F'ed Book

News and events of the day
User avatar
carmenjonze
Posts: 9614
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 3:06 am

F'ed Book

Post by carmenjonze »

Internal Alarm, Public Shrugs: Facebook’s Employees Dissect Its Election Role - NYT
Company documents show that the social network’s employees repeatedly raised red flags about the spread of misinformation and conspiracies before and after the contested November vote.

Sixteen months before last November’s presidential election, a researcher at Facebook described an alarming development. She was getting content about the conspiracy theory QAnon within a week of opening an experimental account, she wrote in an internal report.

On Nov. 5, two days after the election, another Facebook employee posted a message alerting colleagues that comments with “combustible election misinformation” were visible below many posts.

Four days after that, a company data scientist wrote in a note to his co-workers that 10 percent of all U.S. views of political material — a startlingly high figure — were of posts that alleged the vote was fraudulent.

In each case, Facebook’s employees sounded an alarm about misinformation and inflammatory content on the platform and urged action — but the company failed or struggled to address the issues. The internal dispatches were among a set of Facebook documents obtained by The New York Times that give new insight into what happened inside the social network before and after the November election, when the company was caught flat-footed as users weaponized its platform to spread lies about the vote.
.
________________________________

The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them.

~ Ida B. Wells
________________________________
User avatar
carmenjonze
Posts: 9614
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 3:06 am

Re: F'ed Book

Post by carmenjonze »

Timnit Gebru
@timnitGebru

I'm glad that FB is getting attention but I have no idea how YouTube has escaped the limelight. Twitter is also doing zero as far as I can see. I've lost count of the amount of incitement to violence, denials & hate speech that I've been seeing daily without any action from them

https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/ ... 5842807809
________________________________

The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them.

~ Ida B. Wells
________________________________
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Former Zuckerberg staff sue companies that run CEO's family office; allege harassment, discrimination

Two people who used to work for the household of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have filed a pair of lawsuits against the billionaire couple and their numerous family-related corporate entities.

The cases claim that the Chan-Zuckerberg family companies are responsible for alleged sexual harassment and discrimination by company employees. In the same lawsuits, Chan and Zuckerberg are personally also being sued for failure to pay wages, among other claims.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/forme ... id=DELLDHP
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

:lol:

Facebook changes company name to Meta

Facebook on Thursday announced that it has changed its company name to Meta.

The name change was announced at the Facebook Connect augmented and virtual reality conference. The new name reflects the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media. Facebook, now known as Meta, has adopted the new moniker, based on the sci-fi term metaverse, to describe its vision for working and playing in a virtual world.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/faceboo ... -meta.html
User avatar
Drak
Posts: 4493
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 3:02 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by Drak »

Apologies I didn't see this thread when I started the new one about the name change.

A stupid name change isn't going to help your brand, Mark. You belong in prison.
"Some of those that work forces,
Are the same that burn crosses"

- Rage Against the Machine
marindem01
Posts: 1763
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 12:10 pm
Location: S.F. Bay Area

Re: F'ed Book

Post by marindem01 »

Yeah that's the ticket, change the name and that will fix everything.
Love of Country is not Blind Patriotism. It is not devotion to one person or one party. It is knowing fighting for your country is single most important thing you can do. Do not accept the notion violence is the answer.
User avatar
carmenjonze
Posts: 9614
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 3:06 am

Re: F'ed Book

Post by carmenjonze »

When in doubt, rebrand. And hope nobody notices.
________________________________

The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them.

~ Ida B. Wells
________________________________
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Ocasio-Cortez on Facebook rebrand: 'Cancer to democracy'

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had some sharp words for Facebook's decision to change its corporate name to Meta — a reference to a Facebook metaverse.

“Meta as in ‘we are a cancer to democracy metastasizing into a global surveillance and propaganda machine for boosting authoritarian regimes and destroying civil society… for profit!’” the New York progressive wrote in a Tweet.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5790 ... -democracy
User avatar
ZoWie
Posts: 5113
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:39 pm
Location: The blue parts of the map

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ZoWie »

BBC World News:

Meta: Facebook's new name ridiculed by Hebrew speakers

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59090067
Facebook's announcement that it is changing its name to Meta has caused quite the stir in Israel where the word sounds like the Hebrew word for "dead".

To be precise, Meta is pronounced like the feminine form of the Hebrew word.

A number of people have taken to Twitter to share their take on the name under the hashtag #FacebookDead.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
User avatar
carmenjonze
Posts: 9614
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 3:06 am

Re: F'ed Book

Post by carmenjonze »

ZoWie wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:47 am BBC World News:

Meta: Facebook's new name ridiculed by Hebrew speakers

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59090067
:lol: :lol: :lol:
________________________________

The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them.

~ Ida B. Wells
________________________________
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Logging Off Facebook? What Comes Next?

Two Announcements

With media attention on Facebook at a zenith, now is as good a time as any to bring together people to talk about what, if anything, comes after. Lots of folks are doing valuable work, either to build alternatives or to fight for better laws or regulations to govern social media companies. And plenty of organizers and organizations are searching for ways to reduce their dependence on Facebook or move their communities to healthier digital spaces. With those intersecting interests in mind, I’m excited to announce that next Friday, as part of #TheFacebookLogout campaign, Kaliya Young and I are hosting a half-day unconference under the auspices of Planetwork for anyone who wants to dig in further. The event is called “Logging Off Facebook: What Comes Next,” and it will run from noon to 5pm ET. Kaliya, who is the longtime co-founder of the Internet Identity Workshop, itself one of the leading places for people working on empowering users to control their own data, will be facilitating the event using the process of open space technology. Which basically means that we all co-create the unconference together.

In the first hour, we’ll meet in one big virtual room and anyone who wants to offer a session with get a chance to pitch it. Then we’ll have three hour-long breakout sessions, and attendees will be free to move to whatever breakouts grab their interest. In the last hour, we’ll all share back what we’ve learned, and after the event we’ll send attendees a compilation of all the notes taken in breakout sessions. Tickets are on a sliding scale from $5 - $100, with the funds going to cover the cost of QiqoChat, the conference platform we’ll be using (it’s the brainchild of civic coder Lucas Cioffi and it’s basically Zoom plus social profiles plus more fluid ways for users to move around among breakouts), along with facilitation. We’ve got a great (and non-exhaustive) group of co-convenors, including technologists, political reformers, Internet rights organizers, authors, policy wonks, and funders. Please come for all or part of the event, and please help spread the word.

https://theconnector.substack.com/p/log ... comes-next
User avatar
ZoWie
Posts: 5113
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:39 pm
Location: The blue parts of the map

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ZoWie »

Indeed it would be better in my opinion for Internet social interactions to fragment, democratize, and come under less centralized control. Of course, there'd still be the problems of individuals being in it for the money and wanting to take advantage of others, and conspiracy nuts trying to gain followings for some weird idea. Even so, perhaps we could cut down the current manipulation by a few billionaires and their armies of tech workers designing secret mind control and spying algorithms.

We'll have to wait and see what lessons come from the Facebook debacle. For now I continue to distrust technology as today's current corrupt money machine instead of a realistic hope for the future.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
User avatar
carmenjonze
Posts: 9614
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 3:06 am

Re: F'ed Book

Post by carmenjonze »

ZoWie wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:31 pm For now I continue to distrust technology as today's current corrupt money machine instead of a realistic hope for the future.
Yes so many of us who held out that hope are now saying nope.
________________________________

The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them.

~ Ida B. Wells
________________________________
User avatar
Drak
Posts: 4493
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 3:02 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by Drak »

Technology in the hands of corporate human nature will always favor dystopia.
"Some of those that work forces,
Are the same that burn crosses"

- Rage Against the Machine
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Facebook user jailed in Vietnam for anti-state posts

A Vietnamese court has sentenced a man to prison after he was found guilty of sharing anti-state posts on Facebook, Reuters reported.

Vietnam’s state news agency reported that Nguyen Tri Gioan, an aquaculture farmer, was convicted of "making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the state" during a one-day trial in the central province of Khanh Hoa.

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... tate-posts
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Facebook’s race-blind practices around hate speech came at the expense of Black users, new documents show

Last year, researchers at Facebook showed executives an example of the kind of hate speech circulating on the social network: an actual post featuring an image of four female Democratic lawmakers known collectively as “The Squad.”

The poster, whose name was scrubbed out for privacy, referred to the women, two of whom are Muslim, as “swami rag heads.” A comment from another person used even more vulgar language, referring to the four women of color as “black c---s,” according to internal company documents exclusively obtained by The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... ased-race/
User avatar
carmenjonze
Posts: 9614
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 3:06 am

Re: F'ed Book

Post by carmenjonze »

ap215 wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:44 am Facebook’s race-blind practices around hate speech came at the expense of Black users, new documents show

Last year, researchers at Facebook showed executives an example of the kind of hate speech circulating on the social network: an actual post featuring an image of four female Democratic lawmakers known collectively as “The Squad.”

The poster, whose name was scrubbed out for privacy, referred to the women, two of whom are Muslim, as “swami rag heads.” A comment from another person used even more vulgar language, referring to the four women of color as “black c---s,” according to internal company documents exclusively obtained by The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... ased-race/
I've found this to be true regarding Jewish users, too. FB is true trash when it comes to years and years and years and years of reporting even the most flagrant, obvious antisemitism. Usually it comes back that it "doesn't violate community standards." :problem:
________________________________

The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them.

~ Ida B. Wells
________________________________
User avatar
ProfX
Posts: 4087
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:15 pm
Location: Earth

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ProfX »

Zuck famously said that he wasn't bothered by Holocaust denial on the platform, saying it also was free speech. When people discuss anti-Semitism on the platform it always comes back to "but he's ... " well crap, ya know, that doesn't matter. Maybe he's Tahitian. The problem exists.

But it's weird, he says it is not their job to police accuracy, and I get that, except then, and I approved of this, they removed stuff from Facebook like "Plandemic" because it spread public health disinformation.

They need a consistent standard. I agree with them removing health disinformation. But what about election disinformation, and Holocaust denial where people are controverting known and documented historical facts?

Mark won't let his Meta corp set a consistent standard, and in all honesty, they never have.
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln :D
User avatar
sam lefthand
Posts: 678
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:58 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by sam lefthand »

I looked it up, Facebook was founded in 2004.

That means my rejection of their existence is only one year away from being old enough to walk into a tavern and drink 3.2% beer.

:)
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Mark you're about to get exposed even more.

We’re Making the Facebook Papers Public. Here’s Why and How

In one of Silicon Valley’s largest leaks, a former Facebook product manager slipped financial regulators stacks of documents containing thousands of confidential memos, chat logs, and a veritable library of hidden research. The leak was designed to convince the feds that the gravity and scope of Facebook’s design flaws and misdeeds vastly exceed anything its executives ever divulged to their investors.

The documents, captured by whistleblower Frances Haugen and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, were also handed to members of a Senate Commerce subcommittee chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat of Connecticut who last month called Instagram “a breeding ground for eating disorders and self harm.” And it’s from here that Gizmodo and some 300 other mostly Western journalists derived their access.

https://gizmodo.com/we-re-making-the-fa ... 1848083026
User avatar
ZoWie
Posts: 5113
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:39 pm
Location: The blue parts of the map

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ZoWie »

I actually got talked into starting a facebook account. I found the platform to be highly unsatisfactory. It was basically everything that's wrong with urban culture distilled into a single social network. It valued adolescent behavior as solutions to adult problems. It stressed popularity and a busy social life over any meaningful insight or problem solving. It inspired people to dream up scams that would derive money from trivia and excess. And then, just about when users learned the way around, they would change it, adding new tunnels to nowhere and closing off old ones that everyone was just learning to actually use in the best ways.

I lasted about a year, had nothing but negative experiences, and ultimately I just nuked my account before someone noticed that I never used it and took it over for something I'd get blamed for.

Nothing since has surprised me in the least. The rise of that paradigm of social networking has coincided with the latest round of BS-based kneejerk racist and classist politics. The resulting mess has fed on itself, and it reached critical mass with the election of New York's least favorite blowhard as president of the United States. The abstract, and irrelevant, idea of keeping Internet free to evolve into something useful is no longer on the table. It's done evolving. What's ahead is either meaningful regulation worldwide, or more of the same descent into noise, bickering, threats, and mass currency scams.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Yes this is what WE should do to Big Tech & other corporations in general.

GIFs Were the Last Straw: Facebook Gets First Order to Unwind Completed Deal

Few would have predicted that short video loops of Kanye West or cats furiously typing on laptops would be the final straw for competition regulators.

Yet on Tuesday, the U.K. ordered Meta Inc.’s Facebook to sell Giphy, the animated file search engine it bought for $315 million in 2020, in part because the deal would attract even more users to Meta’s portfolio of products. Giphy gives users access to millions of GIFs, video clips often used to communicate in the digital age.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... nd=premium
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Facebook’s head of Messenger leaving company in 2022 as executive exodus continues

Facebook’s executive exodus continued on Tuesday with Stan Chudnovsky, the head of the company’s Messenger division, announcing that he will be leaving in 2022.

Facebook, now called Meta, has dealt with a wave of high-profile executive exits this year. The company faces increased regulatory scrutiny and a major public relations challenge following the release of internal documents and news reports illustrating how much Facebook knows about the harms caused by its services.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/faceboo ... -2022.html
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Woman lost @metaverse Instagram handle days after Facebook name change

Thea-Mai Baumann had posted to Instagram using the @metaverse handle for nearly a decade when her account was disabled on November 2.

“Your account has been blocked for pretending to be someone else,” the app told her.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202 ... me-change/
ap215
Posts: 6057
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:41 pm

Re: F'ed Book

Post by ap215 »

Facebook parent company bans six private spy firms from Facebook, Instagram

Spies for hire are secretly targeting journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents on behalf of corporations and governments to an extent not previously understood, Facebook’s parent company said in a new report as it banned six companies and a Chinese network named in the report from its social media platforms.

“The global surveillance-for-hire industry targets people across the internet to collect intelligence, manipulate them into revealing information and compromise their devices and accounts,” says the report by Meta Platforms, the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. “While cyber mercenaries often claim that their services and surveillance-ware are intended to focus on criminals and terrorists, our investigation found they in fact regularly targeted journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of the opposition and human rights activists around the world.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-med ... m-rcna8993
Post Reply