2/10/2026 at 3:08:53 PM
They're not afraid of the idea of programming people.When I worked there every week there would be a different flyer on the inside of the bathroom stall door to try to get the word out about things that really mattered to the company.
One week the flyer was about how a feed video needed to hook the user in the first 0.2 seconds. The flyer promised that if this was done, the result would in essence have a scientifically measurable addictive effect, a brain-hack. The flyer was to try to make sure this message reached as many advertisers as possible.
It seemed to me quite clear at that moment that the users were prey. The company didn't even care what was being sold to their users with this brain-reprogramming-style tactic. Our goal was to sell the advertisers on the fact that we were scientifically sure that we had the tools to reprogram our users brains.
by conartist6
2/10/2026 at 3:37:23 PM
Another way of describing this - they find people lose interest almost immediately, and so if you want to actually show a consumer something new, you have to get to the point with your ad.by cm2012
2/10/2026 at 4:41:44 PM
I'm not sure that's a fair characterization of a policy that promotes ads that hook the user within the first 200ms.200ms isn't enough time for significant information to be transmitted to a person and for them to process it. You don't 'get to the point' in 200ms.
That means that the way to the user's brain and attention is with some irritating little jingle, a picture of a bunny beating a drum, cartoon bears wiping their asses with toilet paper, a picture of a caveman salesman or a picture of an absolutely artifical thing that looks like food but isn't. Stuff that stands out as unnatural.
But that isn't enough. You gotta pair it with spaced reeitition. Let them think about this every time they take a shit in the office. Hammer them with the same shrill sounds and garish images on every commercial break. Or after every couple of songs they're trying to listen to on youtube. Or in institials that are algorithmically optimized to pop up in their feed as they mindlessly scroll looking for gossip about their neigbhours to scratch that social group animal itch in all of us.
by Teever
2/10/2026 at 5:14:16 PM
Exactly, 200ms is rather different than 'get to the point.' Here is a 'reaction speed test' site: https://reactiontimetest.net/ for somebody who doesn't intuit what 200ms is like.You will likely be unable to click the screen in response to a box turning green faster than 200ms. To hook somebody on something within 200ms is largely appealing to casino like stuff where every single jingle, color, flash of light, and other aspect of their games is carefully researched in order to maximize addiction on a subconscious level.
by somenameforme
2/10/2026 at 6:17:33 PM
> 200ms isn't enough time for significant information to be transmitted to a person and for them to process it.I think the point of the flyer is that, surprisingly, it is.
by jayd16
2/10/2026 at 6:29:50 PM
I think there are two different definitions of "significant information" at play here. I interpreted the GP comment to mean "information about the thing being advertised".The point of the flyer is that you need to get the person to process one bit of information in the first 200ms: scroll or stay. GP's point is that that has little, if anything, to do with the ostensible purpose of advertising, informing people about a product.
by pahkah
2/10/2026 at 7:08:20 PM
If you're selling a new GPU, showing the GPU in the first frame seems like a good bet and perfectly ethical, no? Same for a game, movie, food, car.by jayd16
2/10/2026 at 7:53:18 PM
To add to your list: ...or a hot body.by butlike
2/10/2026 at 11:39:38 PM
or something bearing a similarity to a sex actby throaway1998
2/11/2026 at 12:01:16 AM
So, in order to put a more neutral spin on this practice, you immediately reduce all people to "consumers"? Aren't you just confirming the GP's characterization that all platform users are seen as prey?by tremon
2/11/2026 at 12:06:24 AM
Consumer doesnt mean "prey" to me at all.by cm2012
2/11/2026 at 8:31:31 AM
Okay, good luck with that mantra in a decade! I think it's very obvious that programming abilities are being destroyed from the inside out, but sure, tell me in a decade I was right when everything is collapsed.by rogueparitybit
2/10/2026 at 3:48:45 PM
...which has been known for at least a centuryby WarmWash
2/10/2026 at 5:01:38 PM
Here is an important difference. A century ago, the predator (seller) and the prey (buyer) were on equal evolutionary terms. Each generation of humans on either side of the transaction came into the world, learned to convince, learned to resist, then passed, and some balance was maintained. In this century, corporations and algorithms don't die, but the targets do. This means that the non-human seller is continuously, even immortally, learning, adapting and perfecting how to manipulate. The target, be it adult, adolescent, or child, is, and will be ever increasingly, at a severe disadvantage.by RRWagner
2/10/2026 at 6:19:41 PM
What if I told you younger sales people were trained by more experienced sales people and its not a new thing.by jayd16
2/10/2026 at 5:38:31 PM
Ah yes because trade secrets were never a thing at any of these companies. The companies always shut down when it's founding members died wiping out all the knowledge it had built up.That is to say organizations have always had this edge on individuals.
by thrwaway55
2/10/2026 at 5:08:53 PM
Right, because we know that parents never pass down useful skills or life tips to their children, like skepticism of propaganda and advertising, and instead send their children into the world like sheep into a lion's den.There might come a day when advertising is too flawless for a human mind to resist it, but we're not there yet.
by SR2Z
2/10/2026 at 5:17:28 PM
Most of everybody thinks their behaviors and decisions are not meaningfully influenced by advertising. Companies spend literally trillions of dollars running ads. One side is right, one side is wrong.And advertising largely relies on this ignorance of its effects, or otherwise most of everybody would go to much greater lengths to limit their exposures to such, and governments would be more inclined to regulate the ad industry as a goal in and of itself.
by somenameforme
2/10/2026 at 11:51:04 PM
No, this take is crazy. If ads were able to brainwash people Coca-Cola would still be the most popular drink in America.The problem with "meaningfully influenced" is that a 1% bump in sales is massive for a company, but normally only represents a very minor shift in customer behavior.
US spending on advertising is, in total, about $1200/person-year. If you believe that advertisers are rapacious capitalists who will take as much as they possibly can, then they only believe that they can capture about that much extra per person by advertising to them.
That's not nothing, but it's not very much either. Ads are extremely overblown as a threat to society; you only need to look as far as eye-tracking studies of web browsers and the prevalence of ad blockers to see pretty good proof that people do just ignore them most of the time.
by SR2Z
2/11/2026 at 7:19:14 AM
I'm firmly in the camp of "I'm not influenced by ads (or so I think)" / "not convinced that ads are actually a net positive". But even so, I don't fully agree with your take.I think that it's very possible to think we aren't influenced, yet still be. My reasoning is that basically no one admits to being influenced. Yet you can definitely see the effects of ads on people: whenever there's a strong campaign for something, little after you'll see everyone buying it. Maybe they just try to "follow trends" or whatever, but that's just a form of advertising, isn't it? I only very rarely watch TV and have ad blockers everywhere, yet I can still detect when all of a sudden everybody has the same bag or same jacket or whatever. My bags last years and years. I doubt it's simply a coincidence and they all needed new bags right at the same time.
> Ads are extremely overblown as a threat to society; you only need to look as far as eye-tracking studies of web browsers and the prevalence of ad blockers to see pretty good proof that people do just ignore them most of the time.
I think that many people don't know about ad-blockers and try to ignore the ads while reading a website or scrolling some app. But that doesn't imply they aren't influenced. In my case, I'm fairly convinced that I'm not influenced by my instagram's feed's ads, since they try to sell me pregnant women's garments, of which I have 0 use as a single, childless male. But there can be other factors of which I don't have conscience, like seeing people use the same brand camera or whatever. Call it advertising-by-proxy.
However, take a look at people's screens when taking the metro or whatever. Many do watch the ads instead of just scrolling past. This is what I actually have a hard time understanding: people would spend a comparable amount of time on what looks like ads and what looks like their friends' stuff, as if it was the same thing. Which, granted, isn't a very long time. In my case, I only follow photographers and would spend a fair amount of time on people's pictures but scroll right through anything that looks like an ad (text or video of any kind).
by vladvasiliu
2/10/2026 at 5:26:43 PM
Advertising is just companies saying "This is what you can purchase from me - it's awesome - please consider purchasing it". I have managed hundreds of millions in ad spend for major brands. None of them rely on weird ad magic to persuade people secretly - just showing off different aspects of the product or service.by cm2012
2/10/2026 at 5:57:34 PM
> Advertising is just companies saying "This is what you can purchase from me - it's awesome - please consider purchasing it".This is such a naive view of advertising that if you're really this unaware of how manipulative ads are, you can't possibly have defenses against them. You should seriously spend some time looking into the secret magic of dark psychology they use to manipulate people because while knowing about their tactics won't make you immune to them, it really can help to be aware of how they work and to train yourself to recognize when they're being used against you.
by autoexec
2/10/2026 at 7:20:26 PM
I don't know, I just went to find an ad in my feed and the first one was for a house plant that was easy to take care of. I'm not saying I'm the smartest cookie in the shed, but I didn't detect any manipulation. Seems like it was a person who just wanted me to know about their product.Let me know what I'm missing.
by bryan_w
2/10/2026 at 8:41:22 PM
I haven't seen the plant ad, but it sounds like once you start learning about how the ad industry works your mind will be blown. Insane amounts of money have been poured into research by the industry (including some highly questionable research being done on children and infants) and some of the results are fascinating.The manipulation goes beyond even the content of the ads themselves. For example, one of the reasons companies are spending so much money collecting/buying/storing/securing every scrap of data they can get about you and your life is so that they can target ads at you at specific times when they know you'll be more vulnerable such as times when they know you'd normally be tired, or when they think your medication may be wearing off, or during periods where you're under high stress, or when you might be entering a manic phase, or when you're intoxicated, etc.
Like I said, understanding the many many ways that you are vulnerable to their tricks can help but it won't stop them from working on you. It's kind of like how you can't not see certain optical illusions even though you know you're interpreting them incorrectly. The conclusion I've come to is that it's best to do everything you can to avoid exposure to advertising where possible and to keep an eye out for when those tricks are being used against you elsewhere.
by autoexec
2/11/2026 at 12:03:47 AM
So a company should not be able to recommend therapy ads if I seem stressed? Ozempic if I seem like I want to lose weight? Laxatives if I seem constipated, or energy drinks if I'm sleep deprived?Trying to moralize ad targeting is exhausting. It's not inherently a bad thing to target an ad to someone who's in a bad spot, or really in general.
People who buy the product are presumably competent enough to manage their own finances. Acting like they're being exploited constantly because ads hinted that they weren't masculine enough, or too fat, or being their peers, etc. is ridiculous. Ads aren't like cigarettes.
by SR2Z
2/11/2026 at 3:59:22 AM
It's more like companies recommending an alcoholic who has been sober for 13 months his favorite drink because they know he is going through a divorce and is currently 15 feet from a bar, or a company targeting a person with Alzheimer's right at the time they know they'll start sundowning, or even just cranking up nostalgia in their advertising because they know your last surviving parent died and for the first time you won't be going home for the coming holidays.Ad targeting these days can be intensely personal and manipulative. There are lots of ways ads could be used that aren't harmful, but also lots of ways that they can. Imagine an ad using a deepfake of your own child who died in a car crash telling you in his voice how he might still be alive if your car only had <insert new safety feature here>. There are clearly lines that can and should be drawn. There are extremely unethical practices happening today because companies are amoral monsters that only care about money and there are almost no laws or regulations to stop them from doing whatever they want.
Ads aren't like cigarettes. You make the choice to smoke or not, but ads are just forced on you. Only rarely are you given any opportunity to opt out of them, and the industry spends a lot of money trying to circumvent any efforts you take to cut them out of your life. You can quit cigarettes, but they wont let you quit advertising.
by autoexec
2/12/2026 at 4:02:39 AM
> Ads aren't like cigarettesAnd it's worth noting that there are laws that restrict advertisement of cigarettes, alcohol, etc.
Meanwhile let's also not forget the post itself on which we are commenting: accusations that social media companies have, in fact, engineered their products to be addictive.
To what end? To sell more ads!
by anonymars
2/11/2026 at 1:35:13 PM
Either you intentionally misunderstood his point and deflected or you honestly seem to think this way. In either case, you misapprehended what he meant.by N_Lens
2/10/2026 at 7:01:22 PM
>Advertising is just companies saying "This is what you can purchase from me - it's awesome - please consider purchasing it". I have managed hundreds of millions in ad spend for major brandsOh, okay. Well if you say so.
by freejazz
2/10/2026 at 5:45:39 PM
Um, off the top of my head:"You'll be happier if you purchase this thing"
"You're not good enough as you are now, but you will be if you purchase this thing"
"Other people you admire or respect have purchased this thing, and if you do too you'll be more like them"
"Other people will like you more if you purchase this thing"
"You'll be more attractive if you purchase this thing"
"This thing will be worth more in the future so if you purchase this thing it will make you money"
"This is your only chance to purchase this thing, so if you don't it now you'll miss out on this price"
I don't think any of them has to do with how awesome "the thing" itself is. Obviously there's more to, say, an expensive watch, than its ability to tell time
by anonymars
2/10/2026 at 6:27:52 PM
The only products that sell this in advertising actually provide those brand features. Essentially people pay money to increase their perceived status.Like, if you sell a luxury handbag. When people buy it, they know 70% of the value comes from the advertising saying "this is a high value product" as a status signal. I think that's really dumb, but that's what people want.
It also existed a long time before ads itself did.
by cm2012
2/11/2026 at 1:49:19 PM
> they know 70% of the value comes from the advertisingSo, you are aware that advertising is in large part responsible for shaping what is perceived as high-value status signals in society. You're also aware that for certain products the only distinction between those and their alternatives is that specific high-value association.
How come you started out from the position that advertising is "just showing off different aspects of the product" then?
by tremon
2/10/2026 at 7:23:49 PM
So you've never seen like, a beer ad that promises status and attractiveness?by Dylan16807
2/10/2026 at 11:16:42 PM
Similarly, something must have been missing from the AXE body spray instructionsby anonymars
2/10/2026 at 8:08:16 PM
Beer/liquor is in the same category of status good. People pay a lot to show the brand.by cm2012
2/10/2026 at 10:31:25 PM
Some liquor brands are like that. 95% or more of beer ads that imply status are just lying to you.by Dylan16807
2/11/2026 at 12:07:07 AM
If anonymous billboards or banner ads can convince you you aren't good enough, your life is probably not great with or without ads.If an ad convinces you to, say, get a gym membership or go on Ozempic, who's to say what happens next? Maybe you do start feeling better about yourself.
by SR2Z
2/11/2026 at 5:32:22 AM
They don't consciously convince you directly anymore than a slot machine convinces you to give it one more spin - it's done on a subconscious level. For instance one of the most famous, and effective, ads in history is Apple's 1984 ad. [1] A 59 second ad where the only mention of what's being sold at all happens in about 1 second with a reference to a brand name and then a logo. See: ELM model and peripheral processing. [2] And this is all day one advertising stuff.Advertising is a horrific industry. It probably always was, but at the modern scales, it's outright dystopic. I think there's simply a large amount of cognitive dissonance around this issue because advertising drives the paychecks of a whole lot of people, and it's rather difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaboration_likelihood_model#P...
by somenameforme
2/11/2026 at 7:25:32 AM
While I agree with your point about understanding, I think there's also an issue of self-image. "What? Me? Influenced by some ad? Get outta here! I make my own decisions!"by vladvasiliu
2/10/2026 at 6:07:21 PM
I can't remember ever seeing an ad that was just showing off different aspects of the product or service, outside of things like Craigslist.by wat10000
2/10/2026 at 6:31:31 PM
USA here: our schools brainwash children to remove that skepticism. It makes them easier to control and order is very important to the kind of person who becomes a teacher.Seattle area, they're brainwashing my children to celebrate the "seahawks" team. They came home yesterday being excited that team won the superbowl. I ask "why do you care? You don't like to watch football, none of your friends like to play it". Hard to influence when the kid is there 6.5 hours every day.
by coryrc
2/10/2026 at 7:17:55 PM
My dad was a lot like you. He would shit on things I was excited about that he didn’t like.We haven’t talked in years.
by irishcoffee
2/11/2026 at 12:36:59 AM
Ah, don't worry. He'd forgotten ten minutes later and I later took him rock climbing, which he actually loves and I support him doing despite me being terrified of heights.by coryrc
2/12/2026 at 12:37:34 AM
I bullshitted my dad a lot too because I wanted to try and make him happy.by irishcoffee
2/10/2026 at 7:32:54 PM
Former USA teacher here: I assure you that the 17.5 hours parents have with kids are much more influential. It's likely that a lot of the students were really excited that their home team won and the teachers leaned into that excitement.by sumtimes89
2/10/2026 at 7:25:48 PM
My child's San Francisco Bay Area school has taught media literacy / skepticism every year since 3rd grade. Curricula are determined by the teacher, but N=1 is sufficient for a counterexample for a broad country-wide generalization.Celebrating a local sports win is about as apolitical and low-harm as possible when it comes to promoting a shared cultural bond for a community.
by linkregister
2/11/2026 at 12:34:51 AM
Are the children allowed to sit and study all day on the topic they're currently interested in? No. https://cantrip.org/gatto.html They're required to submit to authority at all times. How could it be otherwise in our system -- one teacher, 20 random kids of varying personalities and education level.It's not a "local sports win" -- it's a profitable, billionaire-owned corporation stealing public tax money by brainwashing everyone into thinking it's "local". The majority of the players aren't from the area either and will leave after.
by coryrc
2/11/2026 at 2:55:44 AM
Are we really recreating elementary education from first principles here? American public education has always followed an instructor -> pupil format, beginning in New England for bible reading, accounting, and manufacturing.There are probably some Montessori schools that opt for other formats, but I doubt that children are set up for success by neglecting math or other topics they are uninterested in. I would wager that even Montessori schools require study of the core tested curriculum.
If you have ever been a guest teacher then you would observe that a substantial minority of students must be guided to pay attention to the material. Autodidacts are not representative of the majority of people.
Re: sports: all things have negative aspects to them. Being a grump to such an extent as to discount all positive culturally cohesive aspects of a largely benign activity is a suboptimal way to live life. Choosing to build on commonalities in a community leads to better outcomes. Believing sports to be a net bad activity is a single-digit percentage minority opinion.
by linkregister
2/10/2026 at 4:49:29 PM
And only recently could be optimized in real time, individually, for each target. I remember when there was a big moral scare about "subliminal advertising". People were appalled that an ad on TV could manipulate you without your awareness. That is 100% the business model of modern social media advertising.It's not embedded in a specific ad, but the entire operation of the promotion algorithms.
by daveguy
2/10/2026 at 3:58:26 PM
Users as prey is a terrifying but not unrealistic narrative. Thanks for sharing.by chasemp
2/10/2026 at 5:17:13 PM
The only business that call customers "users" are software development and drug dealers :)by doron
2/10/2026 at 7:00:48 PM
Many of the software developers whose end users are their revenue source return to calling them customers.by InitialLastName
2/10/2026 at 3:19:06 PM
I haven't worked at FAANG so maybe I'm out the loop, but flyers on bathroom stalls seems bizarre, like almost less of a corporate action and more of a personal one (like you might get for unionisation), but with all the messaging of corporate, like something you'd see in a company memo.Like I say, maybe everyone else is accustomed to this idea, but if you have any pictures of them I think a lot of people would be interested in seeing it, unless I'm misunderstand what it is
by bodge5000
2/10/2026 at 4:55:04 PM
It started as Testing on the Toilet, which was an effort to get people to actually care about unit-testing their code and software quality and writing maintainable code that doesn't break in 6 months. Later was expanded to Learning on the Loo, general tips and tricks, and then Testing on the Toilet became Tech on the Toilet. It's been going on for a good 20 years now, so that's about 1000 articles (they change them out weekly) and there aren't really 1000 articles you can write about unit testing.The insight is actually pretty similar to Google's core business model: when you're going to the bathroom, there isn't a whole lot else you're doing, so it's the perfect time to put up a 2-3 minute read to reinforce a message that you want people to hear but might not get attention for otherwise.
by nostrademons
2/10/2026 at 6:44:17 PM
Actually, that is also a way to surrepticiously abuse you: not even your toilet time should be "yours".by pfortuny
2/10/2026 at 7:16:28 PM
I was in a fraternity in college, 20 years ago. We put weekly bathroom notes on the inside of the stall doors. Something interesting, something funny, upcoming news. The elected fraternity secretary was responsible for making those weekly, among many other things.If they were a day late the amount of pestering they would get until the did that weekly job was hilarious. We all got a kick out of them.
Your toilet time can be yours, just don’t fucking read them lol. Back then razr phones were the hotness, nobody sat on a smartphone and had ads blasted at them while they took a shit.
by irishcoffee
2/11/2026 at 5:55:53 PM
I guess, if you equate "influence" with "abuse". An awful lot pillars of our society would become abuse then. Ask any parent of a toddler whether their toilet time is actually "theirs".by nostrademons
2/12/2026 at 1:47:25 PM
Employers should not be treating employees like toddlers and try to brainwash them on the goddamn toiletby estimator7292
2/12/2026 at 5:57:05 PM
My point is the opposite actually: if you are the parent of a toddler, you'll know that your toilet time is not actually yours, because your toddler will try every effort to get your attention and influence you, up to and including crawling into your lap while you are doing your business; tantrumming on the bathroom floor; tantrumming outside the bathroom door; cutting up the mail you really need to file; spilling food all over the floor; unlatching childproofing; moving furniture; and enlisting their siblings.by nostrademons
2/10/2026 at 6:19:14 PM
I play chess on the toilet at work.by trueismywork
2/10/2026 at 3:54:57 PM
It's not really a FAANG thing. I bet you've seen the memes about X days without a serious accident, or without stopping the production line. It's the equivalent in a restroom or a urinal: A place you can make sure people see key information. You can find this in many industrial sites. A call center might have reminders of core principles for how to close calls quickly, or when to escalate. A lab might have safety tips. A restaurant will remind you of hand washing. An industrial site of some important safety tip or two.While I've not seen this in every single place I've worked, it's very common.
by hibikir
2/10/2026 at 3:25:00 PM
I can say at Google we usually just had engineering tip posters in the washrooms they were usually very insightful and just written by other engineers at the company.Stuff like how to reduce nesting logic, how to restructure APIs for better testing, etc.
People usually like them. I can't say I've seen what the parent post described so I imagine it's "the other" FAANG mentioned here.
by 3vidence
2/10/2026 at 4:39:18 PM
Yep, I frankly thought Testing On The Toilet was pretty great.That and nice washing toilets.
by cmrdporcupine
2/10/2026 at 3:33:29 PM
You're right that it was just other employees who decided what to print there. But I don't think that absolves the company (Facebook) really... Everything a company does is just things that its people do! Nothing about the flyer was outside the parameters of the job of its maker. Their job was to make the company money by helping advertisers maximize ad revenue, and that's exactly what they were doing.by conartist6
2/10/2026 at 3:59:22 PM
https://testing.googleblog.com/2024/12/tech-on-toilet-drivin...by tantalor
2/10/2026 at 3:41:41 PM
Facebook had a serious internal propaganda arm when I was there. Couldn't manage to get floor length stall walls in most of the bathrooms, but every stall had a weekly newsletter about whatever product stuff.Every high traffic flat space on the wall would be covered with a poster, most of them with designs lifted from US WWII propaganda, many hard to tell if satire or not. I was surprised there was never one about carpooling with der füher.
by toast0
2/10/2026 at 5:12:49 PM
Facebook employees may be the easiest "prey" to programIf something as crude as flyers in bathroom stalls is effective
by 1vuio0pswjnm7
2/10/2026 at 5:38:10 PM
FB uses its addict money to pay those employees. I assume the pay is what’s effective. Actually a good business model. Pay employees to improve how addictive your drug is, get more money from addicts, and use that to pay your employees more money, completing the loop.But then drugs being profitable isn’t really news
by danny_codes
2/11/2026 at 2:14:15 PM
No its not even that.The people who work at these firms were losers in life to begin with. Misery loves company.
Give them some cash and some feeling of power on working on stuff billions of people use... and there you have it.
No one with any morals would choose to work there. You simply wouldnt. Youd be working elsewhere, knowing full well you are choosing not to contribute in lining the pockets of people like Zuck.
Apple is the only somewhat respectable large tech firm.
by dsf3dd
2/10/2026 at 5:20:31 PM
It also says a lot if that's the most effective way vs normal ways of disseminating the info.by dylan604
2/10/2026 at 5:48:39 PM
Honestly 95% of the time it was about technical stuff and I loved it. I've never worked at another company so active in shaping its own culture. Problems other companies had conditioned me to expect could never be fixed would often be gone in a few months because someone had made it their mission to fix.That was part of something else I loved about their culture: there was room for anyone to move up if they could show they were creating value for the company. Other companies felt like everyone was competing for the same two promotions, but Facebook did not.
In retrospect though this also kind of looks like an unaccountability machine. If each employee must take independent action to justify their own paycheck in terms of their value to the company, most ethically questionable outcomes are the result of cumulative choices made by rank and file employees who know which side their bread is buttered on.
by conartist6
2/10/2026 at 7:10:14 PM
I'm always a bit surprised by the degree that non-tech people don't understand how much they're being openly and transparently manipulated in various ways. Most of my work has been statistical/quantitative in nature from complex A/B testing setups to dynamic pricing algorithms. Yet so many of the most benign parts of my work in the past unnerve some people.Measuring human behavior and exploiting it for some hope at profit has been an obvious part of my job description for many years. Yet I've had friends and acquaintances that are shocked when they accidentally realize they're part of an A/B test "Wait, Amazon doesn't show the same thing to everyone!?" I've seen reddit conversations where people are horrified at the idea of custom pricing models (something so mundane it could easily be an interview question). I had a friend once claim a basic statement about what I did at work was a "conspiracy theory" because clearly companies don't really have that much control.
To your point, at work the fact that we're manipulating people algorithmically isn't remotely a secret. Nobody in the room at any of my past jobs has felt a modicum of shame about optimization. The worst part is I have drawn a line multiple times at past jobs (typically to my own detriment), so there are things that even someone as comfortable with this as I am finds go to far. Ironically, I've found it's hard to get non-technical people to care about these because you have to understand the larger context to see just how dangerous they are.
I have ultimately decided to avoid working in the D2C space because inevitably you realize you aren't providing any real value to your user (despite internal sloganeering to the contrary) and very often causing real harm. In the B2B space you're working with customers who you have a real business relationship with, so crass manipulation to move the needle for one month isn't worth the long term harm.
by crystal_revenge
2/10/2026 at 8:19:12 PM
I'm always a bit surprised that people that work in tech can be so passive in regards to their civic duty. Instead of going to lawmakers and legislators and trying to stop their employers from destroying society they just quietly watch from the sidelines.And if laqmakers are silent, then publicising, collecting, and sharing this knowledge to all ends of the earth through mainstream and independent journalism, paying a few hundred dollars out of their Silicon Valley salaries to put up billboards shining a light on the misdeeds of tech companies towards their own customers and society.
Per your examples, when the average person is made aware of the injustice, stalking, and tracking of them, they are not in any way happy with it, and want things to change.
by upboundspiral
2/10/2026 at 9:54:40 PM
> Per your examples, when the average person is made aware of the injustice, stalking, and tracking of them, they are not in any way happy with it, and want things to change.Maybe I'm too cynical, but I don't think this the average person will care as much as you think. Even on HN you get plenty of folks who think that tracking is ok or even a benefit since it provides a more personalized experience.
> I'm always a bit surprised that people that work in tech can be so passive in regards to their civic duty. Instead of going to lawmakers and legislators and trying to stop their employers from destroying society they just quietly watch from the sidelines.
Snowden was almost 15 years ago. The only punishment meted out as a result of him coming forward was for Snowden himself. Why would anyone else assume that coming forward would result in substantive change?
by AlexandrB
2/10/2026 at 3:27:41 PM
Did you take a copy of that flyer? I would be interested to see it.by RegW
2/10/2026 at 4:30:23 PM
I looked and I do not have a photoby conartist6
2/11/2026 at 11:31:45 AM
I think you’re misremembering. Research shows it’s 2 seconds not .2 seconds.by derangedHorse
2/10/2026 at 4:39:38 PM
Alright. I may object to the wording, but ... isn't what you described also a good website? I am aware of how much propaganda Google uses too, e. g. "engage the user" - you see that on youtube "leave a like". They are begging people to vote. Not for the vote, but to engage him. I saw this not long ago on Magic Arena by Wizards of the coast. They claim "your feedback is valuable" but you can only vote up or vote down. That's not feedback - that is lying to the user to try to get the user to make a reaction and tell others about it. I just don't really see the difference. You describe it that they manipulate people, but ANY ad-department of a company uses propaganda and manipulates people. Look in a grocery, how many colours are used in the packaging. Isn't ALL of this also manipulative?by shevy-java
2/10/2026 at 4:42:23 PM
Google doesn't beg you for likes. Channels beg you for likes because it's one of the metrics they are stack–ranked by. Someone will lose, and they don't want it to be them.by direwolf20
2/10/2026 at 5:52:24 PM
> isn't what you described also a good website?No, good software is and feels empowering. It should scream the developer understood what YOU want to do at that specific point. Most notable, the faster the job is DONE the better.
Putting up flyers in the toilet isn't to enhance your toilet experience. It is the opposite, if we want to enhance the flyer engagement the easiest way is by de-optimizing all parts of the toilet UX. Say we remove all but one toilet rolls and make the side a bit wet. If some of the locks don't work we could dramatically enhance the number of walls and doors people look at. Ideal would be to lock everyone in the stall until the next prey arrives. Should release them just early enough that they don't inform the next victim.
by 6510
2/10/2026 at 6:04:22 PM
There is an entire agency that focuses on Food and Drugs in America, and its similar around the world. We have many rules on food.Food is actually a great place to think about social media, because there was a time where the FDA didnt exist. Its need was felt after cities grew larger and the food supply chain became longer. At that point food could be adultered and the old systems which people relied on to know the provenance of their food failed.
Some of the things that changed this was when people started doing indepedent testing and finding out exactly how much adultery was actually taking place.
Eventually we got rules about what was to be done, which we don't consider anymore since its part of daily life.
by intended
2/10/2026 at 6:32:06 PM
>> on the inside of the bathroom stall door to try to get the word outI wonder if anyone considered the bias of this communication channel towards women, or did they also post them above the urinals?
by ludicrousdispla
2/10/2026 at 6:40:06 PM
If this was Google, Testing on the Toilet and similar flyers were both above urinals and in bathroom stalls.by QuercusMax
2/10/2026 at 4:17:44 PM
Don’t be evilby Gud
2/10/2026 at 6:02:15 PM
> feed video needed to hook the user in the first 0.2 secondsIs this even possible??? It takes me *at least* 2 seconds to see if a video game clip is interesting to me. That is kinda crazy.
by SpaceManNabs
2/10/2026 at 3:14:14 PM
To me this is simply a consequence of the capitalist mode of production.by Atlas667
2/10/2026 at 3:19:17 PM
Yes, because governments are so restrained in their use of propaganda.What it is is the consequence of the power existing. 200 years ago nobody was arguing about how to hook people in the first 0.2 seconds of video, but it's not because nobody would have refused the power it represents if offered. They just couldn't have it. It's humans. People want this power over you. All of them.
by jerf
2/10/2026 at 6:27:08 PM
The system incentivizes seeking power by consolidating financial wealth. It doesn't have to be that way & this will eventually become obvious to everyone.by measurablefunc
2/10/2026 at 3:43:24 PM
> All of them.At least an unhealthy amount of them. I have no desire to have power over people, except I would like it if my kids actually listened to me...
by pstuart
2/10/2026 at 3:52:33 PM
To be fair, it is basically one and the same. I doubt most people railing against capitalism are actually against private property. They probably dislike corporatism which only exists as an extension of the government. Very very few of us voluntarily gave up our right to hold people personally responsible for their actions, but this is forced on everyone on behalf of business interests. The corporate vale is materialized from government alone.by pluralmonad
2/10/2026 at 5:17:46 PM
> I doubt most people railing against capitalism are actually against private property. They probably dislike corporatism which only exists as an extension of the government.I really don't know. In my experience, it can about private property when talking about housing, it is about markets when talking salaries and work conditions, and it's just about having no idea of what capitalism even is and just vaguely pointing at economics the vast majority of the time.
"Capitalism" can be safely replaced with "the illuminati" or "Chem trails" in the vast majority of complaints I hear and read and the message would ultimately make as much sense. There's not a lot of how or why capitalism doesn't work, but by God there sure is a lot of what it seemingly does wrong.
by Levitz
2/10/2026 at 6:40:06 PM
You are displaying your ignorance with pride.Just because you don't know what capitalism is, doesn't mean other people do not know.
Just because you only read sources from capitalist media platforms doesn't mean there isn't a lot of "how" or "why" capitalism doesn't work.
My main message was about the profit motive incentivizing the creation of addictions for the profit of tech companies. The invisible hand may expand the development of tech, but the visible hand needs to make people addicted and unhappy.
Think a little before you speak, please. Or read a little more.
by Atlas667
2/10/2026 at 9:58:18 PM
As bad as things are, the excesses of capitalism pale in comparison to the excesses of communism or fascism. If you have a better system, please present it to the class.by AlexandrB
2/10/2026 at 10:23:37 PM
Capitalism is known to have killed multiple billions world-wide.Nearly all of the poor countries on earth are capitalist. World war 1 was a war of capitalist reorganization, Fascism was a capitalist economic system, therefore WW2 was initiated by capitalist nations. Nearly all wars being fought today are all fought by capitalists on both sides of the conflict. The poorest countries on earth are capitalists. Drug cartels are organization of drug manufacturing and transporting capitalists. Capitalist nations are proven to be the most corrupt countries on earth.
Capitalism has a vested interest in making nations poor for the sake of maximizing profits in resource extraction. Capitalism has waged more war and caused more destruction than any system before it and its only been around for ~400 years.
You really want me to believe that the system that makes money from doing heinous shit is good?
Look into the primary sources behind the things you believe to be true about communism. Many, many are very shaky and were just "cold" war propaganda pieces. I've done exactly that to come to my conclusions.
What I know to be communism, through research, and reading of primary sources, is just the natural conclusion of the democratization of society. People controlling the production they need through councils that they themselves organize into a peoples state.
by Atlas667
2/11/2026 at 1:15:59 PM
This post perfectly proves my point, to which you replied "You are displaying your ignorance with pride."."Fascism was a capitalist economic system" or "Capitalism has waged more war and caused more destruction than any system before" are utterly ridiculous, evidently false statements. The only way you can ever say these things with a straight face is if you don't have the least idea of what capitalism even is.
by Levitz
2/11/2026 at 4:43:12 PM
I think you may be very shocked when you find out that you are wrong.Fascism was an ideology developed by capitalist industrialists, specifically steel trusts in Germany. But had its birth amongst financiers in Italy. Henry Ford was a big proponent of fascism. Fascism did not undo any private property relations, it simply was a single party capitalist state. Ownership of companies was still private. If you were not ideologically or ethnically in line your property was taken away and given to someone who was. Any elimination of property rights specifically only applied to the political opposition, which is in line with repressive capitalism, not with socialism.
The control of market dynamics and labor was for the purposes of war and murder, not an ideological component of fascism. A similar thing happened in all countries who were at war: rationing, price controls, labor allocation, etc, but still capitalists.
The axis was specifically an anti-communist alliance through the anticomintern pact. They specifically wanted to uphold private property.
The ONLY reason that one German country had socialist in their name was to fool the masses. It was to appeal to the masses.
WW1 and WW2 were both started by capitalism. And most wars on going right now, feb 2026, are waged by capitalists factions on both sides.
The figures of death attributed to communism are widely known by academics to be absurdly and unscientifically inflated. The black book of communism is not considered history by historians. The gulag archipelago is not considered history by hostorians.
Why dont you see the black book of capitalism anywhere? There are millions of excuses for every death under capitalism. But there are billions of deaths under capitalism... and counting.
You may think I got here through some sort of unhinged bias or just wanting to go against the grain, but no, I got here through asking myself all these questions sincerely and researching them.
by Atlas667
2/10/2026 at 6:43:30 PM
Do you mean "private property" or "personal property"? These are not the same thing, and those who want to scaremonger about non-capitalist modes of production like to conflate the two.by QuercusMax
2/10/2026 at 10:04:01 PM
Can you explain the difference instead of just alluding to some supposed scaremongering?by AlexandrB
2/10/2026 at 10:27:34 PM
You've never heard someone say "under communism, private property isn't allowed, so you have to share a toothbrush?" I heard that nonsense all the time growing up.Your toothbrush and clothing are personal property. The family farm is private property.
by QuercusMax
2/11/2026 at 6:59:29 AM
The full term is private property over the means of production.The family farm would only fall into that category if youre employing others for profit.
If you're working yourself on it, there is no real social function to it.
by Atlas667
2/10/2026 at 6:33:41 PM
Nah, you're trying to misconstrue people.Corporatism is not a thing. Capitalists hold fundamental power over society, they collectively are the state.
They own the things the rest of the people need to survive. Assuming you are a worker/proletariat: Can you survive right now, today, without interacting with a capitalist entity?
Can you make your living as in food, money, housing, etc, right now, solely from your own property? Statistically not. Capitalists own most of what you require.
"Corporatism" is just capitalism. Capitalists use their media platforms to say the government oppresses them equally to us. When it is proven time and time and time again that they have almost total control and influence over the government.
And you buy the narrative.
There is no "pure capitalism", bro. Capitalism will ALWAYS evolve into this. It's baked into the rules. This is very plain to see.
Go to any main news platform, of any country, on the side of any political wing, of any other capitalist nation on earth and type "corruption" in the corresponding language. You'll be met with a flood of articles.
I am against private property of production, because I know the people who need said production can also democratically run it.
by Atlas667
2/11/2026 at 12:00:32 AM
> Nah, you're trying to misconstrue people.Informing me of my nefarious intentions is a pretty rude way to begin a comment, even if you fancy it a rebuttal.
by pluralmonad
2/11/2026 at 12:12:31 AM
Because many people railing against capitalism actually dislike private property over production and think it carries many ills.Since that was the bulk of your argument that was the summary of my statement, which I opened with. You conveniently ignored the rest of what I said.
by Atlas667
2/10/2026 at 10:09:38 PM
> Can you make your living as in food, money, housing, etc, right now, solely from your own property? Statistically not. Capitalists own most of what you require.You can't survive from your own property in a communist society either because the state own all of it. Instead of power accruing in the hands of a few capitalists, it accrues in the hands of a few politicians/dictators. What's the fundamental difference here? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
by AlexandrB
2/10/2026 at 10:34:11 PM
This is false and not at all what I have researched and back as a communist.In a communist society YOU control production through democracy. The whole point is for the people to be their own governing force. That is why communists mention "state control", but another, ultra important aspect that is conveniently not mentioned by capitalist propaganda, is council democracy.
You are your local state. You and your neighbors organized in a council form your local state.
You and your neighbors make sure that no single individual or minority controls your production.
YOU and your neighbors form your own executive, legislative and judicial branches.
This is in reality what communist literature is about. The american mind cannot comprehend democracy, i swear.
And if system were to results in a small group of people holding power and using production to make money, well, that would a capitalist system. Words have meaning.
Democracy is not based on trust, like the political system we have right now. Don't trust me, do your own god damned research. Don't trust millionaire connected politicians either. And don't trust capitalist media either. Democracy is based on control.
by Atlas667
2/10/2026 at 3:26:11 PM
Well adjusted people so not want that power over other peopleIt's sociopaths and narcissists which want it.
And as Atlas667 pointed out, it's also a direct consequence from a capitalistic world view, where it has replaced your morals.
This is not in relationship to state propaganda. Multiple things can cause abhorrent behavior, and just because we've identified something as problematic doesn't inherently imply that other unrelated examples are any better.
by ffsm8
2/10/2026 at 4:14:41 PM
"Well adjusted people so not want that power over other people"There are certainly well adjusted people that would like to fix things they feel are inefficiencies or issues in their government, especially when those issues are directly related to their areas of expertise. Thinking well adjusted people wouldn't want to be in a position of power is exactly how you ensure that only bad people end up with power.
by testdummy13
2/10/2026 at 4:51:12 PM
Power seekers acquire power, not knowledge seekers. This is from Plato’s The Republic so about as old as it gets.by riversflow
2/10/2026 at 3:27:35 PM
We've always had sociopaths and narcissists, and if you're looking to "capitalism" as the reason why they exist, you're in out-and-out category error territory, not-even-wrong territory. Now that this power exists to be had, human beings are racing to acquire it. If you think you can fix that by "fixing capitalism" you are completely wasting your efforts.by jerf
2/10/2026 at 3:51:56 PM
So if that’s not the answer, what is? Should we just throw our hands in the air and say that technology has defeated our monkey brains, and there’s no going back?by shermantanktop
2/10/2026 at 3:46:42 PM
Given that these tendencies are not evenly distributed throughout the population, you can have structures that leverage the large mean to mitigate the worst tendencies of the extreme tails. Given that the natural state of things is that power begets more power, these are harder to build and maintain, but it can be done. In particular, Democracies and Republics are major historical examples of this.by dwallin
2/10/2026 at 3:54:51 PM
Who said anything about government? I thought it was humans and people?by anonymars
2/10/2026 at 6:20:34 PM
You didn't say anything.People do have this power right now, they are called capitalists, they are a part of the tech/info/policing industry.
You don't have this control, I don't have this control. It's not humans in general, it's literally the capitalists. Right now, today. Try and "timelessly universalize" that.
It's the people who make money from this who want it.
I would rather that no one particular person or group of people have that much power, and I would rather help organize society to collectively and democratically decide what goes on with this tech but I guess that proudly makes me a communist.
by Atlas667
2/10/2026 at 3:33:55 PM
[flagged]by _factor
2/10/2026 at 3:51:24 PM
History contains abundant, well-documented cases of ordinary people participating in atrocities without coercion. Most people will act decently in low-pressure environments and will act badly under certain incentives, authority structures, or group dynamics. There is no way to know what a person's threshold is until it's tested, but it can be assumed that most people have a low threshold.by afpx
2/10/2026 at 3:57:43 PM
Parent was implying “all” humans crave this power over others. This is patently false.“Most” people won’t act badly to attain this power, “some” will. Being placed into a position and choosing harm is not the same as pursuing it.
by _factor
2/10/2026 at 4:04:01 PM
That is absolutely against the evidence, but yes people do like to think they are naturally righteous and good.by afpx
2/10/2026 at 4:53:20 PM
What evidence is there that ALL humans crave power over other humans?by klaff
2/10/2026 at 9:14:34 PM
We're literally animals, evolved for dominancehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dominance_hierarchy_sp...
One could try to argue that some of us are special exceptions. But, there's no evidence for that.
(The delightfully ironic humor of it is that people who presumably have your same point of view are down-voting me into negative)
by afpx
2/10/2026 at 3:24:53 PM
That may be true but I think the unspoken assumption in your comment is that somehow, without capitalism, greed magically melts away. How do you explain the constant extreme rampant corruption in communist and socialist countries over 100 years if not from GREED?by seberino
2/10/2026 at 3:41:42 PM
I know that it doesn't. Greed will be ever-present, yes, but that doesn't mean that it's a one-way ratchet. It's something we have to keep fighting against all the time. Greed starts out as a driver of progress, then eventually becomes an impediment to progress. The other constant there is progress! No dam will block a river forever.by conartist6
2/10/2026 at 6:12:12 PM
The definition of capitalism is the private ownership of production and its use to generate profits.I think a coerced assumption you may have of capitalism is that corruption is an unintended side effect, but it actually follows from its principles.
How is a society to maintain unmarred democratic institutions when its elements are fundamentally unequal? Put more clearly: How can people have the same amount of political power when one class (capitalist) OWNS the production of what the other class (workers) need?
The mythology of capitalist society paints both them as equals and the state as neutral. This is a tactic to preserve the appearance of a democratic backbone. They afford this mythology because capitalists own the air waves and they have, and can have, the most influence in the state. In fact, due to this fundamental inequality capitalists are, for all practical purposes, capitalists are the state.
Capitalist societies put political power up for auction; Corruption has its highest manifestation within capitalist societies.
Now to your point. Greed will never "magically melt away". Greed can only be controlled through democratic control of what permits greed in the first place.
Communism/socialism isn't about magically doing or undoing anything, it's the science of creating firm and unalienable working class power. It must start with democratic control of production and local peoples councils. Greed will not magically melt away, greed must be constantly cut out by everyone by everyone HAVING the political power to cut it out. This means peoples councils will be convened at the neighborhood level, peoples courts will be manned, not by professional judges, but by rotating locally elected citizens. Council delegates will be bound by law to only, and exclusively, be messengers at higher level councils, etc. This is just a small picture of what democracy is. It is not me to say specifically how, of course, but communism does not involve blindly and powerlessly trusting political candidates, like capitalist society requires.
There is a reason communism is demonized by the people who control our society.
by Atlas667
2/10/2026 at 3:19:30 PM
Capitalism or consumerism, a never ending offer and demand for goods, material or immaterial?by pmontra
2/10/2026 at 4:34:16 PM
The public got a peek at it with Cambridge Analytica creating hundreds of thousands of personality profiles, they then used to create Trump's MAGA army of flying monkeys. The Democrats could have done something about it, and made it illegal, but instead they just decided to build there own armies of flying monkeys. Why? Because both sides are bought and paid for by the same rich parasites trying to reprogram us.by webdoodle
2/10/2026 at 4:43:49 PM
did democrats create flying monkey armies? I haven't seen anywhere near as much Democrat propaganda as Republican, which is probably why they keep losing. Only recently, once Republican policies came into effect and people experienced their consequences, did Republican votes decline.by direwolf20