With paranoia growing around the world about the reach of targeted Facebook ads and Google’s big data, the opposite seems to be happening in China, where this week users of one social network are protesting against “discrimination” by information-gathering bots.
How some users but not others were chosen to view a BMW advertisement has generated a backlash on WeChat the hit chat app that boasts 468m users. But rather than privacy being their main concern, many complained of the humiliation of having their data mined, and then ignored.
“I’ve been refreshing over and over again but still no BMW ad . . . today my spirits are in the dumps,” said one WeChatter. “Do I not even qualify to see the BMW ads?”