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Making Ads and Pages More Transparent

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42 pointsminimaxir45 comments

The tone of discussion on HN around this issue seems to have become completely cynical and atypically nasty. Come on, it's a good thing fb is improving and regardless of your stance on the site you cant deny it does a lot of good for a lot of people and seeing it improve on privacy and transparency is a good thing.

> you cant deny it does a lot of good for a lot of people

I'm not really interested in having a value judgment discussion of Facebook here, but it really annoys me when people assume this. At least have an open mind enough where you can imagine someone thinking different from you. It really doesn't take that much imagination or empathy to see why some people view it as, yes, completely and totally a net-negative on the world, regardless of whether you specifically believe it or not; I think the good that facebook does do is both incidental and replaceable.

Besides, c'mon, how can you be "nasty" to a corporation? People publicly complaining is probably the only way this change happened in the first place.

> some people view it as, yes, completely and totally a net-negative on the world [...] I think the good that facebook does do is both incidental and replaceable.

OP wasn’t claiming that Facebook is a net positive for the world, just that it indisputably provides a valuable service for at least some people[0] and improving the privacy features is only a good thing. It’s unproductive and misguided to attack Facebook for this.

[0] https://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/ex-flds-new-chapt...

Exactly. I am personally all for replacing it with open source decentralized options, I am even working to further that cause, but do you actually think that'll happen anytime soon? Network effects are not so easily replaceable...

"... both incidental and replaceable."

Sometimes it seems like there is an underlying, unspoken presumption that no progress, no innovation making use of the internet could occur unless funding comes from exploiting data gathered from its use.

Sadly it has reached the point where some of that "progress" and "innovation" is simply in the mechanism for gathering more user data, unbeknownst to users. The beast is feeding itself. I have no interest in funding that, either directly or indirectly.

One can never be nasty enough against an organization, especially one that deceives its supporters so frequently.

I'd like to see some numbers on how many Google search users understand that the top of page links are ads. Personally, those seem more deceptive.

Judging by the fact that those ads are clicked a lot less than the top organic result, I'd say they are unlikely to be as or more deceptive.

Interesting. You have a reference for that? Keeping in mind searches that can't be monetized don't show ads...

Edit: See this for example: https://moz.com/blog/google-organic-clicks-shifting-to-paid

"For the ad-heavy non-local SERPs that we work in, paid ads are likely now earning nearly the same percentage of clicks as organic results — a staggering change"

>cant deny it does a lot of good for a lot of people

I'm not convinced. On the surface the connectivity seems good but I've seen it poison so many people into bubble-thinking that I think it's doing far more damage than good.

The mistake you, and most others that come to this conclusion, make is that bubble thinking existed long before FB and will exist long after FB. Hell the idea that you can interact with people outside of the hundred of so people that live in your small town is relatively new idea in most of the US.

The difference now is that outsiders can observe the tribal thinking. Sure it's sad the Internet didn't deliver on the revolution of the 90s interms of bringing us all together; however, I think the idea of being connected to people is only going to increase in importance as the global workforce becomes more and more mobile and bonds become decoupled from geography. I don't think it'll be Facebook (at least in the model that exists today), but it's difficult to deny the massive demand for that kind of product that has been the fire driving the company forward.

This isn't true though, Facebook has special filters to remain friends with people and just block any posts from them. This means there is no negative feedback loop when you're posting trash because everyone who disagrees will eventually unfollow you.

In real life, social interactions expose you to people with different viewpoints and social decorum forces you to listen/engage for at least some modicum of time. You couldn't selectively ignore people when they were talking to you. If you behave like an asshole, people who disagree eventually stop interacting with you and you quickly notice that (negative feedback).

That's a major assertion without much back it up. I have no data either, but anecdotally I'd say you're probably wrong. I grew up in small town america, you don't get exposed to different view points, and if you do the common action is to just deal with the friends you have; there's not much else (this is why the bubbling on social media happens so readily; it's what people are already doing). Also I hesitate to assign people "unfriending" as a negative feedback loop. You get no notification you've been unfriended, and there's no mechanism to indicate why the action took place. If anything it might be reaffirming?

I'd also posit you're underestimating the value of a network of weak connections. This is especially true under the idea that most people will work some place different than where they grew up; reconnecting with friends that drift toward the same hub is a powerful tool.

so we get an ounce of goodwill right after a major scandal and we're supposed to suck it up because, uhm, why exactly?

yes we're all nasty and cynical and guess wath, turns out we were right all along, so pardon me if I'm not gonna cut them any slack.

You can read up on some research on Facebook Ad transparency [0]. Do you see any part of these concerns addressed?

[0] https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/03/07/investigating-ad-transpa...

It's difficult to be positive when you know that FB is doing everything it can to save its crown jewels. HN's supposed saltiness will likely dissipate when FB starts carving out its data policies.

> regardless of your stance on the site you cant deny it does a lot of good for a lot of people

I think it's reasonable to deny that Facebook does net good in the world. Facebook doesn't do any better than open-technology alternatives could offer, and it actively stifles alternatives.

This is amazing! I love that they're adding the ability to see:

1) which campaign or PAC bought the ad

2) all other ads by that buyer

3) how much that buyer spent on this ad and all other ads

Seriously, what other platform provides this level of transparency into political ads? It's unprecedented.

Also, it doesn't matter if you use or like Facebook--literally tens of millions do in the US, and they all have a vote. This is a win for democracy.

Good steps in the right direction. I just wish it applied as strongly to all ads. There's still a loop hole for unattributed ads until they get reported and verified. Most non-political ads should be obvious who paid for them, but there's no harm in that redundancy.

Good steps, would love to see more.

The newspaper? TV? Radio? Those channels are already heavily regulated as it relates to political advertising. The regulations controlling political ads in old media can be quite surprising to anyone who is not already aware of them.

Found the Facebook PR people

This breaks the site guidelines. Please read and follow them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You don't have to agree with someone about Facebook but you do need to take care of the commons when posting here.

My apologies.

Now instead of every third post that in reality is an ad, half of them will be. But clearly marked as ads.

What? uBlock already make ads completely transparent

What I'd love to see is the ads' targeting information.

Click on the "..." above any ad and select "Why am I seeing this?"

https://www.fbpurity.com adblocking extension

There really is a feeling of "too little, too late".

Not in the sense FB cannot make improvements. Of course they can.

What is too little, too late is reversing the direction that the Zuckerberg story has taken.

The media can build someone up and they can also destroy someone.

As the recent Rolling Stone article suggested in no uncertain terms, there has been great damage done to media and journalism (and arguably to society) by having FB as a "filter" between the reader and the news source.

They have not managed the relationships well enough it seems.

Have a look at this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/06/mark-zuck...

Anecdotally I have heard Zuckerberg discussed in the ways described in this article. I have no doubt he was trying to carefully craft an image for the American public.

But, today, who can trust this young man who has the personal lives of billions of people on his servers... now that they have seen how he reacts in a crisis? (Perhaps we should say "fails to react".)

There is a certain irony I see in the failure of Zuckerbergs PR team. Someone who has been in PR for many years once explained to me the effect of FB on PR. Needless to say, it wasnt positive. PR traditionally relied on the media and its ability to reach the targeted audience. To a large extent, FB controls this now.

Whether any of this will matter long-term, who knows? Ask Wall Street?

But if and when FB assures us that they have everything under control, I will have doubts. This is an evolving story. We are seeing only the tip of the FB iceberg.

This author located in the UK believes FB should be broken up:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/03/26/zuckerberg-m...

He believes that Facebook's board is susceptible to Silicon Valley groupthink and with Thiel there is clear conflict in interest due to Palantir.

He argues the board is "feeble" because Zuckerberg cant be sacked.

The author thinks Zuckerberg has made some "stupid" and "arrogant" moves.

For example last year as an experiment, he cut professionally produced news from the main newsfeed in Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Bolivia, Cambodia, Serbia and Slovakia making those countries "beta-testers" for "a political debate free of facts".

He recalls in 2007 he wrote two news stories about FB for a former employer. One was about some software that "connected to Facebook's then-new "social graph" and siphoned off personal information for resale." The other was about an advertiser, Vodafone, who pulled its ads from Facebook because it had been placed on a page promoting the British National Party.

He suggests that because stories like these could easily have been written as recent as last week, it shows how FB's problems are not new and how Zuckerberg has refused to acknowledge them for the last ten years let alone try to "fix" them.

He thinks FB should not be "fixed"; rather, it should be "broken and remade".

He has also announced that he now supports the Honest Ads Act.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy/facebook...

Perhaps he will announce next that he supports competition.

Isnt it true that before being acquired by FB, WhatsApp charged users a subscription fee and did not show ads?

How about making ads go away?

FB appears locked in to a business model that relies on continually pushing the limits of invasiveness.

Does that model have a breaking point?

Does FB know where that point lies?

I think I would pay $1-2/mo for a custom algorithm that eliminated ads and sorts content the way I want. But Facebook probably makes more money on certain users then that anyways.

I am surprised this doesn't get brought up more.

I also would pay $24 a year for a 'premium Facebook' ad free experience.

Google tried it. Nobody used it.

Google tried to charge for ad-free Facebook?

That doesn't seem likely.

Facebook had an ARPU of $6.18 in Q4'2017, so ~$2/mo.

It wouldn't be difficult to build a downloadable tool that kept your data on your own machine. RSS/Atom feeds + machine learning based on your own votes. You could integrate things like your email inbox and chats if you wanted to have a private timeline of what was going on in your life.

It would be a good Free software project.

there's really only two possible revenue models for a company like facebook: using your data to target their own advertising, like they currently do, or selling your data to other ad networks and other parties who feel they could get some value out of it. Do you really want ads to go away, when the alternative is selling your data directly?

Alternative?

What makes you think they don't already do both?

Why is this being downvoted?

Destroying Facebook's business model is the red herring that noone brings up. Their ability or need to make money is not sacred and the company has failed its assumed role as a steward over the worlds' intimate details.

What needs to be done cannot be articulated in more unequivocal terms: mass data collection needs to die, starting with Facebook.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16770774

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/users-would-have-p...

There are 2) big problems here:

1) This could have been done long time ago

2) People or bots can still share content as images and there is still lot of fake news being spread in that way.

This will probably help but definitely not a sustainable fix.

"We believe..."

Hahaha, no you don't you disgusting liars.

As you know, you can't post like this here. You may not owe Facebook any better, but you owe this community much better if you want to keep commenting here.

If you continue to break the site guidelines, we're going to end up banning you. Would you please reread them and use this site as intended from now on?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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