SerialStateLineXer t1_iu04v59 wrote on October 27, 2022 at 3:59 PM

Reply to comment by Stibley_Kleeblunch in Facebook Segments Ads by Race and Age Based on Photos | Ads with teenage girls are mostly directed at men over 55, while white people see fewer ads with Black faces, a new study finds. by chrisdh79

>The more a certain type of ad is shown to a demographic, the more likely a positive feedback loop is to emerge. If all you see is young white women, you don't even get the chance to contradict the algorithm's assumptions about you.

I'm sure that you and I know more about this issue than people who work on these algorithms full time, but "show people a variety of ads" and "account for the base rate when calculating click-through rates" seem like super basic and obvious things to account for.

If you have a Facebook account, open it up now. Does it look like Facebook is only serving you one specific kind of ad?

Stibley_Kleeblunch t1_iu0boo6 wrote on October 27, 2022 at 4:43 PM

There's plenty I don't know about the topic, and I'll happily admit it. I've never had a Facebook account, and never plan to. But at some point, doesn't "showing people a variety of ads" end up being at odds with "selling highly-targeted ad space?" I wonder if the business model accounts for that by, for instance, not charging the client to display their ads to a group that is unlikely to respond well to them.