It's fascinating that widespread outrage over privacy finally materializes when data is used for hated political causes. Commerce, law enforcement not so much... but "Trump" or "Obama" and suddenly people care.
The Facebook outrage is interesting since it is tied to Trump. When Obama did it, no one cared. For example, there's a video of Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager, talking about how they obtained the entire Facebook social graph and used it to target voters. [1] I don't remember any "delete Facebook" campaigns back then.
You gotta understand the ruling elites though. It was fun to watch different "Springs" happening in some distant lands. Not so much fun when "American Spring" happens in your own country, even if it's a "mild" edition.
But that is very human: we are really, really bad at grasping abstract ideas but make something concrete and we will react. I can talk about privacy with someone until their ear falls off but to most people I sound like a lunatic. Show them how we can be manipulated into sometimes literally tearing each other apart and suddenly people care.
One of my friends mentioned that Trump denying climate change galvanized a lot of support for reducing greenhouse emissions. Apparently people hate Trump more than they like our planet...
Commerce and law enforcement don't have opposing forces with huge political propaganda/PR machines behind them. Trump is opposed by the Democrats, and Obama is opposed by the Republicans. Both parties are public sentiment manipulation machines.
Am I wrong that there is a clear difference between big data marketing methods and military information operations methods?
> [SCL Group's] expertise was in “psychological operations” – or psyops – changing people’s minds not through persuasion but through “informational dominance”, a set of techniques that includes rumour, disinformation and fake news.
At least half the country feel like they were actually harmed, and even the rest sees the danger coming closer. I actually don’t care, or may even prefer, if commercial ads are perfectly targeted at me.
People care about their "football team" [party] and their small economic and social bubble. They are not good in general to see how things affect them.
Fun fact: most fiscal policies have as a goal to get people to invest their money and get growth back in. Their effect is psychological. If the effects sound like they will have a positive effect in my little bubble I will start spending and investing, as I feel the Big Brother is ensuring a positive future for me. In fact, I as an individual impact the economy and not the Big Brother directly, as i) I spread the positive feeling and ii) invest. Hence, the consensus of the market is positive. See Keyene's "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (http://cas2.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/co...) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employme...) chapter 12. The average per person confidence for the short term affects the long term progress. People usually find no precedence to connect their privacy to the economic or political success. Now events start rolling stating otherwise. This article for instance states claims that their lack of privacy might have impacted the election, a matter most people feel affects their bubble. And rightly so. Thus why the mild reactions.
Example 2:
People in security world/academia have been paranoid about what NSA was doing. The average Joe did not care about their data till the E. Snowden fiasco. The "mob reaction" told them to care. Then it subsided a bit again. Fortunately, it left the average person maybe a bit more aware on average. The impact was more money flowing towards security research and the rest of the world took note.
As a last (desperate) solution, I hope events like this hit the public where it hurts. Equifax was not enough, but it was a wake up call for some. This Facebook scandal probably will not do the job for the average Jane/Joe, but maybe the next one will. At that point people will either have to take a step or we will wake up in an Orwellian world.
We may need an event so drastic that relates people's privacy with their bubble and fast. Remember the "sudden" economic/social disasters of today are usually decades in the making (1920s, 2007, Russian revolution, most likely "x (social) revolution", where x is your country).
More like "British pimping/extortion ring" combined with possible "Russian aynchronous warfare" but yeah you're right, there's nothing wrong with that, is there? It's just the subordination of my democracy and civil rights.
There is a suddenness to this episode that deserves some examination. For years, Facebook has been violating people's privacy. For years, people went along with it. Perhaps on some level, people were disturbed by it, but they weren't angry enough to do anything about it.
If we were discussing economics, then we would call this a Minsky moment[1]. If you substitute "trust" for "money" then this almost fits:
"A Minsky moment is a sudden major collapse of asset values which is part of the credit cycle or business cycle. Such moments occur because long periods of prosperity and increasing value of investments lead to increasing speculation using borrowed money."
But I think we are also seeing a sudden moral panic, like the one that destroyed MySpace in 2006. danah boyd wrote about that at the time[2]:
"Because of their position of power, outsiders are pushing the big red emergency button, screaming danger and creating a complete and utter moral panic. Welcome to a generational divide, where adults are unable to see the practices of their children on kids' terms. If MySpace falters in the next 1-2 years, it will be because of this moral panic."
But those children grew up. The 16 year old of 2006 is now 28. So this moral panic is a bit different. It's not adults freaking out about what is being done to kids, it's adults freaking out about what is being done to themselves.
Mind you, I think it's obvious that Facebook has behaved very badly, so this episode of castigation is well deserved. But the suddenness of it makes me think there is also an element of panic.
Speaking for myself, but also probably for a lot of others, I've wanted Facebook to die for years now. The discomfort around the privacy and toxicity has been slowly building, but the critical mass of the thing makes it hard to break away by yourself. You lose touch with people, you miss event invites, etc.
So maybe, for a lot of people, this moment of collective outrage is an opportunity to get out. If we can all quit at once, we can all be free.
I'm not sold on the MySpace thesis. MySpace faltered due to autoplaying audio and video, obnoxious animated gifs, and ridiculous CSS customization powers given to the users. Facebook was cleaner, loaded faster, and had a better "scene" for people in the targeted demographic: college students and eventually recent graduates.
"Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire." Unfortunately, yes he does. It's called time. Act like you're changing things, do a little change, the least the better, and wait it out. People will bitch about it but eventually, it becomes the new normal. Even if FB fails, which it won't, there's another social network right after it.
Facebook is an addiction for several billion humans. It is in itself a quagmire, but is not going to go away any time soon.
And the business of making money off profiling private behavior online, for commercial or other purposes, is not specifically a Facebook thing, it is ingrained into the backbone of the internet itself. It won't go away any time soon.
Facebook will of course be responsive to demands by the joint forces of tax-revenue collecting agencies + old media (who are seeing their business models dissipate into the pockets of Facebook, Google and a few more), and so we'll probably see some adjustments which will try to satisfy them; less tax-havens and a trickle of the revenue stream back to the original news creators.
I’m sorry, what quagmire? Most people either aren’t aware of the privacy issues or if they are don’t care. People like using Facebook, or at least are addicted to it.
You don't see the addiction itself as a quagmire? It sure is on its own. And "what quagmire"? You know what quagmire. The one where Facebook has been acting extremely guilty around entering Cambridge Analytica's offices and refusing to leave until police forced them out. The one where Facebook is complicit in the stolen information, whereby they had knowledge of the problem for 2+ years before acting. The one that spoils the trust of investors and users alike. That quagmire.
Wow, is it just me, or is Bloomberg really on the attack on Facebook? Every article on Facebook from them submitted here and other places like Reddit have always been quite negative, especially the headline.
Facebook does a pretty good job of authentication, at least for nontechnical users, who are arguably the majority. If you sign up using VPN services or Tor, you get nagged for a mobile number for text verification. So Facebook either knows your IP address or mobile number. I don't consider that "de facto anonymity".
Now if you're skilled, and willing to invest some time and money, you can circumvent that. Or you can buy accounts, if you know where to shop. But that's not the case, for most Facebook users.
Mobile number checks are almost trivial to circumvent - you can get a DID with SMS capability from a VOIP provider for under a buck, just use it once and throw it away.
Something I've been thinking about: why doesn't WeChat, the world's 2nd largest social network with 1B MAU, suffer the issues Facebook is experiencing today?
If Facebook became more like WeChat, would they avoid these problems? If Facebook finds it does avoid such problems, will Facebook switch models in the future?
WeChat is this big because of its dominance in China and it very much operates in cooperation of the government [1]. It was subsidized by the government, it has no international competition because the government doesn't allow similar apps to operate there, and it's an "accepted reality that officials censor and monitor users".
Aka, the "privacy and collusion with the state" bar is at a very different level.
The whole operating model of the company based on invasion of privacy. Blatant invasion of privacy and data collection by Google and FB is a national security issue. No entity should be allowed to snoop on free citizens more than KGB has ever dreamed about. Orwellian!
> dreams.. "..we're closing the main Facebook app and web site.."
I think a better dream would be if FB open-sourced an advertisement-free Facebook, and provided $1B in grants to build permutations of the UI that all sync data.
Not sure if offtopic but how does Facebook make money? They talk about micro targetting me but, while I click often on adword ads because they know me, I have literally 0 times seen any interesting or a even remotely relevant ad on facebook? They know everything about me... I did an advertising engine for a big datingsite long ago which was stupid as mud but got vastly superior ads for for my demographic based on the data the site had about me than facebook has ever shown me. So am I just ‘unlucky’ or am I missing something?
At this point I very much want to know what data about me has been collected by private companies. I'm getting sick of not knowing. I'm repulsed by people divining or extrapolating. I want to fucking know.
Whatever you ever filled in or posted to the servers of a private company under your real identity is "data about me that has been collected by private companies". It's not that complicated.
Most places now (for compliance reasons) allow you to delete old accounts and old posts either through a button or if you email customer support or the webmaster.
Hopefully professional news organizations will realize how little credibility there is to social media numbers (likes, followers, etc.) and finally decide to stop reporting about trends on social media as if it is news.
There is sadly a very clear reason why China banned Facebook - its use has the potential to destroy social consensus, which is necessary for social cohesion. I’m not surprised Zuck has been hiding, in his heart of hearts, he realizes his invention has sort of destroyed America (and Britain, but I concede he probably cares less about that).
He should resign. Or this bullshit will keep repeating. As it already has too many times.
Tech/Engineering folk are totally unfit to run social companies of the scale of YouTube/twitter/facebook etc. They don't have the skills or the experience or the sense in handling this stuff.
They know how to scale things and that's where their expertise ends and contribution should end.
They should be run by elected politicians with an advisory board filled with people who understand sociology, psychology, religion, culture, law and security. Those are the people who keep society running not the fucking plumbers.
[+] [-] rectang|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sverige|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A
[+] [-] throwaway7656|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hangonhn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aidenn0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colordrops|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mch82|8 years ago|reply
> [SCL Group's] expertise was in “psychological operations” – or psyops – changing people’s minds not through persuasion but through “informational dominance”, a set of techniques that includes rumour, disinformation and fake news.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistl...
[+] [-] IAmEveryone|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eftychis|8 years ago|reply
Fun fact: most fiscal policies have as a goal to get people to invest their money and get growth back in. Their effect is psychological. If the effects sound like they will have a positive effect in my little bubble I will start spending and investing, as I feel the Big Brother is ensuring a positive future for me. In fact, I as an individual impact the economy and not the Big Brother directly, as i) I spread the positive feeling and ii) invest. Hence, the consensus of the market is positive. See Keyene's "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (http://cas2.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/co...) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employme...) chapter 12. The average per person confidence for the short term affects the long term progress. People usually find no precedence to connect their privacy to the economic or political success. Now events start rolling stating otherwise. This article for instance states claims that their lack of privacy might have impacted the election, a matter most people feel affects their bubble. And rightly so. Thus why the mild reactions.
Example 2: People in security world/academia have been paranoid about what NSA was doing. The average Joe did not care about their data till the E. Snowden fiasco. The "mob reaction" told them to care. Then it subsided a bit again. Fortunately, it left the average person maybe a bit more aware on average. The impact was more money flowing towards security research and the rest of the world took note.
As a last (desperate) solution, I hope events like this hit the public where it hurts. Equifax was not enough, but it was a wake up call for some. This Facebook scandal probably will not do the job for the average Jane/Joe, but maybe the next one will. At that point people will either have to take a step or we will wake up in an Orwellian world.
We may need an event so drastic that relates people's privacy with their bubble and fast. Remember the "sudden" economic/social disasters of today are usually decades in the making (1920s, 2007, Russian revolution, most likely "x (social) revolution", where x is your country).
[+] [-] wavefunction|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SN76477|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lkrubner|8 years ago|reply
If we were discussing economics, then we would call this a Minsky moment[1]. If you substitute "trust" for "money" then this almost fits:
"A Minsky moment is a sudden major collapse of asset values which is part of the credit cycle or business cycle. Such moments occur because long periods of prosperity and increasing value of investments lead to increasing speculation using borrowed money."
But I think we are also seeing a sudden moral panic, like the one that destroyed MySpace in 2006. danah boyd wrote about that at the time[2]:
"Because of their position of power, outsiders are pushing the big red emergency button, screaming danger and creating a complete and utter moral panic. Welcome to a generational divide, where adults are unable to see the practices of their children on kids' terms. If MySpace falters in the next 1-2 years, it will be because of this moral panic."
But those children grew up. The 16 year old of 2006 is now 28. So this moral panic is a bit different. It's not adults freaking out about what is being done to kids, it's adults freaking out about what is being done to themselves.
Mind you, I think it's obvious that Facebook has behaved very badly, so this episode of castigation is well deserved. But the suddenness of it makes me think there is also an element of panic.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsky_moment
[2] https://www.danah.org/papers/FriendsterMySpaceEssay.html
[+] [-] _bxg1|8 years ago|reply
So maybe, for a lot of people, this moment of collective outrage is an opportunity to get out. If we can all quit at once, we can all be free.
[+] [-] humanrebar|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistermann|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WheelsAtLarge|8 years ago|reply
But I hope I'm wrong.
[+] [-] stareatgoats|8 years ago|reply
And the business of making money off profiling private behavior online, for commercial or other purposes, is not specifically a Facebook thing, it is ingrained into the backbone of the internet itself. It won't go away any time soon.
Facebook will of course be responsive to demands by the joint forces of tax-revenue collecting agencies + old media (who are seeing their business models dissipate into the pockets of Facebook, Google and a few more), and so we'll probably see some adjustments which will try to satisfy them; less tax-havens and a trickle of the revenue stream back to the original news creators.
But nothing drastic.
[+] [-] Cacti|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptoz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mayzie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fredliu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delhanty|8 years ago|reply
Personally, I'm rooting for the wildebeest to come back to life and run off.
[+] [-] mirimir|8 years ago|reply
Facebook does a pretty good job of authentication, at least for nontechnical users, who are arguably the majority. If you sign up using VPN services or Tor, you get nagged for a mobile number for text verification. So Facebook either knows your IP address or mobile number. I don't consider that "de facto anonymity".
Now if you're skilled, and willing to invest some time and money, you can circumvent that. Or you can buy accounts, if you know where to shop. But that's not the case, for most Facebook users.
[+] [-] Kelbit|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tristanj|8 years ago|reply
If Facebook became more like WeChat, would they avoid these problems? If Facebook finds it does avoid such problems, will Facebook switch models in the future?
[+] [-] aylmao|8 years ago|reply
Aka, the "privacy and collusion with the state" bar is at a very different level.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16721230/wechat-china-app-...
[+] [-] platinumrad|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] asdsa5325|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mudil|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonmc12|8 years ago|reply
I think a better dream would be if FB open-sourced an advertisement-free Facebook, and provided $1B in grants to build permutations of the UI that all sync data.
[+] [-] apengwin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tluyben2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnahckire|8 years ago|reply
See: https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2017/Q4...
[+] [-] dictum|8 years ago|reply
I used to think Zuckerberg's pandering to the Chinese government was a power grab, an expansionist desire.
Now I think it's a hedge strategy. He knows he's not very welcome in some of the circles he's been in for the past few years.
[+] [-] ikeyany|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sunir|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sixothree|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drak0n1c|8 years ago|reply
Most places now (for compliance reasons) allow you to delete old accounts and old posts either through a button or if you email customer support or the webmaster.
[+] [-] itronitron|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GreeniFi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fooker|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] juststeve|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sunir|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zlo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bazeblackwood|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 908087|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlctl3|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dheuudjdjj|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] hux_|8 years ago|reply
Tech/Engineering folk are totally unfit to run social companies of the scale of YouTube/twitter/facebook etc. They don't have the skills or the experience or the sense in handling this stuff.
They know how to scale things and that's where their expertise ends and contribution should end.
They should be run by elected politicians with an advisory board filled with people who understand sociology, psychology, religion, culture, law and security. Those are the people who keep society running not the fucking plumbers.