Facebook Has Been Showing Military Gear Ads Next To Insurrection Posts

[LazyPiranha]

Hell it’s not even that hard to test.  Just start talking a bunch about something you know for a fact you haven’t searched for.  Just start talking about spelunking or cb radios or something and never search for it.  You won’t get any specific ads for it.  

[legend]

12 minutes ago, cusideabelincoln said:

 

I don't completely disagree with that hypothesis because it is impossible for our memories to track and record information in that manner, as no doubt there are countless times irrelevant ads go unrecognized.

 

But this instance was especially odd because it wasn't explicitly an ad.  But in the ad space there was a picture of the Mario NES cartridge I had just played.  Very odd to show a cartridge that isn't even made anymore

 

FWIW, I do appreciate how weird that would feel  

 

3 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I heard an explanation of how some of this occurs that seemed very plausible, while maybe not answering every strange instance.

 

They said because of GPS and friends lists and such, these companies know when you are in proximity to somebody you know. The probability that you and said friend had conversations about something that one of you had recently searched is actually very high, so there is a good chance that while you did not search for that thing, your friend had recently done so and the system served you ads on the decent chance you and friend talked about that thing.

 

This made sense to me of a particular situation a few years ago where I had a conversation with an older lady who was talking about getting her husband to the VA hospital and within 10 minutes of saying by to her I was flooded with VA benefits ads. I initially had the “they must be listening” thought, but that actually made a lot of sense and is obviously far more practical than analyzing audio recordings.

 

I don't know if this is true, but I think shady intrusions like this are more plausible than actively listening to voice.