Facebook is bombarding rightwing users with combat gear ads. See for yourself
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
There were 5 million new gun owners last year. I think the ad networks just view it as a highly probable click since so many people are suddenly showing interest in firearms that weren't before. Especially for people in my demo/geo... I am white and rural.
I think the arms retailers are having a boom right now and have plenty of money for ads.
It’s gotten a bit mixed up lately, but historically left wing militias made more sense than right wing militias. Left wing groups are usually in opposition to this form of government and therefore have a lot of things they’d like to change with force if necessary. Historically right wing groups usually wish to preserve (to whit, conserve) things as is, which usually doesn’t require militias per se. Anti-government right wing militias are historically speaking, kind of weird, even though they’re the norm since Ruby Ridge or so.
I think could really be a risen interest in the gun topic within that demo and/or other companies not targeting them as much currently in the US while other see oportunity to sell more in this moment?
Not everyone who buys these accessories will go on to rush the Capitol, despite the article hinting at that implication.
Facebook's advertising policies are not a suitable place to enact desires that people have been unable to achieve democratically.
For a hot topic like guns, the constraints on where/when they can be advertised should also be decided democratically.
https://m.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/weapo...
If you are selling related stuff(belts, holster, vest, gun case etc), be prepared to have your fb ad account banned often(as the algo will likely (mis)-categorize you into selling weapons).
Advertisers in this space generally are very good at 1) cloaking, 2) renting or purchasing ad accounts.
both are against fb policy.
But in the end, as long as there is a positive ROI, and there is a way to circumventing the system, people will continue to do that. I don’t see how that’s fbs fault.
Note - gun sales are very strong in the US. Antifa / BLM / Armed protestors.
I think that's exactly what FB is doing, to be honest. They are simply letting third party advertisers advertise.
Historically, dem president in power has always been an indicator of increased spending on guns (because hardcore gun people become afraid that the dems will make guns more difficult to purchase, so they stock up). And increase in gun sales means increased budget (including ad budget) for gun-related businesses. Higher ad budget for gun-related businesses means more ads for gun-related businesses popping up on everyone's feed, as they keep outbidding other ads.
Combine that with the fact that a lot more people in your social network graph became more interested in guns for various reasons over the past year (protests on both sides, covid, dem president, etc.), and you have just massively increased the probability of seeing an ad for a gun-related business.
I don't think it's quite that simple. Facebook controls the juxtaposition of ads with content, and with each other. This can reinforce the power of the individual ads, or attenuate it. In this case, it's pretty clearly creating a "caravan" of ads because that's more effective than letting each stand alone.
Disclaimer: I used to work at Facebook, but I was in storage. It gave me no particular insight into how the ad system works. This is just based on general knowledge of how human psychology and ML work.
Oh, totally agreed on this one. FB fully controls the layout and where ads are displayed. When I said that FB doesn't control things, I meant that they don't control and decide which ads get shown to you, it is all down to what advertisers advertise, and whether you fall under those specific target audiences.
I think Facebook is awful, but this how their business works. I can't see them going out of their way to not serve their customers and not make money, outside of public outcry or government regulation forcing them to.
I'm not sure GP is suggesting anything, and I know I'm not. These are just observations about how things actually work. The fact that certain groups of users get "bombarded" with ads for certain categories does not indicate intent or interference, as some here have suggested. It just means the system is doing what it's designed to do, which is to optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of serving billions of ads to billions of people.
The specifics I mentioned are not something that I am proposing as a target for a change, because, as you said, this is how their ad business works, and it seems pretty fair.
What I mean is that this is the predictable and proven behavior of Facebook, so is this a target for change now that we don't like this particular result? Or should Facebook be somehow regulated to prevent this type of behavior generally?
So I really wonder if republicans are scared when a democrat is in office and subsequently buy guns because of that or whether they are scared into buying more guns by mere marketing.
A lot of people who own guns also collect them. It is kind of a hobby. Guns might not be advancing, but people like having multiple different kinds, swap attachments, get some rare handgun from WW2 era from Czechoslovakia, etc.
Plus, it isn't all just about guns themselves. A lot of it is in the adjacent stuff, like ammo (which inevitably runs out, if you go to a gun range on a regular basis).
I prefer to think of it similarly to an audio gear enthusiast hobby. How many headphones/amps/synths/keyboards/guitars/etc. one might need? People spend enormous amounts of money on audio gear for decades, without actually "needing" most of it, and it isn't like the actual acoustics or technology in audio changes that much (with exception of a few specific categories, like midi controllers).
>So I really wonder if republicans are scared when a democrat is in office and subsequently buy guns because of that or whether they are scared into buying more guns by mere marketing.
I don't know about you, but I have plenty of politically left-leaning friends who bought their first firearms this year. So, I think, covid and protests are, at least partially, definitely fueling that increase in sales all across the political spectrum.
Ours for sure arent.
Locally there may be also a sense that at least in some jurisdictions policing has decreased and/or crime has increased - ie, you are more on your own now - faith in govt is maybe a bit diminished.
And now of course some of the right wing protestors are showing up heavily armed - but I think they always bought guns because they often seem like gun nuts.
You: I just bought a washing machine on Amazon
Amazon: "Here are some ads for more washing machines, in case you're an enthusiastic collector!"
Very strange.
It's obviously complete BS.
Building capabilities to add arbitrary human-defined rules into those optimization functions only makes their jobs more difficult and is a drag on hitting team targets. I'm curious why you think they're incentivized to do so.
Let's be more sympathetic to the little guys.
Exactly the kind of effect Facebook is selling, though not always firearm-related, of course.
The perfect advertising machine is a mind-control machine. It makes you want things you didn't want before with 100% effectiveness.
To the extent thay Facebook spends billions a year on building such a machine, we should believe that they have seen some success beyond a traditional advertising channel (such as TV ads).
I suppose it's marginally better than fractionally growing somebody else's pile of money.
Could the same be said of Q content?
Or to put it another way, you believe advertising is not effective at all on anyone?
I bet the author is very concerned about "internet radicalization". I bet he's so concerned that he began to feel the stirrings of his own radicalization while pretending to support Trump on the internet. The article is a fantasy brought on by what the author expected to feel.
All respect, but if you didn't find the part of the article you quoted funny, your bullshit barometer needs to be recalibrated.
I know a guy who bought a $500 axe (for chopping wood) from one of those "be a manly man" e-commerce sites that popped up a few years ago. He had never chopped wood before, and to this day he never has chopped wood. Ads convinced him he wanted it.
The same is true of all the ads from those companies, selling beautiful, sturdy compasses or hunting knives that never get dull.
Guns can be beautiful, well-made objects. They can make someone feed safe and prepared. I don't see any reason an ad couldn't convince someone that they want/need one, especially if they're seeing dozens of ads a day.
Firearms, ammunition (if you can even find it), plate carriers, plates, optics, NVGs, holsters - all of it is selling for at least 200% what it was one year ago right now. Everyone running ad campaigns is seeing ROI > 3 and dramatically increasing spend.
Once bids rise to the point that ROI is normalized, we'll see less of this.
(generally speaking, people rush to buy guns whenever the specter of gun control comes up, because they think that'll be the last chance they get.)
And it's mostly in their head. The right was fired up for eight long years driving up the price of guns and ammo while Obama was president, meanwhile he never made even a token effort at gun control.
That's not actually true, there are incidents like the ammo import ban to automatically prohibiting elderly people receiving financial assistance.
The fact that the gun control you were expecting didn't happen doesn't mean that none did.
I’m not trying to put you on the spot. Feel free to ignore this message.
I was shocked. What's suburban dad doing getting out of his SUV in a mall parking lot with an AR-15???
Full disclosure: I'm not on the right wing or even remotely close.
These companies sell to police, private security companies, military, and yes civilians. That segment of the ad looks like its targeted to more of a private security/police application.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Texan but suburban dads are probably the largest gun owning demographic. Ive so many engineers show up to the range with a $4k ar-15 and shoot a couple hundred bucks in ammo. At least before covid shot prices through the roof.
You’re in for a surprise if you ever look in a patrol car. Every agency I know of, even in a very rural state, has an AR as standard equipment - either in the cabin, or in rare cases, in a trunk lid mount.
https://www.criminaljusticedegreehub.com/popular-guns-for-la...
The end of that list shows the M4 carbine - which is an AR-15.
In popular vernacular, an “M4” is a shortened version of the “M16”, which is the military version of the “AR-15”. Armalite originated the design and Colt licensed it.
There’s a bit more to it than that, but that’s the high points.
plain clothes, plain car. also the ad is targeted at me, and i'm not part of any of the other target markets you mentioned.
(From the ad)