# Do we need gun ads?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [December 30, 2020, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284 "2020-12-30T18:36:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2021, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/21 "2021-01-02T22:46:35Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#):
>
> Surely I’m being punished for something.
I’d begin to wonder about what my contacts and other household members are up to…
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> The oddest was, a few months back, I was getting a whole bunch of ads for a site that buys and sells general-aviation planes. No clue what prompted those.
Were you at any point in a prolonged thread discussion with **Broomstick** or **Johnny L.A.**? 😆
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2021, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/22 "2021-01-02T22:53:11Z")
> [@FigNorton](#):
>
> You probably read a bunch of websites that show you to be conservative and have expendable cash.
Maybe the second, but def not the 1st. But it really doesn’t matter, as I’m pretty capable at being blind to popups.
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### Author:  [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2021, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/23 "2021-01-02T23:23:19Z")
Well, ok but my point is they drill into demographics. I’m sorry to tell you but your internet history shares some aspects of gun buyers’. 😅
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### Author:  [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/24 "2021-01-03T23:04:21Z")
Bizarrely, I’m seeing ads for _toy_ guns right now.
Also sunglasses. I was looking for information about prescription lenses the other day, so I guess that one makes some sense.
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### Author:  [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2021, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/25 "2021-01-05T13:03:29Z")
I am seeing a ton of right wing ads on the site including gun ads and I assure you it isn’t based on any of my browser history.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2021, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/26 "2021-01-05T13:08:49Z")
> [@Quimby](#):
>
> I am seeing a ton of right wing ads on the site including gun ads and I assure you it isn’t based on any of my browser history. -
Maybe it’s all the discussion about Trump.
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2021, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/27 "2021-01-05T13:18:30Z")
> [@Quimby](#):
>
> I assure you it isn’t based on any of my browser history.
It’s based on your browser history, IP, and anything else that those sneaky ad companies can figure out about you.
It doesn’t have to be something direct, i.e. you didn’t have to search for guns. It could be something less directly related, such as the fact that you browse the Straight Dope and we have gun threads here. It could also be that your physical location (based off of your IP) is an area that tends to lean to the right.
Ad brokers don’t publish their algorithms, so we may never know exactly what it was.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2021, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/28 "2021-01-05T14:04:27Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> It’s based on your browser history, IP, and anything else that those sneaky ad companies can figure out about you.
Yeah - I understand that. But given everything I hear about big-data being able to correctly asses all manner of things about people, it is amusing to see them being so off-base as to think gun ads would have any chance of doing anything other than piss me off (unless that is their goal, and they are cleverer that I could imagine, playing n-dimensional chess!)
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/29 "2021-01-05T14:19:11Z")
AI doesn’t think better or worse than humans do; it thinks differently. Sure, it makes mistakes: So do we. But it makes different mistakes than we do. And just as we might think “How idiotic do you have to be to make that mistake?”, the AIs might well ask the same question of some of our mistakes.
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### Author:  [@FigNorton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FigNorton)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2021, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/30 "2021-01-06T01:29:01Z")
There’s a big long running topic in MPSIMS that’s basically a gun ad. Why would we expect the powers that be to block gun ads?
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2021, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/31 "2021-01-17T04:10:30Z")
What I’ve been getting are ads featuring half-naked starlets of my youth. No complaints except a fear that one of TPTB happens upon a scantily clad Hurst Shifter Girl or Dawn Wells as you’ve never seen her.
But that shrinks to insignificance with the newest ads where the greatest risk of all is Mrs Power sees an ad for a 1:48 scale Brewster Buffalo and recalls, with ill humor, just how much space a model airplane with a 4" wingspan can use up. That, of course, is the wrong time to ask what became of her father’s 1/4 scale PZL P.11, which I understand is now in some Polish museum, but could have landed in the garbage the night of his funeral.
**No model airplanes!**
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2021, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/32 "2021-01-17T17:16:17Z")
I said that wrong **– MORE –** model airplanes!
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/33 "2021-01-28T15:22:38Z")
TIL:
if you go to
[https://adssettings.google.com/](https://adssettings.google.com/)
it will tell you what criteria it is using to choose the ads that it shows you.
May help the OP out a bit.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2021, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/34 "2021-01-28T15:25:32Z")
I am not in the market for modular acrylic display cases, Sam’s Club offerings or even “the sunglasses everyone is talking about”, but those are the ads I see in this thread.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2021, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/35 "2021-01-28T17:50:32Z")
I just noted ads for Hawaiian shirts. Wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t recently read that they were adopted by some of the extreme right groups. I really dislike it when groups appropriate something that was previously enjoyable or innocuous.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/36 "2021-01-28T17:55:21Z")
I don’t see ads.
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### Author:  [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2021, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/37 "2021-01-29T19:45:34Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> I have an ad for “shiningcityonahill. us” advertising “The best of Ronald Regan. Quotes and Jokes from America’s Bloke”, whatever the fuck that means, as well as “America’s Comeback”. I don’t think these ads are targeted very well.
Why is that?
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2021, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/38 "2021-01-30T19:12:37Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#):
>
> Just observing that for the last couple of days, just about every SDMB page I’ve opened as ad an ad w/ a picture of a handgun, saying something about holsters. Yeah, I know the Dope’s gotta get $, but I’d personally prefer ads for porn.
I was going to suggest that the algorithm thinks you’re a Republican, but I see you posted this before the 6th…
> [@JRDelirious](#):
>
> If we went for granular exclusions based on what different members like or dislike we might wind up excluding just about everything but cannabis and pet supplies.
Well, I don’t want the ads for illegal drugs, so I guess that just leaves pet supplies…
> [@Dark\_Sponge](#):
>
> All the devices you and your family use are tracked and the ads you see are chosen by your browsing/online behavior. This is why if you’re browsing for something on your phone you’ll suddenly start seeing ads for similar items on your home PC or other Internet connected device.
In my opinion, this is invasion of privacy and should be banned.
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### Author:  [@mistymage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mistymage)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2021, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/39 "2021-01-31T06:38:12Z")
Me either (neither ?) but I do use an adblocker… even if I finally paid to be a member back when we could.
No way was I going to whitelist SMDB uh… SDMB… since I had heard how bad the ads were over the years.
I use an adblocker. To go along with my antivirus program. And my cookie cleaner.
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### Author:  [@daisysmithh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daisysmithh)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2021, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-need-gun-ads/929284/40 "2021-02-02T07:07:34Z")
Maybe you’ve accessed some websites that related to guns. So, if you do not want to gun ads that appeared on your social networks, try to stop seeing gun ads. Don’t care about them and one day they won’t show up.
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