The study's entire methodology was to look through enrollment data to find for-profit schools that had a higher proportion of black students, and then run ads for those schools.
Because a higher percentage of black people already go to the school, and are connected on Meta, and because Meta bases ad delivery on subjects relevant to people similar to / connected to you, the ads for those colleges were delivered to black people more often, because black people already are highly represented at these schools.
Ok? It's a completely generic algorithm. If the school had a uniquely high percentage of any "group" of people, whether based on race, region, hobbies, interests, literally anything, ads for that school would be more likely sent to people in those groups.
The headline is pretty editorialized and presents a pretty misleading picture.
> It's a completely generic algorithm. If the school had a uniquely high percentage of any "group" of people, whether based on race, region, hobbies, interests, literally anything, ads for that school would be more likely sent to people in those groups.
Um, oops. There are laws against discriminating on the basis of race, like, steering Black people to different schools on that basis. That's the difference.
When you say, it's a neutral algorithm because it steers people on the basis of other factors as well, you miss the whole point of having anti-discrimination laws. There's no law prohibiting steering on the bases of "hobbies, interests, literally anything". So when you say the algorithm is okay for that reason, you're saying discrimination based on race is okay if you also discriminate on other, lawful grounds. That seems to me like saying, race discrimination ought not be unlawful. If that's your opinion so be it, but an algorithm that steers people based on race is racially discriminatory.
For example, as Meta previously recognized, steering people seeking apartments based on their race was racially discriminatory, even though steering people seeking apartments based on hobbies or interests isn't that kind of discrimination. The argument you're making would apply equally to steering based on race in connection with jobs, housing, education, and all other areas of society, permitting racial steering because there's an algorithm involved that doesn't just include racial discrimination.
Meta hopefully will recognize this was a mistake, and hopefully will do the right thing by adjusting their algorithm to refrain from steering people in this way based on race.
Would it be fair for these ads to target everyone equally? I think we are focusing on the wrong thing.
Go to these colleges and see which demographic is most prevalent. Then teach that group that those colleges are... Wait, what's the problem with for profit colleges? Is it too expensive as opposed to the cheap not for profit colleges?
Those who pursue outrage for profit are forced to seek further and further afield. All the low hanging fruit has been picked; you hafta work to find oppression that's acceptable to complain about now.
Are they serious? The research paper is terrible. They hand picked pairs of universities they thought to be equal in the their eyes and looked to see which one's were shown. Here are the pairings:
Strayer University (NJ) vs Colorado State
American Intercontinental University (30 miles from Chicago) vs Fort Hayes State University (Kansas)
Monroe College (Bronx NY) vs Arizona State University
Those are your pairings... this has to be a joke.
They made ads for these schools and ran them (nothing like researchers - and I use that loosely - getting involved in their own research).
I don't know if targeted advertising can ever be ethical, and even if it can, I doubt we'll see Meta doing it any time soon.
But just to play devil's advocate... are we sure that for-profit colleges aren't disproportionally targeting black people? Meta may just be the messenger here.
You're trying to get people to do something without their consent. It's fundamentally coercive. Different in degree, but not in kind, to closing a road and routing traffic through your restaurant's drive through lane.
Additionally, we have institutions that (allegedly) function based on rational decision making by agents with access to accurate information (markets, democracy, etc). Investment in advertising beyond simply making information available to those who seek it erodes the efficacy of those institutions. It's like putting stickers on your windshield... Even if their content is not objectionable, you're going to end up less safe because you can't see past them.
For a concrete example of the latter: education outcomes are trending poorly, many teachers blame phone addiction. But if you look at what those students are doing on their phones, it's engaging with some advertising platform or another. We've created an environment where good dopamine hygiene requires skillful evasion of one of our most well funded industries. We're surely shooting ourselves, and each other, in the foot here.
If polluting the physical world with hazards waste is unethical, than surely there is something equivalently unethical regarding information.
Because the purpose is to use knowledge about someone, along with a toolbox of weird psychological tricks, to manipulate them into spending their money (time) on things they don’t need. It’s as unethical as lying or scamming.
All advertising is an attempt to manipulate someone into spending their money.
Either all advertising is unethical (and it isn’t), or targeted advertising is not, methinks.
Lying and scamming are fraudulent. Advertising (in the usual case) is absolutely not. There is a bright line difference and equating them is not a useful logical reasoning device.
No, advertising that aims to manipulate you into an unnecessary purchase is unethical. There’s some fuzzy line here where an advertisement like “bob’s hardware: come on down to bob’s for high quality pickaxes” is acceptable and a coca cola ad isn’t. Almost all modern advertising is the latter, and it’s most certainly unethical. I’d happily call it borderline fraudulent; these companies claim through subconscious implication things like “this car will make you happy and everyone will respect you more,” which is a bold faced lie. Basically all modern advertising is unethical; it wouldn’t be the first time something unethical was widespread because it was profitable.
> spending their money (time) on things they don’t need.
but it's not so clear that going to college is not benefitial. Saying it is a scam implies that these colleges are valueless to attend (which i assume is not true as education is usually pretty valuable).
Cool, I’m glad it worked for you. I do think those examples are the exceptions to the norm though, and represent a small portion of the ads shoved into our faces.
I don’t think it’s secret if you give it to Facebook. Furthermore, something doesn’t need to provide social value to be ethical.
I think that the vast majority of people don’t really care about privacy, and aren’t divulging anything remotely “secret” by providing all of their browsing history to ad companies.
The tools for not doing so are a two second websearch away for everyone, and most people don’t bother.
Is it a secret how long I subconsciously linger on a single post as I scroll through my Instagram feed? I’d argue that it’s even more private than a secret, it’s something I may not be aware of and have little control over.
It would be trivial to check the proportion of for-profit HBCUs to nonprofit HBCUs but given the title of the website, I sense that they may not have checked on purpose.
They picked universities in Bronx NY, NJ (near Newark), and 30 miles from Chicago and paired them against universities in Colorado, Kanasas, and Arizona State.
I've hated ads since I was just out of diapers. I have an anti-advertising sense at least as strong as your average politically active extended in-laws' sense of patriotism and duty. I do not understand how people go through their days with their memetic spaces constantly bombarded with unwanted messages about products, services, and parasitic ideas! If an ad were a penis getting shoved in your face and ear this would be an open and shut issue: keep it to the peni... err advertising directories!
Capitalism has been the most successful economic system we've ever come up with. Contrary to popular opinion, it's accelerated technological development, poverty reduction, and QoL worldwide. However, it requires people buying things. People only buy things if they know about them. For this, you need ads.
Because a higher percentage of black people already go to the school, and are connected on Meta, and because Meta bases ad delivery on subjects relevant to people similar to / connected to you, the ads for those colleges were delivered to black people more often, because black people already are highly represented at these schools.
Ok? It's a completely generic algorithm. If the school had a uniquely high percentage of any "group" of people, whether based on race, region, hobbies, interests, literally anything, ads for that school would be more likely sent to people in those groups.
The headline is pretty editorialized and presents a pretty misleading picture.