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0 pointslostlogin5y ago0 comments

This is very dystopian. Don’t say the bad word, the machines are listening.

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10 comments · 2 top-level

sofixa5y ago· 6 in thread

It's not the machines, it's the advertisers. If you're paying for publicity, you don't want it next to things anyone might find unsavoury. You don't want your products to be associated with X.

leppr5y ago

In that case the ad networks themselves should provide tools that automatically detect forbidden words and disable ads, instead of arbitrarily enforcing their policy on random small players.

adpcm5y ago

There are completely legitimate reasons which still cause trouble [0] like description of Broadcast TV episodes with (gasp) murders and killers..

Why am I seeing the words "Hugging" and "Cuddled" in summaries? The TV Calendar is monetised using Google Adsense. As part of Googles drive to be more advertiser friendly (you may know this as the Adpocalyse - it didn't just affect Youtubers) their system is now telling me the Calendar has SHOCKING CONTENT on it, and that ads will be removed from such pages.

[0] https://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/frequently-asked-questions.p...

mrweasel5y ago

I'm sure you're right, but that means that ad money is valued above everything else. That's kinda dystopian.

In the long run, it has to make ad financed content less viable. We'll end up with advertiser friendly content, with no consumers.

wernercd5y ago

Associated with words defined in a dictionary? How pedantic do you have to be to say "I don't want to advertise with Britannica because their dictionary has the word rape"?

christophilus5y ago

I think it’s more that you don’t want your ad to show up on a page about rape, but you’re fine with it showing up on a page about joy. Coca-Cola works hard to associate their brand with happy experiences. They’d probably take out ads on the positive words in a dictionary but not the negative ones. If this site was making no distinction, it would lose Coca-Cola as a sponsor. Not really defending Google, but the puritanical explanation isn’t the best one.

1 more reply

levosmetalo5y ago

Isn't it obvious that the same people who are actually looking for a translation of some word would not have any issue* seeing that some word in an ad?

* - at least not bigger issue than seeing any ads at all, but those would run ad-blocker anyway.

4111111111111115y ago· 2 in thread

I disagree that his given example is dystopian.

He is specifically taking about pages with Ads on them. Corporations don't want to be associated with said terms, so they wouldn't want to be advertised in that context.

imagine995y ago

No, you're missing the point completely. His competitors were using the same data source. The problem here is not ads appearing next to "bad" words, or what and who gets to decide what "bad" words even are, that's a whole other discussion.

The issue here is that Google, Amazon or $bigcorp allows its "blocking" algorithm to be misused, to be weaponized by competitors and that it allows no possibility of human review, that you can't get any human via phone or email to review a completely arbitrary (and often enough plain wrong) decision a random algo has committed (through human instigation or on its own rampage, as it happens often enough). That nobody has to account for and take responsibility for algorithmic decisions ("Sorry, computer says no. Good bye).

I have become so frustrated with this issue (we seem to discuss it every other day on HN) that I've come to think that you should not be allowed to offer services using automation without a clear and working process of escalation to a human in case of trouble. If we allow this behavior to continue and to spread (and look, I get it, doing business this way is very attractive and scales beautifully), things will only get worse.

We'll get to the point where it's "sorry, your car was deactivated because $passenger reported that you used a bad word in his presence. Do not contact us again". Maybe this will wake people up and show them that this way of offering services is broken.

Or "sorry, our algorithm decided you get the death penalty based on 100 reports of people that you did $badthing. chops head off Sorry, don't contact us again." Too much hyperbole? We'll see. Algorithmic determination of prison sentences already exists.

4111111111111115y ago

You're addressing the example of the opener, not the given example that was called dystopian. So if anyone is missing the point, it's you.

we only know what the opener said about his story, so i dont feel comfortable saying wherever what happened to him was dystopian or not.

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