A Quote by Antonio Garcia Martinez
'Targeting' is polite ads-speak for the data levers that Facebook exposes to advertisers, allowing that predatory lot to dissect the user base - that would be you - like a biology lab frog, drawing and quartering it into various components, and seeing which clicked most on its ads.
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I don't think anyone would object to Facebook selling ads or having ads directed at me, as long as people didn't think those ads were manipulated by personal data.
When you're reading a newspaper and you're seeing ads on the page, it's not kind of invasive. Like, it's on the page next to the article. You can look at it or not. You can turn the page when you're ready. On the internet, the ads - many of the ads - just are so controlling. They insist that you see them.
We help Chinese companies grow their customers abroad. They use Facebook ads to find more customers. For example, Lenovo used Facebook ads to sell its new phone. In China, I also see economic growth. We admire it.
Advertisers don't want to be ignored, and they are drunk on our data, which is what Google and other large networks are really selling. The ads are almost a by-product; what companies really want to know is what antiperspirant a woman of 25-34 is most likely to purchase after watching 'House of Cards.'
Over at Barb Bowman, she's arguing that we should turn off Facebook's tracking of ads. I totally disagree; those trackers make newsfeed filtering work better and potentially could help bring me better ads, which improves my life.
It is illegal for foreign entities to buy political ads in the United States. But that didn't stop the purchase of thousands of political ads on Facebook, paid for - in rubles - by foreigners.
As a Facebook user, do I have control of the data Facebook keeps about me? Concretely: can I examine and modify that data using tools of my choosing which are built for my needs?
In our case, we focus on quality, and we have a very simple model. If we show fewer ads that are more targeted, those ads are worth more. So we're in this strange situation where we show a smaller number of ads and we make more money because we show better ads. And that's the secret of Google.
If you'd come to me in 2012, when the last presidential election was raging and we were cooking up ever more complicated ways to monetize Facebook data, and told me that Russian agents in the Kremlin's employ would be buying Facebook ads to subvert American democracy, I'd have asked where your tin-foil hat was.
Facebook collects a lot of data from people and admits it. And it also collects data which isn't admitted. And Google does too. As for Microsoft, I don't know. But I do know that Windows has features that send data about the user.
Generally, our approach with products at Google is to first develop the right user base and then to figure out what's the right experience for the ads.
Targeted ads, I think, are useful because I don't want to see all the crap. I'm not interested in buying a Mercedes Benz, but I am interested in buying a new MacBook Air. So if organizations like Facebook can actually make the ads more relevant to me, if they know what I am interested in, I have no problem with that.
The first ads for medical marijuana have started airing on television in California. The ads are quite expensive. It costs a lot of money to buy 30 seconds during 'Spongebob Squarepants.'
I don't like outside group ads. I don't like attack ads. I particularly don't like them now that I'm in the process and they are being used against me.
People say Facebook connects the world. Facebook has 5,000 Ph.D.s that think about how to make you click on ads you don't want to see. Their business model is about something that most people would not perceive as making the world better.
We obviously - I'm from Michigan, so we saw a disproportionate number of these social media ads targeting us, targeting our population. So I want to close that loophole. That's my amendment, so that no foreign entity can buy an ad for or against a candidate in our democracy.
