The main ignition behind a social media company’s profit lies in advertisements. Facebook, for example, has a digital weapon with its ad algorithm. An advertisement is personal to your preferences, curiosities, interests, and activity. Yet, even if users change their online presence for a month, the data collected is an accumulation of a long period of time. Thus, the ad algorithm bases its knowledge over your digital life span rather than your alternating choices.
Despite users attempt to steer away from personalized advertisements, the algorithm is too powerful. Not only does it base its knowledge on for instance, Facebook likes, friend groups, pages, posts engagement, but also it goes beyond the social media application. This means that you are tracked on websites you visit, purchases you make, additions to the shopping cart, videos you watch, time spent on an image or a post. The list is endless.
The algorithm slowly builds a virtual character of each person on the social media and decides what the user wants to see. If there is engagement and activity online, the algorithm keeps improving and feeding on information until it grows. The advertisements soon represent your interests, and the smallest interaction can make a difference.
People try to stop this and slow down the constant pop-up of new ads. However, the only actual escape from this digital prison is logging of the internet. Unfortunately, this is quite difficult in today’s world. Individuals consume and depend on electronic devices, applications, software, and socializing. Further, deleting and/or not interacting with the ad does not stop the algorithm from working, but rather, it incentivizes it to improve and further dissect the data.
The digital pattern of the algorithm might be opaque and invisible to both businesses and users. Nevertheless, in this scenario, there must be a way to limit the advertisement targeting. Can governments intervene and legislate social advertisements?
The next step is placing boundaries on the extent to which advertisements can be based on individual’s private life, as sometimes the advertisement is a trigger to a negative emotion. Thus, can governments and institutions gain control on this ad algorithm and set a red line where both parties (businesses and consumers) can benefit, but with certain constraints on ad topics and personal data usage?
References
Martin, K., 2021. Facebook under fire for burying research into mental health impact. Financial Times. Available at: https://www-ft-com.eur.idm.oclc.org/content/5f0402b7-812a-4314-aba1-cee242f9e161 [Accessed October 3, 2021].
A very interesting take on today’s advertising, Kamilla.
It is true that algortihms today do support companies in a way that they can regulate what we want, when we want it, and how we want it in light of advertsing. We are never really “alone”, and the internet is what you describe a “prison” which we can not escape from. Everyone uses it, and if you do not use the internet, you are effectively giving yourself a handicap.
It is also my view that advertising and their algoritihms are getting scary accurate and that there need to be clear set boundaries how far companies may go in that respect. However, it is also hard to deny that the Internet and digital advertising has made humankind to progress in amazingly proportions. It has provided us the sense of unity, trade and even peace that might have been never possible without the internet.
So, should we limit algorithms, or untap their potential? should companies and/or the government control all of this information? Or have information brokers be explicitely targeted and controlled by authorities? This is a question that we should be thinking about going forward. Ultimately, it is considering a trade-off in my eyes: Privacy vs. Progress, but where do we find the break-even?
Thank you for the insightful post! you have given me some new views on the current world of advertising.
Very interesting blog post! I think you explained the advantages and disadvantages of modern online advertising very well. I think it is a very big and important question to raise, do we want our information being out there for companies to use targeted advertising. Data can be very useful for companies to be able to exactly target the consumers who will actually buy their products. Targeted marketing can also lead to consumers who are vulnerable to advertising to purchase more than they are able to, which can in some cases lead to dept. Legislation to control what companies are and are not allowed to do with data is difficult to establish, since it will need to cover an enormous of data. When it comes to legislation governments are often lag behind events, especially in the case of technology and data, which is ever evolving. Therefore, the idea you suggested with starting with putting boundaries on the extent to which advertisements can be based on individual’s private life is a good start.