This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
Got this notification when I opened Chrome when coming back to my desk after lunch.
"We changed our privacy settings to allow us to snoop on what you're looking at and shove you ads accordingly. Feel free to opt out, but we'll probably opt you back in when you aren't paying attention."
you are not immune to propaganda
I'm not sure this applies to stuff like ads. Like, if you always prioritize foss and ethically sourced products, ads can't really persuade you to buy certain things. And you make those decisions by doing research and buying local, or even better, making as much stuff as you can yourself.
Targeted ads are designed to make you feel inadequate or incomplete. Even if it doesn't convince you to buy the product advertised, it can still shift your expectations and world-view just by normalizing a certain type of consumption (or attitude, or media, ect).
Just because you don't spend money, doesn't mean ads aren't still subtly manipulating your expectations.
It is a trillion dollar a year industry for a reason.
It also just lets you know the product exists or reminds you of it while strengthening certain associations in your brain. I know I can’t think of VPNs without thinking of NordVPN and if I were to decide I want one, I don’t think there would be a chance it didn’t at least occur to me to maybe look into