In light of Andrew Feinberg’s post today on privacy and behavioral ad networks, I thought today would be a good day for my first post on SiliconANGLE. Privacy is certainly a hot-button topic, and anybody who knows me knows I have an opinion on everything. That being said, our dear readers should know up front that I am often not as nuanced as Andrew or Supreme Commander Rizzn. You have been warned. In fact, I have to thank the boss for throwing this juicy little tidbit my way:
In a stunning bombshell just released today by Taylor Buley at Forbes.com, some internet marketers are gobbling up pictures that people have posted on the web and using them in the affiliate ads we see on our beloved social networks.
“Yet as distasteful as it is to find rogue marketers actively using photos of underage girls on Facebook to pitch products, neither Facebook nor Mylife broke any policy. And in a world where online affiliate advertising is growing and clicks are king, such abuses are likely to continue.”
Now, those of us who are web-savvy know this. We don’t condone it. It’s horrible, but it is what it is. So I think this piece is just as much for “Joe Internet” as it us for us. If I were to sum it up in one word, my response to this revelation would be:
Well, duh!
Just to be clear, I do not condone the exploitation of children or anybody else for that matter. But we have to be honest and pinpoint where the exploitation began.
We’ve done it to ourselves! Who doesn’t get that? Is everybody really that dumb? I like Facebook just as much as the next guy and I’ve posted pictures, so I’m complicit in the problem, too. Sure, I’d be kind of ticked off if my picture showed up in some sidebar ad, but you know who’s really to blame for it?
I am, because I am so self-important that I just had to show everybody my vacation pictures which may or may not have included drunken exploits. Let’s be honest. Facebook is only called “Facebook” because it is a more marketable name than “smell-my-ego.com”. Are there shady business practices in play here? Sure. I’ll get to those in a second. But the root of the problem started with me in this example and with us as users as a whole.
It should go without saying, but the problem is exacerbated with teens, because most of them have yet to acquire the common sense filters that the older audience has. Young girls can now turn themselves into a pinup with little more than a cellular phone. Not only that, they actually think it’s cool to look like a cheap hooker. In this new culture where fame has become a goal rather than a byproduct of success, anything goes, and it usually does.
Now in terms of these services and their practices, who is surprised by this? I love technology, don’t get me wrong, but can we please just be honest about what a lot of Web 2.0 companies and their CEO’s are?
I think the last line in the second panel was said at least three times at TC50
They are consortiums of people who wear blazers over their t-shirts and panhandle for money. I know this. I helped Mark liveblog TechCrunch50. The event was rife with bad ideas. Hell, I can’t even use the old saying “you can’t polish a turd” because it was proved that you could on Mythbusters.
So, do you know what much of TC50 actually is? It’s a running conveyor belt of turds, and the shiniest one gets the prize. These companies are desperate, and will do anything for $3 and a case of green tea. I guarantee you that they are more focused on getting a buck for their bad idea rather than hiring screening teams for ads.
Besides, how effective would it be? Talk about a non-productive work day. I can just see it now, an additional group of crowdsourced Mechanical Turk shut-ins trying to decide if the scantily clad Bunny Ranch trainee is over 18 or not. I ask you, who are you going to pay to clean those screens at the end of the day?
Is it right? No, of course it isn’t. But it’s reality, and sometimes reality isn’t pretty, kids. If you don’t want to get turned into a whore on a social network, don’t spend all day pimping yourself out. In the end, it’s all on you.
[...] out and embrace social media. As was proven by the boys over at Mythbusters (and recently noted by Art Lindsay in a recent editorial here), it’s possible to polish a turd. Open communications can cure a variety of ills – [...]