I didn’t see the testimony, but I did read her book.
When most people think “targeted advertising”, I think they are thinking about something like: this user is a middle-class woman between 18 and 25 who enjoys bicycles, so we’re show her ad X.
According to Wynn-Williams, Facebook/Meta is doing things like detecting when a user uploads, then immediately removes a photo–detecting that as a moment of emotional vulnerability (that is, the user was feeling self-conscious about their appearance), then bombarding them with ads in that moment for beauty products.
I think the former is ‘obvious’ to most people, but the latter probably isn’t.
(not accusing you of defending them BTW, just my 2¢ that this goes beyond what most people would consider obvious, imo)
gruhuken@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Book worth a read? Saw it on sale earlier and looked interesting
brandon@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
I got it from the library, so I won’t comment how much money it’s worth.
Hard to say I enjoyed it, since the conduct described within is nearly without expection horrifying. I expect that most people on Lemmy would probably be unsurprised by it.
I found it to be a pretty quick read, and I’m glad it’s out there. If you’re interested in the topic I’d say to give it a shot.