this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Privacy

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Reddit To Block Users From Opting Out of Personalized Ads (reclaimthenet.org)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

To amplify its advertising strategies, a popular virtual meeting place, Reddit, has made a big announcement: its users will no longer have the option to opt out of ad personalization based on their activity on the platform. This major revamp in its advertising, privacy, and location settings was revealed last Wednesday, with Jutta Williams, Reddit’s head of “privacy” leading the conversation.

From the perspective of the company, this move is constructive, offering them an opportunity to “better predict which ad may be most relevant” to each user. According to Williams, the fact that Reddit requires minimal personal information from its users makes this shift plausible. However, this perspective could be concerning from a privacy standpoint, as it potentially accelerates invasive data surveillance.

Expounding her statements, Williams insisted the bulk of Reddit’s users would notice “no change to their ads,” and the new measure would not lead to an increase in ads or sharing of on-platform activities with advertisers, even for users who earlier opted out of ad personalization.

Critics argue that this decision may subtly influence user behavior and preferences by narrowing the presented information.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's kind of interesting watching all these social media companies slowly killing themselves with their greed

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Are they killing themselves, though? I think they know (and probably have the science to back up) that the number they’ve done on co-opting social movements and how they’ve made their product addictive makes any move of theirs securely fine for their profits and user base. Of course there will be articles and chatter (on social media), and maybe a fraction of a percentage will close their accounts. But a good chunk of that fraction will reinstate their account or lie about closing it while still using it.

It’s rare for people to follow through on anything that they know they should do when the other option is indulging a habit. These sites will not be the juggernauts they once were (see Facebook), but their power is still immense and they’ve gotten so involved with the actual function of the internet that losing users on their flagship sites aren’t really a big deal anymore.

Totally unrelated: have you ever lived in bogota?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately this is probably true. I for one did delete my account and am working on figuring out Lemmy now but hey.

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