Facebook is bombarding cancer patients with ads for unproven treatments | Hacker News Reader

Facebook is bombarding cancer patients with ads for unproven treatments

technologyreview.com

52 pointsminimumvector12 comments

This shouldn't be Facebook's responsibility. It's unfair to expect internet outlets who run ads to have medical expertise, although Facebook would be happy for the requirement because it would be a massive barrier for challengers. What we need is a government that bothers to regulate something other than PR-ready wedge issues. The fact that there are as many new age quack Democrats as bible-banging health crank Republicans means that out and out health frauds get ignored unless they're perceived to be partisan (like the magic anti-autism Jesus bleach.)

so much for personal responsibility.

I disagree with this, at least on moral grounds, for at least one specific reason: social media is super aggressive when it comes to pushing advertisements into your feeds. LinkedIn, Twitter, probably Facebook and others (I don’t have FB so I don’t know how it looks exactly) mask advertisements as posts. They want these to get past your mental barrier, to look like they were endorsed by someone you know. That’s gotta be result of careful psychological research.

If you are A/B testing your users to get past their defenses, you should be at least somewhat responsible for not selling them total bullshit.

When people had ads in newspapers, the newspaper had to read them through. I don't think they had to review them for veracity, but at least they got reviewed.

I think FB can do the same. Yes, it would add overhead and time delays and it will cost more, but I think it's worth having reviewers before ads get pushed to users.

Why would anyone ever need to see an ad for prescription medicine?

That's what doctors are for...

Illegal to advertise any prescription meds where I come from, let alone quack cures for cancer.

I was absolutely shocked the first time I visited USA and saw tv ads for heart medication... Could not wrap my head around it ...

> Could not wrap my head around it ...

The First Amendment means that there has to be extraordinary proof of direct and immediate harm before the government will step in and stop speech. Note I'm referring to the the prescription drug ads (which actually are pity heavily regulated - they have to be very careful what they claim), not the quack cures. The quack stuff is typically illegal as it's being described in TFA, but it's international, and the FDA/FTC would have trouble enforcing an action against a Mexican hospital.

The immediate harm is people getting on medications they don't need. That, in many cases, is actively harmful

Just like untested treatments can be. Advertising medications and treatments should be entirely illegal. Full stop.

Signed, Some pharmacologist

I figured Google would be just as bad so I searched for "alternative cancer treatments" and was pleasantly surprised by the results. I think Google is doing a relatively (at least compared to Facebook) good job.

If you search specifically for "apatone" you start to find the quacks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUSZfEBTwRc

Google and others changing the world again.

I got to test out one of the standard CGMs for a wellness app, which required installing an abbott app to setup the device, it was shocking how my online universe transformed into 24/7 pharma ads for the next few weeks. It was depressing to get pitched a new drug or treatment under every other tweet in my timeline.

Direct to consumer advertising is their business model; I'm sure their contracted legal critters keep the organization acting within the legal limits of their regulatory requirements.

That's what people get for using Facebook.

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