Facebook Helps Employees Think
December 4, 2019
I read the headline “Facebook Gives Workers a Chatbot to Appease That Prying Uncle. The “Liam Bot” Teaches Employees What to Say If Friends or Family Ask Difficult Questions about the Company over the Holidays.”
I thought “Liam” was a misspelling of “liar.” Upon a second look, I realized that “Liam” was a friendly, neutral, even trustworthy word.
Is this a photograph of one of Liam’s ancestors? DarkCyber believes that this is not Facebook’s Liam. But the possibility of this individual’s DNA finding its way to Facebook is interesting to contemplate.
The main point of the write up is that Facebook is not sure what employees will say when asked a question. To address the problem, the company has rolled out a smart system to provide some digital support to the Facebookers who have to answer spontaneously.
The write up explains that answer should point out that Facebook seeks information from experts. No definition of an “expert” is provided it seems. But that’s a minor point because we’re are doing damage control here, not thinking.
Other steps Facebook is taking to deal with interesting content includes contractors who review information before it goes live, identify hate speech, and other hand waving.
Google explained that volume makes it difficult to catch certain types of interesting content. Bigness is a burden for sure, right?
I circled in True Blue marker this statement from the write up:
In its answers, the Liam Bot often links to company blog posts and news releases. It doesn’t just provide answers to difficult questions about Facebook’s role in the world, either. Liam Bot is also practical with personal technology advice.
Several observations:
- A brain implant might be a useful supplement to Liam
- Activating the employee’s mobile phone to video and record conversation would provide useful training data
- Chat bots are quite useful, particularly when interacting in a spontaneous manner with friends and family. Why look a person in the eye. Just read from the mobile phone.\
Facebook is a pioneer following in the footsteps of individuals who wanted to control thinking and speaking. Who were these individuals?
Ask Liam, please. Not even IBM Watson can help with this question.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2019
Is Google Thinking about Turkeys?
November 27, 2019
Is Google actually fearful of an authoritarian government? Google is okay with firing people who do not go along. Google exerts considerable force. Is Google is a company driven by dollar signs? Is it possible that Google fears anything and anyone that threatens its net profit? The Register explains the cause of Google’s fear in “Google Takes Sole Stand on Privacy, Rejects New Rules For Fear Of ‘Authoritarian’ Review.”
Google, like any company from a capitalist society, is leery of any organization that wishes to restrain its power. Google recently blocked a new draft for he Privacy Interest Group (PING)’s charter. PING is a member of the W3C web standards body. Google blocked the new draft, because it creates an unchecked authoritarian review group and will create “significant unnecessary chaos in the development of the web platform.”
PING exists to enforce technical specifications that W3C issued to respect people’s Web privacy. W3C provides horizontal review, where members share suggestions with technical specifications authors to ensure they respect privacy. Ever since the middle of 2019, PING’s sixty-eight members have tried to rewrite its charter. The first draft was shared with 450 W3C members, one of which is Google, and only twenty-six members responded. Of the twenty-six members, Google was the only one that objected.
Google supports PING’s horizontal review, bit the search engine giant did not want to invest in the new charter without the group having more experience. There are not many differences between the charter drafts:
“‘The new charter is not dramatically different from the existing one, Doty said in an email. ‘It includes providing input and recommendations to other groups that set process, conduct reviews or approve the progression of standards and mentions looking at existing standards and not just new ones. I think those would all have been possible under the old charter (which I drafted originally); they’re just stated more explicitly in this draft. It includes a new co-chair from Brave, in addition to the existing co-chairs from the Internet Society and Google.’
Doty said he’s not surprised there would be discussion and disagreement about how to conduct horizontal spec reviews. ‘I am surprised that Google chose to formally object to the continued existence of this interest group as a way to communicate those differences,’ he said.”
Doty hopes that Google will invest in PING and Web privacy, but Google’s stance is more adversarial. Google and other tech companies are worried about their business models changing of cookies are blocked. Google does not want to lose the majority of its business, which comes from advertising through its search engine. Google might protect privacy, but only so far as it does not interfere with their bottom line.
Whitney Grace, November 27, 2019
The Cost of Indifference and the Value of Data Governance
November 23, 2019
The DarkCyber team suggests a peek at “Unsecured Server Exposes 4 Billion Records, 1.2 Billion People.” The write up states:
The data itself comes from the data aggregator and enrichment companies People Data Labs (PDL) and OxyData.Io and contains basic personal information, such as names, home and mobile phone numbers and email addresses and what may be information scraped from LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media sources.
The write up points out that the data losses included:
- Over 1.5 billion unique people, including close to 260 million in the U.S.
- Over 1 billion personal email addresses. Work email for 70%+ decision makers in the US, UK, and Canada.
- Over 420 million LinkedIn URLs.
- Over 1 billion Facebook URLs and IDs.
- 400 million plus phone numbers with more than 200 million U.S.-based valid cell phone numbers.
The hosting provider may have been Amazon AWS. The software system was Elasticsearch. The individuals were those who set up the system.
Without reploughing a somewhat rocky field, one might suggest that default settings for cloud services, software, and passwords need a rethink. One might want to think about the staff assigned to the job of setting up the system. One might want to think about the sources of the information the company named in the article tapped. In short, one could think about quite a few points of failure.
Another approach might be to raise the question of responsibility. I suppose this is a type of governance, a term which refers to figuring out what’s to be done and how to complete tasks without creating this all-too-common situation of whizzy systems’ functioning as convenience stores for those who want data.
A few observations:
First, the individuals involved in setting up this system were not, it seems, managed particularly well. That’s a problem when managers don’t know what to stipulate their contractors and employees must do to secure online services. These “individuals” work at different organizations. Thus, coordination and checks are difficult. But the alternative? Loss of data.
Second, the developers of the software understand the security implications of certain user actions. The fix is to purchase additional security. Security is not baked in. Security is an option. That approach may generate revenue, but the quest for revenue seems to have a downside. Loss of data.
Third, the operators of the cloud system continue to follow the “just a platform” approach to business. The idea is that the functionality of a cloud system makes it easy to deploy an application. In a hurry? No problem. Use the basics. Want something special? That takes time, and when done in a careless or partial way, loss of data.
It seems that “loss of data” may be preventable but loss of data is part of the standard operating procedure in the present managerial environment.
How does the problem become lessened? Governance. Will companies and individuals step up and go through the difficult task of figuring out what and how before losing data?
Unlikely. Painful lessons like the one revealed in the source article slip like rain water off the windshield of a car speeding down the information superhighway.
Dangerous? Sure. Will drivers slow down? Nope. The explanation after an accident was, “I don’t know. Car just skidded.” There’s insurance for automobile accidents. For cloud data wrecks, no consequences of a meaningful nature. Just blog posts. These are effective?
I will be talking about how the tendrils of the Dark Web and security lapses may create a greater interest in data governance. Exciting? Only if you were one of the billion or so whose personally identifiable information was put online in a less than secure way. I will be at the DG Vision Conference in Washington, DC, early in December 2019.
Stephen E Arnold, November 23, 2019
The GOOG: Bright People, Interesting Management Tactics
November 6, 2019
Silicon Valley is notorious for its leftist political leanings. As much as the workforce supports leftwing views, Silicon Valley leaders are more concerned with their bottom dollar and maintaining a politically correct image. BuzzFeed News shares that, “Google Removed Employee Questions About Its Hiring Of A Former DHS Staffer Who Defended The Muslim Travel Ban.”
In this recent example of maintaining an inoffensive image, Google removed questions related to hiring Miles Taylor, a former employee of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), on the internal Google message board, Dory. Dory is used to ask and vote on questions for management. Information was removed about Taylor due to his support of Trump’s travel ban of Muslims. Google staffers were especially upset about Taylor’s hiring in September 2019, because Google executives actually protested against policies Taylor implemented at the DHS.
Lately, Google is having many problems maintaining free expression for its staffers and “corporate harmony.” Earlier in 2019, Google settled with the National Labor and Review Board about the company’s attempts to prevent employees’ from discussing their dissatisfaction with the company.
Google defended hiring Taylor, because he was not involved in the original Muslim travel ban drafts nor the family separation. Google declined to comment on removing discussions about Taylor, but two close sources did confirm that some of the comments were removed because they were viewed as personal attacks on Taylor. Other discussions about him remained posted on Dory.
It is ironic that Google did hire Taylor based on the executives’ past views:
“Google and its leaders had voiced their strong opposition to the Muslim travel ban and family separations occurring at the Mexico border. In January 2017, following the announcement of the original travel ban, Google cofounder Sergey Brin joined protesters at San Francisco International Airport, while Google CEO Sundar Pichai pointedly voiced his displeasure on Twitter, in an email to staff, and in a much-publicized employee meeting.
‘The stories and images of families being separated at the border are gut-wrenching,’ Pichai tweeted as the Trump administration ramped up its anti-immigration policy in the summer of 2018. ‘Urging our government to work together to find a better, more humane way that is reflective of our values as a nation. #keepfamiliestogether.’”
Are Google executives unaware that their management decisions may be interpreted as off center? Are Google employees allowing politics to control their work place? Maybe it is reflective of the here and now?
Whitney Grace, November 6, 2019
Google: A Ray of Light?
November 5, 2019
Google’s algorithms may not be so bad after all—it seems that humans are the problem yet again. Wired discusses a recent study from Penn State in its article, “Maybe It’s Not YouTube’s Algorithm That Radicalizes People.” Extreme ideological YouTube channels have certainly been growing by leaps and bounds. Many reporters have pointed to the site’s recommendation engine as the culprit, saying its suggestions, often running on auto-play, guide viewers further and further down radicalization rabbit holes. However, political scientists Kevin Munger and Joseph Phillips could find no evidence to support that view. Reporter Paris Martineau writes:
“Instead, the paper suggests that radicalization on YouTube stems from the same factors that persuade people to change their minds in real life—injecting new information—but at scale. The authors say the quantity and popularity of alternative (mostly right-wing) political media on YouTube is driven by both supply and demand. The supply has grown because YouTube appeals to right-wing content creators, with its low barrier to entry, easy way to make money, and reliance on video, which is easier to create and more impactful than text.”
The write-up describes the researchers’ approach:
“They looked at 50 YouTube channels that researcher Rebecca Lewis identified in a 2018 paper as the ‘Alternative Influence Network.’ Munger and Phillips’ reviewed the metadata for close to a million YouTube videos posted by those channels and mainstream news organizations between January 2008 and October 2018. The researchers also analyzed trends in search rankings for the videos, using YouTube’s API to obtain snapshots of how they were recommended to viewers at different points over the last decade. Munger and Phillips divided Lewis’s Alternative Influence Network into five groups—from ‘Liberals’ to ‘Alt-right’—based on their degree of radicalization. … Munger and Phillips found that every part of the Alternative Influence Network rose in viewership between 2013 and 2016. Since 2017, they say, global hourly viewership of these channels ‘consistently eclipsed’ that of the top three US cable networks combined.”
The Penn State team also cites researcher Manoel Ribeiro, who insists his rigorous analysis of the subject, published in July, has been frequently misinterpreted to support the bad-algorithm narrative. Why would mainstream media want to shift focus to the algorithm? Because, Munger and Phillips say, that explanation points to a clear policy solution, wishful thinking though it might be. The messiness of human motivations is not so easily dealt with.
Both Lewis and Ribeiro praised the Penn State study, indicating it represents a shift in this field of research. Munger and Phillips note that, based on the sheer volume of likes and comments these channels garner, their audiences are building communities—a crucial factor in the process of radicalization. Pointing fingers at YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is a misleading distraction.
Cynthia Murrell, November 4, 2019
Zuck Under Fire
November 5, 2019
Mark Zuckerberg might be the lead smart dude at Facebook, but that is only one facet of his career. The Sydney Morning Herald published an editorial about Zuckerberg called, “Mr. Zuckerberg, Have You Considered Retirement?” and it opened with the following description of him:
“If I were Mark Zuckerberg — newfound defender-to-the-death of liberal free expression even if it includes outright lying except if there are female nipples, a would-be curer of all the world’s disease, side-gig education reformer, immigration crusader, quirky dad, fifth wealthiest person in the world, hobnobber to pundits and politicians and all-around do-gooder digital hegemony who is also now vying to run the world’s money supply, I mean my God, Mark, where does all this end?”
Whoa! Zuckerberg has his hands full! Farhad Manjoo, the editorial’s author, suggested that Zuckerberg should vanish from the spotlight and retire to a nice, quiet Pacific island. He draws a similarity between Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who stepped down from the company and transformed himself into a philanthropic billionaire. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin pulled back too and are basically ghosting society.
Manjoo did state that Zuckerberg’s commitment to addressing hot topics might be seen as admirable, but his responses to his opponents are confusing and have mixed up what is good for Facebook vs. what is good for the US. Democrats have turned him into one of the party’s villains and the republicans are not to fond of him either.
Zuckerberg has a lot of power due to his wealth, most of which he earned by applying his intelligence to a product that became part of everyday life. He bows, however, to making money and “supporting” anyone that will put more dollars in his pocket.
Do not forget that Zuckerberg has high functioning autism spectrum disorder, which explains his awkward behavior in public. That does not excuse his behavior towards politics and amassing more and more wealth without a conscious. He is socially awkward, not ignorant of the world.
Whitney Grace, November 4, 2019
Google Protest: An Insulting Anniversary
November 2, 2019
DarkCyber noted this write up in CNet, an online information service, which may not be capturing too many Google ads in 2020. Here’s the title and subtitle of the story:
The headline is Googley; that is, it is designed to make the story appear in a Google search results list. The jabber may work. But what may not be as efficacious is building bridges to the Google itself. For example, the write up states:
The Google protests [maybe about sexual matters, management decisions, money?] didn’t achieve everything their organizers were seeking. Several Google workers and former workers are dissatisfied with the company’s response. Organizers say the company has done the bare minimum to address concerns, and employees allege that it has retaliated against workers and sought to quash dissent. “They’ve been constantly paying lip service,” said one Google employee who was involved with the walkout. “It’s insulting to our intelligence,” said the person, who requested anonymity because of fear of retribution from the company.
Then the observation:
Google declined to make its senior leadership team, including co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CEO Sundar Pichai and human resources chief Eileen Naughton, available for interviews. In a statement, Naughton touted changes Google has made over the past year, including streamlining the process for people to report abuse and other problems.
A few observations may be warranted:
- Google’s management methods may follow the pattern set in high school science clubs when those youthful wizards confront something unfamiliar
- A problem seems to exist within the GOOG
- Outfits like CNet are willing to explain what may be a Google shortcoming because Google is not longer untouchable.
Interesting? If paid employees won’t get along and go along, how will that translate into Google’s commitment to enterprise solutions? What if an employee inserts malicious code in a cloud service as a digital protest? What if… I don’t want to contemplate what annoyed smart people can do at 3 am with access credentials.
Yikes. Insulting.
Stephen E Arnold, November 2, 2019
Facebook: What Is a Threat to the Company?
October 29, 2019
I spotted a headline on Techmeme. Rewriting headlines is part of the Techmeme approach to communication. The link to which the headline points is this New York Times article. Here is the NYT headline:
Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads
This is the Techmeme headline:
Sources: over 250 Facebook employees have signed a letter visible on an internal forum that says letting politicians lie in ads is “a threat” to the company
The messages are almost the same: Staff push back is a problem. But isn’t it part of the current high-tech company ethos.
The threat is management’s inability to maintain control. Companies typically work toward a goal; for example, manufacturing video doorbells or selling asbestos free baby powder. (Okay, those a bad examples.)
Perhaps something larger is afoot?
The corrosion of a ethical fabric allows certain aspects of human behavior to move through a weakened judgmental membrane may be more significant. The problem is not Facebook’s alone.
Are there similarities between a company shipping baby powder with questionable ingredients and Facebook?
Interesting question.
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2019
Economists: The Borjes Approach
October 28, 2019
Now this is a source among sources: Epoch Times. DarkCyber is not equipped to identify the information in “Krugman Admits He and Mainstream Economists Got Globalization Wrong.” One point in the write up evoked memories of a college course when I was a callow youth; to wit:
the consensus economists failed to measure adequately and properly account for the impact of globalization on specific communities, some of which were disproportionately hit hard. This despite the fact that models predicted, and figures later showed, that free trade was a net gain in terms of both jobs and wages in the broader American economy. Generalized gain but localized pain.
There you go. Better for everyone. Not so good for some others.
In business, the technology magnets are doing fine. Local retail shops, not so fine. Some countries are chugging along. Others seems to be shifting into riot mode. Planning a trip to Bogota, Lima, or Paris for a three day week end soon?
What about that college economics class through which I sat asking such questions as, “What is this professor talking about?” and “Have I awakened in a short story by Jose Luis Borges?”
Maybe the Epoch Times is neither wrong nor right about Paul Krugman? Paradoxical thoughts have legs in the online world. What’s real and what’s fake? Think of those riders in the wasteland in front of what seems to be a mountain range. Borges did and look what that earned him.
Stephen E Arnold, October 28, 2019
Amazon: Specialist in Complexity
October 22, 2019
The word “complexification” is tailor made for Amazon. A couple of examples might be helpful, right?
- Third party sellers provide expired food. Something’s wrong it seems. Complexification of the vendor vetting, product vetting, and warehouse vetting processes might be a reason. (I am setting aside “profit at all costs” because who wants to rain on the Amazon bulldozer.
- AWS services. Really, who can name the different types of Amazon databases. There’s an Oracle killer, an unstructured data killer, there’s an Amazon blockchain solution that’s just perfect for Dubai. Can’t keep ‘em straight? Take a cheap course in how to speak Amazon, you dynamo, you.
- Return authorizations. Use Opera? Well, the labels don’t print correctly. Call a human? It is helpful to speak two or three languages other than English. English as she is spoken at Amazon is — well, let’s think about it this way — may not be what talking heads on CNBC speak.
But the most interesting complexity problem concerns Twitch. Twitch may be a problem for YouTube and — get this, gentle reader — Facebook.
The hitch in the git along was summarized this way by Verge’s interview with Emmett Shear, the big Twitcher. Here’s the passage I noted:
The changes are coming, Shear said, because the company didn’t think it was doing well enough when it talked to streamers about moderating their channels. There were streamers with teams that had everything working, but there were also streamers who felt overwhelmed and like they couldn’t figure out how to use all of Twitch’s moderation tools. “It popped as a problem,” Shear said. “We decided we had to do better. And I think it’s a big step in the right direction.” Twitch’s moderation philosophy, in general, comprises two parts: enforcement works on the level of the individual and on the level of the platform.
Okay, complexity, two tier moderation, and a lack of “transparency.” Transparency is an interesting word because it suggests making stuff clear. A lack of transparency means stuff is not clear.
Complexity?
Yes.
In my recent lecture at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference I offered a few examples of Twitch’s challenges:
- Streaming gambling with links to donate money to the gamblers and tips for getting an advantage
- SweetSaltyPeach’s soft excitement morphing into RachelKay’s really dull doing nothing but providing a momentary glimpse of the old formula for success
- A first run movie available via a stream.
Net net: Amazon’s fatal flaw may be its burgeoning complexity. Not even Bezos billions can make some things simple, clear, and easy to understand.
If Twitchers can’t figure out what to do, what will lesser mortals in government agencies achieve? Let’s watch Dubai for clues.
Stephen E Arnold, October 21, 2019
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
