Facebook Is Making People Depressed. We Are Socially Sad
January 29, 2018
As anyone who has spent even a moment on social media knows, jealousy and depression are practically part of the algorithm. Seeing others’ success and happiness tends to put us in a funk, no matter how hard we try not to look. Turns out, this is a pretty common reaction as we discovered after reading a recent Phys.org piece, “A Secret History of Facebook Depression.”
The story tells us what we pretty much already know:
“If the research is any indication, you may actually be finding Facebook and other social media sites aren’t so great for your mental health. Instead of feeling blissfully open and connected with your friends, you feel inadequate or maybe even a bit depressed.”
Yep, that sounds about like our usual experience seeing an amazing family vacation photo by an ex, or news of another promotion by your enemy at work. It turns out the youngest generation is actually ahead of the rest of the world on this one. According to the Independent, millennials are leaving social media and finding quite a bit of happiness in the process. The tricky part is taking advice from 20-somethings in order to overcome the destructive side effects of social media. The bright side is that the approach spins cash.
Patrick Roland, January 29, 2018
Facebook and Google: An Easy Shift from Regulated to Menace
January 26, 2018
I read “George Soros: Facebook and Google a Menace to Society.” I thought the prevailing sentiment was regulation. Many industries are regulated, and some which should be like consulting are not.
The British newspaper which is popular in Harrod’s Creek for its digital commitment and its new chopped down form factor offered this nugget from George Soros, an interesting billionaire:
Facebook and Google have become “obstacles to innovation” and are a “menace” to society whose “days are numbered”, said billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. “Mining and oil companies exploit the physical environment; social media companies exploit the social environment,” said the Hungarian-American businessman, according to a transcript of his speech.
Let’s assume that Mr. Soros’ viewpoint grabs the hearts and minds of his fellow travelers. Will Facebook and Google face actions which are more than mere regulatory harnesses?
Not even good old Microsoft warranted the “menace” label. I think of menace as a word suggesting physical harm. Other definitions range from “a declaration of an intention to cause evil to happen” to scare, startle, or terrify.
Now Facebook and Google can be characterized in many ways. When we disseminate links to Facebook’s intellectual underbelly, none of the goslings is particularly frightened. When one of the DarkCyber researchers to I run a query on the GOOG, our blood does not run cold. We sigh, and run the same query on different systems, even www.searx.me which is often quite useful.
In my opinion, the PR stakes are rising for these superstars of the Silicon Valley way.
This will be interesting. Perhaps Philz Coffee fueled protests will become more common in Plastic Fantasticland. Could some wealthy Davos types fund such gatherings? The T shirts could become collectibles too.
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2018
Facebook and Google: Set Up a Standards Entity
January 25, 2018
Ah, governance. A murky word which means figuring out the rules of the road. Tough job.
I read “UK Advertisers urge Facebook and Google to Set Up Standards Body.” The idea is interesting. It reminds me of the hapless part time teacher who was supposed to manage my high school science club. Shortly before one of the wags ignited a smoke bomb in chemistry class, our science club was asked to stop playing pranks. Yep, that notion lasted less than 24 hours.
I think of Facebook, Google, and some other outfits as high school science and math clubs whose DNA is now more mature—just with niftier technology.
The write up ignores what I perceive as the basis of some interesting corporate behavior. I learned from the article:
Advertisers have called on Facebook and Google to establish an independent body to regulate and monitor content on both of their platforms.
Okay, both companies are supposed to generate a return for their shareholders. Both companies are not too keen on people not working in a sufficiently advanced field offering suggestions. This is similar to the concierge of a fancy hotel telling the bank president financing the outfit what to have for breakfast.
The write up opined in a “real” news way:
Google and Facebook should “thrash out some common principles” over content moderation and removal that could be adopted and enforced by an independent body, which they would fund, he [Phil Smith, director general of the Incorporated Society of British Advertiser or ISBA] said.
The write up reported:
Mr Smith, a former marketing director of Kraft, said advertisers expect the big technology companies to take action because consumers are becoming skeptical of digital advertising. “Our consumer research tells us that digital advertising is intrusive and not being trusted,” he said. Consumers “know that television advertising is regulated in some way – both the advertising and the content – but they don’t believe that to be the case in any respect when it comes to digital”.
Yep, great idea.
I believe that regulators are interested in paying more attention to Facebook and Google. I would toss Amazon and Apple into the basket as well.
However, the interest is less about sales and more about tax revenue.
How would a regulatory body go about making a modification to an automated algorithm which reacts to what users do in real time?
Facebook and Google operate in interesting ways; regulatory authorities may not be into the “interesting” thing.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2018
Social Media: Gotta Love It
January 24, 2018
I noted the news story “Facebook Says It Can’t Guarantee Social Media Is Good for Democracy.” I assume that “real” journalism is good for democracy.
I highlighted this passage in the article:
Contrite Facebook executives were already fanning out across Europe this week to address the company’s slow response to abuses on its platform, such as hate speech and foreign influence campaigns.
Yes, contrition. Good.
Now about that user data and the ad revenue?
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2018
Facebook Experiment Harming Democracy
January 16, 2018
Facebook seems to be the last place on the Web to negatively affect democratic governments, but according to The Guardian it will in, “‘Downright Orwellian’: Journalists Decry Facebook Experiment’s Impact On Democracy.” Facebook is being compared to Big Brother in a news feed experiment that removed professional media stories from six countries. Let the article break it down for you:
The experiment, which began 19 October and is still ongoing, involves limiting the core element of Facebook’s social network to only personal posts and paid adverts.
So-called public posts, such as those from media organisation Facebook pages, are being moved to a separate “explore” feed timeline. As a result, media organisations in the six countries containing 1% of the world’s population – Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Bolivia, Cambodia, Serbia and Slovakia – have had one of their most important publishing platforms removed overnight.
In other weeks, “Eek!” These countries have very volatile governments and any threat to their news outlets is very bad if free speech is going to live. Also the news outlets in these countries do not have the budgets to pay for Facebook’s post boosting fees. Facebook was used as a free service to spread the news, but it fell more than 50% in many of the countries where this experiment was tested.
Even if Facebook were to stop the experiment some of the media outlets would not recover. It is curious why Facebook did not test the news feed experiment in another country. Oh wait, we know why. It did not want to deal with the backlash from western countries and the countless people who whine on the Internet. In the smaller countries, there is less culpability, but more home front damage. Nice job Facebook!
Whitney Grace, January 16, 2018
Big Shock: Social Media Algorithms Are Not Your Friend
December 11, 2017
One of Facebook’s founding fathers, Sean Parker, has done a surprising about-face on the online platform that earned him billions of dollars. Parker has begun speaking out against social media and the hidden machinery that keeps people interested. We learned more from a recent Axios story, “Sean Parker Unloads on Facebook ‘Exploiting’ Human Psychology.”
According to the story:
Parker’s I-was-there account provides priceless perspective in the rising debate about the power and effects of the social networks, which now have scale and reach unknown in human history. He’s worried enough that he’s sounding the alarm.
According to Parker:
The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’
And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments.
What’s at stake here isn’t just human psychology being exploited, though. It’s a major part of the story, but, as Forbes pointed out, we are on the cusp of social engineering via social media. If more people like Parker don’t stand up and offer a solution, we fear there could be serious repercussions.
Patrick Roland, December 11, 2017
Filtering: Facebook Asserts Filtering Progress
November 29, 2017
i read “Hard Questions: Are We Winning the War on Terrorism Online?” The main point is that Facebook is filtering terrorism related content. Let’s assume that the assertion is correct. Furthermore, let’s assume that private group participants are reporting terror-related content so that information not available to the general Facebook community is devoid of terror related content.
This appears to be a step forward.
My thought is that eliminating the content may squeeze those with filtered messages to seek other avenues of information dissemination. For most people, the work arounds will be unfamiliar.
But options exist, and these options are becoming more widely used and robust. I remind myself that bad actors can be every bit as intelligent, resourceful, and persistent as the professionals working at companies like Facebook.
Within the last four months, the researchers assisting me on the second edition of the Dark Web Notebook have informed me:
- Interest in certain old-school methods of online communication has increased; for example, text communication
- Encrypted apps are gaining wider use
- Peer-to-peer mechanisms show strong uptake by certain groups
- Dark Web or i2p communication methods are not perfect but some work despite the technical hassles and latency
- Burner phones and sim cards bought with untraceable forms of payment are widely available from retail outlets like Kroger and Walgreens in the US.
Those interested in information which is filtered remind me of underground movements in the 1960s. At the university I attended, the surface looked calm. Then bang, an event would occur. Everyone was surprised and wondered where that “problem” came from. Hiding the problem does not resolve the problem I learned by observing the event.
The surface is one thing. What happens below the surface is another. Squeezing in one place on a balloon filled with water moves the water to another place. When the pressure is too great, the balloon bursts. Water goes in unexpected places.
My view is that less well known methods of communication will attract more attention. I am not sure if this is good news or bad news. I know that filtering alone does not scrub certain content from digital channels.
Net net: Challenges lie ahead. Net neutrality may provide an additional lever, but there will be those who seek to circumvent controls. Most will fail, but some will succeed. Those successes may be difficult to anticipate, monitor, and address.
Facebook filtering is comparatively easy. Reacting to consequences of filtering may be more difficult. It has taken many years to to achieve the modest victory Facebook has announced. That reaction time, in itself, is a reminder that there is something called a Pyrrhic victory.
Stephen E Arnold, November 29, 2017
Stephen E Arnold, November
Think Facebook Is Going to Fix Its Data Issues, Think Again
November 23, 2017
Facebook has been in hot water lately with its massive flubs with fake news. But the water is about to get scalding when you look at how fast and lose it plays with data. We learned some shocking things from a Fast Company story, “This Time, Facebook is Sharing Its Employees’ Data.”
According to the story:
Still, through a little-known arrangement, Facebook Inc. routinely shares the sensitive income and employment data of its U.S.-based employees with the Work Number database, owned by Equifax Workforce Solutions. Yes, that Equifax.
Every week, Facebook provides an electronic data feed of its employees’ hourly work and wage information to Equifax Workforce Solutions, formerly known as TALX, a St. Louis-based unit of Equifax, Inc. The Work Number database is managed separately from the Equifax credit bureau database that suffered a breach exposing the data of more than 143 million Americans, but it contains another cache of extensive personal information about Facebook’s employees, including their date of birth, social security number, job title, salary, pay raises or decreases, tenure, number of hours worked per week, wages by pay period, healthcare insurance coverage, dental care insurance coverage, and unemployment claim records.
This is pretty groundbreaking news. If the social media king can’t even keep its own employee data safe from the Equifaxes and hackers of the world, how safe are we supposed to think they keep our own data? For Facebook to earn back customer trust, it’ll have to jump through some pretty serious hoops. We’ll sit back and wait for the circus to arrive, in that case.
Patrick Roland, November 23, 2017
The FG Snipers Draw a Bead
November 22, 2017
Facebook (hereinafter “F”) and Google (hereinafter “G”) are the part of the new sport FG sniping. Favored by the Guardian and other “real” publishers, F and G are plump, apparently arrogant, and seemingly clueless targets. The horrible companies do not “give back” to the “real” magazines and newspapers which have been eroded by the flow of clicks flowing to F and G.
A fun example of this blood sport appear in “Why Magazine Mogul Tina Brown Is ‘Angry and Upset’ at Google and Facebook.” I highlighted three comments Tina Brown (Oxford graduate and traditional print journalist) allegedly made to a “real” journalist who has gone over to the dark side of online content creation.
Number One:
I [Tina Brown, Oxford graduate] am very angry and upset about the way advertising revenue has been essentially pirated by the Facebook-Google world
Ahoy, mates. Google indexes. “Real” publishers tried this; for example, the New York Times and its fumbling with LexisNexis and its own Jeff Pemberton led initiative decades ago. Google succeeded; the NYT and other “real” publishers failed. Sour grapes?
Number Two:
When you don’t have human beings who have judgment, who have taste, who have a sense of responsibility, you can have any old Russian hacker dishing it out to the American public.
Not just any “human beings.” The “right” type of human being is a trained journalist like those who do the “This Week in Google” podcast perhaps? Plus, last I knew, F and G had human beings. Mr. Brin, for example, allegedly behaved in a human manner with a certain Google Glass marketing maven. The disconnect is that some human beings are more adept at applying technology to content processing and delivering what users want. On the other hand, “real” publishers certain knew how to generate “yellow” journalism and engage in other fascinating human activities.
Number Three:
People don’t know what’s important or where to find it.
To be clear, some people do know what’s important and where to find it. The problem is that People Magazine or the grocery store tabloid the National Enquirer are not much different from “real” newspapers and magazines.
What the issue is, of course, is the fact that traditional publishing has found itself marginalized. The arbiters of taste and judgment from places like Oxford and Yale are a bit overwhelmed because they don’t get traffic or a sufficient number of likes.
Where in the modern economy is the “law” which says that F and G have to give back to the outfits which have failed to adapt to the new world.
I guess Darwinian principles (Darwin was a Cambridge graduate) don’t apply to those Oxford graduates who wish to enshrine dead tree methods. From my vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, Darwin (a Cambridge graduate) is alive and well. Just look at those informed individuals living in trailers living by the creek. Also, in forward leaning places like Palo Alto, one can observe on the way to F and G the lines of SUVs and motor homes which provide safe havens for Facebook posts and Google searches.
Life would be so much better if time stood still. Are F and G clueless? Should large companies “give back”? One could consult Adam Smith I suppose. Oh, Smith was an allegedly unhappy Oxforder. Nasty intellectual environment my economics professor observed as I recall.
Failure can be unpalatable. Zeros and ones leave a bitter after taste on the tongues of some arbiters of taste.
Stephen E Arnold, November 22, 2017
It Is Time Our Tech Giants Went on a Goodwill Tour
November 22, 2017
As our tech giants pull in more cash, it’s time they gave more back to society. But how? That’s the central question of a fascinating Business Week article, “Hate Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google? Get in Line.”
According to the story:
All of the sudden our tech giants find themselves in a PR pickle: They are posting record earnings and seem unstoppable in business, but they desperately need to convince the public they’re not scarier than a pack of velociraptors on meth.
The story partially follows California congressional candidate, Ro Khanna, who thinks he has some answers for these hated behemoths.
Khanna wants the tech giants to see this moment as an opportunity—“a chance to respond to the challenges facing our country,” he wrote. “The hope is that they will answer the nation’s call to advance the common good, from expanding job opportunity to communities across the country to ensuring that online platforms do not contribute to polarization or misinformation.
This is a chance for those behemoths to really make an impact on something other than their pocketbooks. Perhaps, these businesses like Amazon and Facebook, which are obsessed with the real-time operation can extend that to charitable deeds. To see a real-time charitable impact, like this would likely surge giving.
Patrick Roland, November 22, 2017
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