Octopus Overlords

It's totally become its own thing these days, so an overarching thread probably won't go amiss.

Unilever

Consumer goods giant Unilever, a maker of branded soaps, foodstuffs and personal care items and also one of the world’s biggest online advertisers, has fired a warning shot across the bows of social media giants by threatening to pull ads from digital platforms if they don’t do more to mitigate the spread of what it dubs “toxic” online content — be it fake news, terrorism or child exploitation.
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The remarks echo comments made last month by UK prime minister Theresa May who singled out social media firms for acute censure, saying they “simply cannot stand by while their platforms are used to facilitate child abuse, modern slavery or the spreading of terrorist or extremist content”.
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Online ad giants Facebook and Google have increasingly found themselves on the hook for enabling the spread of socially divisive, offensive and at times out-and-out illegal content via their platforms — in no small part as a consequence of the popularity of their content-sharing hubs.
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Facebook’s 2016 dismissal of concerns about fake news impacting democracy as a “pretty crazy idea” has certainly not aged well. And CEO Mark Zuckerberg has since admitted his platform is broken and made it his personal goal for 2018 to “fix Facebook“.

Both companies faced a growing backlash last year — with a number of advertisers and brands pulling ads from YouTube over concerns about the types of content that their marketing messages were being served alongside, thanks to the programmatic (i.e. automatic) nature of the ad placement. The platform also took renewed flak for the type of content it routinely serves up to kids.

My take is:

1. All social media is essentially toxic - witness trolls convincing a chatbot that Hitler was right.

2. I understand that Facebook now insists that you must use your actual personal information to join. Why would anyone voluntarily give that to anyone? You don't need Zuckerberg to share pictures with your friends and family.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:30 pm 2. I understand that Facebook now insists that you must use your actual personal information to join. Why would anyone voluntarily give that to anyone?

Because everyone and their cousin already has it. I've decided to draw a line between personal information and private information. After decades on the 'net, plus hacks, plus other peoples' mentions, the prior is just too 'out there' already for me to believe that it isn't available to anyone who really wants it. My name? My birthday? Have at 'em.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:30 pm My take is:

1. All social media is essentially toxic - witness trolls convincing a chatbot that Hitler was right.

2. I understand that Facebook now insists that you must use your actual personal information to join. Why would anyone voluntarily give that to anyone? You don't need Zuckerberg to share pictures with your friends and family.

I think your feed is what your friends make it. I don't have a problems with trolls and bots. If anything, I am the troll. I let too much politics go up on my wall because I'm screaming at it. I need to stop that.

That said my wall seem to mostly be ads and phishing attempts, which is also what my friends make it. They are constantly doing things like posting on some anonymous radio station a random description based on their mother's maiden, the first car they drove, the address they grew up at, and their phone number (and yes, I've seen all of those on my wall posted by friends looking to say their Christmas Elf name or some such nonsense)

I'm social online, in so far as I take part in communities such as this one, but I keep my interactions with dedicated social media platforms to a minimum. I think the problem is the lack of moderation.

If I were to post certain types of things here, or get in people's faces, or otherwise cross the line, I'd get booted out and rightfully so. But I think it's expected that your Facebook account is yours to exploit as you see fit, the only thing you need to worry about is Facebook's TOS. Other than that, no one is going to remove your posts or tell you to tone it down, or moderate things in any way.

I think that's what Unilever is getting at, it's time for these platforms to start moderating things. I don't know if that's possible though, due to the nature of how those services work. A man's home is his castle, well I think social media users see their accounts as their castles. Facebook and the like risk chasing away users if they start getting more and more restrictive.

as a dad who has a 15 year old son learning to adjust to high school and growing up... social media is beyond awful. hard enough to raise him without Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.


Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Germany

A German consumer rights group said on Monday that a court had found Facebook’s use of personal data to be illegal because the U.S. social media platform did not adequately secure the informed consent of its users.
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The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzvb) said that Facebook’s default settings and some of its terms of service were in breach of consumer law, and that the court had found parts of the consent to data usage to be invalid.

“Facebook hides default settings that are not privacy-friendly in its privacy center and does not provide sufficient information about it when users register,” said Heiko Duenkel, litigation policy officer at the vzvb.
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Facebook said it would appeal, even though several aspects of the court judgment had been in its favor. In a statement, it said it had already made significant changes to its terms of service and data protection guidelines since the case was first brought in 2015.
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Further, Facebook would in the meantime update its data protection guidelines and its terms of service so that they comply with new European Union-wide rules that are due to enter force in June.

Also Germany

A German court ruled that Facebook’s real name policy is illegal and that users must be allowed to sign up for the service under pseudonyms to comply with a decade-old privacy law. The ruling, made last month but only now being announced, comes from the Berlin Regional Court and was detailed today by the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (abbreviated from German as VZBV), which filed the lawsuit against Facebook.

Maybe create some type of software which prevents the pasting and copying of anything beyond a limited number of times without someone actually going to the original source to get it. That would keep Uncle Harry from forwarding shit to 500 people.

Oh, and I don't do Facebook, or Twitter or any of those. Forums like this are it for me.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:30 pm 2. I understand that Facebook now insists that you must use your actual personal information to join. Why would anyone voluntarily give that to anyone? You don't need Zuckerberg to share pictures with your friends and family.

Is that really so? How do they verify it?

I've been on Facebook since 2009, and I told them my birthday was in 1913. Zuckerberg has never inquired about it.

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:01 pm

Jaymann wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:30 pm 2. I understand that Facebook now insists that you must use your actual personal information to join. Why would anyone voluntarily give that to anyone? You don't need Zuckerberg to share pictures with your friends and family.

Is that really so? How do they verify it?

I've been on Facebook since 2009, and I told them my birthday was in 1913. Zuckerberg has never inquired about it.

That puts you at just about the right age for a growing proportion of Facebook's users, so it didn't set off any red flags.

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:01 pm

Jaymann wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:30 pm 2. I understand that Facebook now insists that you must use your actual personal information to join. Why would anyone voluntarily give that to anyone? You don't need Zuckerberg to share pictures with your friends and family.

Is that really so? How do they verify it?

I don't think they can (YET), but the mere existence of the policy will make many people think they have to do it.

I've still ignored every effort by them to get my birthday, with no ill effect. At the end of last year, they informed me that I received zero birthday wishes in 2017! That I found amusing enough to repost, and I was suddenly deluged with birthday wishes even though the actual day is nowhere close.

I have Facebook. I have no drama, no trolling, no crap.

Other people I know are constantly frustrated or angry about stuff that happens on Facebook, pissed off because someone said this, panicked because someone posted an article that said that.

Without exception, those in the latter camp have hundreds of 'friends', inviting and accepting invitations from everybody who likes something they post or makes a comment they agree with on some nonsense page. Those I've found who don't have that kind of drama limit their list to actual friends and family, people they know personally. I have actual friends, family members, people I've worked with, people from OO. I don't follow every page that posts a single funny meme, only small companies (often game designers) that I want to keep up on the news with. If I do follow something that starts pumping out nonsense, spam, or even spoilers, I simply remove them. If family and friends start reposting stuff from elsewhere that is nonsense, I simply click on the posts and choose 'Stop Seeing Posts By' the page they forwarded it from. It doesn't take long before I don't see a single spam post, trolling news post, or game request.

What I'm left with is a place where I can talk to people who are important to me, hear about what's happening with my family, arrange activities, and keep up with things that are actually meaningful. Someone said earlier that the problem with social media is that it isn't moderated. That isn't true. You're your own moderator, and have to 'train' the content a little bit before you get what you are after. But if you just blindly click? Yeah, that will result in awfulness.

I've been on FB for almost 10 years and have never used my real name or birthday.

I like FB mostly as a digest for articles from sites that I don't visit individually, such as Cracked, Space.com, IFLScience, NASA, MIT Tech Review, and half a dozen other news, entertainment, and political pages that regularly post bite-sized pieces. I also like being able to keep tabs on my family and friends, although I'm mostly a lurker except for clicking Like. I understand that FB intends to suppress the kinds of content that I go there for. I'm also told that marking those pages "See this first" will get around their filters. We'll see. If it really degenerates into nothing but baby pics and insipid inspirational quotations, I'll stop going there. I do not care what my friends had for lunch today.

Snapchat is making a bid for your parents, missing the entire point of Snapchat

But by framing itself as another milquetoast social app designed for flaunting idyllic vacations and family reunions, the ad completely ignores what makes Snapchat appealing in the first place. Those highly curated shots are already going up on Instagram Stories. Snapchat is the place where you trade dumb jokes with your friends, non-essential thoughts, or show off the trashy nights you don’t want preserved past a five-second timer. Snapchat is not for warm-and-fuzzy family moments. It’s not a “camera” for your “feelings.” Snapchat is for shitposting.

Or at least, it used to be. Once the preferred method of young people for sexts and ephemeral videos starring your best friend on a 3AM bender, Snapchat has taken a plunge of late. After Kylie Jenner confessed that she doesn’t use the app much anymore, the company’s stock price took a tumble to the tune of roughly a $1.5 billion loss in market value. Just last month, Chrissy Teigen and Rihanna publicly condemned the platform after it featured an ad asking if users “would rather slap Rihanna” or “punch Chris Brown.”

Scuzz wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2018 6:28 pm Maybe create some type of software which prevents the pasting and copying of anything beyond a limited number of times without someone actually going to the original source to get it. That would keep Uncle Harry from forwarding shit to 500 people.

Oh, and I don't do Facebook, or Twitter or any of those. Forums like this are it for me.

I don't know if it needs to prevent copy/paste, I think there's a huge opportunity here. Use blockchain for the chain of transactions, and use microtransactions to pay both content creators and content sharers, while using those as a currency to consume shared content which pays both creators and sharers.

Cut out the advertising industry altogether (and all of the data privacy/mining headaches altogether) and truly become a platform for sharing both original and shared content.

I used to be very private about online use from about 1994 - 2005 but it got really tiring to try and keep up with spoofing IP and such and I gave up. In the old days IPs were always random but come the day of the always on connection that changed. I then tried to watch what was posted and where but gave that up too. Since then I just watch what I post. If theres a pic its one I expect to be all over the world. Anything private I still keep private as I can.

The world it is a'change'n

Facebook is labeling everyone as: Very Liberal, Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, or Very Conservative.

If you want to see where you fall according to them it's at: setting>account settings>ads>your information>your categories>US Politics.

I got labeled Liberal, though I consider myself moderate. My wife got Very Liberal

Fitzy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:44 pm Facebook is labeling everyone as: Very Liberal, Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, or Very Conservative.

Labels are dumb. Libertarians (ah! another label) are both very liberal and very conservative depending on the topic.

"Very liberal." I suppose...although not really by MA standards.

Fitzy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:44 pm Facebook is labeling everyone as: Very Liberal, Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, or Very Conservative.

If you want to see where you fall according to them it's at: setting>account settings>ads>your information>your categories>US Politics.

I got labeled Liberal, though I consider myself moderate. My wife got Very Liberal

I was labeled moderate. I find this to be accurate.

"Very liberal." Pretty accurate.

"Multicultural Affinity: African American." I am Chinese American.

I was labeled as "liberal", which is probably accurate. A little surprised a wasn't tagged as "very liberal"...I'm a little curious how they define the categories.

I've been trying to wind down my social media activity. I realized that I had put in a bunch of identifying info when I set up my FB account (graduating class, city, job, etc.), and have since removed all of that. I rarely post anything political anymore, mostly limiting my interaction to pictures of the kids for the extended family to see, or random things I find funny. I'll occasionally make a snarky remark when I come across the most egregious FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW: sort of conservative memes, but am trying hard to avoid it entirely.

AWS260 wrote:"Very liberal." Pretty accurate.

"Multicultural Affinity: African American." I am Chinese American.

Are you sure? I think I trust FB on this one.

I've been assigned to the "Parents with Adult Children (18-26)" group


Maybe Facebook knows something that I do not.

I have virtually no facebook ad categories. No political ones at all. I have that crap all locked down to disable the tracking. Like Blackhawk - I moderate the crap out of FB stuff.

I was amused that it gave me the quality 'Away From Home Town.' I can't help but wonder what they think that means, given that I have never lived in my home town. Ever. I lived probably 20-30 miles from there when I was born, and had moved much, much further away before I ever formed my first memories.

Not sure if this belongs in a social media thread or one of the dating threads, but FB is about to make it easier for you to date. Maybe. Or have another way to steal/sell your data.

Facebook is adding a dating layer to its main mobile app, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today during the company’s F8 developers conference keynote in San Jose, California. The features are a long time coming for the 14-year-old social network, which has allowed users to broadcast whether they’re single or in a relationship since it first went live in February 2004.

The move will likely transform Facebook, with its more than 2.2 billion monthly active users, into a major competitor of Match Group, which owns and operates mobile dating app Tinder and popular dating platform OkCupid. Match Group’s stock plummeted by more than 17 percent as soon as the news was announced.

"Meet Hot Russian Girls and GRU Analysts!"

Apparently Elon Musk has decided to fix Twitter. This should go well.

Elon Musk joins Twitter's board, says 'significant improvements' are coming

A day after revealing he owns a significant chunk of Twitter, Elon Musk has been given a major say in deciding how it's run.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet early Tuesday that Musk has been named to the company's board of directors, giving him a say in the company's strategic direction.

"He's both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need ... to make us stronger in the long-term," Agrawal said. "Welcome Elon!"

"Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months," Musk replied.

According to the regulatory filing announcing the move, Musk will be named a director of the company for a term that will expire in 2024.

The move comes a day after it was revealed that Musk has quietly been buying up shares in the company, accumulating more than 73 million of them in recent weeks — more than anyone else owns.

Has Musk given any info on the changes he wants to make?

I heard he wants an Edit buton.

It's been the central piece on CNBC for the last two days. I'm glad I'm not part of the Twittersphere. Musk is visionary. There is no denying. But he is also not so good for labor, has "taken the red pill", and already uses his bully platform to spread political and business influence. His wanting to fix free speech has historically been opposed to what I see as free speech. The only thing that gives me pause to my own bias is how he's stepped up in Ukraine.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Tue Apr 05, 2022 1:02 pm Has Musk given any info on the changes he wants to make?

He has ideas about free speech.

Musk is a prolific Twitter user who often posts company news on the platform and has fought with the SEC over a 2018 settlement that requires Tesla to impose controls on his social media statements.

On March 25, Musk posted a Twitter poll, writing, "Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?"

Musk added in a follow-up tweet, "The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully." Musk's poll received over 2 million votes, with over 70 percent answering "no."

A day after the poll, Musk wrote, "Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done? Is a new platform needed?" Musk also polled users on whether the "Twitter algorithm should be open source," and he claimed to be "giving serious thought" to building a new social media platform.

Musk recently called himself a "free speech absolutist," after which an Insider article noted that he "has a track record of silencing critics with threats of lawsuits and firing employees who disagree with him." Musk "is a free speech absolutist… unless it involves safety concerns IMO," wrote ex-Tesla employee John Bernal, who says he was fired for posting YouTube videos about Tesla's Full Self-Driving beta.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Tue Apr 05, 2022 1:19 pm

Musk recently called himself a "free speech absolutist," after which an Insider article noted that he "has a track record of silencing critics with threats of lawsuits and firing employees who disagree with him."

This is my belief so it must be true. As an absolutist does he accept troll farms and bots or is wealth and celebrity the only gateway to free speech absolutism?

Musk and Free Speech in the same sentence make me laugh. He comes down hard on anything and anyone that doesn't align with his beliefs.

If he’s on the board, they can’t punish him for his speech. It’s an investment to avoid consequences.

Free speech in the digital age is an extremely complex issue. I don't like misinformation spread by russian (small r) and other bots. It has an undeniable negative impact. But it is difficult to prove, and does it rise to the level of shouting fire in a theater? Even if it does, who will be the minister of information who decides what is and is not harmful? Algorithms are clearly not up to the task. Is Czar Musk going to personally review and decide on every tweet? He couldn't possibly, even if he did nothing else.