Of Aardvarks and Algorithms

It's hard to feel anything for Facebook.  They are just omnipresent if not always noticed.  Like nitrogen in our atmosphere.  I don't hold them to any particular ethical standards.  As the old saying goes "If you are not paying for a product you ARE the product".  So naturally they sell whatever information they can get about us to all sorts of advertisers.

But of late I'm getting a bit annoyed with them.  The ads I see are a mixture of products for rickety old people (arthritis medicines being among the least offensive) and for witless young people.  So many online games featuring winsome elves.  Just, so many.

It is all run by algorithms, complicated lines of code that suggest that people who click on subject A might well be willing to purchase product B.  Well, time to toss a few wrenches - spanners to my UK friends - into the works.

So, on the first of each month I am going to enter a random string of "interests" into the system.  Maybe by setting ad preferences, maybe by looking up and clicking on various facebook pages.  I will try to make it things that I have little to no real connection with.  And then see how this impacts the ads that FB sends my way.  To make it more fun each batch of "wrenches" will be grouped by alphabet.  Lets start with then things that /cue Grover voice/ start with The Letter A.

Facebook, please, send me ads relating to:

Aardvarks
Albania
Albacore Tuna
Amerigo Vespuchi
AAA batteries
Aye-Aye lemurs
Algebra
AP Calculus
Accordions
Azaleas

I'll report back in a month, and if the experiment proves interesting I've got the rest of the alphabet to play with.

Then I can move on to the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets to really mess with 'em.

Update:

I jumped the gun and threw out aardvark bait a day early.  The first five items I entered as searches on Facebook, the second five on Google.  One of my kids in the tech industry also suggested that I clearly read each line item into the computer's microphone.

So far not much happening, and if I've got the algorithms off balance, great.  Current Facebook ads are something from Paypal wanting to loan me money, exercise equipment which is of course seasonal....and storage shelves.  Hmmmm.  I have been collecting workbenches and shelves for the robotics workshop.  How did they know.

Ah well.  An early toast for the New Year.  "To the Confusion of the Algorithms!"