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Comment by jklinger410 | Hacker News Reader

People are constantly complaining that Facebook allows you to target ads at certain people.

Ads have operated this way since their inception, yet critics are finding new ways to make it seem like Facebook is ruining everything by doing exactly what any sensible person would do if they ran Facebook.

I am not a huge fan of Facebook. But I feel like this is the same trope as was hauled out in the "Facebook didn't tell me about my dead friend" post.

I don't respect the downvote I received for this comment. Please argue with me instead of dismiss me.

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> Ads have operated this way since their inception,

The ability for ads to target individuals while being invisible to others is something quite new and pernicious. If you advertise on television, your commercial is seen by everyone watching. If you run an ad in print media, everyone who has a copy can read it. Individually targeted advertising is ripe for abuse. If you're interested in reading more how this is really qualitatively different, I highly recommend reading some of the work by Zeynep Tufekci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeynep_Tufekci

Pernicious as it may be, ads being able to exclude people is a natural evolution of ads, not something malicious as it has been portrayed often recently.

In the past it was up to the ad buyer to attempt to exclude people based on their wits. I want to use site X because it has these people instead of site Y because it has those people. Totally normal.

Now we are debating on the right to see ads because Facebook has such a powerful platform.

I am all for the debate, what I am not about is acting like this is something other-worldly. The impression based ad, the viewership based ad, and demographics, have worked this way throughout modern history.

Ads have moved from being ostensibly invisible, to literally invisible. That is the line we're drawing?

> not something malicious as it has been portrayed often recently.

That's a good point, in that they may not malicious by intent. We do have to look into what effect they're having and whether that's what we actually want. Accepting it as okay because it wasn't done with the intent to harm or accepting it as that's just the way it is is not acceptable, in my opinion.

> "Ads have moved from being ostensibly invisible, to literally invisible. That is the line we're drawing?"

I'm not sure I follow you here. I do think there is a qualitative difference between advertising in a way that is visible to inspection by others and that which is targeted to the individual. One example, from a consumer protection standpoint, how can you ensure truth in advertising if you don't know what ads are being shown to different demographics? In a political context, this is even more problematic. We're having a hard enough time agreeing on basic facts in some circumstances. If different populations are seeing different political advertisements, and people can't know what others are being exposed to, it leads to a situation which is potentially even more insidious. This is different from what has come before.

I see shades of the naturalistic fallacy here: just because this is the way it is doesn't mean it's the way we want it or the way it has to be.

@grzm

If you advertise at Macy's certain people will not see the ad. They may not know the product even exists. That's what I meant by ostensibly invisible.

To your larger point. I'm having a hard time understanding where the line is in removing this type of freedom to advertise the way companies want to because of the affects it might have.

I'm going to have to bow out of this because I haven't made up my mind. I am certainly enjoying the conversation though.

But anyone going to Macy's can see the ad.

Please do read some Tufekci. She does a much better job describing this than I do (unsurprising, given she's studied it extensively), and I hesitate from regurgitating her here wholesale. She did a podcast with Sam Harris that I found illuminating, if you prefer that format.

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/persuasion-and-contro...

Ads in print have a fixed cost, based on the size of the ad. But even printed ads target specific demographics. How many over 40 brides are there compared to 20-30 years old, that would read a wedding magazine is an extreme example of it.

Ads on TV have fixed cost, depending on the length of the commercial and the time it is aired. But even on TV you would target the show based on the demographics you prefer.

Ads on Facebook are pay per impression, so how can you make companies pay to show those ads to people who they know will probably not respond anyway?

I would assume this would require an entire change in the way Facebook handles ads for jobs.

Either that or they would have to bow out of employment ads entirely.

I'm wondering how closely Monster, Indeed, etc are handling these laws as well. Their system seems way less transparent. We could assume they are obeying these laws but who knows.

This post is about illegal discrimination, not an undesirable result of a ranking algorithm.

This post is about targeting ads at certain demographics. Those ads happen to be for jobs.

Exactly, and job seekers over 40 are a protected class, so this is illegal discrimination.

I'm curious if we have the same vigor over Strip Clubs?

They have been operating outside of this law the entire time. Are we supposed to respect this law now, even though everyone in this thread knows its unenforced, unenforceable, and is being broken constantly?

I'm supposed to be outraged by the natural evolution of online ads, though. And at Facebook.

So your argument is that it's ok to do it because strip clubs do it? If you try to get a job at a strip club and they turn you down for being the wrong age (or some other protected attribute) then you're welcome to take them to court. That doesn't change Facebook's risk exposure here.

Strip clubs are discriminating based on "a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business". That is explicitly allowed by ADEA. Most businesses don't have the same excuse.

Doesn't this exception leave room, then, for Facebook to allow employers to decide if their ad targeting breaks the law?

If I'm a strip club owner and I want to promote a job opening on Facebook, I have to waste impressions on 45+ year old males because of this issue?

I am not aware of an ad platform that enables you target ads so specifically and in such an effective way. Sure, you could advertise in Maxim to reach heterosexual young males but that doesn't mean your ad is completely invisible to someone else who happens to pickup the magazine.

Before Facebook ads were targeted. Facebook ads are exclusionary. While that is valuable and appropriate in some situations it is not in others.

I don't suggest we make some law against it but hopefully bringing awareness to this phenomenon will encourage people to stop using Facebook and the like, or at least not give them detailed information about themselves.

Well I'm thinking based on what I've seen in this thread is that it is already illegal, although rarely enforced.

I do understand being unaware that positions are available harming people looking for those positions.

I'm thinking it would be easy for Facebook to just exclude job ads from certain types of targeting. Is this ad for an employment opportunity? Yes, No. Targeting restrictions apply.

What gets me though is the anger and hypocrisy that I see. People are very willing to mob against Facebook, while many ads and business hiring practices are already breaking these laws.

You can on FB

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