back in 2009 ish.. when we had a fairly functional moodle and ning (for being w/in district.. and w/in highschool math).. i asked the kids where they’d rather host things.. they said fb.. not being on fb myself.. i was a bit.. well .. out of my element (which is the best place to be perhaps).. so in listening to them.. that’s where we went
had been not doc ing or using the social network and/or Mark Zuckerberg as doc pages.. adding this page this day (john)
John Battelle (@johnbattelle) tweeted at 5:53 AM – 22 Jan 2018 :
Facebook begins a dialog on its “Hard Questions” blog. But is it enough? Feels like… I dunno. Read for yourself. I’ll write about it later. https://t.co/hnWV38zZDG (http://twitter.com/johnbattelle/status/955423286497865734?s=17)
By Katie Harbath, Global Politics and Government Outreach Director
Now, we’re as determined as ever to fight the negative influences and ensure that our platform is unquestionably a source for democratic good. .. Our role is to ensure that the good outweighs the forces that can compromise healthy discourse.
perhaps only way.. if everyone has something else to do.. gershenfeld sel
That’s the subject that these essays address. We begin with a perspective from Samidh Chakrabarti, who leads Facebook’s civic engagement team. .. Among our writers is Harvard professor and author Cass Sunstein; Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia and social media scholar; and Ariadne Vromen, a professor of political participation at the University of Sydney. We begin with Sunstein and will publish the others in subsequent days.
We hope that this collection of pieces gives you some perspectives you may not have thought of before and sparks a discussion. We welcome your views and encourage you to share them in the comments or email us at hardquestions@fb.com.
hello..
Our role is to ensure that the good outweighs the forces that can compromise healthy discourse.
By Samidh Chakrabarti, Product Manager, Civic Engagement
Finally, since the best deterrent will ultimately be a discerning public
and perhaps.. a pre occupied (for good) public.. why spend out days discerning.. when most of the stuff we’d be discerning.. could become irrelevant.. by means of eudaimoniative surplus
They are professionalized and constantly try to game the system. We will always have more work to do.
unless.. we are all doing something else..
Think about how our minds work. It’s natural to seek out information that confirms what we already believe — a phenomenon social scientists call “confirmation bias.” Walter Quattrociocchi, Antonio Scala and Cass Sunstein found evidence last year that social media users are drawn to information that strengthens their preferred narratives and reject information that undermines it.
That makes bursting these bubbles hard because it requires pushing against deeply ingrained human instincts.
human instincts..? or manufactured/complianced behaviors..?
we need to make sure no one is bullied or threatened for their views.
then go to the root.. for 7 bn
Unequal Participation
has to be all of us.. begs a leap ..a global do over.. to global equity
This means that for the first time in history, **people can keep up with their government as easily as they keep up with their friends. This is unlocking *new waves of latent civic energy and putting power into more hands.
imagine the *new waves of latent energy if **people can keep up with their daily curiosities.. via 2 convos
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
If there’s one fundamental truth about social media’s impact on democracy it’s that it amplifies human intent — both good and bad. At its best, it allows us to express ourselves and take action.
let’s just focus-on/listen-to/facil that.. as it could be
I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but *I can’t. That’s why we have a moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible.
*but we can.. if it’s all of us..
By Cass R. Sunstein, Professor at Harvard Law School
Mental illness, chronic pain, loss of employment, vulnerability to crime, drugs in the family – information about all these spread via social media, and they can be *reduced with sensible policies. When people can talk to each other, and disclose what they know to public officials, the whole world might change in a hurry.
perhaps even make them all *irrelevant.. since they were mostly man made in first place.. et al
Unplanned, unanticipated encounters are central to democracy itself.
so let’s facil 2 convos .. as the day..
consider a small experiment in democracy that I conducted with some colleagues over a decade ago. We brought about sixty American citizens (from co spgs/right and boulder/left) together and
assembled them into groups, generally consisting of six people..The results were simple and disturbing. In almost every group, members ended up with more extreme positions after they spoke with one another. That’s group polarization in action… Here’s my point: Every minute of every day, the Colorado experiment is being replicated on social media, and in countless nations.
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Facebook is an American online social media and social networking service based in Menlo Park, California. The Facebook website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskowitz, Sean Parker, ..
The founders had initially limited the website’s membership to Harvard students; however, later they expanded it to higher education institutions in the Boston area, the Ivy League schools, and Stanford University. Facebook gradually added support for students at various other universities, and eventually to high school students as well. Since 2006, anyone who claims to be at least 13 years old has been allowed to become a registered user of Facebook, though variations exist in the minimum age requirement, depending on applicable local laws. The Facebook name comes from the face book directories often given to United States university students. The company held its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2012, and began selling stock to the public three months later, reaching an original peak market capitalization of $104 billion, a new record. Facebook makes most of its revenue from advertisements which appear onscreen.
[..]
Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly active users as of June 2017. Its popularity has led to prominent media coverage for the company, including significant scrutiny over privacy and the psychological effects it has on users. In recent years, the company has faced intense pressure over the amount of fake news, hate speech and violence prevalent on its services, all of which it is attempting to counteract.
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internet dot org et al
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Siva Vaidhyanathan (@sivavaid) tweeted at 6:46 AM – 27 Jan 2018 :
Facebook is acting against the public good, and it’s time for people to build alternatives, @EthanZ argues. https://t.co/Iptruv4VL1(http://twitter.com/sivavaid/status/957248574152216576?s=17)
Instead of telling Facebook what it should do, people should build tools that let them view the world the way they choose.
mech to facil 2 convos .. as the day
Obviously, Facebook is filled with people who care deeply about these issues. Some are my friends and my former students. But Facebook suffers from a problem of its own success. It has grown so central to our mediated understanding of the world that it either needs to learn to listen to its users stated desires, or it needs to make room for platforms that do.
science of people ness.. is killing us.. we have no idea what we’re like.. let’s listen for that..as it could be
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Steven Johnson (@stevenbjohnson) tweeted at 7:24 AM on Mon, Feb 12, 2018:
Epic Wired cover story (and what a cover it is!) on Facebook’s annus horribilis. (Or whatever the latin would be for TWO horrible years.) I just read the riveting opening section, more thoughts when I finish it later this AM… https://t.co/wm5ndDI6LY
(https://twitter.com/stevenbjohnson/status/963056129612877825?ref_src=twcamp%5Eshare%7Ctwsrc%5Eandroid%7Ctwgr%5Egmail%7Ctwcon%5E7090%7Ctwterm%5E0)
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So this Wired story pretty much confirmed for me what I’d been saying for a while (including before the election). Facebook got played and manipulated to not fix the egregious exploitation of its platform before the election. Plain and simple. https://t.co/bTYH6FMEyy https://t.co/z8HdtoEJIs
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/963163634384941056
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unilever threatens to pull facebook et al.. ads
Important! FB’s #1 advertiser threatens to pull their $$’s until they clean it up – powerful move bc advertisers, not users, are social media’s true customers. Now let’s get the other 9/10 advertisers on Facebook to speak up – use your voice! https://t.co/TcYopUrz3X
Unilever threatens to pull advertising from platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, if they don’t do more to combat the spread of fake news, hate speech and divisive content. wsj.com/articles/unile…
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/tristanharris/status/963136272410619904
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Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) tweeted at 4:28 AM – 20 Feb 2018 :
Facebook’s next project: American inequality https://t.co/RY9lk9yBcu via @politico (http://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/965911064369156097?s=17)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is quietly cracking open his company’s vast trove of user data for a study on economic inequality in the U.S. — the latest sign of his efforts to reckon with divisions in American society that the social network is accused of making worse.
The study, which hasn’t previously been reported, is mining the social connections among Facebook’s American users to shed light on the growing income disparity in the U.S., where the top 1 percent of households is said to control 40 percent of the country’s wealth.
Now the company is making the user data available to a team led by Stanford economist Raj Chetty, a favorite among tech elites for his focus on data-driven solutions to the nation’s social and economic problems.
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If you work at Facebook or Twitter, please print out this tweet by a HIGH SCHOOLER SURVIVOR OF A SCHOOL SHOOTING and tape it onto every surface you can find. Your platforms are (and have been!!) enabling an obscene level of abuse. https://t.co/wFojEassJn
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/xuhulk/status/966385216032997376
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Scott B. Weingart (@scott_bot) tweeted at 9:10 PM – 23 Feb 2018 :
Well this is surreal. I’m reading an article on social network analysis that calculates someone’s morale based on the “likes” they received.
The catch is, it was written in 1939. https://t.co/mxgig8j3GK (http://twitter.com/scott_bot/status/967250322887503872?s=17)
Scott B. Weingart (@scott_bot) tweeted at 3:43 AM – 24 Feb 2018 :
@_erincon https://t.co/Ol0Hp5z7Av
Sociometry of Morale. Leslie Day Zeleny. American Sociological Review. Vol. 4, No. 6 (Dec., 1939), pp. 799-808 (http://twitter.com/scott_bot/status/967349224554876934?s=17)
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Audrey Watters (@audreywatters) tweeted at 5:57 AM – 26 Feb 2018 :
Pre-ordered. Cannot wait for this book https://t.co/hHTMcQoVi1 (http://twitter.com/audreywatters/status/968107761669206017?s=17)
Antisocial Media – How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
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Hamza Shaban (@hshaban) tweeted at 12:51 PM – 17 Mar 2018 :
As Facebook draws distinctions between data breaches and mere “violations”, 3rd party betrayals and its own responsibility, consider @zeynep’s argument that we can’t actually “accept” data privacy agreements because the idea of informed consent is a farce https://t.co/Kl93m4RvHj https://t.co/7aevdbTt16(http://twitter.com/hshaban/status/975082177061847040?s=17)
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on Christopher Wylie and cambridge analytica and fb
Carne Ross (@carneross) tweeted at 5:38 AM – 19 Mar 2018 :
We desperately need an alternative to the ghastly, intrusive, unaccountable and manipulative @facebook – https://t.co/kddgfykOX6(http://twitter.com/carneross/status/975698114001686528?s=17)
perhaps what we need most is a mech to listen to and facil the daily curiosities of 7 bn people.. everyday.. so that everybody.. would have something else to do.. (the thing they can’t not do)
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This is unconscionable. Facebook’s response to the Cambridge Analytica data debacle? To ban the whistleblower. Please retweet. This is NOT okay. https://t.co/abjfh4td4g
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/975336552678248448
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The issue goes far beyond what Cambridge Analytica may have done in 2016. We need to confront that this kind of surveillance/data infrastructure is ripe for use, misuse and abuse. My latest for the @nytimes. https://t.co/wZEheBtu4Uhttps://t.co/T5RmLYUE8b (http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/975821745147047941?s=17)
Mr. Grewal is right: This wasn’t a breach in the technical sense. It is something even more troubling: an all-too-natural consequence of Facebook’s business model, which involves having people go to the site for social interaction, only to be quietly subjected to an enormous level of surveillance.
Facebook even creates “shadow profiles” of nonusers. That is, even if you are not on Facebook, the company may well have compiled a profile of you, inferred from data provided by your friends or from other data. This is an involuntary dossier from which you cannot opt out in the United States
Despite Facebook’s claims to the contrary, everyone involved in the Cambridge Analytica data-siphoning incident did not give his or her “consent” — at least not in any meaningful sense of the word. It is true that if you found and read all the fine print on the site, you might have noticed that in 2014, your Facebook friends had the right to turn over all your data through such apps. (Facebook has since turned off this feature.) If you had managed to make your way through a bewildering array of options, you might have even discovered how to turn the feature off.
This wasn’t informed consent. This was the exploitation of user data and user trust.
The real problem is that billions of dollars are being made at the expense of the health of our public sphere and our politics, and crucial decisions are being made unilaterally, and without recourse or accountability.
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Mark responds to cambridge analytica ness
https://thenextweb.com/facebook/2018/03/21/mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica/
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Mark Scott (@markscott82) tweeted at 3:25 AM – 23 Mar 2018 :
Valid point by @ibogost on why people are so affronted about recent @Facebok data scandal. They assumed third-party apps were part of FB. They were wrong. https://t.co/fUq4OEQFzQ https://t.co/xvQWJKP3t2 (http://twitter.com/markscott82/status/977114216153919488?s=17)
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Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) tweeted at 8:22 AM on Thu, Mar 29, 2018:
ICYMI Facebook’s announcement that it is shutting down relationships with data brokers is a big deal.https://t.co/wPhszmGzXD /1
(https://twitter.com/JuliaAngwin/status/979363231180271616?s=03)
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Why (almost) everything reported about the Cambridge Analytica Facebook ‘hacking’ controversy is wrong
[https://medium.com/@CKava/why-almost-everything-reported-about-the-cambridge-analytica-facebook-hacking-controversy-is-db7f8af2d042]
To be crystal clear, I’m not arguing that Cambridge Analytica and Kogan were innocent. At the very least, it is clear they were doing things that were contrary to Facebook’s data sharing policies. And similarly Facebook seems to have been altogether too cavalier with permitting developers to access its users’ private data.
What I am arguing is that Cambridge Analytica are not the puppet masters they are being widely portrayed as. If anything they are much more akin to Donald Trump; making widely exaggerated claims about their abilities and getting lots of attention as a result.
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Howard fb share: – real threat to fb
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/30/loose-lips-sink-apps/
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zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) tweeted at 5:46 AM – 4 Apr 2018 :
Forget Zuckerberg’s interviews on how much Facebook cares about its “community” or how “idealistic” they are. Instead, look at the fact that decisions are made unilaterally, by one person, with no say from the “community”, in a manner that protects Facebook’s profits (surprise!). https://t.co/uGCHgJN7dw(http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/981498212048625664?s=17)
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Please take a moment to read this open letter from Myanmar NGOs to Facebook – https://t.co/rGtjhGrvij – it’s a remarkable insight into the ways FB is acting irresponsibly in countries where it has great influence but few/no staff.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/EthanZ/status/982012167309418496
As representatives of Myanmar civil society organizations and the people who raised the Facebook Messenger threat to your team’s attention, we were surprised to hear you use this case to praise the effectiveness of your ‘systems’ in the context of Myanmar. From where we stand, this case exemplifies the
very opposite of effective moderation:@EthanZ In business and tech schools of tomorrow we will teach about this letter like we teach about radio and Rwanda now. Instead, we should have been teaching about how @facebook acted quickly to stop incitement of violence in Myanmar against Rohingya. We can’t because they didn’t.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/nattyray11/status/982057427259592706
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via doctorow rt
Jeremy Ashkenas (@jashkenas) tweeted at 5:20 PM – 4 Apr 2018 :
You know, I really hate to keep beating a downed zuckerberg, but to the extent that expensive patents indicate corporate intent and direction —
Come along for a ride, and let’s browse a few of Facebook’s recent U.S.P.T.O. patent applications… (http://twitter.com/jashkenas/status/981672970098589696?s=17)
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Ian Bogost (@ibogost) tweeted at 6:24 AM – 6 Apr 2018 :
“‘We really believed in social experiences. We really believed in protecting privacy. But we were way too idealistic. We did not think enough about the abuse cases,’ she said.”
https://t.co/rwmCPBU2TW (http://twitter.com/ibogost/status/982232517066420226?s=17)
begs gershenfeld sel
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Aral Balkan (@aral) tweeted at 5:15 AM – 7 Apr 2018 :
Facebook is a surveillance capitalist.
Their business model is to extract your data, profile you, and exploit that intimate knowledge for their profit & political motives.
Sadly, this isn’t cluelessness. The “e-health” (read: insurance) industry is salivating for your data… https://t.co/5G7rLTLufW (http://twitter.com/aral/status/982577506615218177?s=17)
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via zittrain rt
Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (@BKCHarvard) tweeted at 1:28 PM – 6 Apr 2018 :
Reading: Facebook’s surveillance powers are nothing compared to what your Internet service provider is capable of. BKC privacy fellow @salome_viljoen_ in the @guardian https://t.co/EZ6hBWMSMO https://t.co/kFIyo0n61P (http://twitter.com/BKCHarvard/status/982339234584563712?s=17)
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zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) tweeted at 2:23 PM – 6 Apr 2018 :
Mark Zuckerberg has been apologizing nonstop for more than 15 years. It’s always the same apology for pretty much the same act. When do we talk about the obvious: Facebook’s decisions are primarily driven by its business model. Here’s my latest for @Wired: https://t.co/W8Jh0wHyw0https://t.co/wOsiXY5UEB (http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/982353038017875969?s=17)
If Facebook really were a community, Zuckerberg would not be able to make so many statements about unilateral decisions he has made
Again, this isn’t a community; this is a regime of one-sided, highly profitable surveillance, carried out on a scale that has made Facebook one of the largest companies in the world by market capitalization.
school
There is indeed a case of Stockholm syndrome here. There are very few other contexts in which a person would be be allowed to make a series of decisions that have obviously enriched them while eroding the privacy and well-being of billions of people; to make basically the same apology for those decisions countless times over the space of just 14 years; and then to profess innocence, idealism, and complete independence from the obvious structural incentives that have shaped the whole process. This should ordinarily cause all the other educated, literate, and smart people in the room to break into howls of protest or laughter. Or maybe tears.
but doesn’t because it’s what we’ve all grown up in.. ie: science of people in schools
These are such readily apparent facts that any denial of them is quite astounding.
schooling the world
zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) tweeted at 2:25 PM – 6 Apr 2018 :
Sheryl Sandberg also claimed that Facebook’s problem is that they’ve been “way too idealistic.” I don’t know people who work for or run Facebook believe this, but if they do, it shows the power of self-deception—after 15 years of deeds, this doesn’t hold. https://t.co/W8Jh0wHyw0(http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/982353532643782656?s=17)
zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) tweeted at 3:15 PM – 6 Apr 2018 :
Look the point isn’t all this due to some evil conspiracy. I’m not claiming that Facebook employees don’t care about users. But incentives and business models shape their behavior—just like other companies and people. (http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/982366117829267457?s=17)
fractal ish to school
and so .. schooling the world
ie: used to credential mattering more than community.. no matter what words we use
1/ If the primary purpose of school was education, the Internet should obsolete it. But school is mainly about credentialing.
pluralistic ignorance et al
zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) tweeted at 6:29 PM – 6 Apr 2018 :
On Android. Facebook has apparently been scooping up people’s text messages on Android phones. Not messenger communication—plain text messages. Content and metadata. https://t.co/10F4VST0vs (http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/982415074424967173?s=17)
zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) tweeted at 7:15 AM – 7 Apr 2018 :
The way to change Facebook and YouTube—and the whole online economy of surveillance—is to change their incentive structure and business model. Neither Zuckerberg apologizing for the umpteenth time in fifteen years nor legislators yelling at Zuckerberg will get us there. (http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/982607845458890752?s=17)
incentive ness
zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) tweeted at 5:15 PM – 9 Apr 2018 :
Many people asked me what lawmakers should ask Mark Zuckerberg. Here’s my answer: Nothing. Instead, they should get to work and pass legislation to fix the reckless surveillance in the digital economy. In my latest NYT oped, I suggest four concrete steps: https://t.co/mgBQ6MjcZhhttps://t.co/qdSYyZl2O1(http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/983483678490857472?s=17)
more zeynep
zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) tweeted at 1:21 PM – 21 Aug 2018 :
Oh, wow. Wow especially since in Germany, Facebook has been forced, through fines, to hire many moderators to respond to hate speech. If this finding holds, imagine the effect around in places Facebook has been terribly understaffed and unresponsive for years—Burma, Sri Lanka… https://t.co/HOB02VpVBq (http://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1031984543912394753?s=17)
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some tweets from day mark in front of congress
Good lineup of resources on Facebook by @Mlsif https://t.co/sSVdgxJFFl
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/983752919232188416
Zuckerberg on not Facebook selling data, my piece points out why that is a red herring as far as Facebook is concerned. It collects and hoards data, and sells not data but *us* and *our attention*—it is in Facebook’s interests not to sell data. https://t.co/mgBQ6MjcZh
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/983814951000268800
The questions almost all start good—staffers briefed them well—and then devolve into misunderstandings. So telling. This is failure of us as media and tech press and pundits, and obfuscation and complexity as practiced by Facebook—indeed, most of tech.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/983826017205694465
Survey: 89% of Android users didn’t give Facebook consent https://t.co/vMCP9CxZEZ https://t.co/bZMccvCqYw
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/983480366571839488
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Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) tweeted at 1:11 PM – 10 Apr 2018 :
Such hypocrisy… politicians grill #Zuckerberg about the importance of privacy, while simultaneously supporting the world’s largest surveillance apparatus. If I don’t want #Facebook spying on me, and I stop using it. If I don’t want US Gov spying on me, where can I opt out? (http://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees/status/983784557416660995?s=17)
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zuck hearings sv debut
https://www.wired.com/story/the-zuckerberg-hearings-were-silicon-valleys-ultimate-debut
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Harold Jarche (@hjarche) tweeted at 2:03 PM – 15 Apr 2018 :
“Facebook will develop services it can provide governments to better secure, control, and manage their citizens in a volatile global environment. In exchange for these services, Facebook will avoid regulations that will limit their ability to make money” https://t.co/iPgZT2UdJy (http://twitter.com/hjarche/status/985609616552857600?s=17)
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There is a lot of focus on the harms of engagement algorithms and design on Facebook (which are *very* real) but the damage YouTube is doing especially to young people and around the world especially in places with lower literacy/education and weak institutions is immense.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1002567998895423489
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Facebook officially loses $123 billion in value https://t.co/q896raSkr1 by @romaindillet https://t.co/4HWAl7XLUU
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/TechCrunch/status/1022474885174583296
Jedediah Purdy (@JedediahSPurdy) tweeted at 4:27 AM – 27 Jul 2018 :
The NYT headline announcing Facebook’s stock slip “destroyed $120b in wealth,” which roughly equals the annual GDP of Iowa, suggests we haven’t completely worked out what we mean by “wealth.” (http://twitter.com/JedediahSPurdy/status/1022790543485558784?s=17)
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Facebook Filed a Patent to Analyze Who You Live With https://t.co/wpqjtNkW0C
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/deray/status/1064000236748791808
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punctured myth of sandberg: https://newrepublic.com/article/152320/punctured-myth-sheryl-sandberg
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Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html
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Michel Bauwens (@mbauwens) tweeted at 1:36 PM on Sun, Dec 09, 2018:
In the Gilets Jaunes Paris Riots France Faces Facebook Revolution – Bloomberg https://t.co/Nxb03V2bIX
(https://twitter.com/mbauwens/status/1071866210541821953?s=03)Street riots in Paris are less about a tiny fuel tax hike than the power of social networks to radicalize their users
Whether the anger unleashed by France’s tiny tax hike is real or at least partially induced by Facebook echo chambers is by now difficult to figure out without exact scientific methods. Nevertheless, it’s time to cast away any remaining illusions that social networks can play a positive role in promoting democracy and freedom.
A free society can’t ban Facebook, or even completely regulate away its hate-enhancing function; but it should be aware of the risk Facebook and similar platforms pose to democratic institutions. Ironically, the threat to authoritarian regimes is less: they have learned to manipulate opinion on the platforms with propaganda, trolling, bullying and real-life scare tactics against activists.
Averting that result will require people to realize what the platforms really do, and start quitting them in droves.
need an alt infra first… ie: 2 convers as infra
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Harold Jarche (@hjarche) tweeted at 6:46 AM – 25 Feb 2019 :
“Collectively, the employees described a workplace that is perpetually teetering on the brink of chaos. It is an environment where workers cope by telling dark jokes about committing suicide, then smoke weed during breaks to numb their emotions.” All for $28K/year https://t.co/Gu92PVziub (http://twitter.com/hjarche/status/1100029340513898496?s=17)Over the past three months, I interviewed a dozen current and former employees of Cognizant in Phoenix. All had signed non-disclosure agreements with Cognizant in which they pledged not to discuss their work for Facebook — or even acknowledge that Facebook is Cognizant’s client. The shroud of secrecy is meant to protect employees from users who may be angry about a content moderation decision and seek to resolve it with a known Facebook contractor.. They are pressured not to discuss the emotional toll that their job takes on them, even with loved ones, leading to increased feelings of isolation and anxiety.
That people don’t know there are human beings doing this work is, of course, by design..As first responders on platforms with billions of users, they are performing a critical function of modern civil society, while being paid less than half as much as many others who work on the front lines. They do the work as long as they can — and when they leave, an NDA ensures that they retreat even further into the shadows
from ethan z on moderating/fb:
Powerful piece on content moderation and the emotional toll it can take on employees. It’s good that we’re seeing reporting and scholarship on these conditions, but awareness isn’t enough. We are going to need different models.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/EthanZ/status/1100068469238886400
I oversaw the customer service and “abuse” teams for Tripod, one of the first user-generated content companies, from 1997-9. I still remember some of the images I saw then, and this was before video was common online. I can only imagine how scarring imagery is now.
Part of what Tripod did well was ensuring that our moderation team was fully part of the company. We saw the team as an essential part of our product development. Before we launched a new product, we’d sit down with the team to anticipate problems and track reactions.
As a result, it was pretty routine for people to move from customer service roles to other roles in the company, which helped mitigate burnout. What’s so awful in this story is that it’s clear that there’s no path out of this stressful and painful job.
Worth noting that most of the folks who do this work are not in the US, but are in countries like the Philippines, and it’s likely that conditions in those contractors are even worse on people’s minds and spirits.
In the long run, I don’t believe that platforms that support 2.3 billion users are viable. They cannot be governed in ways that are fair and effective. What would this work look like in a platform that was an actual community, with people moderating spaces they were invested in?
rather.. if people were free to be themselves.. so not creating things that need moderating in the first place.. we need (and can now facil) a world where we aren’t needing/seeking inspectors of inspectors et al at all.. ie: gershenfeld something else law; undisturbed ecosystem; ..
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The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) tweeted at 3:40 AM – 21 Apr 2019 :
SRI LANKA
– Eight bombings, including in churches and luxury hotels
– Over 185 people killed, 400 wounded
– 35 foreigners among those killed
– Churches: Kochikade, St Sebastian and Batticaloa
– Hotels: Shangri La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury
– Nationwide curfew declared (http://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1119898711708930048?s=17)Ivan Sigal (@ivonotes) tweeted at 5:31 AM – 21 Apr 2019 :
Telling moment: #srilanka blocks #facebook and #whatsapp after blasts, but not #twitter. A few years ago we’d be using these platforms to help each other and coordinating assistance. Now we view them as a threat.#SriLankaBlasts #EasterAttackSL @globalvoices @groundviews (http://twitter.com/ivonotes/status/1119926595689635840?s=17)
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samim (@samim) tweeted at 5:52 AM – 9 May 2019 :
Reminder: facebook is the largest employer of behavioural psychologists globally. FB (and it’s friends at NSA/CIA/Wallstreet etc.) Is conducting the largest live psychology experiment in human history, performing 1000s of experiments per year on its 2.38 billion guinea pig users. https://t.co/toblvX7wAa (http://twitter.com/samim/status/1126454909820395521?s=17)
cool
glad we can distract them w our false data (ie: whales in sea world).. while we create/model a nother way to live that every one of them/us already craves in our soul
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Micah Sifry (@Mlsif) tweeted at 6:53 AM – 9 May 2019 :
Really excellent oped by Chris Hughes, cofounder of Facebook, explaining and bemoaning its immense power. And for some reason NYT dropped its “Mr. Zuckerberg” convention, producing stunning statements like this one. https://t.co/o989Uqx6BUhttps://t.co/sxnOnTlE7T (http://twitter.com/Mlsif/status/1126470226592391169?s=17)The most problematic aspect of Facebook’s power is Mark’s unilateral control over speech. There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billion people.
Just breaking up Facebook is not enough. We need a new agency, empowered by Congress to regulate tech companies. Its first mandate should be to protect privacy.
rather.. we need a new agency.. empowered by 7b people everyday.. (ie: mech to facil that agency) .. rendering privacy irrelevant
Mark Zuckerberg cannot fix Facebook, but our government can.
?
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libra
CNN (@CNN) tweeted at 5:10 AM – 19 Jun 2019 :
Facebook unveiled Libra, a digital currency powered by blockchain that is set to launch next year. The company and its partners think Libra could fundamentally change global financial and payment systems. Here’s how it will work. https://t.co/vxHblyoztB(http://twitter.com/CNN/status/1141302245667082246?s=17)Democracy Now! (@democracynow) tweeted at 6:00 AM – 19 Jun 2019 :
Today: In a move that could reshape the world’s financial system, Facebook has unveiled plans to launch a cryptocurrency called Libra. We talk to journalist @ddayen about the implications of the project. Watch 8-9AM ET https://t.co/Xup8cdtnFBhttps://t.co/9TYUkwshmp(http://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1141314787638489088?s=17)Evgeny Morozov (@evgenymorozov) tweeted at 5:25 AM – 19 Jun 2019 :
Libra is the ultimate Schrödinger’s cat of the digital economy: a blockchain/non-blockchain, it will serve as money/non-money to save/bury Facebook/all of us. (http://twitter.com/evgenymorozov/status/1141305933664071680?s=17)
if we really want to be free.. we have to let go of money (any form of measuring/accounting) .. bateson measuring as managing law et al
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At Facebook’s worst-performing content moderation site in North America, one contractor has died, and others say they fear for their lives
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the social dilemma (doc)
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be you. 