Facebook vs World Governments

[vuk]

They also move a lot of people forward, e.g. many small businesses now exist entirely within environments such as Facebook, Amazon Marketplace, eBay etc thus lifting a lot of people out of a situation where they’d otherwise have to be in some crappy chump employee role or losing countless thousands trying to setup on the local high st.

are you seriously not able to spot the neo-liberal flaws with this argument? it's precisely the sort of stuff sean hannity and tucker carlson peddle as ideology.

yeah, a few little people are better, but the vast majority pay a massive price. as @Jim Audiomisc says, it could all be replaced quite easily with free/open software. facebook is hardly a big software/programming challenge, especially if you don't need to replicate the entire surveillance mechanism.

 

[Tony L]

yeah, a few little people are better, but the vast majority pay a massive price. as @Jim Audiomisc says, it could all be replaced quite easily with free/open software. facebook is hardly a big software/programming challenge, especially if you don't need to replicate the entire surveillance mechanism.

What is this “massive price” you are paying for Facebook etc? None of these companies impede on my life in the slightest, in fact most are highly useful to me, e.g. without Google and Amazon there would be no pfm for you to post on as their advertising revenue is absolutely essential for this place to remain viable. It is all an ecosystem, anyone with a brain finds a way to coexist and benefit.

If an open source option is so easy why haven’t you and others done it yet? Hint: it is because the financial model just isn’t viable!

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

What is this “massive price” you are paying for Facebook etc?!

Step back and realise the 'price' isn't simply allowing the specific company (FaceBook) to take/make some money from you. It comes from them enabling a way for others who pay them to get your/our data so that can target us with propaganda.

Commercial propaganda (adverts) may be bad, but..

The real price may be "Trump", "BloJo", "Brexit", etc. The point here is that *targetted* *politically driven* propaganda can be spread to millions who will fall for it while *preventing* others from seeing this is happening. Thus preventing us from challenging it... until what may be too much later.

The result destabilises democracy and reliability of the 'information' people are seeing.

While the companies insist they aren't 'publishers' so wash their hands and bank the money.

What price freedom?

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

If an open source option is so easy why haven’t you and others done it yet? Hint: it is because the financial model just isn’t viable!

You jump too easily to a conclusion.

I doubt most people realised what was happening until quite recently. By which time FarceBook, etc, had become dominant walled gardens whose users tend not to look elsewhere. Indeed, have they even noticed concerns of the kind we've been discussing?

However an alternative is quite possible, as the web showed decades ago and active server methods would support. The problem now, is how you'd get people to use it when all their 'friends' and walled up in the garden they currently share.

The reality of 'capitalism' is that it often tends to generate a virtual monopoly which then makes it hard for its 'capitives' to leave as individuals. But the real problem here is the end-state, not the alternatives. How do you know what you don't know and won't be shown?

 

[vuk]

the price is wealth inequality and all that follows from it.

the very nature of something like facebook means that the company that makes it to the top first is going to have a monopoly for a very long time. that's why it should be a public utility, not a private company. to compete, you have to attract everyone or massive groups away to your platform. its not like getting individuals to buy their morning coffee at another shop.

one of the things that's been talked about within the free software movement is personal micro servers that allow individuals to publish without the needs for a centralized host. you could also have a peer-to-peer system, but that means everyone running their machine all the time. neither f these are great solutions. government providing citizen hosting space is a better option.

 

[vuk]

The real price may be "Trump", "BloJo", "Brexit", etc. The point here is that *targetted* *politically driven* propaganda can be spread to millions who will fall for it while *preventing* others from seeing this is happening. Thus preventing us from challenging it... until what may be too much later.

The result destabilises democracy and reliability of the 'information' people are seeing.

While the companies insist they aren't 'publishers' so wash their hands and bank the money.

What price freedom?

not sure what you are suggesting, but i certainly don;t want google and facebook making any kind of censorship decisions. they may be getting rid of some unpleasant righties we don't like, but they are also currently crippling independent lefties with "demonetization". their model is a mix of libertarianism and wealthy, corporate dem values.

 

[Shimi]

I use Mastodon which is great for me and the weirdos I hook up with... works, on an encrypted and federated system of open source servers. Social media entities are never permanent.

 

[Tony L]

Step back and realise the 'price' isn't simply allowing the specific company (FaceBook) to take some money from you. It comes from them enabling way others who pay them to get your/our data so that can target us with propaganda.

So the price may be "Trump", "BloJo", "Brexit", etc. The point here is that *targetted* politically driven propaganda can be spread to some who will fall for it which *preventing* others from seeing this is happening. Thus preventing us from challenging it... until what may be too much later.

I have already stated I am opposed to political data-mining. I have no issue with commercial advertising including tracking cookies and far prefer that to a subscription or paywall model, but I do not want my personal data to be mined for the likes of Cambridge Analytica etc.

I am also obviously an ex-IT guy (both corporate IT management and programming) so I am *very* careful what I personally place on these platforms. I go in with my eyes wide open and they get what I am prepared for them to have and no more. I have no issue whatsoever in Facebook knowing I have an interest in guitars, vintage Tannoys and TD-124s, that I follow Blue Note, Impulse, Warp and various other record labels and musicians, and that I block or report adverts or spam from all right-wing or nationalist entities. If they can make a living from that good luck to them! They don’t get to know any real details of my life or behaviour as that is not posted there, e.g. I never post updates as to where I am, what I am doing etc. I’m actually a very passive user of Facebook, I really just use it to keep in contact with non-audiophile friends in other parts of the country/world and to be notified of new music releases etc.

PS I’ve not figured out a way for pfm to really benefit from FB yet even though I have a page there: https://www.facebook.com/pinkfishmedia

 

[Tony L]

not sure what you are suggesting, but i certainly don;t want google and facebook making any kind of censorship decisions. they may be getting rid of some unpleasant righties we don't like, but they are also currently crippling independent lefties with "demonetization". their model is a mix of libertarianism and wealthy, corporate dem values.

This is what makes me piss myself laughing at the academic ‘hard-left’, i.e. that they want to use/abuse these platforms whilst endlessly moaning about them, yet are too feckless or disorganised to actually create an alternative. It’s the reason they so often end up on dictatorship-funded disrupter platforms such as RT or Press TV rather than getting their finger out and creating their own.

PS One thing Assange got absolutely right before he sold out to the alt-right/Putin etc was at least he was an IT guy and had the intellect to create his own entirely independent platform.

 

[vuk]

I use Mastodon which is great for me and the weirdos I hook up with... works, on an encrypted and federated system of open source servers. Social media entities are never permanent.

they may not be permanent, but twitter and facebook seem to be hanging around for a very long time. i don't have an account on either one, but i'm still exposed to twitter because it's referenced all over the place, including the news.

 

[vuk]

This is what makes me piss myself laughing at the academic ‘hard-left’, i.e. that they want to use/abuse these platforms whilst endlessly moaning about them, yet are too feckless or disorganised to actually create an alternative. It’s the reason they so often end up on dictatorship-funded disrupter platforms such as RT or Press TV rather than getting their finger out and creating their own.

they do have their own platforms, as well, but those don't get audiences. on top of it, google has an impact on everything. in any case, this isn't simply an issue for the "hard left", as you call it but everyone. if this is the sort of thing that makes you laugh, you really should check out tucker carlson's show.

 

[Cheese]

They don’t get to know any real details of my life or behaviour as that is not posted there

Call me paranoid, but judging from the ads / suggestions I get on youtube and facebook respectively, something tells me that those two entities (among others probably) exchange data on a regular basis, as it's a win-win for them.

I reckon the question nowadays is no longer whether who has what data, it's rather about who has the rights to see and use it.

 

[Tony L]

they do have their own platforms, as well, but those don't get audiences.

Which is all the information needed to make my point about there being no market for some dour left-wing Facebook clone. Contrast and compare with Wikileaks, Wikipedia etc which did produce something people actually wanted to view.

 

[vuk]

Which is all the information needed to make my point about there being no market for some dour left-wing Facebook clone. Contrast and compare with Wikileaks, Wikipedia etc which did produce something people actually wanted to view.

you are mixing apples and oranges here.
the progressive left has a big marke/audience via youtube. have you not heard of the young turks? they are massive, yet they would be almost invisible without youtube.

 

[Tony L]

Call me paranoid, but judging from the ads / suggestions I get on youtube and facebook respectively, something tells me that those two entities (among others probably) exchange data on a regular basis, as it's a win-win for them.

I reckon the question nowadays is no longer whether who has what data, it's rather about who has the rights to see and use it.

Simple anonymised tracking cookies, you really don’t need any personal information at all (i.e. name, address, phone number, job etc) to do that sort of ad tracking. pfm hosts this kind of advertising via Google (the banner ad at the top) and Viglink (outlink affiliation). Without it pfm would simply not be viable.

 

[Tony L]

the progressive left has a big marke/audience via youtube. have you not heard of the young turks? they are massive, yet they would be almost invisible without youtube.

Precisely, so maybe it is time for you to stop whinging and whining about Google and realise that they support/platform a lot of content you enjoy (including pfm!). I love YouTube, I’ve no interest in these political chat shows, but watch hours and hours of music and geeky computer stuff. I suspect I watch more YouTube than TV these days.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I'll no doubt get some stick for this but here goes....

I'm opposed to ANY information gathering by either companies of especially governments. I would have all CCTV, ANPR, facial recognition cameras and systems etc etc destroyed and made illegal plus make any information gathering on line, for any reason, illegal. The world didn't leap into existence when all this tech became available! We managed very well before it was easy for big brother to keep us under his thumb!

IMHO a person should have the right and the ability to be anonymous, and even to "disappear of the grid" if they wish.

Worst case? Imagine the Nazi's came to power again in 2021. What chance would any "French Resistance" type freedom fighters have against all that surveillance? No doubt from our past on line life all us "lefties" would be under special surveillance from day one.... FFS I wouldn't be surprised if we were already! Even one person trying to get to a garage, buy petrol and make Molotov cocktails to fight the cvnts would have little chance of making it to the end of the street without interception, never mind being able to organise with others to make a proper resistance!

Now this is all indeed why the system is in place... to protect "the man", "the system" and ostensibly the population from just such things being done by terrorists...(so they say anyway as they exploit peoples fear of ISIS etc to get away with all this)... but as they say, "one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter"... if our own gov becomes "the enemy" they've got it sown up... In fact by linking up various tech and resources that are already extant, but, we are assured, are not linked and are under heavy oversight and restrictions, even what is already here could be vastly more invidious than at present!

In some areas. especially that London, they no doubt can already watch you come out of your front door, get a FR ID of who you are within a the first few yards of your journey, watch you get in your car, track your car by CCTV with ANPR to wherever you are going, check how much you spent and on what via your credit card, see where you end up at and who you meet up with by FR ID!
Personally I've always been shocked beyond words that this has been allowed to happen and with virtually no opposition from the public!

Anyone been watching "The Capture"? Anyone not seen the genius which is "Black Mirror"? A not very timely warning from both... in that it's already here and we can't put the genie back in the bottle!

I'm actually expecting "them" to start "chipping" people like dogs before long... and the thick as mince public to line up for it quite happily!

Brave New World....

 

[richardg]

PS I’ve not figured out a way for pfm to really benefit from FB yet even though I have a page there: https://www.facebook.com/pinkfishmedia

With the their ad model now it is completely useless for me. If they allowed us to advertise in specialist groups it would work. As yet, they do not. I have not yet seen a reason why they do not allow it. At the moment they make us all pay to get likes and then we can target these people. Ridiculous. The kind of likes I got from paid advertising were garbage. In the meantime, while we go round the houses arsing about with the official FB ad campaigns, there is a group of 10,000 people that are all talking about one specific model of motorbike in one specific group of facebook, many of them owners. No brainer. Until they allow that kind of target advertising, I won't be spending a penny there.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

I'll no doubt get some stick for this but here goes....

I'm opposed to ANY information gathering by either companies of especially governments. I would have all CCTV, ANPR, facial recognition cameras and systems etc etc destroyed and made illegal plus make any information gathering on line, for any reason, illegal. The world didn't leap into existence when all this tech became available! We managed very well before it was easy for big brother to keep us under his thumb!

I'd recommend reading the latest issue of PE. Says some things people might not wish to know about what PE has taken to calling "The Anti-Social Companies"...

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I'd recommend reading the latest issue of PE. Says some things people might not wish to know about what PE has taken to calling "The Anti-Social Companies"...

Thanks I'll do that Jim