paypal account is probably not „confirmed” and you’re considered a shady user

You're confirming PayPal account, by adding bank account to PayPal account. There is sent couple cents to bank account, and you have to enter it in verification stage. After that when money appears on your PayPal account, you can withdraw it to verified bank account (or use it in on-line stores which accept PayPal and payment method).

 

Edited August 22, 2018 by Sensei

[koti]

8 minutes ago, Sensei said:

You're confirming PayPal account, by adding bank account to PayPal account. There is sent couple cents to bank account, and you have to enter it in verification stage. After that when money appears on your PayPal account, you can withdraw it to verified bank account (or use it in on-line stores which accept PayPal and payment method).

 

Well, I never succseeded in putting money onto my PayPal account without adding a card number. I never had issues with online card transactions though, I did have issues several times with non online card payments though...like a coffee shop at the airport in South Africa trying to steal money from my card and similar. Most of the time my bank called me to confirm a suspicious transaction and the scam was prevented but I got screwed twice on something like this nevertheless.

[Phi for All]

What I'm hearing is that because FB targeting tools can be used for good, it's silly to hold the company responsible, even a little bit, when those same tools are easily used for evil. And I can't get the similarity with American gun culture out of my mind. Many folks also think it's silly to hold the people who make and sell the guns partially responsible for the mayhem they cause, too.

We regulate banks when we find their practices allow illegal activity. I think FB deserves no less.