Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Continued To Identify Users Who Are Interested in Nazis -- and Then Used the Info To Let Advertisers Target Them, Investigation Finds (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Facebook makes money by charging advertisers to reach just the right audience for their message -- even when that audience is made up of people interested in the perpetrators of the Holocaust or explicitly neo-Nazi music. Despite promises of greater oversight following past advertising scandals, a Times review shows that Facebook has continued to allow advertisers to target hundreds of thousands of users the social media firm believes are curious about topics such as "Joseph Goebbels," "Josef Mengele," "Heinrich Himmler," the neo-nazi punk band Skrewdriver and Benito Mussolini's long-defunct National Fascist Party.
Experts say that this practice runs counter to the company's stated principles and can help fuel radicalization online. "What you're describing, where a clear hateful idea or narrative can be amplified to reach more people, is exactly what they said they don't want to do and what they need to be held accountable for," said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League's center on extremism. After being contacted by The Times, Facebook said that it would remove many of the audience groupings from its ad platform.
Experts say that this practice runs counter to the company's stated principles and can help fuel radicalization online. "What you're describing, where a clear hateful idea or narrative can be amplified to reach more people, is exactly what they said they don't want to do and what they need to be held accountable for," said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League's center on extremism. After being contacted by The Times, Facebook said that it would remove many of the audience groupings from its ad platform.
I support freedom of speech, even for scum like this.
a clear hateful idea or narrative can be amplified to reach more people, is exactly what they said they don't want to do
Who determines what a "clear hateful idea" is? Oh, I see what they did there.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
If you send them enough "Herbal viagra" and "discount pharmacy" ads, the problem will likely self correct.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
Facebook is obsolete. Everyone knows Hitler is on Snapchat
I think I can make a fortune selling them rope, bleach and MAGA hats...
I'm gonna be the first to Godwin this threa... oh crap.
#DeleteChrome
www.webgeak.com.ng
while Communists rock. Thanks for clearing that up.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
So I guess Zuckerberg/Sandberg are nazis?
Oh and Google doesn't like me saying that. Those words are "misspelled".
Corporatism != Free Market
Sometimes articles make it seem like Facebook or someone else went *out of their way* to advertise Nazi stuff to people. That's most probably not the case. They probably made some algorithm do something like. "if X is interested in Y, then send some Z their way." Sometimes that might mean Nazi stuff. Then this happens and people say, "see! FACEBOOK IS SUPPORTING NAZIS." Sorry folks, but sometimes software robotic automatons are not sensitive to everyone's predilections. The simple software robots we are using at this point do not make moral judgements (unless told to) and every possible situation that might crop up that is negative like this one, cannot, I repeat, cannot be accounted for. There's going to be some roadkill if you drive a bunch of cars down the road, and there's going to be some poorly chosen details if you let the amoral algorithmic robots choose for you. That's the breaks. We should be educating the masses that this will happen, but that we will adjust as we can to avoid these kinds of things in the future.
one time I read about leprosy.... and it's ridiculous to then assume I'm now pro-leprosy; silly example, but exactly the same thing happens on a hot-button topic like this
ingesting information on any topic does not necessarily mean advocating or endorsing it; if one is 'curious' or 'interested' in a topic -- including valid historical figures and events, it is disingenuous to then be portrayed as being 'for' it
keep in mind FB is not a government entity but a profit-oriented business; any and all of its power was handed to it voluntarily by those who feel okay with trading their privacy for whatever FB offers in return; also keep in mind that tolerance of differing viewpoints is a keystone of democracy... removing alternative viewpoints is tyranny and will have a much deeper negative impact than a generally unpopular topic running its natural course
expecting government to handle social problems only leads to more government; more of that can certainly be worse than letting social issues play out in society; government-mandated solutions should be scarce since they come with their own set of intractable problems some of which are worse than what they are 'solving'
I don't see anyone in the OP advocating gov't intervention, so perhaps I ramble a bit here; on the other hand, if this is an attempt to educate the general public about FB's practices so the public can make better informed decisions, then hell yes, let's hear it
it comes down to personal responsibility for yourself and children; make a stand and make it work... too many whiners think "someone should do something" but never themselves; "I want my FB but somebody needs to make it safe for me" is about as disgustingly weak-minded as it gets; it's unreasonable to expect gov't to solve all of life's problems and honestly, I wouldn't want it to
my life IS about my choices; if somebody else is making choices for me, then it's not really my life
Searching for these individuals or the political parties they were a part of is *not* necessarily an indication of support. How can one understand the atrocities that were committed, the actual history of their rise to power, unless one searches for information? How can one learn the nature of fascist and authoritarian governments without searching for information on recent governments of that nature?
Learning history, learning the lessons of history, requires reading about terrible things and terrible people.
That makes no sense. How does it become a monopoly issue if you're able to replace the service with a low investment?
That was Microsoft's argument and they lost. A switch may be easy but when all the incentives say don't make the switch you still have a monopoly. Apple did not nullify Microsoft's monopoly. Google Plus did not nullify Facebook's monopoly. Basically the ease of switching is one thing, the cost of switching is something else entirely.
good comment; not everything bad is malicious
... "scum" remark wasn't targeted at WW2 academics ...
That's a rather poor description of those attempting to learn and understand history. You don't need to be a university professor conducting research; a young school kid trying to understand history, maybe understand the war their great-grandfather fought in, is acting just as honorably at the university researcher. The history of these terrible events and these terrible people is not some off limits thing that only certain accredited people should be allowed to see. To the contrary, the public at large needs to understand what happened, how it happened, so that it is less likely to happen again.
Is Facebook now some repository of WW2 history?
Perhaps not directly, but it is a repository of groups of people. This may include groups of history buffs. Care to investigate whether there are WW2 history groups on facebook? I'd imagine that if one finds a good group then posing a question can lead to a better collection of links to historical sources than a google search. I've seen such a facebook group in action. Images of old family letters and post cards, photos, newspaper clippings, souvenirs, etc providing more info on a historical topic than a local historical society book.
Facebook groups can be a great resource for historians doing research.
because, well, it's not. This has nothing to do with Freedom of Speech whatsoever.
This is a privacy issue. Facebook Identified people interested in Nazi's and gave that information to advertisers. I can come up with lots of scenarios where that information could hurt somebody. And all it would take to get it is some money and a phony ad agency.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
when they did that whole "Holocaust" thing.
Seriously. If you're invoking Nazis in anything except historic context, either directly or indirectly, then you're spreading a message of violence. Nazism is like Ebola, really nasty shit that needs to be handled with care.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Big Data can mean Bad Data. I could easily see somebody getting on a list of presumed Nazi sympathizers because they did research into WWII.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
they're Big on Parties (ducks).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What do they buy? Is there like a KKKmart or something?
Table-ized A.I.
[Unhinged rant redacted]
Well, at least Slashdot still has freedom of speech.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Neos are known to like these shirts. If I need to unload this big stash of brown shirts, why shouldn't I be allowed to target them?
Are they designer shirts? Hugo Boss branded shirts should do well as he was a full fledged Nazi. Chanel and Louis Vuitton should do well too since they were active collaborators. For budget conscious neos maybe Dior will do as he was a passive collaborator.
Simon Wiesenthal is glad he's dead and doesn't have to suffer those Nazi-Ads.
...the Western Allies permitted their citizens and military personnel to listen to Lord Haw-haw, Axis Sally, Tokyo Rose and more.
Leadership knew daylight is a fine disinfectant. They were tough, smart, and not afraid of speech.
They won.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"Independent historians"? You're referring to holocaust deniers now, aren't you?
Actually honest-to-god professors at top universities have been known to write essays or articles that appear in the popular press rather than academic journals. The former is sometimes announced and linked to on their personal facebook pages.
During the recent controversy over confederate statues one such professor addressed the question of "did the confederacy fight to preserve slavery or was there some other motivation". This professor's essay published in the mainstream media answered this question by pointing out that the various confederate states published declarations of secession that explicitly and repeatedly referred to the defense of the institutions of slavery and white supremacy. How did I learn of this article, someone reposting the professor's facebook link to the article.
Sometimes those in the ivory towers speak to the public and facebook is one of their tools.
It was never "Do no evil". It was the subtly different "Don't be evil".
However "Be thoughtless and callous" seems to always be perfectly acceptable to the company.
Sure. I might be willing to fight for their right to speech but I'm not going to defend them from crappy ads.
Perhaps they've been watching Man in the High Castle and are trying to learn some history?
After all, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana) and there are some things we do not want to repeat.