"Sign up for Gobo, link it to your other social media profiles, and you can take control of your feed. Want to read news you aren't otherwise seeing? Use our "Echo Chamber" filter to see what we call "wider" news. Want a better balance of men and women in your feed? Use our "gender" filter … Continue reading Gobo
Tag: Facebook
Facebook & Cambridge Analytica
"A whistleblower—a former Cambridge Analytica employee—presented a dossier of evidence to reporters that, according to the Observer, “includes emails, invoices, contracts and bank transfers that reveal more than 50 million profiles – mostly belonging to registered US voters – were harvested from the site in the largest ever breach of Facebook data.” The story is … Continue reading Facebook & Cambridge Analytica
Swimming Against the Stream of Convenience
A year ago, I deleted my Facebook account. It was a bit of a watershed moment for my digital life because it was the start of a process, where I took a hard look at my use of the "free" services offered by Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple and tried to assess whether other … Continue reading Swimming Against the Stream of Convenience
The Case Against Google – The New York Times
"In other words, it’s very likely you love Google, or are at least fond of Google, or hardly think about Google, the same way you hardly think about water systems or traffic lights or any of the other things you rely on every day. Therefore you might have been surprised when headlines began appearing last … Continue reading The Case Against Google – The New York Times
Commercial Surveillance State
"Manipulation campaigns can plug into the commercial surveillance infrastructure and draw on lessons of behavioral science. They can use testing to refine strategies that take account of the personal traits of targets and identify interventions that may be most potent. This might mean identifying marginal participants, let’s say for joining a march or boycott, and … Continue reading Commercial Surveillance State
Giving Up Social Media & The Feudal Internet
Quitting social media is an ongoing theme of this blog with posts discussing various aspects: Arguing against particular social media services, e.g., Be Seeing You, Facebook. Describing new technologies major Internet companies employ for surveillance, e.g., Facebook & Facial Recognition. Describing how third parties use these platforms in the service of both advertising product and manipulating public … Continue reading Giving Up Social Media & The Feudal Internet
Facebook & Facial Recognition
Tech companies, whose business model is based on collecting data about its users and using it to sell ads, frequently oppose consumer privacy legislation. But privacy advocates say Facebook is uniquely aggressive in opposing all forms of regulation on its technology. And the strategy has been working. Bills that would have created new consumer data … Continue reading Facebook & Facial Recognition
Notes on an Emergency
"But at the same time, I’m not convinced that a civilization that is struggling to cure male-pattern baldness is ready to take on the Grim Reaper. If we’re going to worry about existential risk, I would rather we start by addressing the two existential risks that are indisputably real—nuclear war and global climate change—and working … Continue reading Notes on an Emergency
Information Operations and Facebook
Facebook has published a report, "Information Operations and Facebook" that outlines how Information Operations, defined as the actions of organizations to distort political sentiment, are conducted on the Facebook platform. It does a remarkable job of ignoring the inherent contradiction and conflict of interest of a company that makes its money delivering advertising trying to … Continue reading Information Operations and Facebook
Be Seeing You, Facebook
tl;dr: I have decided to delete my Facebook account. To use Facebook is to consent to being spied upon and manipulated. To quote from the television show, The Prisoner: "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!" Join me, and quit Facebook today. (1175 words) "In … Continue reading Be Seeing You, Facebook
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