Computers and big data are getting smarter and smarter, but are we relying on them too much?

Bogus ads and fake news on Facebook are getting people’s attention. Being able to super-target a consumer down to age, gender, location and web browsing history is a marketers wet dream, but a question of who is minding the store is starting to be raised.

There is currently an investigation underway to determine if the Russian government tried to influence the recent presidential election, but there is even a darker element to targeting certain groups of people that defies common sense.

ProPublica, an investigative news organized reported on how Facebook’s automated ad software allowed them to target people interested in ‘Jew hater’, ‘History of why Jews ruin the world’ and ‘How to burn Jews’. The Houston Chronicle’s Chris Tomlinson tested those targeted groups with his own ads which Facebook approved within 15 minutes.

Facebook eventually removed those options after it was brought to their attention, but the question remains, how could that have been an acceptable target demo to begin with?

Buying ads on social media that are automated allows companies to keep profits high and costs down, but at what cost? Free speech is protected by the First Amendment, but do these companies really want to be known for promoting and profiting from these messages?

Disinformation is nothing new, Tokyo Rose was a fabricated name given by Allied troops in the South Pacific during World War II to all female English-speaking radio broadcasters of Japanese propaganda. The soldiers knew it was fake, but in today’s social media world, it’s getting harder and harder to spot them.

What responsibility does Facebook have? In the end, not much unless you are fan of credibility. Letting the consumer figure out what’s real and what isn’t does not sound like a solid business approach. Your friends might not stop posting, but companies might have second thoughts of having their ads next to a Jew hater ad.

There is another dark side to this automation without human oversite. During Hurricane Irma, people were scrambling to evacuate Miami. Travel websites starting jacking up fares that were $547 to over $3,200. Price gouging? No, just a computer doing its job of seeing high demand for an item and pricing it accordingly. Again, removing the human element from the equation.

How did consumers respond? They turned to social media to publicly shame companies for their practices (and to their credit, most responded). Until we learn to better humanize computers, we should be even more wary of what is being served to us in our feed.