> Advertising is just companies saying "This is what you can purchase from me - it's awesome - please consider purchasing it".
This is such a naive view of advertising that if you're really this unaware of how manipulative ads are, you can't possibly have defenses against them. You should seriously spend some time looking into the secret magic of dark psychology they use to manipulate people because while knowing about their tactics won't make you immune to them, it really can help to be aware of how they work and to train yourself to recognize when they're being used against you.
I don't know, I just went to find an ad in my feed and the first one was for a house plant that was easy to take care of. I'm not saying I'm the smartest cookie in the shed, but I didn't detect any manipulation. Seems like it was a person who just wanted me to know about their product.
I haven't seen the plant ad, but it sounds like once you start learning about how the ad industry works your mind will be blown. Insane amounts of money have been poured into research by the industry (including some highly questionable research being done on children and infants) and some of the results are fascinating.
The manipulation goes beyond even the content of the ads themselves. For example, one of the reasons companies are spending so much money collecting/buying/storing/securing every scrap of data they can get about you and your life is so that they can target ads at you at specific times when they know you'll be more vulnerable such as times when they know you'd normally be tired, or when they think your medication may be wearing off, or during periods where you're under high stress, or when you might be entering a manic phase, or when you're intoxicated, etc.
Like I said, understanding the many many ways that you are vulnerable to their tricks can help but it won't stop them from working on you. It's kind of like how you can't not see certain optical illusions even though you know you're interpreting them incorrectly. The conclusion I've come to is that it's best to do everything you can to avoid exposure to advertising where possible and to keep an eye out for when those tricks are being used against you elsewhere.
So a company should not be able to recommend therapy ads if I seem stressed? Ozempic if I seem like I want to lose weight? Laxatives if I seem constipated, or energy drinks if I'm sleep deprived?
Trying to moralize ad targeting is exhausting. It's not inherently a bad thing to target an ad to someone who's in a bad spot, or really in general.
People who buy the product are presumably competent enough to manage their own finances. Acting like they're being exploited constantly because ads hinted that they weren't masculine enough, or too fat, or being their peers, etc. is ridiculous. Ads aren't like cigarettes.
It's more like companies recommending an alcoholic who has been sober for 13 months his favorite drink because they know he is going through a divorce and is currently 15 feet from a bar, or a company targeting a person with Alzheimer's right at the time they know they'll start sundowning, or even just cranking up nostalgia in their advertising because they know your last surviving parent died and for the first time you won't be going home for the coming holidays.
Ad targeting these days can be intensely personal and manipulative. There are lots of ways ads could be used that aren't harmful, but also lots of ways that they can. Imagine an ad using a deepfake of your own child who died in a car crash telling you in his voice how he might still be alive if your car only had <insert new safety feature here>. There are clearly lines that can and should be drawn. There are extremely unethical practices happening today because companies are amoral monsters that only care about money and there are almost no laws or regulations to stop them from doing whatever they want.
Ads aren't like cigarettes. You make the choice to smoke or not, but ads are just forced on you. Only rarely are you given any opportunity to opt out of them, and the industry spends a lot of money trying to circumvent any efforts you take to cut them out of your life. You can quit cigarettes, but they wont let you quit advertising.
And it's worth noting that there are laws that restrict advertisement of cigarettes, alcohol, etc.
Meanwhile let's also not forget the post itself on which we are commenting: accusations that social media companies have, in fact, engineered their products to be addictive.
Either you intentionally misunderstood his point and deflected or you honestly seem to think this way. In either case, you misapprehended what he meant.
This is such a naive view of advertising that if you're really this unaware of how manipulative ads are, you can't possibly have defenses against them. You should seriously spend some time looking into the secret magic of dark psychology they use to manipulate people because while knowing about their tactics won't make you immune to them, it really can help to be aware of how they work and to train yourself to recognize when they're being used against you.