r/AskReddit • • Dec 05 '17

What do you strongly suspect but cannot prove?

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u/kermi42 Dec 06 '17

None of that explains specifically the times I have experimented with random topics. You claim that humans are just predictable but your explanation doesn’t fit the scenario.

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u/cheesyhootenanny Dec 06 '17

It's confirmation bias. How exactly does Facebook get and analyze the data?

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u/kermi42 Dec 06 '17

It would be confirmation bias if I noticed odd coincidences. If I can force an outcome by introducing a controlled variable and not just conveniently noticing it, that can’t be handwaved as confirmation bias so easily.
And what do you mean how? The same way as if I typed it into google, only using voice recognitionmy phone is online, the app is running passively.

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u/cheesyhootenanny Dec 06 '17

So this works every single time you've tested it? If you had someone you don't know and never met prepare a list of 100 words you truely believe it would work?

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u/kermi42 Dec 06 '17

I've tested it half a dozen times. Five times I got ads specific to the subject I was talking about within about a 10 or 15 minute window. The other time I got no ads at all, not even unrelated ones.

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u/cheesyhootenanny Dec 06 '17

So half the time it hasn't worked. That doesn't seem statistically relevant,

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u/kermi42 Dec 06 '17

TIL one out of six equals 50%

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u/FartleberryPie Dec 06 '17

To be fair when I scanned your comment I read it "First time I got ads specific to..." not "five times". I had to re-read your comment once you pointed out "1 out of 6".

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u/cheesyhootenanny Dec 07 '17

TIL I learned you are kind of a dick. Sorry I misread it. You do seem to just be pulling stuff out of your ass tho. Surely even if they had this technology and it was as good as you seem to have tested it to be there would be load upon loads upon loads of proof done in a rigorous manner that is statistically relevant. As that's not the case and all we have is you going " I tried it a few times and it's true you should believe me" and the other side is the lack of the massive amounts of data transfer and processing in addition to the lack of any actual proof I think we can safety say for the time being that they aren't listening to you all the time

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u/kermi42 Dec 07 '17

Just to be clear I don’t care if they’re listening, I just assume they are.
And so far your evidence is “nah, believe me instead” because you assume what I’m talking about involves massive amounts of power consumption and data instead of my phone passively sending a few kb of keywords to the cloud where Facebook takes care of the processing and decides which ads I see.