Here's the thing, as someone who sees themself both in ad tech & as a privacy advocate: Advertisers who seek personalized targeting will focus on platforms with the most personal data: Facebook & Google. But I don't believe the status quo of ad targeting is the only future of it.

The idea that advertisers will walk away from platforms that don't provide personalized targeting simply doesn't hold up. Advertisers buy posters and billboards and TV ads and lots of other things that don't promise the accuracy of web advertising...
Further, the promise of that accuracy has mostly been false. Year after year after year we see that ad products that promise perfect accuracy and tracking don't work, are giving false results, are proving entirely ineffective, or have unexpected negative brand impact...
Also, the one thing we've learned for sure about advertising on the web is that advertisers will try all sorts of things and look towards outcomes. This includes bad things that fail... https://t.co/MYkZtfdqQQ
This includes things that don't work at all, but still end up costing millions of dollars. https://t.co/5KPc4fJNcm
And it includes a ton of ad tech that makes claims to personalization that simply don't hold up in reality. https://t.co/rndP1drQYk
Everyone in advertising should know by now that many of the promises of advertising vendors don't hold up... https://t.co/FcUbmQTqb0
But the pricing mechanisms of the status quo makes no room for an alternative version of the web. We've no basis to understand what the market could like like in a web where intrusive user tracking becomes impossible on a technical level. https://t.co/1sWrpeV33Y
And putting all of these questions aside brings an even bigger one forward: do publishers benefit from a web that, through invasive tracking and targeting, generates societies that distrust journalism and make it hard to separate fact from fiction? I think not.
Perhaps that's too esoteric a future to consider. Perhaps we can only see the future in dollars and cents. That's the way Facebook sees it. That's the way the people who have shaped the face of web advertising up to now see it. https://t.co/WeAudmCpFw
But I don't think the future of the web has to be, or should be, defined on dollars and cents alone. I think a healthier web--one that respects what users want & how they seek to interact w/it, publishers, & advertisers--will create a better environment for publishers to thrive.
$1.3 bil was spent on influencer marketing in 2018. It's hard to believe that publishers can't remake themselves in a private web to change from delivering individual humans to be something else to advertisers. Especially if the ground shifts to make the web force that change.
(Source: https://t.co/CJkqFg3kLA )
I can't imagine a world where advertisers decide their only venue for digital advertising is FB and Google. That they're just going to leave the rest of the web up for grabs. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think the rest of the web was valuable for advertisers, users & publishers
And if it has value, then it can be priced competitively. And if it can be priced competitively than I have to believe the parts of the web where users can regain control over their personal data can present a competitive argument for advertisers to Facebook and Google.
Beyond that, it is hard to imagine the situation for Publishers in regard to trust and monetization could become more dire by respecting users' interest in a more private web. https://t.co/jbVGYMnjWx
Finally, I think the difference between publishers & other businesses is they have an ideological core to work on behalf of readers, to do journalism, to make the world more clear & honest. It's hard to see how the current regime of individual user tracking aligns w/that mission.
At the end of the day it is hard to imagine surveillance capitalism as compatible w/journalism. The future of ad tech is entwined with the future of journalism. If that's the case, how can we deliver journalism into the future on a system w/which it is incompatible?
Perhaps there's an immediate financial disadvantage to the privacy-first web. But I think on a longer timeline, a more private web as the baseline standard will not eliminate advertising or chase advertising dollars away. And it will make it easier to be a successful journalist.
At the end of the day, a more private world lets publishers have more control over their own data & be better advocates on behalf of their readers to advertisers & ad tech systems. More control means more opportunity to figure out new approaches and new models. Sounds fun to me!

More from Tech

These past few days I've been experimenting with something new that I want to use by myself.

Interestingly, this thread below has been written by that.

Let me show you how it looks like. 👇🏻


When you see localhost up there, you should know that it's truly an experiment! 😀


It's a dead-simple thread writer that will post a series of tweets a.k.a tweetstorm. ⚡️

I've been personally wanting it myself since few months ago, but neglected it intentionally to make sure it's something that I genuinely need.

So why is that important for me? 🙂

I've been a believer of a story. I tell stories all the time, whether it's in the real world or online like this. Our society has moved by that.

If you're interested by stories that move us, read Sapiens!

One of the stories that I've told was from the launch of Poster.

It's been launched multiple times this year, and Twitter has been my go-to place to tell the world about that.

Here comes my frustration.. 😤
I could create an entire twitter feed of things Facebook has tried to cover up since 2015. Where do you want to start, Mark and Sheryl? https://t.co/1trgupQEH9


Ok, here. Just one of the 236 mentions of Facebook in the under read but incredibly important interim report from Parliament. ht @CommonsCMS
https://t.co/gfhHCrOLeU


Let’s do another, this one to Senate Intel. Question: “Were you or CEO Mark Zuckerberg aware of the hiring of Joseph Chancellor?"
Answer "Facebook has over 30,000 employees. Senior management does not participate in day-today hiring decisions."


Or to @CommonsCMS: Question: "When did Mark Zuckerberg know about Cambridge Analytica?"
Answer: "He did not become aware of allegations CA may not have deleted data about FB users obtained through Dr. Kogan's app until March of 2018, when
these issues were raised in the media."


If you prefer visuals, watch this short clip after @IanCLucas rightly expresses concern about a Facebook exec failing to disclose info.
THREAD: How is it possible to train a well-performing, advanced Computer Vision model 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗣𝗨? 🤔

At the heart of this lies the most important technique in modern deep learning - transfer learning.

Let's analyze how it


2/ For starters, let's look at what a neural network (NN for short) does.

An NN is like a stack of pancakes, with computation flowing up when we make predictions.

How does it all work?


3/ We show an image to our model.

An image is a collection of pixels. Each pixel is just a bunch of numbers describing its color.

Here is what it might look like for a black and white image


4/ The picture goes into the layer at the bottom.

Each layer performs computation on the image, transforming it and passing it upwards.


5/ By the time the image reaches the uppermost layer, it has been transformed to the point that it now consists of two numbers only.

The outputs of a layer are called activations, and the outputs of the last layer have a special meaning... they are the predictions!

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THE MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE AND HISTORY OF SWASTIK

The Swastik is a geometrical figure and an ancient religious icon. Swastik has been Sanatan Dharma’s symbol of auspiciousness – mangalya since time immemorial.


The name swastika comes from Sanskrit (Devanagari: स्वस्तिक, pronounced: swastik) &denotes “conducive to wellbeing or auspicious”.
The word Swastik has a definite etymological origin in Sanskrit. It is derived from the roots su – meaning “well or auspicious” & as meaning “being”.


"सु अस्ति येन तत स्वस्तिकं"
Swastik is de symbol through which everything auspicios occurs

Scholars believe word’s origin in Vedas,known as Swasti mantra;

"🕉स्वस्ति ना इन्द्रो वृधश्रवाहा
स्वस्ति ना पूषा विश्ववेदाहा
स्वस्तिनास्तरक्ष्यो अरिश्तनेमिही
स्वस्तिनो बृहस्पतिर्दधातु"


It translates to," O famed Indra, redeem us. O Pusha, the beholder of all knowledge, redeem us. Redeem us O Garudji, of limitless speed and O Bruhaspati, redeem us".

SWASTIK’s COSMIC ORIGIN

The Swastika represents the living creation in the whole Cosmos.


Hindu astronomers divide the ecliptic circle of cosmos in 27 divisions called
https://t.co/sLeuV1R2eQ this manner a cross forms in 4 directions in the celestial sky. At centre of this cross is Dhruva(Polestar). In a line from Dhruva, the stars known as Saptarishi can be observed.