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0 pointsphilliphaydon3y ago0 comments

Can you explain why advertising shows only in facebook, for keywords only used inside an apparently private conversation?

Unless WhatsApp is audited completely, not just looking at some source code but also how all information passes through facebook and back to a receiver. Then we can only assume the e2ee is just marketing fluff and not something that is done in favour of privacy.

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gruez3y ago

> Can you explain why advertising shows only in facebook, for keywords only used inside an apparently private conversation?

obvious explanations:

1. coincidence/luck + confirmation bias. this can also be aided by demographic/interest factors. For instance, suppose there are 10,000 "interests" that facebook tracks. You'd think that for a given conversation that contained such a topic, the chance that you'd see ads for it was 1 in 10,000. However, if the conversation topic was "mechanical keyboards", and facebook knew that you were male, 18-35, and are interested in video games, then it might be able to infer that you're much more likely to be interested in mechanical keyboards and therefore show you ads for mechanical keyboards 1 in 50 times rather than 1 in 10,000 times.

2. the other side ended up leaking the information to facebook (eg. through a search or clicking on an ad)

philliphaydonOP3y ago

1. So it's coincidence luck that I get advertising for 'window safty latch for children', as an 'interest' for '18-35'? They knew that I was looking for an apartment and had a kid that was 1yo and thought 'oh you know what that guy needs, window safty latch for his kid'

2. So facebook leaked information that a conversation happened between me and a friend and they thought, oh you know what, Phillip had a conversation with X, and X just search for 'cat toys' so Phillip must want cat toys right now!

No, neither of those are 'obvious' explanations.

gruez3y ago

> 1. So it's coincidence luck that I get advertising for 'window safty latch for children', as an 'interest' for '18-35'? They knew that I was looking for an apartment and had a kid that was 1yo and thought 'oh you know what that guy needs, window safty latch for his kid'

It seems doubtful that you can hide the fact that you had a 1 year old kid from facebook, unless you're a very sporadic/careful user. Besides, it's not too hard to imagine one of your friends outed you to facebook (eg. posted photo of you with a baby, or mentioning the fact that you have a baby on a post/comment somewhere). From there it doesn't seem too implausible that "had 1 year old kid" was a targeting factor for "window safty latch for children". As for the "looking for an apartment" part, I don't really think that's necessary for sending you ads for safety latches. Even if you live in a house you'd need latches to secure room windows that are on the second floor.

>2. So facebook leaked information that a conversation happened between me and a friend and they thought, oh you know what, Phillip had a conversation with X, and X just search for 'cat toys' so Phillip must want cat toys right now!

e2e provides zero assurances about metadata/social graph. that's been the case since PGP days.

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gruez3y ago

> Can you explain why advertising shows only in facebook, for keywords only used inside an apparently private conversation?

obvious explanations:

2. the other side ended up leaking the information to facebook (eg. through a search or clicking on an ad)

philliphaydonOP3y ago

No, neither of those are 'obvious' explanations.

gruez3y ago

e2e provides zero assurances about metadata/social graph. that's been the case since PGP days.

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