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Comment by monochromatic | Hacker News Reader

So... rich and poor people get served different ads. Who gives a shit? Pricing differences based on user attributes are well-known and (while they offend some) make a lot of sense.

The stuff about political echo chambers at the end seems to be thrown in without any justification whatsoever. Is there any reason to think I'm seeing pages that cater to my political interests (beyond the fact that I may intentionally visit such pages)?

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If the thing refuses to do what I want it to do because it thinks I shouldn't have the knowledge I am asking for, either because that knowledge is forbidden me or because I cannot afford it, if the thing I am facing is making that decision then changing the way that thing behaves will change what I can have, therefore will change who I can be because what I get determines who I will become. -- Eben Moglen

We're just talking about what ads get served. Ads.

Ads are designed to manipulate perception and consequently distorts a person's world view.

Don't you think that only seeing ads for your local community college versus only seeing ads for Harvard will impact which school you try to go to?

Fortunately on the Internet there is an easy fix: Use Adblock. Unfortunately not nearly enough people use it.

And as the commenter below mentioned this is more than Ads.

"We're just talking about what ads get served, for the moment."

Tools can have more then one purpose.

Exactly, in fact I haven't seen any ads since I installed AdBlock 6 years ago.

So, by using AdBlock I'll never know what side of the digital divide I'm on... oh well.

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