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Count me among those who consider this "a false distinction." I think there's a flaw in this argument. Eric does a brief steel man that he steps past, but I think has weight: Engagement is required to create scale. Scale is required to make FB successful... eric_seufert/1376536599182381059Permalink On twitter.com
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I think this is a good post and his other good posts link to good arguments, so it's worth doing the same thing he did, and trying to understand his argument first: 1. FB doesn't do surveillance marketing t/f surveillance marketing is a myth.Permalink On twitter.com
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Ok. So let's set aside the first part of the claim and hit the 2nd part. Is only Facebook doing the behavior that is commonly associated with surveillance marketing? ...Permalink On twitter.com
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Well no. Obviously many other platforms do various types of ad targeting and the entire IAB UID2 proposal is specifically about tracking your personal data and personal movement around the web...Permalink On twitter.com
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I'm sure other people can and have done a better job of this than I, but to be brief, the current regime of 3rd party cookies includes "fingerprinting" which uses a mix of your given identifiers (email) and probable identifiers (browser, OS, window size, etc...)...Permalink On twitter.com
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This fingerprint is used to associate you with your specific data and activity across the web in many many venues (which I will admit, may not include FB!). You are *literally* being surveilled across the web and that data is being used for advertising...Permalink On twitter.com
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And that doesn't even dig into your phone network selling your data, GPS level data, blue-tooth beacons, etc... and you could say that the *use* of this data is to target groups, not individuals... but the data to do so is built on surveillance.Permalink On twitter.com
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So I disagree with the claim that only FB is responsible for "surveillance advertising" 2. Facebook doesn't do surveillance advertising because Faceebook's real use for personal data is engagement, and an entirely different dataset is used to drive ad logic.Permalink On twitter.com
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Ok. I agree with the 2nd part of the statement to some extent. Yes. Facebook's use of engagement algorithms is predicated on a different understanding and use of user data than ad targeting. Are these separate datasets? Do ad preferences not drive engagement feed choices?...Permalink On twitter.com
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I mean... we don't really know. Maybe lookalike audiences that advertisers build feed into Facebook's construction of social feed? Maybe it doesn't. I don't really see the grounds on which we can confirm this claim...Permalink On twitter.com
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The idea that there is any sort of wall, even a paper one, between the two datasets (advertiser-provided user data vs volunteered to FB user data) *within Facebook* seems impossible to prove. Could both be used to train engagement algorithms? Maybe! But...Permalink On twitter.com
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As is already stated in article, Facebook benefits and uses the information about what products users buy on users properties. I don't really believe that "purchasing information" that advertisers hand over is never used for personalizing a users' interactions w/the feed.Permalink On twitter.com
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So I have to say I have serious doubts about this 2nd claim that engagement with Facebook posts is independent from advertising engagement and that these two data sets are irrelevant to each other. This is *further* confused by the issue of how Facebook (and many others!) do ads.Permalink On twitter.com
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The native in-feed format of many social network ad systems means that engagement with the feed of user-generated content is *essential* to the success of their ads business. You *can not have* one success without the other.Permalink On twitter.com
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This gets us to claim 3. Surveillance marketing is a myth because "the data that is used for targeting ads isn’t actually harvested on the social media properties themselves (eg. the Facebook app) but rather on third-party properties".Permalink On twitter.com
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This actually is supported heavily by claim 1 in the article: only Facebook can do surveillance advertising. But, we *know* that isn't true. So are the 3rd party properties doing surveillance advertising (tracking individuals actions in multiple contexts for the purpose of ads)?Permalink On twitter.com
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And... the implied 2nd part of this claim that has to be involved in answering the question is: does FB facilitate the collection of that data and does FB benefit from it and from the continuation of it's collection as an industry standard. Ok...Permalink On twitter.com
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So: claim 3a that what advertisers are doing is to "pass conversion data back to ad platforms, and those ad platform partners use algorithms to optimize ad targeting" and that isn't surveillance...Permalink On twitter.com
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Well... isn't clicking on a thing, having that click tracked, recorded and used to associate a click event with an individual personal data set ("Aram has clicked on a laptop ad and purchased the laptop") surveillance? I would argue... uhhh yes!Permalink On twitter.com
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Worse, now 2 parties are party to this association between my personal identity AND advertising activity. The advertiser: who has my very personal purchasing data including credit card, address and full name. And also now Facebook, who has associated that activity w/my account.Permalink On twitter.com
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So now we get to claim 3b: Does sharing that activity with Facebook create a advertising marketplace based on surveillance? I'm going to start by noting the usual argument that gets brought up: 'you used to buy stuff & then get junk mail from the store, this is no different!'Permalink On twitter.com
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Ok, well... predicating your defense on junk mail... a thing that the US gov't definitely regulates and tries to eliminate ain't a great look. Even if sharing your data with Facebook is the same as advertisers sharing your data with a mailing company it is bad! But!...Permalink On twitter.com
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I don't think anyone is arguing that junkmail is surveillance (just shitty). So the question is what differentiates sending this data to a mailing service VS sending it to Facebook? Well... quite a few things actually...Permalink On twitter.com
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Major ones: Time: the communication between Facebook and an advertiser is real time Precision: the data is less generalized than "household" in the targeting it enables. It enables to-a-individual targeting. Use: What Facebook does with it is a persistent continual process.Permalink On twitter.com
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We've already addressed the idea that these two datasets (what you've told FB about you VS what advertisers told FB about you) are separate as likely wrong but... let's say they are for a moment. The scale of FB *specifically* and its nature as a web platform causes issues.Permalink On twitter.com
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See, we know from incidents like algorithmic redlining among FB advertisers on real estate ads that demographic distinctions at precision can be bad, but what is new is how the scale of FB creates a specific barrier to access in this regard...Permalink On twitter.com
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FB's scale, and how it connects and *confirms* marketer assumptions thru its *specific 1st party data connecting to targeting efforts* creates a particularly impermeable barrier. Users are restricted from opportunities by ad targeting precision, that leads to content barriersPermalink On twitter.com
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These restrictions create a bad feedback loop for ad access that feeds into content access. In this case the problem is not how the ads surveil, but how that surveillance restricts access to specific ads and drives users toward specific content... Chronotope/1270502395244687364Permalink On twitter.com
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Now, if we had a *robust* network of sites that present content and ads, this would be a lot less of an issue. But the nature of digital advertising as a marketplace makes competition with FB & G increasingly difficult, which means the barriers they activate are harder to bypass.Permalink On twitter.com
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See... even if, tho it may be very unlikely, FB doesn't mix the "advertiser-volunteered data" with the "user-volunteered data". The system it creates builds obstacles for users that are enforced by the surveillance advertising that the advertiser-volunteered data creates.Permalink On twitter.com
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When Anna Eshoo said "Your model has a cost to society. The most engaging posts are often those that induce fear, anxiety, anger and that includes deadly, deadly misinformation" this is the feedback loop to which she was referring. The ads and the content are *connected*.Permalink On twitter.com
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And this gets us to an unstated but underlying claim that is *very common* in marketing circles: 4. The venue in which advertising is presented is not connected to the advertising. But it *is*, especially when ads are in native feed-based formats. The connection is the user.Permalink On twitter.com
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And we know this connection is present because brands and platforms are both constantly worried about it and activists create change by showcasing that connection, media outlets try to argue against it constantly, and advertisers are deathly afraid of it. branded.substack.com/p/heres-what-you-should-do-about-yourPermalink On twitter.com
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See the surveillance of individuals that leads to more precise ad targeting is telling them a story about themselves and their expectations and their associations. It doesn't have to be accurate, or successful to do so, but it does so otherwise why have ads in the first place?...Permalink On twitter.com
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So even if the 3rd party data that is sent to Facebook does nothing but make ad targeting more precise, the scale of Facebook means that targeting enables this influence and limitation on users and that leads to changes in their 1st party behavior.Permalink On twitter.com
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Then let's take claim 5, which I think is the most interesting: 5. Facebook does not benefit from the advertisers' surveillance of users that drives advertiser targeting choices, except in the form of providing a venue for ads.Permalink On twitter.com
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I think this is interesting because it skips over how Facebook has an entire other feedback loop besides the user feed... see Facebook's really profitable feedback loop isn't for its users... it's for advertisers! ...Permalink On twitter.com
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There is a reality and the story FB tells and that is a separate issue, but I think to really talk about it we need to start on the assumption that Facebook's claims about its advertising system's efficacy is correct. Even if it may not be. Chronotope/1343556989461401601Permalink On twitter.com
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So Facebook's usual claim here is that precision in targeting is good for advertisers because it allows them to target only their intended audience and not waste money on ads being shown uselessly to people who are outside of their target audience...Permalink On twitter.com
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And uhhhh Maybe! But that's not the only question here... Chronotope/1343573273863401476Permalink On twitter.com
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See Facebook's profit is driven not by high ad prices, but high ad *efficiency*. The technical nature of this is effectively explained by another good post by Eric: mobiledevmemo.com/facebook-may-take-revenue-hit-from-apple-privacy-changes/Permalink On twitter.com
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The link to this in the top post states "the flow of conversion data is severed between advertisers and ad platforms [...] has no impact on an ad platform’s ability to optimize engagement on its owned-and-operated properties, and vice versa."Permalink On twitter.com
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Ah... but it does! See... Facebook's most profitable feedback loop is that it incentives advertisers to do *more surveillance* to increase the precision of ad buying on Facebook, to increase efficiency, with the reward of lower ad prices.Permalink On twitter.com
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And this is the issue with claim 5. Facebook absolutely benefits from surveillance advertising by 3rd parties, because it rewards it with lower prices, encourages more of it, and uses that precision to free up more scale to run more ads...Permalink On twitter.com
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And this takes us to the final big claim: 6. 1st party advertiser data is where what, if any, surveillance is occurring, and its transmission to 3rd parties is irrelevant...Permalink On twitter.com
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In-post this is stated in the conclusion: "If legislators want to ban or severely restrict the capability of ads platforms to provide targeted advertising, then that’s mostly an effort that needs to be directed at advertisers, which generate the data that is used to target ads."Permalink On twitter.com
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I 100% agree with this statement. Congress should be talking to ad tech middle men and agencies. But the implication in this context is that social platforms' role in this is incidental. And I really cannot disagree more strongly...Permalink On twitter.com
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Let's come back to the first claim. Does Facebook itself do surveillance? Chronotope/1376542024040648705Permalink On twitter.com
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Yes. FB's pixel means it can track you across many contexts. A SDK in your apps means it has data about your activities based on device ID w/o you opening up Facebook's app. Individual measurement of ad clicks cross-site for efficiency is enabled by technology that it provides.Permalink On twitter.com
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Advertisers may *volunteer* to give user data away. Facebook's technology enables and in many cases creates a flow of data from advertisers to FB's systems. This is not something Facebook alone does. And yes advertisers are activating the data transfer. But FB is enabling it.Permalink On twitter.com
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See claim 2 Facebook's matching of this advertiser-provided data *has* to in some way be linked to Facebook's engagement-driving 1st party data, even if just un. Otherwise they can't match users. Which means Facebook's massive user-base and pageview scale is required for success.Permalink On twitter.com
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*if just on IDOn twitter.com
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