Most of My Instagram Ads Are for Drugs, Stolen Credit Cards, Hacked Accounts, Counterfeit Money, and Weapons
https://www.404media.co/instagram-ads-illegal-content-drugs-guns-hackers/Open linkView original on lemmy.world675
Comments125https://www.404media.co/instagram-ads-illegal-content-drugs-guns-hackers/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
The biggest media corporations are allowed to advertise literal crime. Meanwhile saying the word cigarette on tv will get you jail time.
Smoke
Are you smoking yet?
I am smoking. Inside.
Wtf does their browser history look like to be getting those sorts of ads?!
In the article he states that he kept clicking on those ads on purpose, in order to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
I saw that double post ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I would be very curious to see the algorithm adapting to that:
User: click on shrooms ad
AI: Oh he likes shrooms with his cocaine! Let's try a marijuana to snort with his cocaine.
Some, sure. I asked my weed dealer to show me a bit on how this works. You’d be amazed at how much dealing is done over clearnet on FB messenger, whatsapp, etc. Little to no technical security. Selling drugs online has become much more mainstream than it was during the $10 bitcoin days. Not that I’d personally use clearnet for drugs, but that’s where a ton of deals are happening. This article only confirms what I’ve already seen.
Yep, so much stuff that used to be on TOR moved to discord. Then if they are smart they use Signal or Session, but I have heard of a lot of stuff just straight on FB... it's crazy. I guess with that many transactions, it's a really though game of whackamole. Especially since the internet made it much easier to deal drugs without needing to hold huge quantities at once.
How would one find the discord groups so I can be sure to stay away from them?
That wock is absolutely fent, and with those prices, that LSD is probably 25i.
The DMT seems legit tho
ITT: People who are so quick to suggest ad blockers they miss the point of the conversation.
Easy, just delete Instagram.
Well, Instagram did just that for my little book publishing company. I signed up for a business account in the hopes of selling some books, putting up some ads, and posting a few updates, only to get a fucking PERMABAN during fucking SIGNUP.
So you are right and it really is super easy.
(ffs i should’ve sold drugs damnit)
Sure, assuming that their job is filling beds in prison rather than actually reducing crime.
But conceivably they could be enforcing the law by putting pressure on these companies to stop facilitating advertising of illegal services and thereby the flow of business. If they instead just don't bother with that so that they can use these ads to pick out and track down the juiciest, lowest effort prosecution targets, representing a small proportion of the total market, that's pure corruption with little to no social benefit.
To be clear I don't actually know if this is what is going on, but if it was it would be reprehensible.
people still not blocking ads, use adblock!
I use an alternative side-loaded Instagram app called Instander which blocks ads and comes with other nice features. I don't use the platform much anyhow, but when I do it makes the experience actually tolerable.
No, what people should start doing is demanding that governments actually enforce the law against Facebook for acting as an accomplice to the myriad crimes the article discusses. Facebook should be dissolved and executives should go to prison.
ReVanced says they support removing timeline ads from Instagram. I don't use Instagram, so I haven't tested it, though.
Pihole oughta do it.
That is true, didn't think about that.
People use the app, have their info exploited and than complain this is the only way to use a service that is exploiting your clicks, and yet, you don't stop using it, really weird.
eh, I'm a photographer/videographer. sadly I more or less need to use it if I want anyone to find me...
Similarly, my YouTube shorts are filled with gambling videos and “get rich quick scheme” videos. Seems as though “do not recommend channel” blocks the channel but assumes you have some growing interest in the topic.
I just want to watch woodworking shorts and plumbing videos T_T
Maybe do Not Interested and then Do not recommend channel?
Unless doing the former just hides the video immediately and doesn’t let you do the latter, in which case just call me a fool.
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Has changing your preferences from https://adssettings.google.com helped?
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I just got an extension that removes shorts. I tried blocking channels, saying I wasn't interested, pressing the thumbs down button, but it would still show trash like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate.
im getting the wrong type of ads lol
Yeah I just get fed with bullshit on ADHD and Autism nonstop.
You don't hate the modern web. You hate people.
I felt the same way but with the Reddit thing I started switching up some of my sites.
Have you used any of the SearX instances? Works just as well as google for the most part
Have you tried Apple 1 instead of I?
Yeah for niche stuff it’s not going to perform well (yet) sadly but 1 day!
Now here's the exact problem with the so called "personalized" ads, that Google and Facebook serves what the advertisers think you want to see, instead of what you actually want to see.
This is the fundamental conflict of interest which the obvious conclusion is that online banner/video advertisements doesn't work, and has never worked, because ultimately, no matter how many times you shove ads in people's faces via a thoughtless machine, you can't "trick" people into liking something. What people want is thoughtful, sincere recommendations by real people, which is why we have seen the rise of sassy brand Twitter accounts being so successful for a time: because there is a real person behind it.
(Of course, it's really funny if you take blatant advertisment to its logical extreme, and even that seemed more effective.)
Of course, Google and Facebook will never admit that they've been lying to everyone and themselves for more than a decade, because to do so is to admit that their entire business of Web 2.0 was built on an absurd and illogical premise of again, if you show people ads for things they never asked for a thousand times, then you can brainwash them into liking something.
In other words, Google and Facebook's entire advertisment business model, if you really think about it, is really no different than pick-up artist logic, and. They. Just. Won't. Go. Away.
Turns out though you can absolutely trick them into believing conspiracy theories with social media ads.
Learn the TRUTH about this thing you’re already primed for by your bias!
click
Holy crap! He’s a alien! U cud tell frum the eyez! 👁️👁️👀👽
You can absolutely trick people into liking drugs too
Fuuuuuuck the Sacklers.
Pretty much every industry works by tricking people into liking things.
Like the razors with four+ blades on them, people buy them cause the commercials say "more blades is better".
People wouldn't seek out extra blades if they weren't tricked into liking it. They are objectively worse than single blade razors.
Exactly. If it didn't pay off these companies wouldn't keep shoveling money to Facebook and Google to show their ads time and time again. Marketing is expensive. If it didn't at least break even then nobody would be doing it anymore by now. Obviously it works, otherwise I wouldn't ever know what the fuck a squarespace or a goddamn raid shadow legends is.
The ads that I mind the least and the ones I find the most effective are sponsors for creators that I like. Short sponsor segments really don't annoy me as much and I have actually tried a couple products that have advertised that way.
That said, almost all of them sucked in the end but that's another subject entirely.
You're clearly a known customer for those products :p The algorithm is never wrong..
Drugs or Chinese scam products. Had a friend tell me he ordered something that never showed up, turned out they sent these super cheap toothbrushes in the mail and then tried to use that tracking info as proof he received what he bought. They just allow anyone who will pay to advertise illegal shit, scams, whatever it's the wild West.
I may or may not have acquired exactly the acid in those pics.
I definitely did not.
Or did I?
It looks identical actually and I’m willing to bet it came from the same place.
If I actually had it that is.
lucky 😮💨 all mine are weight loss scams and laptop deals
Pixelfed
Ain't that many thots there. Could be a good it bad thing.
U saying there's an untapped market? 😏
If only there was a Pixelfed instance that hosted OnlyFans, Cosplayers, and random exhibitionists. Everyone else could just subscribe to it.
Oooohhh nooooooo!~ :3
Are the drugs any good?
Mine is all for phone cases. How do I get the ads for drugs?
Al the author, he clearly knows.
Aren't those ads personalised to your browsing history?
Should that be a reason to get adds for illegal things? … at all?
Tangently...you read one gay rights article and suddenly your ad feed is filled with hot single dads in my area...
Nice 👍
Do you have a link to the article?
They are personalised by the "bucket" that data collection companies like Google or Facebook placed you into based on profiling. Browsing and search history is only one of the factors that is taken into account when you are profiled, there are myriad more ways to collect data about you.
And then what ads you see is determined by what advertisers think your "bucket" wants. If you are male in your 20s living in rural USA and advertisers think that males in their 20s living in rural USA are interested in guns, then that's what you will see - even if you never clicked on gun ad or searched for guns on Google.
Personally whenever I go to Instagram all I get are cat videos and ads about "targeted mushrooms" and kava drinks...
It all checks out ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Or you just happen to live in an area with many addicts.
If I pay more can I get some ads for drugs, money, and weapons?
I'm trying to kick an opiate habit and seeing that I can buy them on Instagram is not helping
If it helps, there's a 99.9% chance they just take your money and not send any drugs
That's exactly why I've never actually tried one of these things. I had someone on Reddit message me once and give me a dude's telegraph info and it was so obviously a scam.
The dude asked what I wanted and I said something really vague and he immediately said "okay how many" without clarifying. Then when I didn't respond, he sent a screenshot of allll his notifications from messages he was getting from "happy customers"
I don't see a problem. Shroom time babey
You don't see a problem when Instagram's target market is teens and young people?
Did you miss the part where the ads were offering things like stolen credit card info and unregistered firearms, too?
If their stolen credit cards worked why are they selling them?
Because it’s one more degree of abstraction from the fraud and thus slightly safer. People absolutely sell working CC numbers online.
I mean I don't wanna just do cash advances on 100 stolen credit cards. That'll get you caught so fast.
Legit crypto exchanges won't accept credit cards anymore, they want a bank account attached.
You can use it to deliver stuff to like a nearby location you can like pick up, then sell I guess? But how often can you do that?
Using in stores assuming you have a physical card is dangerous because if it's reported stolen by the time you use it, they'll let the cops know and turn over the camera stuff.
Compare to, send the CC info to a random person, get $200 in crypto, and let them do one of the above and take all the risk. If you have 1000 stolen cards that is just so much safer and faster.
They work but very risky to use. Much better to sell them off instead of using them yourself.
I went on Edge, logged into Facebook, then proceeded to google various horse related things and visit the resulting websits. Now my ads are all about horses. I don't own a horse, never been especially into them. But they're nice and inoffensive in my feed.
LifeProTip
Have you tried ublock origin?
Using umatrix. Difficulty is these are the ads presented as part of the feed so they're difficult to block. Like the promoted posts on reddit.
Dang I need some of those mushrooms and ketamine microdosing.
Mushroom spores are legal. The ketamine shit might, in some cases, be legit but won't be covered by insurance.
Yeah I've looked into the ketamine treatments. $2800
It's not a honeypot. It's a genuine company. I am not sure if what they do is actually helping anyone but to my knowledge the treatments are pretty expensive.
Yeah I get a lot of those as well. Anxiety, ADHD, and autism stuff mostly. I keep shooting down the ads as I suffer from none of these things. No idea why it keeps pushing that crap.
So basically the silk road moved to Instagram & Telegram... pretty ballsy, I wonder how much of it is honey potting?
That's a pretty good deal for a hot Nina with all the fixings... also I see a lot of fentanyl pills in those listings.
Didn't those fake oil carts that were getting people sick come from Instagram? The ones with vitamin D oil as filler
There are still a bunch of darknet markets though, it's two different demographics buying at each
Yeah, there will always be dark markets. But it's nothing like, nor do I think it ever will be like it was in its hay day. I don't check regularly, but last I looked these markets have nothing close to the user base of even the days of agora/dream/Wallstreet. You could buy quantities of stuff at user level for real cheap. As they started cracking down, it all started to turn into bulk because no one wanted to deal with transaction frequency risk, I suspect it's the same today.
I was on the original Silk Road back in the day, those were the golden years. I don't fuck with drugs anymore because even the non-hard stuff is completely tainted with fetanyl these days.
says something
Preamble to the shitty internet bills that will get passed on a holiday weekend at 2am?
All my Twitter ads are just about AI images.
Well sir. Given that the algorhythm designed for procuring that content is literally the best at its job bar none. And having also had personal experience with this. One of two things or both is happening. #1 you like to partake in partying and you seek that out sometimes. And the software knows that. #2 you associate with drugs dealers who are in your social media circles.
Let's be clear. This content isnt shown to you just because. Its being shown to you because you have displayed a pattern of seeking where these items come into play or you talk to people who regularly engage in this.
I'm a 28 year old man. I have never been shown a targeted advertisement for feminine hygiene products. Also I had never seen advertisements on social media for literal drugs and shit until I went thru a phase where I developed a pretty bad coke habit for a while and had a lot of dealers in my phone.
It could just be that they work in a kitchen.
You assume that the algorithm works perfectly. It does not. Sometimes, the data points it connects on people is "male person living in Kansas" and just serve you ads with those keywords. Which means one day you see an ad for Cheerios, the next day you see an ad for your local crystal meth store.
You should read the article.
I'm sorry, but I don't buy that 100%. To an extent maybe, but there are ads that get presented to me sometimes that is just wild out of the blue and I'm like what the fuck. I didn't do anything to suggest. I might like this at all. So I can understand what this person saying
We thought they would use crime prediction for putting us to jail, but instead they just advertise
stop following rap/hip-hop artists
How does that do anything for the problem the author writes about, though? They're not complaining about their own feed being spammed with this stuff, they're complaining that it's so rampant in the first place and that Meta does little to nothing to prevent it.
Nothing, but hopefully it's helpful for anyone that reads it
How would Revanced help with IG ads? (Sincere question - I'm occasionally on IG and the ads are obnoxious. )
Of course, there are patches for many apps now. I'll attach a screenshot:
The specific patch, which is the only one you should be using normally, is to remove ads from Instagram.
Thanks. I didn't know Revanced was used for more than one app.
I tried that. Got it installed with default settings and looked no different. Half my feed is suggested bullshit.
After all, you are using Instagram... Just without promoted ads
Asking tech giants to start policing people sounds like it can get bad really quickly…but at the same time letting them do nothing also sounds terrible
That's an interesting take.
These companies are accepting money from criminal enterprises to advertise criminal enterprises.
You don't need them to police people, you need them to stop being overt criminals themselves.
Exactly. Meta is an accomplice to all these crimes! Why do so many of the folks in this thread and elsewhere fail to realize that?!
How the fuck is vetting the ads on their platform "policing" people?
You sound like you love to see ads, otherwise why the fuck are you not blocking them using extensions?
I don't use Instagram altogether, this isn't about me. The main audience of Instagram (and other Meta platforms) are teens, whom you should not expose to such advertisements. Some are not tech literate and are capable of blocking Meta's ads on a DNS level or with some other trickery. Look at the broader audience, this isn't a "Me" post.
No relation to Instagram, this is about the internet as a whole, no one ever should be online without at least 5 adblocking extensions.
Yes, ignore the root problem and instead cover it with a bandaid solution.
If someone had a cut on their leg that had turned black and smelled like rancid meat, would you just tell them that no one should go out in public without pants and deodorant?
You sound like you didn't read the article. This not about seeing ads or not, it's about large corporations allowing and making profits off advertising criminal activities.
You mean the same ones that could be easily blocked by extensions so none of us would be talking about it right now and giving them more clicks? you clearly missed the point.
I didn't miss the point, the point is not about seeing ads or not. Expand your thought process a bit.
You can't block ads in a app. This should be common knowledge.
Joke is on you, stop using the app.
Instander.
Is that Homelander's Instagram?
Hahahahaha, no lol. It's a "fork" of instagram with some quality of life improvements (and no-ads)
You can just patch it
The post title is the title of the article, where an investigative journalist intentionally manipulates the algorithm to produce this result. If he used an ad blocking extension, he'd be unable to hold Meta accountable for what they are doing.
So maybe calm down about that given the context, and perhaps establish the context before you decide to click reply.