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Dear Friends,

As a husband, I've sat next to my wife through eight miscarriages, and while drowning my sorrows on Facebook, face the inundation of pregnancy and baby ads. It's heartbreaking, depressing, and out right unethical.

How can we, as developers who conquer the world with software solutions, not solve this problem? Let's be honest, it's not that we cannot solve this problem, it's that we won't solve it.

We're really screwing this one up, and I'm issuing a challenge - who's out here on devRant that can make the first targeted "Shiva" ad campaign? Don't tell me you don't have the data in your system, because we all know you do. Your challenge is to identify the death of a loved one, or a miscarriage, and respectfully mourn the loss with no desire to make money from those individuals.

Fucking advertise flower delivery services and fancy chocolates to the people in THEIR inner circle, but stop fucking advertising pregnancy clothes to my wife after a miscarriage. You know you can do it. Don't let me down.

https://washingtonpost.com/lifestyl...

Comments
  • 3
    Its probably something the "clever" bosses haven't thought of. Maybe it's one of the things they have to experience to understand.
  • 4
    Pain is non comparable and I feel sad for everyone.

    But reality is that this won't happen.

    You can maybe turn a few ad systems off but most ad systems are (by design) not controllable.
  • 3
    @irene I don't think he's blaming the machine.

    He's upset for his loss, and machines are targeting him for the thing he was supposed to have.
  • 0
    @IntrusionCM I disagree with that statement. These systems are more finely tuned than a political campaign ad. The tuning is designed to hone in on a target audience (such as a pregnant woman) and not follow the target across multiple websites. The system, receiving input of a recognized pregnancy loss, should forget this subject's targeted ad data, and attempt to re-learn everything. People's tastes change, and quickly. Pregnancy loss is just one example of when advertising preferences might need to be dumped and relearned in a system.
  • 0
    @juneeighteen

    I think we are talking about different things here. First I thought about facebook only, from your comment I guess you mean by system facebooks ad system?

    But this isn't enough. I was thinking about facebook and the www - Facebook has a very granular ad system, right.

    But ads may include / refer to further ads, some ads might be exploited (as in not delivering what they should)… and Facebook is just one part.

    Amazon, Google AdSense, Tracking Cookies used for related stuff, Search Engines....

    It's a real mess. I meant by my comment not facebook alone but rather 'every ad /related content...' shit.
  • 0
    @irene which is sad.... I have never used social media and guess I never will
  • 0
    @IntrusionCM And yet here you are, on a social media platform for devs :)

    @irene This is apparently so common that the Dutch television spent an entire evening on this subject 😶
  • 0
    @irene Agreed in general only this particular show is quite trustable, because it doesn't deal with their own data but it investigates issues based on customer reports.
  • 1
    @linuxxx

    For me social media means something else....

    Yes, devRant would be social media in general terms. But devRant, and this is my definition of social media, does neither utilize my data and sell it for a maximum of profit unethically nor does it try to bait me by offering profits. You can get stickers if u rant often. But you don't have to.

    When I hear the term social media I associate it with slavery...
  • 0
    @irene I know the definition. But devRant is more private too me, so I can have a opinion ;)
  • 0
    As I said.

    My definition...

    Yes it is a social media and social network.

    I just added - as I wanted to explain why - that it does not feel like social media for me.
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