On Facebook, ‘Likes’ Become Ads | Hacker News Reader

On Facebook, ‘Likes’ Become Ads

finance.yahoo.com

64 pointslibria20 comments

Here's what one looks like, for the curious:

This appeared in my news feed last night, and is still there now. It moves like a normal item (i.e., its not 'sitckied' to the top or anything like that).

On mobile its pretty jarring. Bigger than any other posts.

Wow @ the mobile version. How many posts typically fit on a screen these days?

I took a quick look at my news feed, and found that non-sponsored "full screen" posts are very common. A few recent examples:

http://i.imgur.com/zcHoH.png

http://i.imgur.com/khR3W.png

http://i.imgur.com/zFdyv.png

http://i.imgur.com/fF8EM.png

Obviously, it's very popular to share photos and videos on Facebook, and it's understandable that those forms of media will take up a large percentage of small mobile screens. Not really an issue specific to advertisements.

Thanks!

I had to email a friend the other day and let him know that Match.com ads were being displayed with his "endorsement" as a user.

If he's worried about being associated with Match.com, he probably shouldn't voluntarily associate himself with Match.com (which is what this is). Obviously, a user won't be associated with the company unless they explicitly "like" the company.

This is not new. Facebook has always published news feed stories stating that a friend has "liked" a page. This simply attaches a recent post from the page to that story.

To (somewhat) opt-out:

Account Settings -> Facebook Ads -> Edit Social Ad Settings

Thank you. Problem solved (until they change it).

This means like is a misnomer. It should be the opt-in & endorse button. This should make the like button very valuable, as users discover their likes are used as endorsements to their friends. But its still an ad disguised as mechanically facilitated word of mouth.

IIRC this kind of ad is optional and you can turn it off in the privacy settings.

Dude, mentioning privacy options is funny. These options get set and unset whenever Facebook feels like it; I've made a throwaway account a couple of times, and after deleting it (Facebook at that time had no delete functionality whatsoever) not only did Facebook beg for reinstatement for months and years, they actually went ahead and revived the account lately and are spamming me with whatever people I once friended say there.

I won't log back in to really delete it, since the last time I deleted it it told me that if I ever log in again - which I totally, totally can, no hard feelings at all! - it will just reinstate it for me.

So the idea of "privacy settings" is pretty silly of you to mention.

Exactly. Facebook's model depends on being opaque about what is going on behind the scenes with user's data.

Most people, when asked outright, will tell you they don't want every, single little thing they post shared to the world, searchable and existing in perpetuity. Just like they'll tell you they don't want to see ads. However, when you try to explain "privacy settings" it's often not understood (my mom), or not worth the effort. It's opt-in vs. opt-out; if Facebook were opt-in, it would have created precisely zero billionaires.

And one can only imagine that this kind of strategy will become increasingly common, resulting is a bizarre cat and mouse game with users, as facebook gets more and more desperate to hold on to its "value", what ever that actually is.

Really you don't know think nearly a billion users and 4 billion in revenue is valuable ?

I'm not on FB anymore, but it at least used to be an option.

I can back you up on that. I deleted my first Facebook account years ago, and I got some emails begging for reinstatement. Now I get emails saying there are new friend requests on that account.

I've also noticed privacy settings inexplicably changing after I have set them, and game stories showing up in the news feed no matter how many times I unsubscribe from it.

Meanwhile I've never had any of these problems. I block games that I feel my friends are spamming me with, or are just annoying and that I won't ever play. Mafia Wars is a good one, I blocked that at least 4 years ago, and it's still gone as of today.

So one of two things is true. First is that I am somehow special and Facebook works differently for me than anyone else. Short answer: No.

Secondly is that Facebook's privacy settings is a mess and confusing to the public at large. You could make a very, very good case for that.

Also, just because your friends are trying to get you to re-sign-up doesn't somehow indicate that Facebook is doing something untoward.

Sorry Karunamon, you are wrong - you are special (or at least lucky).

I concur with the original post that Facebook sets and unsets options, or in my case ignores them as it sees fit. In one example, I have a friend who no matter how many times I 'unsubscribed from her game feeds', or blocked her game apps, still appeared in my news feed. I had to unfriend her to stop the spam appearing.

Add me to the special list.

Have never had problems with Facebook privacy settings.

Facebook users should beware. As a publicly traded company, the pressure to monetize their "users" will only increase, which I suspect will lead them to make even more questionable decisions.

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