Gay Teen Inadvertently Outed by Facebook Targeted Ads

Posted by Kevin Farrell on Jan 11, 2012 in Tech Geek | 48 comments

Last night a teenager in London was made homeless because his parents discovered “incriminating” gay content on his Facebook page. He was kicked out of the house without notice and his whereabouts are currently unknown. One of his friends who spoke to Privacy International last night was concerned that the lad had spun into depression. He had no money – not even a change of clothes.

Curiously, David (we’ll give him that name) did not place the offending material on his Facebook profile – someone else did. He never mentioned anywhere on his profile that he was gay, and was not openly involved in any online gay groups. For David, living in a closed-minded community and with homophobic parents, such revelations would be disastrous.

But if David didn’t place that material on his profile, who did?

The culprit is Facebook. The company placed that material on his page without notification, without his consent and in violation of every principle of care that the company claims to stand for. It did so through a covert mechanism of targeted advertising, deeply analysing David’s Facebook activities and relationships and then posting blatant ads on his profile that scream “Hey! This user is queer!”

David knew the ads were displayed on his profile, but could do nothing to remove them no matter how hard he tried. They just kept coming back. On this occasion he made the mistake of leaving his computer screen on while going to the shop, unaware that his parents were to return earlier than expected to the house.

Real talk, this sucks. We hope “David” is alright, wherever he may be. But the Privacy International author is arguing a very muddled point.

For starters, we take umbrage with the original title, How Facebook’s Targeted Ads Destroyed the Life of a Young Man. There is a very strong argument to make that it was David’s terrible parents’ illegal abandonment of their son that “destroyed his life.” London’s increasing subculture of extreme homophobia may also carry some of the blame here.

Facebook didn’t place incriminating information on this young man’s profile “without his permission.” The very act of creating a Facebook page and participating in the world’s biggest social networking site requires acknowledgement of the company’s terms of service, which include targeting ads.

Facebook is an advertising company. That’s what they do. Surely the author has noticed this? Facebook’s revenue comes from placing highly targeted ads based upon a user’s listed interests. David was fed “Gay Speed Dating London” ads because advertisers were targeting interests he had listed, and correctly at that.

Closeted Facebook users should surely exercise caution when using the free site, especially if their home life is potentially volatile. But to accuse Facebook of destroying a man’s life? Uh-uh. That’s not going to fly.

What do you think? Is Facebook to blame here?

http://www.facebook.com/LordArtemis Michael Artemis Harris

Well, Kevin this article was actually pretty decent. I think however that Facebook ads like many ads on websites are not based on the specific content on the website as you suggest, like if you go on Facebook and you look up a gay group it wont make the ads on your page specific to gay content (Like I can’t imagine someone who is trying to not appear openly gay, would list gay content on their Facebook, if that makes sense?). However, I think that the website checks your cookies and other things saved from previous websites you were on and then customizes your ads depending where you go on the internet. For instance, right now to the right this text box on this site there is a staples ad for graphing calculators. This is because earlier today I was looking specifically for a graphing calculator for college and was Google searching it. If I say went to papa johns website or searched for pizza on Google, and then came back to this website, I would most likely see ads for pizza.

that being said, if there were gay ads on his Facebook page then he was probably looking up some gay related content on his computer.

Either way, I don’t think this is Facebook’s fault and I am glad you stuck up for Facebook because it is really unfair to blame them for this. It really seems like a no blame situation. I mean, the guy can’t help who he is. Facebook needs revenue to survive and hence has to have ads. The parent’s are pretty upsetting treating there child like this though… That’s obviously wrong. I guess it would be more accurate to blame the internet since it collects so much information and is pretty intrusive on our private activities. Even though it is trying to help us through advertising things we need or want, it is still pretty annoying and in some cases like this, damaging to people who require privacy.

I really hope that the guy is alright, and makes his way to some place safe. I hope you keep us updated on this story.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Latreece-Whitfield/12420107 Latreece Whitfield

You actually CAN create ads to target specific groups of people based on location, age, sex and most importantly specific interests on Facebook. For example, if I create an ad with gay related material I can target that ad to people who like things like Human Rights Campaign, Gay-Straight Alliances, or any of the letters in LGBTQ individually or collectively, but maybe I want to target people who aren’t as open about their sexuality on Facebook (for reasons like this for example) so I include things that I might think LGBTQ people would like such as a particular musician, television show, book, movie, activity or clothing brand to increase the reach of the ad. Facebook ads take into account other sites you have visited, but also take note of the things you list as interests and other pages that you like for targeting.

http://www.facebook.com/austinderossi Austin de Rossi

Pandora assumed I was gay just by the music I was listening to and I started receiving gay-specific ads. You can’t really blame Facebook and other advertising companies for trying to tailor their advertising for their customers. In fact, as a customer, if I am going to have to see or be exposed to ads I would prefer if they were more tailored to me.

http://www.facebook.com/LordArtemis Michael Artemis Harris

Hmmm… You make a good point.

http://www.facebook.com/jennybeverage Jenny Bev

I wish I could help him somehow. Are there organizations in London to help teens who have been kicked out? That’s not fair to him at all.. Isn’t it illegal to kick out an underage person?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FR3MB75FT7YG6B2QVLJYA5P5TM Geologyst

AdBlock for Chrome (or Firefox). Works. Even on facebook. I know this doesn’t help “David”, but maybe it can help someone else.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=663967899 Francisco Durán

As I was reading this article, I also thought of AdBlock. I use it with Safari.
http://twitter.com/sychun1907 천 성 연

AdBlock works wonders assuming it’s used in time. It is kind of ipso facto for “David”.

http://www.facebook.com/eliazara Eliazara Campbell

I am most definitely out at work, but when I am on Facebook while multitasking, I still feel a little guilty if someone were to see half naked guys on my screen. I have changed my “looking for” to be both men & women (shudder), just so it’s not ALL gay ads which I never click on anyways
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6T42LBZOBCULB6POLGF4SCQUDE Radek

I’d be more concerned with the parents rather than Facebook
http://twitter.com/JPCoulter Jeff Coulter

Facebook ads are what they are, and we agree to them as part of using a free service. The parents are the ones at fault here. Even if you are upset by something your child does you don’t kick him or her into the street. If the child is a minor, then it’s probably an issue for child welfare.
http://www.facebook.com/RinnaMP Corrinna Pole

As a working journalist, the original article sounds like complete bunk to me. Besides the generalizations, the article is based on the information provided by an unidentified “friend” hmmm seems like someone is just trying to set off an argument. Why would any parents kick a kid out over ads picked by a 3rd party?? I’m a non-religious 33 year old married woman, I get spammed with ads to grow my penis and Facebook is constantly running ads for me to find my future Christian mate by joining a dating site, so I don’t place any credibility in the story. That said…Kevin I like your commentary to the original post and you make great points.

http://www.facebook.com/sammael88 Matthew Williamson

I agree, the entire thing seems a little fishy. The only definite items in the whole story are London and Facebook. This sounds like one of those urban legend cautionary tales.

http://www.facebook.com/jellyinthesky Teresa Tom

Just because the targeted ads were there, I think thats a HUGE leap for his parents to say “Youre gay” I get lesbian ads on my page all the time and Im not a lesbian. I just “like” the L Word and other Gay things. So really its his parents complete fault. I think its just CRAZY to decide your son is gay based on ADS on his facebook. It would be one thing if he had porn up or something more definitive. He must have just admitted to it or something. Or maybe he has psycho paranoid homophobic parents. In which case, although being homeless is tough, he may be better off without em.
http://www.facebook.com/grimacetyna Tyna Brenenstahl

I’m not gay, but I am a big supporter of the LGBT community etc…and I really love Unicorn Booty. Since I clicked “like” on FB it now says “Tyna thinks gay is good” (an ad for UB) and I got a LOT of neg feedback from closed minded family members. It caused a big stink etc…and I told them to basically suck it but still it was a pain. What I ended up doing was making 2 FB pages. One for everything I really like, and the other for “them”. I hated doing it, but it made things a lot easier.
http://biblethumpingliberal.com/ Ron Goetz

We need to be prepared. It will be decades, or longer, before this becomes rare. As a community we need to be prepared to take in young people stuck in this predicament. Not everyone will be able to do this, but those who are need to consider it.

Anonymous

When you look at statistics, around 30-40% of homeless youth in the United States identify as LGBT and around 60% of them report sexual abuse.

This is beyond alarming. Any and all support is needed.

http://www.facebook.com/Smiil3yH3art Myron Magno

Both the London’s article report and UB’s on the incident has a right and wrong. Facebook could be to blame, since everyone is entitled to their privacy. I believe that advertisements on one’s profile should be screened and surveyed to that of the exceptions of the user. Whether or not based on interests, I’m sure that “David” would not have listed any homosexual content as an interest. Considering the knowledge that his parents are homophobic, alongside the majority of London’s homophobic-minded community. And lastly, with it being said he’d attempted to get rid of such advertisements, FaceBook should have acknowledged his attempt at ridding the advertisements.
http://profiles.google.com/chris.j.steele Chris Steele

use an ad blocker like ad blocker plus simple ipso fatso

http://twitter.com/johnwatersfan Grant

I think you mean “ipso facto”.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Elizabeth-Cathleen-Archer/515912531 Elizabeth Cathleen Archer

I think your article says it all. I am targeted with makeup and retro ads and actually tend to love them. Its very unfortunate that this has happened to him but like you said by joining fb you do agree to their terms. While facebook played a part in his outting I don’t think the blame lies with the website, its not like the website went to his parents and were like “your sons gay”. He was just unlucky that his parents happened to snoop and that is what they found, it could have been any website
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000451850693 Ashley Valencia

Can’t blame facebook for this. And of course the ads are targeted to you, they’re trying to get YOU to buy stuff, they’re not going to show you ads targeted to your mom, what would be the point? Let’s put the blame where it belongs – on the shoulders of the homophobic parents who are cruel enough to kick their own son out of his home and left him with nothing and nowhere for him to go.
Anonymous

It would have been incredibly stupid for anyone to decide someone is gay just based on facebook ads. Facebook ads come for anything you say at all. I posted a comment on someone’s status the other day saying I wanted to move to Canada, suddenly I had ads for help moving and ads on visiting Canada.

That being said, I still don’t like that the “Ticker” tells all my facebook friends any comments I make, even if they aren’t a member of that group or if the friend I am commenting to has their setting as “friends only.” Used to be you could comment on things posted by groups like UB or WHOF without everyone you know reading what you said, and that’s not true anymore. Worse, unlike most other ways they can see your information, you can’t delete the information or block certain people from seeing it. You can either have everyone see what you have said, or you can say nothing at all. Usually I go with nothing at all…
Lavender Jane

It’s important to note that Facebook not only analyzes what you ‘like’ and what pages you visit, it also looks at your list of friends and their activities and interests. At one point, I was using Facebook primarily for games and had a large number of people from the south who identified as being conservative. So even though I’m anything but, I was plagued by ads for conservative pages and politicians. Once I cleaned those folks off my friends list, the ads changed.

Jennifer Schradeya

No kidding?! That would explain a LOT of really confusing ads I get, pretty much like your situation. I am anything but conservative, I’m a FB fan of Rachel Maddow and Barack Obama and Unicorn Booty… But I always get ads for things like GOP candidates and churches and daycare centers popping up (which I always hide and usually write something snarky in the reason box), so I could never figure out what the heck! I live in Texas, though, so naturally there are a few people on my friends list who like that kind of crap. That explains so much!

Patrick Barrett

Targeted advertising isn’t foolproof; I’ve often been targeted for ads that don’t interest me at all. Sometimes this appears to be because of my friends’ interests. For his parents to freak out because of Facebook ads is just nuts. Their actions pretty much clue you in that they’re just horrible, hateful, crazy people. It’s unfortunate that Facebook inadvertently outed the kid, but I place 100% of the blame for his situation on his awful parents.
Patrick Barrett

The story seems to have been removed from Privacy International — one hopes that’s because it turned out not to be true.
http://www.facebook.com/gotfloh Madelaine Floh

Honestly, I didnt start getting gay ads on my fb until I put on my profile that I was “interested in women.” I don’t know about the truth of this story, but either way it most definitely is not fb’s fault this kid is homeless, it’s his stupid parents! And how can they say it’s “offensive” material posted on his fb when they are just assuming he’d be interested in meeting gays in his area. It’s like me saying I’m offended they gave me an ad about sports. im not interested in sports or any new cars but that still give me them sooo if we want to get to technicalities then any ad can be “offensive”. what a bunch of rainbowshit
http://www.facebook.com/KCWalter84 Craig Walter

I blame the parents and the growing disdain towards people of different sexual orientations/roles. I am starting to get more and more disgusted with the world and how people feel they can tell me who i should and should not love. The whole lot of them can piss off.
Jennifer Schradeya

Oh god, I hope he’s alright! :( It must be sooo cold in London right now! He must be so scared. :(

I will say that, while his parents are the true assholes here, Facebook probably *can* bear some of the blame, albeit a tiny bit, because their ad removal tech doesn’t work right. You know how there is a little X in the top right corner of all of the ads? It gives you the option to “hide this ad” and/or “hide all ads by ” and then a list of reasons why, if you do click one of those options. I’ve repeatedly tried to hide an ad or an entire company only to see more of that company’s ads and even – several times in fact – the exact same ad appear again and again. No matter how many times I click “hide all ads by CompanyX”, and no matter whether I selected ‘uninteresting’ or even ‘offensive’ or wrote impassioned tirades in the ‘other’ section, those ads STILL appear. Luckily for me it’s nothing at all like this situation (it’s just a store I don’t shop at), and honestly it has become almost like a little game to me, but their options don’t always work. I can see how it’s possible that he may have tried and tried to get rid of that stuff to no avail.

I can’t say whether it’s right or wrong or whatever, but I feel like someone’s sexual orientation belongs solely to them and that nobody should have the right to use that information, whether it’s to advertise to them or discriminate against them or even to try and hook them up with a date, if they’re not 100% approved to do so. Sexual orientation is yours and yours alone to disclose, and it would truly suck to be in a situation where I can’t really trust doing something as mundane as looking at my boring news feed of people I kind of know posting pictures of their kids and whining about their crappy jobs without my biggest secret possibly being revealed to anyone who might glance my way.

But, YES, that is absolutely mainly because oh my god his parents are the worst people in the world! Because of some ADS on Facebook, they throw their baby, their child, their flesh and blood out into the streets with nothing in the freezing cold London winter?! I could never bring myself to do that to something like a cat who had broken in and shredded all my furniture, and I’m not even a cat person!

I hope that his parents come around soon and man-up and love their son properly. And if they just can’t do that, they I hope that he can learn to live and succeed and be happy without those assholes. But for right now, I just hope he’s safe and warm. :(
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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZMZSE57TJ2A7IXNTYHWM2535WY David J

Unless someone identifies themselves in their profiles as interested in men, FB has no business determining someone’s relationship status OR sexual orientation. This was a serious violation of privacy. It gets even more serious when you recognize that this was a minor school kid. With the ever present danger of bullying and suicide, FB has a heightened responsibility to show care with minors.
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http://www.facebook.com/KYAH.HOLLYWOOD Kyah Anjkiel

Facebook & Google are guilty of this.
http://www.facebook.com/KYAH.HOLLYWOOD Kyah Anjkiel

Facebook & Google are guilty of this.
Anonymous

No, Facebook is not to blame. You were spot on when you said it’s the parents who are at fault. I hope David is staying with caring friends and maybe someone can help him take legal action against his parents. If he is under 18 (or whatever the legal adult age is in London, though I think it’s 18) then he is a victim of neglect.
Anonymous

No, Facebook is not to blame. You were spot on when you said it’s the parents who are at fault. I hope David is staying with caring friends and maybe someone can help him take legal action against his parents. If he is under 18 (or whatever the legal adult age is in London, though I think it’s 18) then he is a victim of neglect.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1167273772 Karyl L. Lounsbery

You can delete ads on your FB page and report them as not what you want. They will eventually go away but it takes time. But, contrary to popular belief, you can get rid of them. Just hover over the top right corner of them until you get the “X” to delete them. Then, once you delete it, it will ask you why you deleted it. You can say it’s offensive or against your views.
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http://www.facebook.com/Heeroneko Selina Anderson

Imo there should be options to block/switch out certain ads that someone may not want on their profile for any reason. This still isn’t Facebook’s fault even if I believe they should take measures to ensure that this doesn’t even come into question again. His parents will hopefully end up in court for child abandonment. It’s sad that there are people who would treat ANYONE like this let alone their own flesh and blood.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=38423830 William N. Cate III

Facebook ads?

What facebook ads?
http://twitter.com/EricEtCetera Eric Curbow

I feel like the fact that he didn’t openly express his sexuality, but was still being targeted by gay ads, means that Facebook itself was being discriminatory. There are more underlining issues here than the ones directly presented.
Shewit Zerai

I don’t think that this is Facebook’s fault, but I do think there should be some form of control over which ad’s we have to/don’t have to see.
As in, if I were David, I would like to be able to let FB know that this genre of ad’s (like the gay ad’s) aren’t relevant to me. And it doesn’t just have to be ads about being gay, but any ad’s. For example, I’m a girl, but I’m constantly getting ads for boy’s clothing (I honestly don’t know why-perhaps it’s because I like hockey?). There would be one of those side-button thingies that would allow me to let FB know that I didn’t want/need this ad.
Although I agree, I think this is completely the parent’s fault.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37801667 Graham Stokes

Unfortunately, Facebook is partially to blame.

I mean, I understand your meaning here exactly — users are opening themselves up to this and they should be aware that they are. The trouble is that, in this instance, the user was a closeted gay man. Social networking is a huge part of making people who are not in circumstances where they can come out have a place where they can feel comfortable, have people to confide in, etc.

Facebook should realize that something like sexuality can have huge ramifications — and I’m sure “David” has enough other interests on his page to target ads at him. “Gay themed” ads should only be targetted to people who have specifically put on their page that they are homosexual — and as someone who has placed ads on Facebook, I know for a fact that it is possible to target ads that way. Facebook should make that mandatory.
http://www.facebook.com/coryjoys CoryJoy Scott

i say burn the parents. that shits just F*ed up
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=698492994 Stacey Hall

I am so sad for him, but I am also glad to see such reasonable comments here about the ad process. I surf the net knowing my activities are traceable to some extent. I am on facebook and I use the little x feedback on ads, making the ads more relevant to what I would use. I own a cupcakery truck so I do a lot of product surfing and my ads are relevant. I was getting ads for random things for a while but through my feedback facebook did a decent job of not giving me say, republican ads, just because I research things that they say so I can then look for the truth. To end my ramble, use the x and give them feedback, and I really hope this kid is okay – parents need to just love their kids the world is hard enough as it is.
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Cliff Wells

Since Facebook tracks you and your interests across half the internet without your knowledge or consent, yes, they are an accomplice. Granted, the parents are the villains, but Facebook is the snitch.
Anonymous

this reeks of manufactured story to illustrate a point. give me names & terstimony and maybe i’ll believe it. we all know facebook participation is the end of privacy, and no doubt people are embarrassed or harmed by content on facebook one way or another. we also know that gay kids are winding up homeless in disproportionate numbers. lets not use imaginary teens to drum up sympathy and make a point.
http://twitter.com/ValeKementari Valeria Kementari ♥

Just use AdBlock on Chrome or FireFox and presto, no more annoying ads
http://twitter.com/TheBippi Bry

Cookies can proliferate your computer from any and every site you visit regardless if you hide it. Any and all advertisers can and will take advantage of this and unfortunately “David” is a sad outcome of the wills of technology. His parents, rather than try to understand him jumped to conclusions but I hope some kind soul out there helps “David” out be it family or friends from the injustice his parents have put upon him.
http://www.facebook.com/dallaswv Dallas Vinson

This is just one very good reason to run Ad Block+. Never see any more of those annoying ads on Facebook or any other site.

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