Wtf does their browser history look like to be getting those sorts of ads?!
Most of My Instagram Ads Are for Drugs, Stolen Credit Cards, Hacked Accounts, Counterfeit Money, and Weapons
Submitted 1 year ago by CriticalMiss@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.404media.co/instagram-ads-illegal-content-drugs-guns-hackers/
Comments
gnutrino@programming.dev 1 year ago
CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 1 year ago
In the article he states that he kept clicking on those ads on purpose, in order to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 1 year ago
I would be very curious to see the algorithm adapting to that:
User: click on shrooms ad
AI: Oh he likes shrooms with his cocaine! Let’s try a marijuana to snort with his cocaine.
traveler@lemdro.id 1 year ago
These are probably the “random” ads iPhone users get because of the “Ask not to track” feature.
Kalkaline@programming.dev 1 year ago
Surely these are at least partly honeypots for law enforcement, right?
deranger@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Some, sure. I asked my weed dealer to show me a bit on how this works. You’d be amazed at how much dealing is done over clearnet on FB messenger. Zero technical opsec. Selling drugs online has become much more mainstream than it was during the $10 bitcoin days. Not that I’d personally use clearnet for drugs, but that’s where a ton of deals are happening. This article only confirms what I’ve already seen.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Yep, so much stuff that used to be on TOR moved to discord. Then if they are smart they use Signal or Session, but I have heard of a lot of stuff just straight on FB… it’s crazy. I guess with that many transactions, it’s a really though game of whackamole. Especially since the internet made it much easier to deal drugs without needing to hold huge quantities at once.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
That wock is absolutely fent, and with those prices, that LSD is probably 25i.
The DMT seems legit tho
Remmock@kbin.social 1 year ago
ITT: People who are so quick to suggest ad blockers they miss the point of the conversation.
solidsnake2085@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Easy, just delete Instagram.
nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Well, Instagram did just that for my little book publishing company. I signed up for a business account in the hopes of selling some books, putting up some ads, and posting a few updates, only to get a fucking PERMABAN during fucking SIGNUP.
So you are right and it really is super easy.
nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl 1 year ago
(ffs i should’ve sold drugs damnit)
traveler@lemdro.id 1 year ago
I don’t get it why and how they get away. I mean I do get it, but it’s astonishing the amount of the shit these big corporations get away with. They’re pretty much profiting from crime and nobody does anything against them.
Echo71Niner@lemm.ee 1 year ago
it’s astonishing
**people ** still not blocking ads, use adblock!
traveler@lemdro.id 1 year ago
If you use the app there’s no blocking it sadly. What people should start doing it’s stop using that platform all together
traveler@lemdro.id 1 year ago
People shouldn’t be forced to use a adblocker for a platform to be usable.
30mag@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If criminals are advertising the crimes they are committing, I don’t imagine law enforcement are going to be falling all over themselves to put a stop to it, because it makes their job a lot easier.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Sure, assuming that their job is filling beds in prison rather than actually reducing crime.
traveler@lemdro.id 1 year ago
Are law enforcement actually doing it? Because if they were people were not always making those ads.
NAS89@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Similarly, my YouTube shorts are filled with gambling videos and “get rich quick scheme” videos. Seems as though “do not recommend channel” blocks the channel but assumes you have some growing interest in the topic.
I just want to watch woodworking shorts and plumbing videos T_T
10EXP@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Maybe do Not Interested and then Do not recommend channel?
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, Not Interested hides the video just like Do Not Recommend, so you can’t do both on the same one.
But it doesn’t really matter, because for me Do Not Recommend is actually signaling Youtube with Hell Yeah Gimme More! and anything I say I’m not interested in I see ten times more of. So I just block channels, which does seem to work reliably, except the list of shit channels is never ending.
Blocktube is an awesome extension, but it doesn’t run on the browser I actually sign into Youtube as myself. I run it on another browser where I never sign in, to avoid a one-off or accidental video choice skewing my recommendations for the indefinite future.
The number of gyrations required just to watch what I want to watch, and not see what I don’t want to see on Youtube is never ending.
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
This shit’s going on in centralized big-name websites, while Lemmy instances fret about discussing piracy and ban people for being impolite to bigots.
I fucking hate the modern web.
pineapplelover@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You don’t hate the modern web. You hate people.
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
No I definitely hate many disparate elements of the modern web. Browsers are controlled by an advertising giant that can’t even operate a decent search engine anymore. Legislators are still trying to demonize pornography, of any kind, as if two adults fucking in private is child exploitation… somehow. Every website that centralized disparate forums / galleries / chatrooms simultaneously went pants-on-head crazy in a panicked frenzy to make N+1 dollars.
I also hate people who demand “be polite!” without viciously cracking down on actual trolls saying stupid shit to bait blunt correction. And those trolls, obviously. It doesn’t have to be exclusive. There’s plenty to go around.
LeatherRebel@leminal.space 1 year ago
im getting the wrong type of ads lol
EnderWi99in@kbin.social 1 year ago
Yeah I just get fed with bullshit on ADHD and Autism nonstop.
tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.uk 1 year ago
You’re clearly a known customer for those products :p The algorithm is never wrong…
merthyr1831@lemmy.world 1 year ago
lucky 😮💨 all mine are weight loss scams and laptop deals
Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
Pixelfed
Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Ain’t that many thots there. Could be a good it bad thing.
Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
U saying there’s an untapped market? 😏
Astroturfed@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Drugs or Chinese scam products. Had a friend tell me he ordered something that never showed up, turned out they sent these super cheap toothbrushes in the mail and then tried to use that tracking info as proof he received what he bought. They just allow anyone who will pay to advertise illegal shit, scams, whatever it’s the wild West.
RobotToaster@infosec.pub 1 year ago
Aren’t those ads personalised to your browsing history?
coffeebiscuit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Should that be a reason to get adds for illegal things? … at all?
Bonehead@kbin.social 1 year ago
Tangently...you read one gay rights article and suddenly your ad feed is filled with hot single dads in my area...
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 1 year ago
Nice 👍
iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Do you have a link to the article?
deadcream@kbin.social 1 year ago
They are personalised by the "bucket" that data collection companies like Google or Facebook placed you into based on profiling. Browsing and search history is only one of the factors that is taken into account when you are profiled, there are myriad more ways to collect data about you.
And then what ads you see is determined by what advertisers think your "bucket" wants. If you are male in your 20s living in rural USA and advertisers think that males in their 20s living in rural USA are interested in guns, then that's what you will see - even if you never clicked on gun ad or searched for guns on Google.Iusedtobeanadventurer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Personally whenever I go to Instagram all I get are cat videos and ads about “targeted mushrooms” and kava drinks…
It all checks out ¯_(ツ)_/¯
sndrtj@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Or you just happen to live in an area with many addicts.
Edward_Teach@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t see a problem. Shroom time babey
BenGFHC@kbin.social 1 year ago
You don't see a problem when Instagram's target market is teens and young people?
grue@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Did you miss the part where the ads were offering things like stolen credit card info and unregistered firearms, too?
reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Are the drugs any good?
whofearsthenight@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Mine is all for phone cases. How do I get the ads for drugs?
Redredme@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Al the author, he clearly knows.
TheLurker@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Are you telling me if I remove all my ad blocking infrastructure I’ll get ads for drugs?
Hmm maybe I need to rethink my network design. 🤔😆
Squander@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If I pay more can I get some ads for drugs, money, and weapons?
MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Now here’s the exact problem with the so called “personalized” ads, that Google and Facebook serves what the advertisers think you want to see, instead of what you actually want to see.
This is the fundamental conflict of interest which the obvious conclusion is that online banner/video advertisements doesn’t work, and has never worked, because ultimately, no matter how many times you shove ads in people’s faces via a thoughtless machine, you can’t “trick” people into liking something. What people want is thoughtful, sincere recommendations by real people, which is why we have seen the rise of sassy brand Twitter accounts being so successful for a time: because there is a real person behind it.
(Of course, it’s really funny if you take blatant advertisment to its logical extreme, and even that seemed more effective.)
Of course, Google and Facebook will never admit that they’ve been lying to everyone and themselves for more than a decade, because to do so is to admit that their entire business of Web 2.0 was built on an absurd and illogical premise of again, if you show people ads for things they never asked for a thousand times, then you can brainwash them into liking something.
In other words, Google and Facebook’s entire advertisment business model, if you really think about it, is really no different than pick-up artist logic, and. They. Just. Won’t. Go. Away.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Turns out though you can absolutely trick them into believing conspiracy theories with social media ads.
30mag@lemmy.world 1 year ago
How do you advertise stolen credit cards?
The_Mixer_Dude@lemmus.org 1 year ago
If their storm credit cards worked why are they selling them?
deranger@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Because it’s one more degree of abstraction from the fraud and thus slightly safer. People absolutely sell working CC numbers online.
ericbomb@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I mean I don’t wanna just do cash advances on 100 stolen credit cards. That’ll get you caught so fast.
Legit crypto exchanges won’t accept credit cards anymore, they want a bank account attached.
You can use it to deliver stuff to like a nearby location you can like pick up, then sell I guess? But how often can you do that?
Using in stores assuming you have a physical card is dangerous because if it’s reported stolen by the time you use it, they’ll let the cops know and turn over the camera stuff.
Compare to, send the CC info to a random person, get $200 in crypto, and let them do one of the above and take all the risk. If you have 1000 stolen cards that is just so much safer and faster.
AbsolutelyNotCats@lemdro.id 1 year ago
[deleted]Chozo@kbin.social 1 year ago
How does that do anything for the problem the author writes about, though? They're not complaining about their own feed being spammed with this stuff, they're complaining that it's so rampant in the first place and that Meta does little to nothing to prevent it.
AbsolutelyNotCats@lemdro.id 1 year ago
How does that do anything for the problem the author writes about?
Nothing, but hopefully it’s helpful for anyone that reads it
Neato@kbin.social 1 year ago
I tried that. Got it installed with default settings looked absolutely no different. Half my feed is suggested bullshit.
AbsolutelyNotCats@lemdro.id 1 year ago
After all, you are using Instagram… Just without promoted ads
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
So basically the silk road moved to Instagram & Telegram… pretty ballsy, I wonder how much of it is honey potting?
That’s a pretty good deal for a hot Nina with all the fixings… also I see a lot of fentanyl pills in those listings.
glimse@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Didn’t those fake oil carts that were getting people sick come from Instagram? The ones with vitamin D oil as filler
There are still a bunch of darknet markets though, it’s two different demographics buying at each
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Yeah, there will always be dark markets. But it’s nothing like, nor do I think it ever will be in its hay day. I don’t check regularly, but last I looked these markets have nothing close to the user base of even the days of agora/dream/Wallstreet. You could quantities of stuff at user level for real cheap. As they started cracking down, it all started to turn into bulk because no one wanted to deal with transaction frequency risk, I suspect it’s the same today.
vmaziman@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Asking tech giants to start policing people sounds like it can get bad really quickly…but at the same time letting them do nothing also sounds terrible
Endorkend@kbin.social 1 year ago
That's an interesting take.
These companies are accepting money from criminal enterprises to advertise criminal enterprises.
You don't need them to police people, you need them to stop being overt criminals themselves.
grue@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Exactly. Meta is an accomplice to all these crimes!
RegularGoose@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
How the fuck is curating the ads on their platform “policing” people?
30mag@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My facebook ads are almost always drugs. microdose ketamine study, psilocybin mushroom kits, CBD/THC gummies, online doctor visits for generic Lexapro…
Ozymati@lemmy.nz 1 year ago
I went on Edge, logged into Facebook, then proceeded to google various horse related things and visit the resulting websits. Now my ads are all about horses. I don’t own a horse, never been especially into them. But they’re nice and inoffensive in my feed.
Petter1@lemm.ee 1 year ago
LifeProTip
ineedaunion@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Dang I need some of those mushrooms and ketamine microdosing.
PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Mushroom spores are legal. The ketamine shit might, in some cases, be legit but won’t be covered by insurance.
30mag@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Mindbloom advertises ketamine microdosing. I can’t imagine that it isn’t either a scam or a honeypot.
EnderWi99in@kbin.social 1 year ago
Yeah I get a lot of those as well. Anxiety, ADHD, and autism stuff mostly. I keep shooting down the ads as I suffer from none of these things. No idea why it keeps pushing that crap.
pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
says something
goaskalice3@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m trying to kick an opiate habit and seeing that I can buy them on Instagram is not helping
Echo71Niner@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You sound like you love to see ads, otherwise why the fuck are you not blocking them using extensions?
WhyDoesntThisThingWork@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Where I live it’s largely the same though on facebook marketplace and not on instagram. Counterfeit money, weapons (which are almost completely illegal where I live, even basic non-lethal things like pepper spray and tasers) and more than anything prostitution. The thing is, these are “sponsored ads” which are all supposedly screened and approved manually. Also you can report them and Facebook won’t take them down.
Before someone suggests it cause I’ve seen this response a couple times in this thread already: No, I am not searching those things or related products on Facebook or elsewhere on the web.
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Preamble to the shifty internet bills that will get passed on a holiday weekend at 2am?
Gestrid@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
All my Twitter ads are just about AI images.
riodoro1@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The biggest media corporations are allowed to advertise literal crime. Meanwhile saying the word cigarette on tv will get you jail time.
deleted@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Smoke
Bz2486@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Are you smoking yet?