[toast_coder]

This seems fairly benign. What's giving it the coverage and negative feedback here is the fact that somebody call it a 'psychological trick'.

Is an ice cream truck playing music and slowing rolling down your street on a hot summer day also a psychological trick we need to guard against? Accounting for human congregations and 'appealing to their curiosity' is a part of the human existence.

Downloading junk is also a life lesson, they will learn.

[kartan]

> Downloading junk is also a life lesson, they will learn.

Mega-corporation - with deep pockets, professional advice, etc - stalks teenagers and does targeted personalized campaign, it is teenagers fault to fall for it... I see a "blame the victim" attitude here.

> Is an ice cream truck playing music and slowing rolling down your street on a hot summer day also a psychological trick we need to guard against?

The truck guy does not know my name, the school I go to or any other data beyond that I am in the neighborhood and can hear the sound or see the truck. The truck is fishing.

Facebook is collecting personalized data, creating profiles and targeting unsuspecting minors that feel "special" for being chosen without knowing the reasons.

> TBH described its methods as “too ‘scrappy’” for a big company.

So the same company that had the idea has the same concerns about it.

There is somethings that are not-so-bad (but bad) when done in an small scale, but become horrible at a bigger scale.

[DarkWiiPlayer]

> > Downloading junk is also a life lesson, they will learn.

> Mega-corporation - with deep pockets, professional advice, etc - stalks teenagers and does targeted personalized campaign, it is teenagers fault to fall for it... I see a "blame the victim" attitude here.

You're really extrapolating quite a straw man from the original statement there. There's a lot of people out there that want to (and will, if given the change) scam you. Arguing that it's better to learn that in a way that at least doesn't lose you any actual money is not the same as blaming people who fall for it and/or implying that they deserve it.

[blamologist]

what is it with the mindset that the really important thing is pointing fingers in a morally correct fashion? is there any problem that’s ever solved?

[zelos]

> Is an ice cream truck playing music and slowing rolling down your street on a hot summer day also a psychological trick we need to guard against?

Sure, but even something like ice cream truck music is regulated: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

[jeremylylebrown]

But when will they learn? What if it's too late for them to claim their attention span back, as they go down the spiral of useless junk/social media? And what about the people who never learn - is it their fault? I suppose if kids/people learn to treat personalized (and well-timed) social media invitations like I treat 3/4ths of the emails I receive, it's not terrible, just more of the same, but at worst, those individuals most vulnerable to distraction/suggestion will end up even more distracted and hustled out of their money.

I understand that it's up to people to be their own judge, but people en masse are vulnerable to all this marketing stuff. This in particular just seems somewhat more invasive.

[s3r3nity]

If you want to criticize the entire field of neuromarketing, fine - it's an interesting discussion to have.

But I agree with parent commenter in that let's not pretend Facebook is doing anything unique and/or the only ones doing this type of stuff.

[bendoernberg]

What's the case for "billion-dollar companies using neuroscience to manipulate the behavior of individuals is a moral and societal good"? Neuromarketing seems pretty straightforwardly evil to me...

[jawarner]

Are you against marketing in general? What's different about these advanced techniques? I see technology applied to marketing as a natural consequence of business. You have a point that it's not necessarily in the best interest of society at large, but how would we go about regulating the messages businesses are allowed to communicate?

[kevin_thibedeau]

Prescription drug ads do far more social harm.

"This shit will fuck you up six ways from Sunday but we make a ton of money off of it so ask your doctor..."

[United857]

I've only seen such drugs ads in the US. Most other countries seem to realize that watching a 30 second ad is unlikely to make you more informed than a MD or PharmD.

[TeMPOraL]

It's not about being informed, it's - like all marketing - about being misinformed. And in this case, the intended effect is that the patient will pressure the doctor to prescribe them the drug they've seen on TV.

[s3r3nity]

In most cases I might agree with you - but as a counterpoint I would posit a huge problem among the medical community: patient compliance with treatment. Sometimes health outcomes have nothing to do with the treatment itself, but rather the patient(s) are not likely to adhere strictly to the recommendations. [Source: my graduate school advisor was a health economist - but I'm sure there are studies out there to validate this.]

Something to keep in mind: not all drugs are bad. And even those that get a historical bad rap are ok in _moderation_ - some drugs are very helpful and necessary for certain conditions.

If drug ads and/or neuromarketing can improve patient outcomes by improving the likelihood that a patient complies with treatment, then is that all that bad?

[reaperducer]

Prescription drug ads do far more social harm.

Because one thing is more harmful doesn’t mean the other doesn’t cause harm.

[freetime2]

Is it straightforwardly evil? What if the thing being marketed is good for you? Would a neuromarketing campaign designed to get people to exercise more or eat more vegetables be evil?

[TeMPOraL]

> What if the thing being marketed is good for you? Would a neuromarketing campaign designed to get people to exercise more or eat more vegetables be evil?

Then we could debate whether targeted assault at free will is in principle bad or not.

As it is, neuromarketing is not used for good. It's used to exploit people.

It's like asking if killing random strangers on the street is straightforwardly evil, because there's a remote possibility that they're all alien shapeshifters out to destroy our way of life.

[trhway]

Dictators also do some good things to their countries, yet dictatorships are evil. The point is evil nature, not the occasional good side effect.

[buth_lika]

Pretending you're related to a school you're not affiliated with isn't neuromarketing, it's just lying to kids. Using big words for that doesn't make it bigger, and that it's not "unique" from the perspective of people who pull this kind of stuff is also not surprising.

When you find a bug, do you fix the bug, or do you go "ohh, but this isn't the first time anything ever had a bug"? When someone flashes you in the park, do you call the cops or do you say "it's hardly unique for this person to be doing this"?

The article is kinda meh, there really isn't anything to discuss, but that doesn't make lying to kids to push another product noble or interesting. I'd sooner interested in the upbringing of the people who enter that "field" than their own rationalizations. I've seen enough to know there's a problem behind the chaff.

[tirumaraiselvan]

So you are saying this article is more of a 'psychological trick' than the real content.

[toast_coder]

Winner winner chicken dinner.

[superfrank]

I think the only part to me that seems a bit sketchy is that the pages were titled things like "TBH @ Some Random Highshool". It seems like their goal might have been to trick kids into thinking the page actually had some association with their high school.

They rest of the stuff they seems pretty normal and is actually pretty clever in my mind.