Facebook to stop targeting ads at UK woman after legal fight
113 comments
·March 22, 2025flkiwi
robotnikman
I remember abandoning it about a decade ago when I was still in college. It was making me miserable constantly comparing myself to the highlights of other peoples lives. Unfortunately, it seems like the human mind has a tendency towards comparing oneself to others, and I wouldn't be surprised if the algorithm took advantage of that. I stopped using it and instead focused on myself, I felt much happier afterwards.
Loughla
It's fascinating seeing social media impact my friends and family. I deleted Facebook when it was being opened up to more than college students. HN is the only social media I use, if you want to define it that way.
My friends went through a phase in their 20's where they were comparing themselves to social media people. They all struggled with feeling inadequate.
I waited until my mid life crisis to do that. They're getting to do it again.
Fascinating.
graeber_28927
I still log on from time to time, about once a month, because my family uploads pics in a group after family events, and fb is the only place eveyone is on.
Everytime I open FB, and scroll a little, I feel like an outsider looking into a crazy circus of clown people. I don't get why others don't see what I see.
"I just graduated" - someone whose sibling I met 15 years ago, but whose name I wouldn't recognize without a picture attached
"So proud of my daughter" - a mother who attended a piano concert, couldn't wait to even get home before posting on fb, and will tell her family at dinner how many of her adult friends commented on it, whom none if her family care about.
<vacation selfie> - middle school classmate, or former colleague, who posts swiss climbing and bali surfing images every week, as if they had no life no work just money to burn.
"<long story>, so anyway, that's where I found this purse, please share and repost. You have to prove ownership by reciting the washing machine instructions on the label." - individual who has nothing happening in their life, so they make a blockbuster adventure out of someone's misfortune, rather than handing the purse to the reception in the restaurant where they found it.
Oh, and I always see ten new invitations from people, who would never contact me individually, to events those people know I would never attend, for the nth time despite me never having reacting before.l
squigz
Most of your examples are just people sharing things about their lives. If you don't know them or care about those things, isn't that on you to remove them from your Facebook, or just... ignore them? Where's the crazy clown circus exactly?
pjerem
I mean, I do share those sorts of things on the internet … except it’s in little messaging groups.
The issue is not sharing little "uninteresting" things about your life, it’s sharing them with a random audience.
tehjoker
i thought you were gonna say something about boomers sharing the most detatched from reality posts about politics you've ever seen in your lifetime, but instead you appear to just be anti-social
rayiner
My Facebook is mostly baby pictures and updates of my large extended family. I enjoy seeing my cousin's husband's dad post proudly that his son got a promotion. Why wouldn't you?
Henchman21
I did the same with Reddit and got the same result. I cannot recommend it enough!
IrishTechie
I found unsubscribing from all the default subs and just subscribing to your hobbies was very effective on Reddit.
Henchman21
I was unable to do that. The pull of /r/all and that sweet, sweet dopamine hit! Or dipping into the rage bait or anything political…
If what you’re saying works for you that’s fantastic! It absolutely didn’t work for me. My assessment is that I lack the discipline required.
hattar
uBO with the following custom filter fixed Reddit for me:
||reddit.com^$document @@||reddit.com/r/*/comments/$document
It allows me to look at individual posts which lets me search and view specific answers, but blocks the lists of posts. I get the benefit of Reddit without getting sucked into the time wasting feed.
netsharc
New job (or browser), first look into Stack Overflow, glance through "Hot Network Questions", install uBO, new custom rule (via the Block Element tool), edit it to apply to their millions of subdomains...
jncfhnb
Why not delete the account
bartread
One reason is so somebody who isn’t you can’t (as easily) set up an account pretending to be you for scammy, misinformation, or propaganda purposes.
dwighttk
My mom probably has 5 imitator accounts (using her picture and name) and I have two (despite only getting on Facebook once or twice a year). Asking Facebook to delete them does not result in them being deleted.
(They don’t seem to do anything beyond gather some followers from her… maybe they’re DMing those followers through)
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wileydragonfly
Yeah, I tried that, and then friends and neighbors show up and they’re all blitzing you with the same catch phrases and you’re sitting there flabbergasted. I hope the hole your head is buried in is comfortable.
remuskaos
I've been off Facebook for close to eight years, but somehow I still have friends who I can talk to.
renewedrebecca
> I hope the hole your head is buried in is comfortable.
Not being on Facebook is burying your head in a hole? I mean, really, why say something like that?
abalashov
I’d be curious to learn more about that, having flirted with the same idea.
freehorse
Once I had changed my soc media passwords and encrypted them in a way that it would have taken several hours to bruteforce. Thus I could stay out of them until I felt being in a better place without losing them, and in the meantime I would not give in due to some impulse because in the time I would put an effort to decrypt them the impulse would be gone. That's the only thing that worked, just blocking access somehow or whatever did not work because it was too easy/fast to circumvent.
Liquix
1. Delete or revoke your own access to social media accounts
2. Enjoy increased quality of life
Easier said than done, but those are the only steps
jajko
Its a soul cancer, all 'social' networks are. More like asocial. In theory they could be a real added value for whole mankind, but corporate money and endless greed of those in power there made it what it is.
To all ya working on making these misery machines even more efficient - you never feel ashamed of yourself for what you do? Is the money really worth losing respect for oneself and others as a good human being? Or it attracts same crowd as founder - asocial high performing sociopaths who couldn't care less?
1vuio0pswjnm7
"Meta said it disagreed with Ms O'Carroll's claims, adding "no business can be mandated to give away its services for free.""
Except that is what O'Carroll just did.
If Meta disagrees with O'Carroll's claims then why settle. Why not fight.
Facebook used to have a marketing soundbite/Zuckerberg quote something like "Facebook will always be free."
Now Meta claims it is not free.
BTW, the "Careless People" book is available for free in audio book form, read by the author, from many particpating public libraries.
alaxhn
"If Meta disagrees with O'Carroll's claims then why settle"
Meta and most companies will settle lawsuits when they believe the rewards of continuing the lawsuit outweigh the cost of settling the lawsuit. There is no connection to whether they disagree or agree with the claim of the lawsuit.
eek2121
You only got that half right, fyi. Companies will choose to settle if they think there is a good possibility to lose if it goes to trial. If they suspect they will win, they will absolutely pursue, because they can counter-sue in many areas. Anything close to 50/50 or less, they will settle in a heartbeat. They may even have a winning case, only to realize they are up against a law firm that will rip them apart.
alaxhn
"Companies will choose to settle if they think there is a good possibility to lose if it goes to trial"
Companies will settle if the costs of going to trail outweigh the benefits like I said in my original comment. To clarify, the cost benefit analysis includes more than just money as things like reputation and precedent are important too. The reason for settling is sometimes because they think there is a good possibility to lose if it goes to trail (meaning low potential benefit) but not always and this is not even the most common reason to settle. In the article being cited facebook is agreeing "to stop targeting ads at UK woman after legal fight". This is an individual settlement and not a group settlement. Targeting ads at a single user has very low benefits for Facebook (tens to hundreds of dollars) which will not even pay for a single hour of a lawyer's time. It would be absurd for Facebook to counter sue Ms. O'Carrol and counter suits in general are quite rare.
To provide some approximate numbers:
- ~90% of cases settle
- ~1% of cases involve a counter suit
- Facebook legal cost for in house counsel appears to be in the range of $250 per hour equivalent
- Facebook average annual revenue per user in Europe is about $25
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OJFord
I object more to the data collection and sale that allows Facebook to target ads like that, than the actual targeting of ads (which I would block anyway) personally.
snapcaster
Agreed, but i think we are allowed to be happy about meta taking the L on this
OJFord
Well sure I'm not saying it should've won the case, I just wish the claim was a bit different. (Or at least, than represented by the BBC, I haven't actually read it. If it was more about the data, then I wish the article would've done a better job so that more laypeople object to the right aspect.)
slackr
It was about the data, not ads per se: https://www.awo.agency/files/ocarroll-v-meta-bundle.pdf
refulgentis
s/the right aspect/my thing
I'm not a layperson, and I don't think the problem is collecting info.
It's hard to legislate "you cannot collect any info about people ever", when people are free to choose to have an account with them.
The same is served by "you have to target >= 100 people for an ad"
Aloisius
I'm not entirely sure how they could provide their service without that data collection. Much of the data is things like likes, groups joined, people followed, profile, comments, etc - all features people specifically use the service for.
Also does Facebook actually sell data to anyone?
snapcaster
Awesome to see, hope we see enough of this to make the business model non-viable
PaulHoule
It's crept up gradually on people how harmful the "personalization" model is.
My pet peeve is that many community organizations (such as a board game club and a game development club at my Uni) use Facebook and Instagram as their only communication channels. That kind of platform opens you up to so much bullshit, bullying and cringe (all these girls who look the same who supposedly want to follow me) You might be sharing content which is really wholesome but you have no idea what is getting served right next to it. It's rare to see an organization like this one
https://fingerlakesrunners.org/
where you won't find anything that isn't about running, where moderations can squash things that aren't relevant without cries of "censorship", etc. I wouldn't even mind if a site like that had ads for running shoes or Wegmans or local car dealerships but personalized ads and other recommendations can be so toxic and not things you want associated with your organization or your brand.
frenchtoast8
I can understand small businesses relying on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter because they may not have the resources to provide a perfect solution to everyone.
My country’s consulate in NYC posts important news only to Facebook. That is a problem.
bbarnett
Same with my municipality.
snapcaster
Yes, it's really unfortunate that having a Meta account is just assumed by society
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beardyw
"Facebook and Instagram have a subscription service in most of Europe, where users can pay monthly so that they don't get ads on the platform."
As far as I can see that doesn't alter anything in this judgement.
bee_rider
It probably didn’t influence the judgement much (if at all). But the relevance to the story is in the next paragraph and pretty straightforward
> The Meta spokesperson said the company was "exploring the option" of offering a similar service to UK users and would "share further information in due course."
4ndrewl
It doesn't, but afaik the reason they introduced the pricing model was that they fell foul of EU data laws. They also issued some PR this morning suggesting this was something they were looking at for the UK, so perhaps it's indicative of their direction of travel.
PeterStuer
'She said that she did not want to stop using Facebook, saying that it is "filled with ... entire chapters of my life".'
At some point you have to ponder wether the right choices were made when you write up entire chapters of your life on an ad-broker's website.
heldergg
It seems to me that the world would be a much better place if targeted ads were simply forbidden. Likewise for targeted content.
dutchCourage
Slight tangent but while this is bad with disclosed ads, I think it's even worse with algorithmic feeds. A lot of users don't realize that not only their feed is heavily personalized, but the "top comments" are also selected just for them.
This bias will be implemented in LLMs sooner or later. Combined with the current misunderstanding of "AI" by the general population, it makes me worried about the future of misinformation.
TheOtherHobbes
Cambridge Analytica/SCL/Meta are knowingly in the personalised propaganda business - political behaviour modification tailored to individual emotional triggers, sweetened with personally irresistible content that looks harmless but exists to hook users on the real payload.
"And here's some more content about your favourite band/movie/TV show/influencer. And now, some reels. Aren't those cats cute? But anyway. Here's a reel that looks unobjectionable but subtly makes a political point you should definitely think about. Would you like to know more?"
AI has the potential to make this much more effective.
Certain noteworthy historical figures from Germany would have been absolutely delighted.
codedokode
From the caption I thought there was someone (like ex-boyfriend) who targeted ill-meaning ads (like an ad for funeral services) against the woman, but it turns out it was not so bad.
GoToRO
Luckily, ads that steal people's credit card's info are allowed and not removed by Facebook even after multiple reports. That's how you become one of the richest man?
GoToRO
In this case, ad redirected to a copy of a famous apparel store. When clicking to pay for item, the site would redirect to what looked like a genuine auto parts store that was probably hacked. You would enter the card data there. What got me was that I was tired and the fact that fb opened the websites on their embedded browser. At the time at least, the browser would not show the web address so you would not know that you are on a fake website, or on a website that clearly had "auto parts" in it's name.
I didn't lost any money because I blocked the card. In about more than a month I receive a notification grom my bank that an ATM transaction was tried but it failed.
donatj
Explain how an ad steals credit card info
mog_dev
The ad itself doesnt steal credit card info, but forwards you to a website that does.
pebble
Phishing links, tech support scams.. it's not hard to imagine.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
I presume phishing. Ad goes to e-commerce site, items never ship.
aucisson_masque
> Facebook and Instagram cost a significant amount of money to build and maintain, and these services are free for British consumers because of personalised advertising.
It could just as well be free without personalized ads but with regular advertisement.
As far as I know Facebook is extremely profitable.
NetOpWibby
Someone here on HN should create a service that allows for easy "click and sue" Big Creepy Tech.
Oh, and get someone from Stanford to be co-founder. Instant legitimacy and money.
Apropos of little (with apologies), it's remarkable how much less I loathe people since I nuked my Facebook account. I hadn't even been a regular user for years, but walking away--which involved changing my password to something I didn't save and an expiring email address rather than deleting my account--has just generally improved my attitude about both individuals I know and people in general.