Someone posted this over on Reddit right when it happened and I apparently saved it. I’m cleaning out my bookmarks and came across it. I hought you’d like to see why it’s good news that we found Lemmy.
Edit: I took a screenshot in case it gets deleted.
Looks like they don’t just put off their users, the also screw over their customers. Good job!
That’s step 2 on the path to enshittification.
One of the main reasons people come to Reddit is to be informed by discussions they’re interested in, creating an environment of active discovery ripe for brands to show up and add value. Contextual Keyword Targeting places advertisers at the center of this journey, and at the heart of active conversations taking place, giving them the option to select specific keywords to associate with their brand, or even align keywords with their creative ad copy for added relevance. With so much direct traffic to Reddit conversation threads originating from high intent organic searches or research sessions, Contextual Keyword Targeting unlocks value for advertisers during and after discussions unfold, since we know Reddit threads live on as valuable, searchable resources for our users.
I threw up in my mouth reading this. I don’t think any community would enjoy being described as “an environment of active discovery ripe for brands to show up and add value”.
If you’re like me and haven’t deleted old reddit comments because of the valuable information they can give other people, now may be the time to reconsider. Being able to advertise on discussions that have already happened is one of the sales pitches Reddit makes to prospective advertisers.
I wish there was an easy way to archive my old reddit comments. Anything older than 1000 comments seems impossible to access even though I made them.
You could do a data request, that should be everything they have on you
Oh thanks, I’ve just done that. I wrote a LOT of stuff in my time. I always thought it’d be good to look back and see how my positions changed and how I felt about my old thoughts. It was pretty annoying not to have a way to go back and actually read my stuff, even though they’re still hosting them and profiting off of them.
I’ll be honest most of it is anarchist propaganda so I’m in two minds as to whether or not to remove it. I’ll definitely get rid of the fun games stuff I posted and find a place here for it.
I did that when the API fees were first announced, and it took a couple of weeks for them to respond, but I got a full text file of my comments and posts.
Even without the gdpr, if you wait a couple days after deleting that first 1000 you’ll start seeing older comments again.
Of course it’s not ideal, just pointing it out.
Okay but that sounds too much like work to me.
deleted by creator
Same, we’re all prostitutes for Reddit in the end.
TBH, they’re already doing it a little here, but at least we’re not being sold to the highest bidder by Reddit. Here, they get ignored and/or downvoted.
Jesus, pure intentional enshitification. It’s so disgusting
Contextual Keyword Targeting unlocks value for advertisers during and after discussions unfold, since we know Reddit threads live on as valuable, searchable resources for our users.
Omg, I just posted, I also threw up a little reading this.
Not sure anyone wants “advertisers to be at the center” of any experience.
Advertisers definitely want to be at the centre of your experience!
Continuing the trend, I also had to stifle my vomit while typing this out.
The amount of buzzwords just to say “advertisers are a greater priority for us than our users” holy shit
The use of all the buzzwords actually works to show the advertisers in question that they understand what they’re doing and, in this case somewhat literally, that they “speak their language.”
They mentioned Ally Financial as one of the success cases so I did a quick search for recent posts about Ally and sure enough the very first result from outside their own sub has this user contributing to the conversation:
https://www.reddit.com/user/robbiedavissie
Somebody posts a question about Ally and this 11 minute old account comes along pitching all of Ally Bank’s features. Then a week later they’re making 3 posts in a row advertising some other brand.
Super sketch.
At least they’re really not good at it? That was so obviously an AI or pre-written.
“Hey there Reddit fan!”
Who would talk like that? lol
Hey there skin haver! Do you hate it when your skin or exoskeleton get dry and or crusty? Then try new Aveeno skin/carapace wax
There’s a ton of these accounts. They gather karma with scripts that randomly repost top 100 all time posts on big subs and then delete them so their account looks clean. Then they sell it to ad companies that post client sanctioned posts and comments and get paid based on user engagement with the brand.
Check out r/hailcorporate. A huge portion of Reddit is just guerrilla advertising.
They didn’t even do that though. It was an absolutely brand new 1 karma account that somehow mysteriously didn’t get automodded to hell. Account created 09:00:27 UTC, then Ally Bank comment at 09:11:37 UTC
Wow I guess they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.
They also do it by copying text from comments that are getting upvoted in the same thread and then reposting it higher in the thread so it gets random upvotes. Caught the copy-bots doing it a bunch of times, got tired of reporting them since the reddit admins obviously weren’t interested in combatting the problem even if local moderators were (and I suspect they were in fact helping it along because it aligns with their goals for Reddit).
Reddit’s recent monetisation schemes can all be summed up as “demanding a cut from people profiting off the site” and this is just more of that. They’ve done absolutely nothing to prevent astro-turfing and manipulation, now they’re just going to offer it as a service.
Come to [email protected] so that people find content from Lemmy instead ads from Reddit
I’m so glad people like you are choosing to bootstrap the community’s they want to see instead of just hoping mods invested in there existing community’s decided to come over and working to try and connect with the people already on lemmy instead of just begging the people on reddit until the mods ban them for spamming
I don’t want to hear from products. I want to talk about nothing with people.
Nothingness is pretty crazy if you think about it
It IS kinda crazy. If you try to create “nothingness” (create an enclosed space and suck out all of the air to have as little as possible), the nothingness actually tries to become full of something again, because of pressure difference.
This checks out in my addled thought experiments.
Like before or during the creation of the universe, there was matter, and it’s opposite. They canceled each other out, but there just so happened to be a tiny tiny bit more matter than anti matter, so we have a universe largely made of matter. Would we even be able to tell a difference if it was anti matter that won out? -my vague recollection of a science channel show.
Creation itself is the battle between nothing, and everything, like a battery, it is one thing. Duality is an invention of man.
If you think of nothing, then it becomes something
Consciousness is a crazy thing. It’s such a unique state of being for matter to take, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Consciousness was, itself, a force that could be measured. After all, we as conscious beings can alter the world around us in everyway, only limited by our physical bodies. Perhaps Consciousness is it’s own universe, that we have only begun to understand. In my life I’ve experienced things I can’t explain, but I’d call much of it extreme empathy, like Consciousness is all linked, where with practice, thoughts, feelings, and vibration can be transmitted through it, like radio signals. Perhaps it’s more simple than that, or not at all, but I enjoy dreaming (:
It’s my favorite thing to think about.
As my uncle used to say, who just died the other day and who’s body is stuck in Mexico lol:
“There is no duality Baba!”
Sorry for your loss! He sounded like quite the interesting fellow.
The priority of advertisers experience, over user experience, should say it all
I don’t think they’ll delete this. This is their future.
Bleh, you’re probably right.
Edit: I took a screenshot in case it gets deleted.
I’m pretty sure this ties in with the stuff they were promoting at the Cannes Lions conference back when everything kicked off.
That deserves its own thread, they’re betrayal of their users as mere content in an eye catching booth.
I don’t see the alarm. Key word targeting is used in other digital print forms. Doing ad targeting based on the content of the page is not a bad way to balance the need to increase value of the ad space you sell, while also avoiding the need to target a user specifically based on tracking. It’s no secret reddit makes money selling ads.
They’re purchasing the power to get into the conversation and don’t you feel used? Why are you here if you didn’t mind what Reddit did?
I’m here because they killed third party apps and api’s. But the thing is Reddit philosophically has been a for profit company. They make money on ads. In terms of the possible ways to advertise, this isn’t crazy invasive.
Lemmy and the fediverse are not inherently a for profit. So yes, the advertising doesn’t really apply as much.
I just expect the for profit services I use to behave like for profits. And the not for profit services I use to behave like not for profits.
I guess you don’t mind talking to bots and advertising scripts then, I find that strange but you do you.
So the one remaining way to search the internet that would give me the results I needed is disappearing? Time to head back to the library I guess
I wonder if the “400,000 comments per day” and “2 questions per second” figures are still true (if they ever were).
Unfortunately, there are many people still on Reddit. I predict that this is going to be like the Twitter migration, where more and more people join alternatives with every bad decision the company makes
I used to be the only one of my friends that use reddit. Around the start of the pandemic some of my more “normie” (for lack of a better term) friends started signing up as well.
I think a lot of the old guard has left/is on the verge of leaving, but I don’t think there’s any shortage of new users that don’t know what a 3rd party app is, only ever used new reddit, etc.
Those numbers are likely only mildly inflated. Advertisers would raise hell if they were off significantly. Now, how many are Reddit personnel or bots? That’s the real question.
I love it! Having my decision to leave reddit justified again, and so quickly, gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
I’m so glad I purged all my crap off that network. If you wrote about a brand, your content will be used to show that brand as an advertisement. Now your content will appear like an endorsement and Reddit will definitely laugh to the bank off your words.
The only good news is I’m racking my brain and I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned a product of any sort by name that I wasn’t bashing it. Sorta the economic version of survivor bias? If it’s good, I have no reason to bring it up.
I hope those slip through so someone can see an ad that says:
Zoloft
“It never did shit for me”
— N.If it’s good, I have no reason to bring it up.
This describes my relationship with Dell perfectly. I never buy anything from Dell, and I always tell other people to avoid them. The best thing I can say about most of their products is “at least it’s not HP”, and the few decent things they sell tend to be massively overpriced.
Despite that, I have a ton of Dell products that I’ve either saved from the trash or have been given second hand over the years, and my experiences with many of them have been just fine, maybe even bordering on pleasant in some cases. The monitor I’m looking at right now is a Dell, and it’s pretty good.
On the other hand, I’ve spent afternoons ripping my hair out trying to adapt power supplies for their stupid proprietary motherboards, or figuring out how to compile a fan controller driver for Linux, because their laptop fans won’t fucking spin until a proprietary driver is loaded in the OS.
Guess which Dell products I tell people about when they ask me what computer to buy? It’s sure not the ones that are decent, but otherwise unremarkable.It’s going to be something like this:
u/RandomRedditUser29473:
Comcast is a piece of shit, I was put on hold for 3 hours to reach support.
(Promoted) Comcast plans for you starting from $2999.99/mo! Like you have any other choice HAHAHAHAHA
Well A) this is not going to get deleted cause B) it’s not that big relative to most advertising.
Previously you could target ads by subreddit or interest (which I’m assuming was subscribers of a subreddit when they were on an unrelated subreddit)
This allows for ads to be served based in keywords on keyword targeting. So a car company could serve ads on “transmission repair costs” or whatever.
The second changes looks like product ads, which is an ecom ad format that you see on Google (top row of products), insta, Pinterest, etc… basically it’s exactly what it sounds like. Products in an ad, you can swipe through them.
If you don’t like targeted ads you’re not going to like these, if you didn’t care before you probably won’t care now.
But isn’t this basically like the old days of TV “targeting.” Before we had all data the content was proxy for audience. Day time soap operas were called soap operas because the content was the perfect proxy to reach stay at home wives and sell cleaning products to them. Similar, sports or certain types of comedy shows, etc skew towards a certain audience. So you use the content as proxy for the audience to run your ads against. This contextual targeting seems like that, but a bit more algorithmic in how it detects what the relevant content is based on key words in the text.
Feel like the previous subreddit targeting was basically like tv (or at least buying spots on a channel) and the new way is like Google search or (allegedly old) gmail ad targeting
Yeah. That’s probably a bit more accurate. But I think the main difference is context or contextual targeting can be done without knowing any data about the user, browsing history, etc. I think that has to be the compromise for ad targeting if we want to push for more user privacy and less tracking.
They’re already targeting customers for years the way you’re saying, we all know what they’re saying here.
As part of our Product Ads beta testing, the brand saw substantial performance relative to internal metrics for Return on Ad Spend.
Yeah this is literally a general roll out announcement. It wasn’t available to everyone before. Generally most ad platforms test features with enterprise level clients before letting everyone have access.
I mean that was possible before but on a whole new level. It’s actually in Reddits interest to get rid of more sceptical mods who stick tightly to rules, because they’d delete an obvious ads thread.
I threw up a little reading this. Gross.
