Comment by transcriptase
4 hours ago
I suspect there are either employees or contractors getting a cut because even getting a legitimate ad that doesn’t break any rules through review can be an exercise in frustration.
I once spent days getting rejection after rejection for ads for a Christmas light show event at a vineyard (not winery, it was a dry event), on the grounds that I was apparently selling alcohol.
Meanwhile I get ads for black market cigarettes, shrooms, roids, cannabis, and anything else you can imagine.
Yes please I totally agree. Something big must be going on there. I once bought an item through an Instagram ad. For about a month I got fake updates about shipping. Then one day I get an email that itvwas delivered 2 days ago, complete with a different shipping path and an apparently real USPS tracking ID. Of course I received nothing. Complained to PayPal, the complaint was closed within minutes as not valid.
What compelled you to buy something through an ad? Does it often work? My operating assumption is that every click-through internet ad other than major brands (Apple, car makers, etc) is basically a scam.
I've bought shirts I've seen through Facebook ads before. Ads can work, but Facebook is propped up with so many scams these days you have to wonder at what point do they get investigated over it? Amazon has had a similar problem, I've seen loads of threads here over it. I have been fortunate enough that most things I've bought off amazon have been legit.
Yes, it often works. Ads are basically the only way for small business discovery.
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Yeah, don't do that. Instagram ads are no different to the WURGLBIXY and HUYTVING and XORMLINAP and other smashed up syllable "brands" on Amazon, except they'll mostly deliver something to you, even if it is shit.
Take any of the images from an Instagram ad. Someone, somewhere, did (probably) build or design the product being sold (a lot come from Kickstarter and may have never launched), but if you search you'll find hundreds or more scams riding on that coattails who will hope to collect and fuck off with your money before IG shuts them down (if they ever do).
Always baffles me when there's rules that criminals can just get past, at the expense of normal users who are being genuine.
Same on X. It’s possible that the scammers just operate networks of credit cards and domains and rotate as soon as they grt flagged. Numbers game basically. But it’s also possible that the rules are applied differently to advertisers that bring in a lot of cash, regardless of legality.
I don't think it was Jack's fault, but Twitter went from something that (granted they did tend to do a few shady things from a UX perspective) was fine and largely worked but did have a massive censorship problem, to something that works less well (seriously? i can't see posts chronologically without an account? on TWITTER???) and apparently still has censorship (although I was mostly preoccupied with covid, actual doctors getting banned for truthful information, pre-Musk)
> seriously? i can't see posts chronologically without an account? on TWITTER???
From twitter's POV, that's a feature, not a bug. It's intentional.
I bought my daughter a shirt I saw in a Facebook ad, from Chalk & Stone. The shirt arrived and is great.
Exactly. Blatant scam ads are reported to no avail, and I see them still multiple times a day.
After reading Careless People, it became much more tangible. "Yes people are motivated by money", but Zuck and others at the top of FB actively make a point of expending significant effort to avoid fixing things. It's not that they don't know, or care, it's that they know and care about keeping the gravy train at full speed while they pat themselves on the back for being masters of the universe, so to speak.