The ads are a window into a blatantly illegal underground economy that Meta is not only failing to moderate, but is actively profiting from and injecting into users’ feeds.
  • riodoro1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    2 years ago

    The biggest media corporations are allowed to advertise literal crime. Meanwhile saying the word cigarette on tv will get you jail time.

  • NAS89@lemmy.worldEnglish
    26·
    2 years 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

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.worldEnglish
    201·
    2 years 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.worldEnglish
      10·
      2 years ago

      Turns out though you can absolutely trick them into believing conspiracy theories with social media ads.

    • DryTomatoes4@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Pretty much every industry works by tricking people into liking things.

      Like the razors with four+ blades on them, people buy them cause the commercials say “more blades is better”.

      People wouldn’t seek out extra blades if they weren’t tricked into liking it. They are objectively worse than single blade razors.

    • Halosheep@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      The ads that I mind the least and the ones I find the most effective are sponsors for creators that I like. Short sponsor segments really don’t annoy me as much and I have actually tried a couple products that have advertised that way.

      That said, almost all of them sucked in the end but that’s another subject entirely.

    • theangryseal@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      I may or may not have acquired exactly the acid in those pics.

      I definitely did not.

      Or did I?

      It looks identical actually and I’m willing to bet it came from the same place.

      If I actually had it that is.

  • Astroturfed@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    2 years 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.

  • mindbleach@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    193·
    2 years 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.

      • mindbleach@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        16·
        2 years 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.

        • stevedidWHAT@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          2 years ago

          I felt the same way but with the Reddit thing I started switching up some of my sites.

          Have you used any of the SearX instances? Works just as well as google for the most part

          • mindbleach@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            I have now, and I’m underwhelmed. As a test case I used a repeated failure point for Google and DDG: ‘“Apple I” keyboard’. As in, keyboards for the Apple I, which came before the Apple II. (I have some very stupid hobbies.) Major search engines overwhelmingly return Apple iWhatever keyboards, or just Apple keyboards in general, with occasional vintage or retro hardware tossed in. The handful of SearX instances I tried returned nothing.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Did you miss the part where the ads were offering things like stolen credit card info and unregistered firearms, too?

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    5·
    2 years 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.worldEnglish
      10·
      2 years 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.worksEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, there will always be dark markets. But it’s nothing like, nor do I think it ever will be like it was 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 buy 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.