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A comment on Dear Zuckerberg, We're writing to urge you to cancel Instagram for children [pdf]. Parent comment

Re:Dear Zuckerberg, We're writing to urge you to cancel Inst... by gnicholas on Friday April 16, 2021 @02:06PM (#26837208)
I see lots of racy advertisements on FB, and I have no idea why. For general privacy reasons, I use FB in a dedicated browser. I do not 'like' companies or products on FB, nor do I follow any celebrities. I don't look at pornography, nor does anyone else at my IP address. Do they just show me this stuff because I'm a man? FB knows I'm married, so I wouldn't think I'd be in the most receptive demographic for this sort of thing. Whenever I check "why did I see this ad?", it always just says they're trying to reach adults in the US. But my wife never gets ads like this, even though they are purportedly ads for racy women's clothing.

I don't use FB much, and stuff like this makes me think I'm doing the right thing (OTOH, I just realized I forgot my good friend's bday yesterday, so I guess it's good for that one thing).

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Re:Dear Zuckerberg, We're writing to urge you to cancel Inst... by heavyset_go on Friday April 16, 2021 @02:47PM (#26837594)
> Do they just show me this stuff because I'm a man?

I'd say yes. I made a fake Facebook account so I could participate in my locale's groups without being doxxed, as I've witnessed a single mother get doxxed by the mayor for disagreeing with his policy. I get shown racy posts and friend suggestions based on the fake demographics I set on the account.

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Re:Dear Zuckerberg, We're writing to urge you to cancel Inst... by bryan_w on Friday April 16, 2021 @10:43PM (#26841200)
I think your privacy efforts are working against you. You turned of personalized ads and wondering why the ads you are getting aren't personalized.

With nothing else to key off of, you're going to get the bottom of the barrel ads that they cant show to normal people (because there's always a more personalized ad to show them).

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Re:Dear Zuckerberg, We're writing to urge you to cancel Inst... by gnicholas on Friday April 16, 2021 @11:35PM (#26841404)
Fair point, though Facebook still knows a lot about me based on my friends. Also, I regularly click the ads and say “never show me this ad again”. If given the option, I mark it as inappropriate (which is the closest reason offered).
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