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Comment by dkrich | Hacker News Reader

I feel like I’m alone in asking this but does personal responsibility play no part in this?

She starts by admitting that she voluntarily signaled to these platforms that she was pregnant. They are ad platforms. She then goes on to admit that she continued to go back on the platforms after and then blames them for showing ads she herself engaged with at one point!

I don’t think anyone would ever wish someone grieving to be reminded of the source of the grief or say “too bad.” But I think a reasonable person could conclude this is a little unreasonable.

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I didn't read that as she "voluntarily signaled to these platforms that she was pregnant". She made social media posts with many clear signals that she was pregnant.

She basically said, "I know your algorithms can detect that I was pregnant. Can't your algorithms detect that my baby is no longer alive?" That seems like a pretty fair statement.

So now society is frustrated because it’s data isn’t being analyzed and used to serve ads effectively enough? We’ve officially come full circle.

How about this- if you are uncomfortable with the prospect of ads potentially shown to you that may upset you based on recent history that’s now changed, lay off the platform for a while.

This is precisely the hazardous morality we begin to enter when we become as passively engaged as social media allows. The platform becomes an antidote to sadness; social media has reached a place in society where it's casually being used as a means for self-medication.

People who are on social media appear to be deluding themselves into believing that social media can offer some sort of support and minimize the pain, but this is probably the biggest misconception about which we can convince the public otherwise.

>She basically said, "I know your algorithms can detect that I was pregnant. Can't your algorithms detect that my baby is no longer alive?" That seems like a pretty fair statement.

Maybe a fair statement, but a fundamental misunderstanding of how ad targeting works.

She didn't voluntarily choose "Send me pregnancy related ads," the system inferred that from her history/context. She's asking why the system couldn't also infer that her pregnancy failed, after she made a considerable amount, if not more/stronger signals for the later.

These ads are served by models. She's saying, "Hey model-builders, add in the stillbirth option. You can detect that using machine learning too -- throw in some sentiment analysis and call it good." As someone who is not building these models herself, that's as much personal responsibility as she can take. And it's a good point. Brands that want goodwill and sales if she has a kid later should want to not be seared in her memory as a pain-point after stillbirth.

It's a bit much to say "ads she herself engaged with at one point" -- Facebook and email marketers serve you a lot of ads for companies and sites you may never have engaged with directly.

but she did said that she tried to stop ads by selecting "Not interested" without much success

You aren't alone. I had the same thoughts. Why would she share that type of information on a social networking site to begin with?

It's terrible what happened to her and her family, but this post basically reads "I put my foot in a fire. Fire, why did you burn my foot?"

Are you actually suggesting that a woman should hide her pregnancy from her friends and family?

I'm horrified that anyone shares anything about their child, unborn or otherwise, on a social media platform. Shouldn't that child have the right to choose for themselves if they want literally their entire lives archived by advertisers?

Yes, she shouldn't have posted about her pregnancy on social media sites.

*Edit to add - There are a lot of other ways to share with friends and family about her pregnancy that aren't social media.

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