Girl flooded with beauty ads on Instagram | Hacker News Reader

Girl flooded with beauty ads on Instagram

bbc.com

19 pointshhs21 comments

> If you are an Instagram user and you would like to see which ad categories the platform has assigned to you, go to the settings menu in the app, then follow this path: Security / Access Data / Ads / Ads Interest.

If the BBC wanted to be helpful, they could teach how to install uBlock Origin, instead of how to help corporate when their spying fails.

Does ublock origin work with native phone apps?

To be fair, as much as it doesn't help things, it is entertaining to see what Instagram thinks I like and is a feature I didn't know existed. I recently un-followed everyone besides the people I know IRL (so no more celebs, memes and instachicks) and, combined with the obfuscation software I use now, the ads suggestions are all over the place. For a male, 20-something year old nerdy engineer I apparently have a real love of all things 'comsmetics, hair products, spas, dresses, beauty, and tattoos'!

You use obfuscation software for instagram? Im intrigued

People need to realise that these categories are not what web services use to target.

Instead, they are an approximation of the underlying data, which is really used for targeting.

Have an a analogy:

I have a photo of a crime suspect. I would describe it as "man with beard in yellow jacket".

When looking for the matching person, I could look for all other men with beards, or I could go back to the original photograph and try to find a matching face. What's likely to give the most accurate result? Clearly the face matching. They show you the text though, but underneath they use the face for the actual targeting.

A browser extension won't have any effect on Instagram because the vast majority of users are on the mobile app.

Besides, there's no reason for the BBC to start providing technical advice. Are they supposed to provide instructions on how to install it on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari? And also explain why it doesn't exist on IE, and why it exists on desktop Chrome/Safari but not mobile Chrome/Safari? How about also explaining that things like Twitter embeds (which news sites are full of) won't appear with UO's default settings, effectively breaking the site's functionality?

What happens if the extension breaks down the line (might happen with future Chrome updates)? Is the editorial team supposed to have a reminder to go back to the article and update it?

I assumed my intent would be clear, but if you insist on nitpicking: The BBC could mention it's possible to block ads on the browser version of Instagram, with various browser extensions.

Why you think this means they'd have to explain every possible technical detail of ad blocking, I have no idea.

Because it's the BBC, they have certain editorial responsibilities. It's one thing if they started a content series around digital rights, where adblocking extensions could be discussed. But this is a standard issue news story, so it's not appropriate to editorialize.

Look on the linked page for links to external sites. Beyond the Twitter embeds and cancerous Taboola/Outbrain advert links, there are none.

For regular news stories, the BBC will rarely link out to non-BBC URLs unless it's to link the original investigation run by a different organization.

How is mentioning the existence of ad-blockers, on a story about ads, editorializing? Meanwhile teaching you how to be a good consumer and set your ad preferences is 'neutral'?

From your original comment:

> they could teach how to install uBlock Origin, instead of how to help corporate when their spying fails.

That's quite a bit different from "mentioning the existence of", which would be reasonable IMO.

In any case, the elephant in the room that's gone unmentioned so far, is that the BBC introduced Google Ads on the site a few years ago, so it's probably not a priority for them to explain to users how they can block ads.

In other news: Water is still wet

> "There are lots of things you think about with your kids on social media, but advertising isn't really one of them," said Ms Winter

Under which moon did this lady live for the last decade? Instagram is probably the single piece of technology I would wish away the instant I got a magic wand.

> Instagram is probably the single piece of technology I would wish away the instant I got a magic wand.

more than facebook or youtube? Why?

(my main problem with youtube, btw, is the weird addictive videos they have, but I would not vanish it because it adds a lot of value to me and others via courses)

May have been part of a generation that grew up when legislation to ban child-focused TV advertising had been in effect. If you don't use IG, it's easy to miss that it's become a cesspool of advertising. Both "Promoted Post" garbage as well as Influencer's sponsored posts.

I can’t believe the business models that involve targeting kids these days are legal and so widely accepted

I can't believe how young girls would react to such things

What can be more profitable than preying on the insecurity of young people /s ?

Not saying its right but Instagram terms of services states that they person cannot be younger than 13, this is a instance of the person being 12. The parents need to be more responsible and not create or allow social media accounts for their kids when they are that young.

Unfortunately that practically means ostracism for such kids, as everyone uses these apps.

"Update 19th June 2019: Since this article was published, Tamsin Winters has found out that her niece did receive a broader range of adverts than she originally believed. In addition to the 13 adverts mentioned, she also saw ads for trainers, chocolates, a drink and women's football."

So.... never mind....

> The girl, who is just about to turn 13 - the minimum age for Instagram - has recently joined the social network.

So what we are seeing here is a TOS violation?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com