Nine out of ten of the “Sponsored” ads I get on FB are from this evangelical ministry or that one. The remaining are for like “Patriot Flags” or body armor or survival foods or what have you.
These things are like the Hydra: for every one I block and click as “Irrelevant,” ten more show up in its place. I do not get how the FB algorithm concluded that I’m interested in this. I never mention religion at all on FB (I’m not religious), the vast majority of my FB friends never mention religion either. I discuss politics frequently, but apparently FB missed the memo that my political posts are the exact opposite of what its algorithim thinks is my affiliation.
I’ve dug around and it seems that there’s no way to stop this except to continue blocking ads and hope eventually FB gets the memo.
Somehow FB thought I’m a professional truck driver, Perhaps I mentioned that I do drive a fire truck on occasion, I’m not sure. I was able to quickly block the ‘hard’ professional truck driving posts but do still get quite a bit of softer ones like trucks getting stuck under bridges and the like. I try not to interact with them and they have reduced slightly.
When you report them, click on the “Make Changes To Your Ad Preferences” button, then hide everything on “advertisers your’ve most recently seen” list. You should also be able to find lists of topics it seems to think you like. I have zero idea where those items come from, but I know I never clicked on anything having to do with “college football” or “Greece” or “fishing” and yet, all those types of things keep showing up there.
Having said that. It won’t reduce the amount of ads you see, just how “relevant” they are to you.
On the other hand, it won’t change what it thinks is relevant, but a Pi-Hole, along with (on a desktop) FB Purity and an adblocker will knock down the majority of them.
I posted variously in Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit in comparative linguistics groups. Now, Facebook thinks I’m Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu all at once. Apparently using different alphabets is all it took. However, I’ve posted in Greek a lot, yet Facebook hasn’t sent anything Eastern Orthodox my way.
To be fair, I have sponsored in-line ads on Facebook to thank for finding my favorite new band, When Rivers Meet (seriously, they rock), and my new favorite perfume, Habibi Jasmine Oud. Therefore not totally worthless.
For a good while, the ad I saw most often online was for a company that sells airplanes. I don’t fly, I couldn’t afford a plane even if I did, and I have no particular interest in changing either of those facts.
Even Google (through YouTube) does this, depending on my viewing preferences. They automatically assume that an interest in military history means I must therefore be subjected to a large number of “concealed carry” type ads. Or watching videos about farming (tractor repair, stuff for gearheads) means I need to see ads about crop seeds.
Hilariously, just yesterday, I was watching a mockumentary from Obvious Plant called “The exciting of coffee” (sic). Of course, there was an ad before the video even began, all about…coffee.
I get ads for crotchless panties, and rides on business jets. I’ve never googled, nor interacted with those things in any way. Either their algorithms are worthless, or Zuck has a fetish for 60 year old crossdressers on his plane.
Either way is a little worrisome.
ETA: As a sort of game, I’ve been trying to get FB to advertise Strawberry Pop Tarts to me. I chose it at random and have googled the shit out of everything even kind of related. No luck. I have gotten ads for hunting 4-wheelers though. I’m still trying to figure that one out.
An extension called FB Purity will hide almost all ads and a lot of other stuff you may not want. Every so often, Facebook changes how it does things and it may take FB Purity a few days to catch up, but as far as I’m concerned it works a treat.
Never never never click on Facebook for a site that has humorous job/retail stories. You will be inundated with clickbait sites offering the same thing (I suspect there are one or two people who make up such stories for a living).
After my “hiding”/banishing literally dozens of these ads, Facebook finally got the message, so I don’t see them anymore.
Now if I could convince Safari that I don’t live in Nashville so they’d stop listing that as the default location for online shopping…
Facebook believes I’m a Jewish ex-Boy Scout who is openly gay but also shopping for an engagement ring for a woman and that I served at Camp Lejeune between 1952 and 1987.
Facebook believes I am a proud Son Of The Confederacy. All the suggested posts are about brave sons of the South in the War Of Northern Aggression. I live in Philly, haven’t travelled recently and don’t use a VPN. I’m not sure why FB believes this.
I think most of them come from the “ask reddit” forum. The rest are a 2-3 paragraph story spread out over 10 pages of text.
When I had a squirrel get into my house that I posted about on flakebook, half the ads I saw anywhere for the next couple of weeks were for this one squirrel removal company
Maybe visiting and liking the Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Humanist Association, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Hillel, and The Satanic Temple’s FB pages will convince the algorithm that you’re not a Christian?
I’m dealing with this one right now. Before this one, it was bras for older women that aren’t made in my size. I think Google listens to your general conversations and Chrome searches and passes the information to FB. Just not the pertinent information, such as which stories interest me and what my actual bra size is.
Of all the big data mining companies, Reddit gets me correctly the most. In fact, it made the correct conclusion that because I read a lot of posts about malls and architecture that I would probably be interested in r/transit.
Facebook hasn’t been annoying in awhile.
I did recently look to see what Google thought of me, and they were pretty hit or miss other than demographic data that you can easily find by just looking at what I filled out on forms. The thing they got most right about me is home improvement, which I wouldn’t voluntarily offer as an interest if asked, but things break and sometimes you just have to fix them even if it isn’t your hobby.
They do, however, think I have children and like country music. They correctly think I like rock and alternative music, but that was no big stretch since they think I like all music. A living example of the Barnum effect.
Worse than FB, various Trumpists are texting me ON MY DAMN CELL PHONE! to ask for contributions. And it’s sometimes for candidates in Georgia, where we haven’t lived for 15 months, and Nevada, which we left more than five years ago.
Apparently, if it’s not coming from an actual 10-digit phone number, I can tell T-Mobile it’s spam, and they’ll block it. But if it is a real number I can only reply with STOP, delete the message, and block the number. But that doesn’t stop the next one.
