I have seen many people say they’ll never buy a thing they’re advertised. Me too
Nobody is completely immune to manipulation, they’re only getting better at manipulation, and even if it doesn’t work on you, it works on others.
I know it sounds insane to call it this, but language hasn’t kept up with the digital age: it’s stalking, brainwashing, and stealing.
Following a target around, cataloguing their habits, and deliberately manipulating their thoughts and behaviors until they buy what you want them to buy. That’s what modern advertising is.
poppichew@piefed.social 3 days ago
Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Respect on the reduce/reuse consumption habits. Though it’s definitely a good call-out that they get you through loved ones, and not just through a family member saying “I want this, please buy it” but also through a loved one being manipulated into buying something and saying “I own this and recommend it”
Stalking by a person is insane, but remember that people have access to the data. It’s not just a faceless corporation. It’s literally humans sitting at desks. Most companies fail the most basic security principles of “minimum access necessary” and there are human beings, right now, who can freely look up other human beings in these databases.
There are plenty of stories of for e.g. nurses breaking HIPAA by looking up health records of celebrities or exes, but the only reason we know about those is because HIPAA exists.
Human beings can use this data to stalk you as human beings, without you ever being able to know that they did in any way, shape, or form. They can learn more about you and your family from a search query than a PI could ever learn from sitting outside your house.
Not to mention actual security breaches, as well as voluntarily or involuntarily complying with government demands for data… which are still human beings reading those results.
I don’t want to minimize the real lived experiences of stalking, those are awful and unbelievable destructive. It’s a terrible crime.
But I am trying to express the fact that all of the same dangers of being stalked are clear and present in these systems, we just don’t acknowledge them.