Facebook Monitoring Your Reactions To Serve You Ads, Warn Belgian Police (independent.co.uk) 82
An anonymous reader writes: Belgian police have asked citizens to shun Facebook's "Reactions" buttons to protect their privacy. In February, five new "Reaction" buttons were added next to the "Like" button to allow people to display responses such as sad, wow, angry, love and haha. According to reports, police said Facebook is able to use the tool to tell when people are likely to be in a good mood -- and then decide when is the best time to show them ads. "The icons help not only express your feelings, they also help Facebook assess the effectiveness of the ads on your profile," a post on Belgian's official police website read.The Independent reports: "By limiting the number of icons to six, Facebook is counting on you to express your thoughts more easily so that the algorithms that run in the background are more effective," the post continues. "By mouse clicks you can let them know what makes you happy. "So that will help Facebook find the perfect location, on your profile, allowing it to display content that will arouse your curiosity but also to choose the time you present it. If it appears that you are in a good mood, it can deduce that you are more receptive and able to sell spaces explaining advertisers that they will have more chance to see you react."
American Police would Work with Facebook (Score:1)
To spy on us together.
In fact, I wonder why they limit internet in jail, they could spy on their prisoners just that much more effectively.
Duh. (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't get any less news than this.
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Maybe not for us, but for most people....
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When did "most people" start reading slashdot OR independent.co.uk?
Re: Duh. (Score:1)
Unlike the US, it would seem that the Belgium society is concerned about their right to privacy!
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The news isn't that Facebook does this or why. The news is that the Belgian police warns people about it. I'm sure that was news to you, wasn't it? So the discussion here shouldn't be so much about Facebook's bad intentions. Is the Belgian police right to warn people about Facebook?
It's amazing that you have to point this out to our astute /. posters...
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Yeah, if there is a single person reading these comments who is surprised that Facebook implements features to raise ad revenue, THAT would be news.
Re:Duh. (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't get any less news than this.
Actually, the news here isn't what, it's who, as in the Belgian Police.
Can anyone explain to me how analyzing Facebook algorithms that drive ad tactics is part of their overall charter to serve and protect?
While Facebook discerns when you're in a good mood about a particular topic or subject in order to serve ads, the Thought Police appear to be involved in this so they know when you're in a bad mood about specific topics or subjects.
Is there a more logical explanation...
Re:Duh. (Score:5, Informative)
the Belgian government is a bit at war with Facebook atm. They started an lawsuit against facebook since it was also tracking non users via its plugins everywhere, which of course is not allowed. In return you now can't see any facebook page anymore from a belgian ip address unless you are logged in.
So this is another step in the fight of the governement against the privacy breaches of facebook.
Privacy is taken serious here :).
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It's news to Belgium piggies because stealing your information and using it against you is the police and government's job, you silly goose :)
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Their computer crime unit regularly post things regarding privacy, IT scam's, etc. People tend to listen more to them then when some random nerd says something. Also some European countries do try to PROTECT people's privacy and aren't completely run by corporations.
Because it's safer and easier than actually going outside and catching criminals or, heaven forbid, terr
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Can anyone explain to me how analyzing Facebook algorithms that drive ad tactics is part of their overall charter to serve and protect?
I am not sure, but this would explain why when you're crossing from France into Belgium on the highway/freeway, all the ad billboards suddenly stop when you get into Belgium. This is not that I really like advertising billboards, I usually complain about them, but this made it difficult to find a cheap hotel.
Also, it didn't help that my cheap French sim card stopped working when I crossed into Belgium.
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In some European countries they are not really allowed, thank FSM. Some try to get around it by planting a big truck or container on a field or whatever close to the freeway or other road and it looks like crap.
I am happy that our roads and nature are not polluted with billboards everywhere.
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Protecting citizens from powerful forces is kinda the point of a police. Motorcycle gang or Facebook, they are supposed to protect you.
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Protecting citizens from powerful forces is kinda the point of a police. Motorcycle gang or Facebook, they are supposed to protect you.
Ah, so it's now their duty to protect me from those dangerous Facebook ads online?
Gee, that almost sounds like something I could bring a lawsuit against. You know, for when I'm "duped" into buying waaaay more shit online than necessary.
Oh, what's that? Taxes are being raised to support the new Facebook CounterTerror Task Force? Gee, I'm shocked.
No, there's no slippery slope here. Not at all...
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I wanna know if the Fine Brothers are going to react to Facebook reacting, and if they're going to react by suing Facebook for reacting.
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The news isn't that facebook is monitoring people's reactions to serve ads, the news is that a police force is warning people to not use the reaction buttons. That is worth of some comment and discussion; whether you approve of behavioural advertising or not, no crime is being committed or prevented here. So why is a police force even getting involved? It seems downright strange to me. Are the Belgian police going to start warning people to avoid other sites and apps that use behavioural advertising? What l
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Because it's safer and easier than actually going outside and catching criminals or, heaven forbid, terrorists.
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They're cops, they're with the government, they have only your best interests in mind, the nanny state will protect you, you don't need the right to to think for yourself....
Captain Obvious (Score:2)
I see Captain Obvious is in charge of the Belgian police.
Everything Facebook does is to support its ad-based revenue model. "More options for users" is not the same as "more options for the customer", since the users with profiles are not the customer, the ad agencies are.
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Adblockers FTW.....
I'm going back to bed. (Score:2)
Why wouldn't any "social media" platform do exactly this? Is this news to anyone?
Seriously, the solution to being annoyed by Facebook is... DON'T USE FACEBOOK!
Really? (Score:1)
Why would Facebook warn the Belgian police, as the title claims?
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Do you seriously not understand how to parse headlines, or do you just think that you're more clever than you really are?
Do you seriously think that hiding behind AC and throwing insults at others makes you appear clever?
The headline would be unambiguous if written "Facebook Monitors Your Reaction To Serve You Ads, Belgian Police Warns". English as she is spoken, and all that.
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Do you seriously not understand how to parse headlines, or do you just think that you're more clever than you really are?
I interpreted the headline exactly as GP did, because it's a very common way to construct headlines. X does Y [in order] to Z1, [implied "and also to"] Z2.
Thus (in a more perfect world): "Microsoft discontinues forced Windows 10 upgrade program to stem rising tide of consumer fury, avoid $9 billion in fines."
Here, simply reordering or adding an "s" to "warn" would've cleared up the confusion. It made it look like Facebook was doing this to serve you ads and warn Belgian police. Which, honestly, i
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who cares
Facebook.... (Score:2)
"Free" service? No, sucking on you and making a buck on it, that what it boils down to.
When they came out, I studied their terms of use, did not like it at all, skipped it and never looked back.
Every now and then, there are news about this service that this is not right, that is fishy etc., so why bother at all?
The essence of this is rotten, anyone else may enjoy it, not my game, got nicer things to do.....
Ads (Score:1)
There's ads on Facebook? Where?
Damn Facebook! (Score:2)
I was happy, why did you show me ads and made me angry?
Oh wait, I've an adblock, I can stay happy.
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It's not the NSA, it's the CIA. [theonion.com]
Can I "Hate" the ads? (Score:2)
What happens is every time I'm shown an ad I hate the next dozens posts I see? Will facebook stop showing me ads?
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What happens is every time I'm shown an ad I hate the next dozens posts I see? Will facebook stop showing me ads?
Yeah, that 'Angry' reaction you can push just doesn't quite express the rage over ads, does it? I'm with ya.
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"Will facebook stop showing me ads?"
Interested fact: yes, at least in your stream/timeline. I persistently reported every single ad as 'Not relevant to me' for a while and eventually all ads masquerading as posts went away. Every six months or so they insert a few (starting with things like the Red Cross or WWF) and try to train me to accept them, but a couple of weeks of killing the ads makes them go away again. Obviously, I don't interact with any of the other commercial content (eg. liking Lexus' Faceboo
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Sort of off topic, but I notice this whenever an ad vendor wants to get feedback... the choice "I don't like ads" is never an option... weird.
Is it any wonder that statistics based on surveys are almost always crap?
Well, looks like the results are in and, oh gee... looks like everybody who took the survey loves the new ad. Keep up the great work people!
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You just gotta love this: when the police does nothing more useful than stuff their face with donuts and coffee, people complain - and rightfully so. When they do something useful, like warning people about the evils of Facebook, people still get pissed off.
Come on dude, give the fuzz a break and encourage them to do this more often.
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Nope, get off their asses, get off Facebook and go catch thieves, murders, rapists, kidnappers, business criminals, etc.
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I dont think he wants to constipate DNS lookups with a 100+mb host file APK.
Even if cached 100% in RAM, it takes non-trivial amounts of time to parse enormous lists, and it is seriously bad policy to have to parse an enormous list on each and every lookup.
That's why DNS is designed the way it is, so that smaller lists are parsed on lookups.
Not to mention the baked in improvements in managing deployment, given dns's centralized nature vs managing gods knows how many instances of a corpulent hosts file.
I know
STOP USING FACEBOOK (Score:3)
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This is you:
Harrumpff... I personally don't like X so everyone, stand with me now against X because I am right! I don't care about your reasons or the fact that you find value in X... it is WRONG! Don't you see that you ignorant plebe?!
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But that will be down to 0/zero since no one likes e-mails and calls. :P
I do not fear ads (Score:4, Interesting)
I do not fear ads. Even without adblocker. Let them tailor the ads.
I fear their control over me and me losing control. ... and people will read it less. Emphasise it and more people will click, read and notice.
First just the usability. I fear, that they optimize my timeline and stuff so i miss things, which i wanted to see (because i want to see what i subscribed for, not what facebook thinks which is relevant to me)
Seconds, the control. Serve me more of the one side, less of the other one. You may be able to manipulate me that way. Hide stuff, make it harder to find
Optimizing ads is a business model i could accept. Even using my content and feeding it into the systems of the advertisers would be okay in a perfect world, where i can be sure it is never used out of scope. There would be no problem with data collections, even ones which are never deleted, if it would be clear, that they never leak, get abused or change scope. An advertiser with a whole dossier about me would be no danger, if i could be sure he won't cooperate with the next facebook to lead me to the "correct" political articles.
But in the real world, data is collected, then it's minded and used for whatever idea somebody has. It's sold and bought and the ToS said they are allowed to do so. The new startup buys it as soon as it has enough money and they know you even before you sign up. And they use it to make you sign up, not just to tailor ads to you. They use it to sell you things (you would not have bought otherwise) or make you pay in other ways. ... you do not know.
And finally there are political actors, which make companies use the data in their sense. If it's just telling them which policial claim will get them popularity or if it's serving you the correct content to form your opinion
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Connecting with which people? You don't think facebook's only sorting "news". They are sorting stuff your friends are posting and even the people you are seeing.
Maybe if you only add people you know in real life and visit each of their pages by its own, you can avoid facebook sorting their content for you, but with normal usage facebook decides what you see and in which order.
Ads? (Score:1)
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Since when was it a good idea to limit the customer's expression of moods to 6? Or indeed any number?
I get that many services limit post response buttons (Like most prominently). And I'm well aware that querying such responses is made much easier when the responses are constrained. However I've never considered a Like button a mood indicator. And when it's cast as a mood indicator, it just seems like a terrible idea to limit the user to some set number that makes data analysis easier. You either alienate and drive people who are unhappy with the choices offered. Or you push them to make a selection that's off in some way. Or they become lurkers.
Is that the height of customer profiling technology? Is that customer service?
They're limited for multiple reasons.
Primarily, it simplifies categorisation and logging and reporting, etc.
Also, the more choices you give a user the worse, generally speaking. People don't like making choices, or prefer simpler choices.
6 is plenty to start with in any event - prove the system works before overcomplicating it. They can always revise it at any time (already have, and will again).
I'm actually surprised they went to 6 so quickly, but, from what I recall, they did a lot of testing before
Love those pepperonis (Score:2)
"He looked at a Jennifer Lawrence picture for 2 1/2 minutes. Serve up a pizza ad!"
Poison the well (Score:2)
This is news? (Score:2)