I view ad targeting as good for the world: they help make my life better by aiming me at products and services relevant to my interests and needs, sometimes when I didn't even know such a thing existed. It saves poor reinvention of the wheel in so many cases.
And FB-the-social-network is also great in theory: groups help you make friends and go deep into very niche interests. Without it, I would be a more normal, less interesting person. Now, with the join of a group, you can immerse yourself in a hobby even if absolutely nobody in a hundred miles shares that interest. It helps people go deeper on what they care about, thus becoming 'weirder' or a more fulfilled version of themselves. And helps people get ads they care about.
> I view ad targeting as good for the world: they help make my life better by aiming me at products and services relevant to my interests and needs, sometimes when I didn't even know such a thing existed. It saves poor reinvention of the wheel in so many cases.
Let me give you another point of view:
Ads benefit the already wealthy corporations above small businesses that cannot pay billions for ads and add another lay on to inequality.
"Reinventing the wheel" is sometimes necessary for innovation, often called disrupting the market.
Also, I believe that endless consumerism is actually killing the planet and ads (no only banner ads but also product placements) play a huge part in making people feel insecure and less worthy just because they don't have the newest gadget.
In case you weren't aware, the targeting tools provided by Google and Facebook have actually rebalanced the advertising market back towards smaller businesses.
I kinda agree on the consumerism thing, but that's more a reflection of our society than evil genius advertisers.
> "Most corporations" don't do global surveillance on the scale Facebook does. It's that simple.
It's never that simple.
What corporations are okay to work for, in this unidimensional worldview? Exxon Mobil? Philip Morris? Pfizer? Dupont? Boeing? Nestle? BHP? Fox News? Volkswagen? Nike? HSBC? Is it okay if your employer's owners or executives have appeared in the panama papers? Are or have been on the boards of FAANG companies or own stock in those companies? Are you allowed to buy Google or Apple products and use their services?
What about companies that collect and trade on the personal information and habits they collect about their customers, just not on the scale of Facebook or Google? Are they okay? Even if they would like to be able to sell more personal information but don't presently have the means to would that be okay?
So where do you work? What products and services do you buy?
Everybody decides where to draw their own line. For some it's Raytheon or Bayer or Boeing, for some it's HSBC, for some it's Facebook. Doesn't matter, you can't invalidate a person's moral compass with whataboutism. There are plenty of small and medium businesses that aren't terrible.
I think this has to go both ways, many in this thread use phrases like "lack of morals" implying One True Morality scale, presumably one where surveillance capitalism is.. most evil?
I'd personally love to know what everyone actually works on. In real life I know people who work on guided missiles and ICBM-adjacent tech who manage to sleep well at night.
I wasn't invalidating it any more than they were invalidating my opinion that facebook isn't the devil with their response to telling me that is the dealbreaker. "It's that simple".
Note this wasn't the poster I initially asked the question of. It was someone else just coming in and trying to tell me "it's that simple". My reply was not whataboutism, it was explaining why it's not "that simple".
And it wasn't a rhetorical question, I really want to know, from someone who does have this very simple "line", whether it's okay to use Apple or Google or Facebook services or products, whether it's okay to work for companies whose owners or executives own stock? Whether it's okay to vote for politicians who take money from them or who themselves own the stock?
This isn't whataboutism, it is exploring the consequences of this moral position.
I know a bunch of people who work at FB. They explain that Zuck would love to be as evil as Google or Microsoft, but is just nowhere near their league.
Putin would love to be as evil as the US or even China, but hasn't got the scratch. Russia has its billionaire oligarchs, but the US has probably a hundred times as many. China murders more innocents every day than Putin does rabble rousers in a year.
Zuck isn't Putin. He isn't Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs. He isn't even Bolsanaro, or Duterte. He would like to be.
And FB-the-social-network is also great in theory: groups help you make friends and go deep into very niche interests. Without it, I would be a more normal, less interesting person. Now, with the join of a group, you can immerse yourself in a hobby even if absolutely nobody in a hundred miles shares that interest. It helps people go deeper on what they care about, thus becoming 'weirder' or a more fulfilled version of themselves. And helps people get ads they care about.