LinkedIn Analyzed: Verrry Interesting
December 4, 2020
I read “LinkedIn’s Alternate Universe.” I was poking around in an effort to find out how many social profiles are held by Microsoft. The write up provides a number 722 million. However, for my purposes I used a less robust estimate of 660 million. I ran out of space for decimal places. Check the story on Monday, and you will understand my space challenge. The story is Disinterest in Search and Retrieval Quantified.
I recommend this Divinations’ write up because it is amusing, and it helped me understand why the service has become some what peculiar in a social network world in which Ripley’s Believe It or Not! content has become normative.
Here are three examples:
- Posts by living people announcing that the author is dead. Ho, ho. Alive, not dead for the denizens of a personnel department site.
- Begging for dollars and attention. The two seem to be joined at the medulla for some LinkedIn members.
- The antics of recruiters become Twitter jokes.
What is fascinating is that we have a WordPress plug in that posts headlines to LinkedIn automatically. This creates some interesting reactions. First, the software bot has about 800 LinkedIn friends. Okay. I think that’s good. Second, the stories about the MSFT social network service have been filtered as I recall.
The article is worth a gander.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2020
What Does Disappearing Mean?
November 2, 2020
Do messages disappear? A user may not be able to view them, but is it possible that those messages reside in a server, indexed, and ready to analyze? “WhatsApp Disappearing Messages Coming Soon: Everything Explained” does not pursue this line of thinking. The write up states:
You should use disappearing messages only with trusted individuals and groups because the recipient can still take screenshots, forward, or copy disappearing messages before they disappear. Also, if you share a photo, video, or document using disappearing messages, it’ll get deleted from the chat window; if the receiver has auto-download turned on, it’ll be saved to their device.
The article points out: “It’s not a foolproof solution for sharing secrets over the instant messaging platform.”
What if Facebook retains these data? What if these disappearing chats include details about digital currency transactions? How likely is it that certain governments will curtail Facebook’s most recent initiative? Some regulators and enforcement authorities may find value in Facebook’s allegedly deleted messages. With enough value, Facebook is unlikely to explain what “disappearing” means.
What is the solution? Stop using Facebook? No problem.
Stephen E Arnold, November 2, 2020
Music Star Dubs Social Media As Mob Mentality
October 31, 2020
I am not sure I knew about Taio Cruz before I read “Taio Cruz: Social Media Has a Mob Mentality.” Mr. Cruz is a musician. He knows about social media, or, at least, he knows more than I do. Plus he makes an interesting connection:
“I think there’s a mob mentality that happens in comment sections. “A lot of the time people will see something, then look at the comments to give them the answer of how they should feel about it, or how they should behave. “And I think that’s really what happened with with my stuff. I was making fun videos, then someone decided to be toxic – and a bunch of other people decided, ‘Oh, I’m gonna join in on that.'”
The social media which sparked Mr. Cruz’s insight was TikTok, the data Hoover and entertainment mecca for people who are young at heart.
Mr. Cruz allegedly observed:
“Tik Tok really emphasizes making users’ content go viral through their ‘For You’ page – and it has this sort of feedback loop or a feedback spiral. “So if you create a piece of content, then someone else creates content from your content, it loops over and over and over again.”
Suggestion: The elected officials investigating social media may want to reach out to Mr. Cruz. He may have some insights and the language skills to explain impacts of social media upon users and stars alike.
The music for “Hangover” would enliven the forthcoming hearings.
Stephen E Arnold, October 31, 2020
Pundit Wants Everyone Unplugged
October 21, 2020
Douglas Rushkuff is a prominent writer on technology, media, and the future. According to Coin Desk, Rushkuff believes that when it comes to the Internet’s development: “‘We Blew It.’ Douglas Rushkoff’s Take On The Future Of The Web.” Rushkoff does not like that the big tech companies, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, are monetizing our attention. He recommends that people unplug from screens and return to the world around us.
The interview focuses on Rushkuff’s experience writing about the Internet’s early days. He described the early days of the Internet as an altruistic, idealist time, when the Internet was viewed as a way to combat established powers and hierarchies. Rushkuff stated everything disappeared when:
“I think people sense the potential is still there. If we hadn’t weaponized this stuff against humanity in the name of increasing the Nasdaq stock exchange, what may have we gotten? Would we have saved – now it’s too late – civilization? That was the last moment at which we had the potential to change the world. But we decided it was more important to build up our 401(k)s.”
He believes that humanity might have passed a tipping point for civilization’s salvation. The biggest problems are climate change and more diseases. He notes that whenever a new technology is invented such as crypto currencies, people are not using them for their intended purpose. Instead they are being used to generate money and support the old power structures.
Rushkuff advises people to support mutual aid endeavors, where people cooperate and help each other for society’s benefit. Crypto currencies are a way to establish mutual aid and authenticate business transactions without relying on big business and/or banks.
In the 1990s, Rushkuff wrote of the dangers about teaching computers how to manipulate human behavior and thought. Based off how technology is advancing, computers will only get better at understanding humans. His views on the future are thinking, but he does offer some wise words:
“When you only look forward you don’t see your own exhaust. There’s a disconnect from the consequences of your actions.”
Hindsight is twenty-twenty when one rides the Google bus.
Whitney Grace, October 21, 2020
LinkedIn and Facebook Envy: A Me Too in Progress
October 20, 2020
LinkedIn is a social media platform for “professionals,” however, it is better described as Microsoft’s version of the classifieds with a lot of interactive bells and whistles. In order to maintain LinkedIn’s relevancy, Microsoft recently upgraded it to include shinier features says Gadgets360 says in, “LinkedIn Introduces Stories, Video Chats, And Other New Features.”
One of LinkedIn’s new features is Stories that is best described as posts with a twenty-four hour self-destruct button. Nothing gets deleted on the Internet and content people posted in their youth can come back to haunt them as an adult. Stories allows LinkedIn users to share updates about their professional life without fear of it becoming a closet skeleton.
There is also a new video calling integration that will make it easier to initiate video calls from LinkedIn messages:
“LinkedIn announced the new features via a blog post. It will now allow users to start a video call over Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or BlueJeans by Verizon directly from LinkedIn messages. LinkedIn said that it aims to make it easy to switch conversations from chat to face-to-face video.”
Other LinkedIn updates include a dark mood, a better, streamline search experience, and flashier message options:
“Other notable features the Microsoft-owned platform introduced include the ability to edit and delete messages, react to a message or Story with an emoji, and select multiple conversations at a time to archive, delete, or mark them as read/unread. LinkedIn has also enhanced the way users can report inappropriate messages. You can also invite others to join an existing conversation, while keeping the original conversation history private.”
With these new features, Microsoft makes LinkedIn more useful but it does not erase its reputation as an “interesting” service among some professionals.
Whitney Grace, October 20, 2020
Selling the Millennial MBA Way
October 15, 2020
How does a company sell in the era of the Rona, social unrest, financial uncertainty, international tension, and misinformation? The answer appears in “Drive Growth by Picking the Right Lane — A Customer Acquisition Playbook for Consumer Startups.” The advice is interesting because it pays scant attention to most of the traditional methods. (Methods are explained as “lanes” and “social media”.)
Here’s an example from the introduction to the free how-to. The focus of the write up is narrowed to:
Performance marketing (e.g. Facebook and Google ads)
Virality (e.g. word-of-mouth, referrals, invites)
Content (e.g. SEO, YouTube)
The essay points out that fuddy duddy techniques are not included. The explanation is:
There are two additional lanes (sales and partnerships) which we won’t cover in this post because they are rarely effective in consumer businesses. And there are other tactics to boost customer acquisition (e.g PR, brand marketing), but the lanes outlined above are the only reliable paths for long-term and sustainable business growth.
The how-to includes screenshots, tables, and graphs.
Need a playbook to sell the millennial way? This may be for you.
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2020
China Alert from the FBI
October 10, 2020
DarkCyber noted “New FBI Film Warns about China’s Recruitment of US Officials.” The DarkCyber research team has not viewed this video. We did note this statement in the article about the video:
FBI Director Christopher Wray and other officials have said that China’s goal of becoming the world’s top technology provider is fueling Beijing’s aggressive techniques to get as much information on technologies from around the world as possible. “Social media deception continues to be a popular technique for foreign intelligence services and other hostile actors to glean valuable information from unsuspecting Americans,” NCSC Director William Evanina said in a statement. “Through this movie and other resources, we hope to raise awareness among Americans so they can guard against online approaches from unknown parties that could put them, their organization, and even national security at risk.”
Data generated by social media provides one skilled in certain arts to:
- Identify individuals who may be susceptible to pressure or payoffs
- Provide hints about an individual’s weaknesses or pressure points
- Pinpoint activities, including destinations, so that person contact can be initiated.
The cavalier dismissal of social media like TikTok as no big deal is not warranted. The FBI’s concern is understandable. If anything, enforcement agencies should have been more aggressive. The film is a useful first step, but more communication about the risks certain countries pose to the security of US businesses and governmental agencies is needed.
Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2020
Twitter Photo Preview AI Suspected of Racial Bias
October 1, 2020
Is this yet another case of a misguided algorithm? BreakingNews.ie reports, “Twitter Investigating Photo Preview System After Racial Bias Claims.” Several Twitter users recently posted examples of the platform’s photo-preview function seeming to consider white people more important that black ones. Well that is not good. We’re told:
“The tech giant uses a system called neural network to automatically crop photo previews before you can click on them to view the full image. This focuses on the area identified as the ‘salient’ image region, where it is likely a person would look when freely viewing an entire photo. But tests by a number of people on the platform suggest that the technology may treat white faces as the focal point more frequently than black faces. One example posted online shows American politician Mitch McConnell and Barack Obama, with the system favoring Mr. McConnell in its preview over the former US president. Meanwhile, another person tried with Simpson cartoon characters Lenny and Carl – the latter who is black – with Lenny appearing to take preference. A third user even tried with dogs, resulting in a white dog in the prime preview position over a black dog.”
That last example suggests this may be an issue of highlight and shadow rather than biased training data, but either way is problematic. The company’s chief design officer posted one test he performed that seemed to counter the accusations, but acknowledges his experiment is far from conclusive. Twitter continues to investigate.
Cynthia Murrell, October 1, 2020
Information Manipulation: A Rich Tradition
September 21, 2020
“Scientists Use Big Data to Sway Elections and Predict Riots — Welcome to the 1960s” is an interesting write up. The essay begins with a quote from a high profile Xoogler, Anthony Levandowski. He’s the engineer who allegedly found information in his possession which was not supposed be in his possession. Things just happen, of course. The quote in the write up reminded me that Sillycon Valley in an interesting place.
The point of the write up is to romp through information manipulations related to elections in the US. One company — Simulmatics — applied systems and methods refined by other experts. I am not comfortable naming these people because it is 2020. Proper nouns can be tricky business.
The write up asserts:
The press called Simulmatics scientists the “What-If Men”, because their work — programming an IBM 704 — was based on endless what-if simulations. The IBM 704 was billed as the first mass-produced computer capable of doing complex mathematics. Today, this kind of work is much vaunted and lavishly funded. The 2018 Encyclopedia of Database Systems describes ‘what-if analysis’ as “a data-intensive simulation”. It refers to it as “a relatively recent discipline”. Not so.
The “not so” nails down the obvious. Information manipulation has been around for more years than Silicon Valley’s luminaries have been reshaping the world with digital services.
This quote warranted a check mark:
Although none of the researchers he had met “had malignant political designs on the American public”, Burdick warned, their very lack of interest in contemplating the possible consequences of their work stood as a terrible danger. Indeed, they might “radically reconstruct the American political system, build a new politics, and even modify revered and venerable American institutions — facts of which they are blissfully innocent”.
Yep, Sumulmatics. The other thought the write up evoked is, “When and to what does one pay attention?” Thumbtypers, what do you think?
Stephen E Arnold, September 21, 2020
Social Media: Inherently Corrosive?
September 16, 2020
DarkCyber noted “The Inevitable Corruption of Social Systems on the Web.” [You may be asked to pay to view this write up. Sigh.] The article invests some effort into explaining a Captain Obvious point: Amazon reviews cannot be trusted. Okay. Insight.
In the essay is one interesting point. DarkCyber dubs this SMIC’s Law; to wit: The Law of SMIC (Social Media Inherently Corrosive) is, according to the write up:
Any system with a social base will experience, from a certain level of popularity, a corruption of its operations that will tend to destroy the value of the metrics used in it.“
DarkCyber agrees. Too bad users and regulators choose to ignore it.
Stephen E Arnold, September 16, 2020
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