Social Media Companies: Tell it to Earth

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Social Media Companies: Tell it to Earth

How much longer is Twitter going to last?
	A few weeks
	A few months
	A few years
	About as long as the rest of humanity

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

Payndz posted:

The fact that so many people call him "Elon" even when they're dunking on him shows how well his media-shaping has worked. Call him Musk. He ain't your friend. (Boris Johnson got away with the same thing for way too long in the UK because he spent years cultivating his first-name-terms image.)

Elon sounds stupider, plus funnier misspellings. Also he is my friend ok

# ¿ Nov 26, 2022 02:53

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:31

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

Twitter probably has a lot to learn from SpaceX too (the only actual Elong success story besides blundering into PayPal). I remember they call dealing with him/minimizing his damage "executive management" or something similar. There's a lot people who are specifically skilled in Musk whispering.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2023 17:12

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

Jesus III posted:

In Europe, governments seem to want to function in people's best interests.

lmao

# ¿ May 29, 2023 04:08

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

Shrecknet posted:

how is Comcast not #1?

IIRC it used to be, at least by some ratings. The FAA concurs on Spirit though.

https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/332694037821784066

# ¿ Jun 4, 2023 01:09

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

PT6A posted:

I doubt it, but people must be falling for their bullshit for some reason.

People very reliably only look at the headline price and don�t think about bullshit fees and surcharges. That�s one of the big reasons why attempts to get rid of tipping and just increase restaurant prices has never had legs.

Spirit takes great advantage of this tendency by offering cheap fares, but then nickel and dining you on everything. All said and done, most people will spend less on a Southwest flight.

edit: I once flew Spirit back from South America. Going though regular security, you couldn�t bring liquids like normal. I brought my empty water bottle through and filled it up on the inside. Then when boarding at the gate, for �security� they checked everyone�s carryons for liquids again for �security� and my water bottle got dumped. This delayed the flight and was apparently a ploy to sell water on board. Then my knees hit the seat in front of me, and I�m short. It was almost enough to make me buy a Spirit Signature Cocktail (minutemade and vodka) to dull the pain.

cat botherer fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jun 5, 2023

# ¿ Jun 5, 2023 01:26

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

Dr Christmas posted:

Things are going to get a whole lot worse, part whatever:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671370284102819841

In balance, Twitter will also be taking a very hard line on anyone who uses the t-slur (TERF).

# ¿ Jun 21, 2023 19:23

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

I AM GRANDO posted:

So they were dead the whole time?

We're all dead in the long run, baby.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2023 00:29

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

Young Freud posted:

From a lot of the conversations that have come up regarding this, it is in fact THAT video.

Which makes things stranger because a lot of CSAM-block-and-report algorithms are meant to compare hashes and visual data, since that video is well-known and documented among anti-CSAM-proliferation and CSA researchers, and should have been blocked. The simplest explanation, however, is that Elon has simply turned that off when he was cutting costs.

I'm mercifully not an expert on CSAM, but the hashes at least would be different if one makes any changes whatsoever to the data.

IDing visual similarity would make it easy to catch, but that is also quite computationally expensive. I would highly doubt any social media company makes a general practice of doing that (which is bad, but that's the society we live in). The really damning thing here is how long it took to take down after all those reports, when they ban users for far lesser things all the time. And then reinstating it.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2023 23:11

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

Do remember that IG is owned by Meta, so signing up to that and Threads will put you in the Zuckercorn Panopticon more than you already are.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2023 14:47

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

Harvard admins may have hosed over a researcher working on harmful effects of social media, very shortly aftergetting $500 million from Zuckercorn's foundation. Probably just a coincidence, because it is well-known that university admins are purely dedicated to academic freedom and objective truth.

Ousted propaganda scholar Joan Donovan accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/04/joan-donovan-harvard-dismissal-complaint/

quote:

A prominent disinformation scholar has accused Harvard University of dismissing her to curry favor with Facebook and its current and former executives in violation of her right to free speech.

Joan Donovan claimed in a filing with the Education Department and the Massachusetts attorney general that her superiors soured on her as Harvard was getting a record $500 million pledge from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg�s charitable arm.

quote:

As research director of Harvard Kennedy School projects delving into mis- and disinformation on social media platforms, Donovan had raised millions in grants, testified before Congress and been a frequent commentator on television, often faulting internet companies for profiting from the spread of divisive falsehoods.

Last year, the school�s dean told her that he was winding down her main project and that she should stop fundraising for it. This year, the school eliminated her position. The surprise dismissal alarmed fellow researchers elsewhere, who saw Donovan as a pioneer in an increasingly critical area of great sensitivity to the powerful and well-connected tech giants.

quote:

As the main attraction at a Zoom meeting for top Kennedy School donors on Oct. 29 that year, Donovan said the papers showed that Meta knew the harms it was causing. Former top Facebook communications executive Elliot Schrage asked repeated questions during the meeting and said she badly misunderstood the papers, Donovan wrote in a sworn declaration included in the filing.

Ten days after the donors meeting, Kennedy School dean Doug Elmendorf, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, emailed Donovan with pointed questions about her research goals and methods, launching an increase in oversight that restricted her activities and led to her dismissal before the end of her contract, according to the declaration. Donovan wrote that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative�s $500 million gift for a new artificial intelligence institute at the university, announced Dec. 7 that year, had been in the works before the donor meeting.

quote:

At one point, Elmendorf told Donovan that she did not have academic freedom because she was staff rather than faculty, she recounts. Officials confirmed that position to The Post.

But Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig said that stance should be limited to traditional staff work, not research papers, other publications and teaching.

�When you�re doing what looks like academic work as one of the most prominent people in an academic field, the university ought to award that person the protections of academic freedom,� said Lessig, an expert on corruption who made inquiries to Harvard�s administration on Donovan�s behalf. �When she was presenting herself to the world, there was no asterisk at the bottom of her name saying, �As long as what she says is consistent with the interests of Harvard University.��

Really telling on themselves there...

quote:

Donovan says in her complaint that Elmendorf emailed her after the October donors� meeting and asked to discuss her Facebook work and �focus on a few key issues drawn from the questions raised by the Dean�s Council and my own limited reading of current events.�

He wrote that he wanted to hear from her about �How you define the problem of misinformation for both analysis and possible responses (algorithm-adjusting or policymaking) when there is no independent arbiter of truth (in this country or others) and constitutional protections of speech (in some countries)?�

Donovan said in the filing that Elmendorf�s use of the phrase �arbiters of truth� alarmed her because Facebook uses the same words to explain its reluctance to take actions against false content.

She explained to Elmendorf that rather than making moral judgments about politics or proclaiming that a vaccine is good or bad, she looked for provable manipulation of platforms, as with fake accounts.

quote:

Donovan then alerted colleagues with whom she was starting to work on the Facebook Archive of leaked documents that she was drawing heat. Both suggested that they take the name of Donovan�s Technology and Social Change Research Project off the archive project�s website.

�Let�s remove the explicit listing of TASC, minimally, or of all three groups, when the website updates later today,� Kennedy School professor Latanya Sweeney wrote in an email included in Donovan�s filing. �No reason to put a target on the project that allows FB to claim bias before we even do anything.�

Donovan�s project remained listed on the page until this year, according to copies preserved by the Internet Archive.

Sweeney said her role was twisted by the Donovan filing. �The number and nature of inaccuracies and falsehoods in the document are so abundant and self-serving as to be horribly disappointing,� she told The Post. �Meta exerted no influence over the Facebook Archive or any of our/my work.�

Elmendorf met with Donovan again in August 2022 and told her that her project at the Kennedy School would end in the coming year, the filing says.

Though Donovan�s contract was supposed to keep her on the job through the end of 2024, her superiors took away her ability to start new projects, raise money or organize large events, she alleges. They kept the money she had brought in, including more than $1 million from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark that he wanted specifically to go to her research project, according to documents quoted in the declaration. Newmark declined to comment.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2023 19:59

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

I had no idea the WSB guy(s) were doing this kind of thing. I mean I�m not surprised at all and it 100% tracks, but I didn�t know.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2023 00:05

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

he's like 10x the pissbaby that Trump is at this point

# ¿ Mar 26, 2024 14:50

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:31

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; Can't post for 12 hours!

The possible Tiktok ban is probably due in no small part to lobbying by Meta.

https://observer.com/2022/03/meta-is-paying-a-conservative-lobbying-firm-to-push-an-anti-tiktok-agenda/

quote:

Meta Is Paying a Conservative Lobbying Firm to Push an Anti-TikTok Agenda

quote:

Meta (META), the company formerly known as Facebook (META), has recruited a conservative consulting firm to sway public opinion against TikTok by planting negative stories in news outlets and urging politicians to crack down on TikTok, the Washington Post reported.

Emails obtained by the Post show Targeted Victory is helping Meta stimulate fear and anger around TikTok, which has emerged as one of its most prominent competitors. An email from February described the firm�s goal to: �get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using.�

https://finbold.com/meta-spends-8m-lobbying-as-congress-passes-tiktok-ban/

quote:

Meta spends $8m lobbying as Congress passes TikTok ban

quote:

The massive Washington drive also raised eyebrows as Congress in the same quarter passed a TikTok ban that would force the social media platform to abandon the U.S. or sell its American business to an American corporation.

On April 23, the ban was also passed by the Senate and is, at press time, set to be signed into law by President Biden.

Should TikTok choose the latter, Meta would be one of the top contenders to take over the platform whose user base includes approximately half of all Americans.

Still, it is noteworthy that there is no concrete evidence of a Meta-Congress conspiracy to remove the competitor, and there are other�sometimes non-mutually exclusive�theories that TikTok�s content on Israel and Palestine played a part in the decision.

Ultimately, the official reason for the decision are privacy concerns and � as Senator Tom Cotton abundantly proved in a now-infamous line of questioning � links to the People�s Republic of China.

# ¿ May 8, 2024 19:07

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