Then they sell it back to you for twice the price.
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With Arsebook, WhatsArse, and Finstagram down how will misinformation spread?
Oh yeah, YouTube.
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You forget this:
and this:
and this:
and they could spread misinformation without an internet connection (*)
(*) Satellite dish and receiver required. Reception of non-misinformation channel is possible
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I keep getting emails from someone at Facebook asking me to apply for some jobs there (presumably via LinkedIn, another social media account I desperately regret ever signing up for, and which I need to delete). I keep resisting the urge to reply, “Ha, ha, fuck no. I’d rather be unemployed, thanks!”
Given that it was started by a white-supremacist, Trump-supporting a-hole and then got bought by Facebook (and integrated into their surveillance operation), it’s one of those things that no one should have ever been using at any point.
A big part of the problem is that the algorithms don’t show you (just) what you’re looking for. They push things you weren’t looking for (sometimes more extreme versions of what you were looking at, but sometimes completely unrelated*) and lead you down rabbit holes into nasty places you wouldn’t have found on your own.
*I recollect an issue where viewers were starting off with like Minecraft videos and ending up with white supremacy…
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Algorithms stand in the way of free speech and understanding what The People want. I do not trust that profit-seeking companies will ever have the solution to regulating this, therefore, the solution must be a democratic one, and a legal one.
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The difference is, to extend the analogy, with FB the oil-covered seabirds and seal pups are the product.
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I remember 7 or 8 years ago, there was a Guardian or Intercept article critical of Facebook. If one posted it on their FB timeline, it just did … nothing. (In my case, I could post about not being able to post, but posting the URL didn’t show up.)
Whatever the article was, I assume I heard about it (and FB’s eating it) here first.
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It seems like Facebook is more like,
“Look at how much attentions those oil-covered birds and washed-up dead fish are getting. Open spigot #2”
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It’s long past the time when this business should have been broken up.
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Well, the analogy is that FB users are actually the product, not the customers. But the consumption of FB actively harms the users. So it’s not a perfect metaphor, but I’d still say FB is a big, stinky, greasy mess that’s toxic to most life forms.
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I’m, unfortunately, locked-in with them. Stuck in another country with Facebook as the main arbiter with family and outside contacts.
Can’t argue with Doctorow’s ongoing analogy of it as a warehouse of oily rags.
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