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We like to ignore things.
Especially things like the ads that pop up during a video or the ones on the side of a webpage. However things like these should be noticed, after all they were made for you.
But the Internet will not allow itself to be ignored.
The Internet may just seem like a tool we use to read articles, watch Netflix, and laugh at YouTube. Contrary to popular belief, what we do on the web does matter. The web tracks what we search and either delivers us content such as targeted ads, or recommended websites based on our search history.
Targeted advertisements are the ads that are displayed ads are displayed based on your search history, purchase history, and demographic. These are typically from a search engine or website selling your personal information to companies, to make a profit. Those companies then use “tags” such as specific words to track your interests and will show ads based on those tags. According to a 2012 Pew Internet and American Life Project report, 59 percent of Internet users said they observed targeted advertising while surfing the Web.
“Targeted ads seem like a good idea business-wise; showing people what it seems like they want. However, the ads are typically really big, and people use ad-blocking software which really makes them ineffective,” said sophomore Aiden Wantz.
Buzzfeed and other online news sources have a sly way of advertising, called native advertisements. These native advertisements are usually disguised as an article or feature, these are intentionally deceptive, to convince consumers to buy or support a corporation's products.
Native advertising is becoming more and more prominent because many realize traditional banner ads are not working very well. In fact according to statistics taken by The Rich Media Gallery, between December 2015 and February 2016, for every 10,000 times an ad is displayed there are only 7 clicks on it.
“I can definitely see why corporations are using native advertising. Regular pop up ads, are just easily ignorable. If you can make an ad something actually interesting, then people would actually click on it. It doesn’t bother me too much seeing how there's a lot of biased journalism these days. MSNBC, and Fox News for example both have overt bias on what they report and how they report it. The only difference is that native advertising seems shadier,” said Carlmont history teacher Jason Waller.
The Internet doesn’t only change for the individual. In fact, it is constantly changing based on popular searches. This can lead to many innocent things getting an offensive connotation. For example, in 2015, Google Maps had a series of embarrassments. Because of racist remarks about President Barack Obama, Google Maps would display the White House, when “N-word king” was entered.
Another recent example of this is Microsoft’s AI, Tay who according to Microsoft emulated teenage speech patterns and would learn by observing other Tweets, and replies.
However after, many anti-semitic and racist responses were posted onto Tay’s profile, the AI’s Tweets turned anti-semitic, and pro-white supremacy.
Lisa Nakamura, a University of Michigan professor was quoted in a Wired article saying “[This] is a higher-profile example of something that’s been happening a really long time, which is that user-generated content used to answer questions reflects those pervasive attitudes that most people don’t want to think about.”
The Internet has long been adapting to what we say, write, and watch on it. New ways to entice us, and new ways to change the Internet itself
But now the Internet has a consciousness. So be wary of how your electronic footprint treads.
