My boss who is an older gent, called me over to his computer at lunchtime this week (we have staggered lunch times so that the phones can always be answered) and asked me how he could stop adverts for two cleaning products bombard him on Facebook. I showed him the Snooze and Hide options and he was happy that he now had some new tools to tend his little garden with. It seems that the problem with Facebook is that if you liked a thing 15 years ago, that the algorithms which are impersonal and unthinking, have been set to permanently assume that you want to see more of that thing forever.
We are likely so deep into the days of AI writing other AI, that nobody human knows how the algorithms actually work any more, and that the are entire vast structures and interwobble cathedrals which stand upon one single line of Python which is hidden in the vast catacombs of code. I think that it is curious that we use words like 'navigate' and 'browse' when presented with mountains of content and vast seas of stuff. For not long after Eternal September had started, the interwoks started cooking up ways to digitise, plagerise, and monetise human attention.
It is Facebook which is actually the best at collecting information which it can then use to sell stuff to people. The other social-media groups were far more apathetic and agnostic about what traffic passed through them; so their weaponised advertising systems are nowhere near as targeted or smart.
I have my suspicions that Elmo bought X for $44bn because he wanted the client book for when X finally transforms into whatever the next step is. Not long after Elmo bought X, he decided to unleash hoards of horror under the name of 'free speech' and so all of the racists, supremacists, misogynists, misandrists, griefers, and trolls, have started to dance around the bin fires in a permanent Festival Of The Awful. The previous verification system has been burnt to the ground and in its place we now have a pay-to-play priority system which gives preference to the Eight Buck Chucklenuts™. Naturally and because the interblobs have always been the decentralised Wiki-Wiki-Wild-Wild-West, competing services like Threads, Mastodon, BlueSky, TruthSocial, and even old favourites like Facebook and WhatsApp have all had an uptick in traffic.
But Facebook is a weird place. As long as we accept that Facebook is a micro-advert delivery system with a social-media thing attached, then everything about it makes some kind of sense. However, I suspect that as the Facebook knows actually very little about what I want to buy, then from the outside it looks like it is confused (if in fact a machine is capable of being confused). Owing to the fact that it has already collected basic details about me, such as gender and age, Facebook already makes some general assumptions about me. As it also knows that I am a member of some community groups, church groups, a podcast group, and a motorsport group, the things that it has determined that I want to buy are perplexing.
Facebook is determined to sell me various motor cars. Volvos, Mercedes-Benz, Polestar, BMWs, et cetera. The problem is that I am unlikely to buy any of these ever. Even if I had ridiculous amounts of money to spend on motor cars, the cars that I actually want to buy are increasingly more difficult to find. I want something in as austerity spec as possible and as small as possible. The problem is Facebook thinks that I am fancy. Facebook also wants to sell me untold amounts of motor oil and car parts, for the same reason.
Weirdly and probably because of the groups of which I am a member, Facebook wants to sell me tickets to the theatre, a lot. Come From Away, Wicked, Starlight Express, Frozen, the Australian Ballet, Prokofiev at the Opera House; basically anything and everything which is playing up and down the eastern seaboard. Admittedly I have read Shakespeare. I have read Beckett. I am broadly aware of the existence of the theatre. This does not mean that I am likely to go.
Part of the problem is that the amount of things that I buy online, is nil. Unless you can generate an invoice with Direct Debit, then forget it. I absolutely will not whip out a credit card and buy your thing. I have a body which is constructed like a noodle-man from a car sales yard; so buying clothing is out of the question. Buying books online is silly. Buying groceries online is more silly.
Apart from wanting to sell me motor cars, automotive products and theatre tickets, Facebook knows so very little about me that the only things left are promoted posts from News.com.au, 7 News, and 9 News. I think that they hope that by showing me what they think are outrage generation 'news' items that they can then extract those precious likes out of them; to then sell me other stuff. The problem is that News.com is as close to a political enemy as I have and 7 West Media is like that kid who hangs around with the school bully but never thinks anything through for themselves.
The best strategy to deal with the unknown and unknowable algorithms that want to sell you things, came from the the most unlikely of sources: Pauline Hanson. It is this:
"I don't like anything."
- Pauline Hanson
Please explain.
Yes, I am murdering her language and murdering her shopping trolley but the result is that the groceries are just gone. If you don't like anything by a company, then the algorithm has no idea. If you like things that real people have said, then the closest idea it can get is that you are a bit like those people. The algorithm might be able to get some idea but it can't get good idea. Absolutely like what other people have to say because you're likely not a cave goblin but the one thing that the algorithms can not do is sell you people... yet.
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