Facebook: Unified Messaging Comin’ Down the Pike
August 17, 2020
What does a monopoly do when regulators thinking about breaking up a big company do? That’s easy. The big company “integrates” its features, infrastructure, and services. If the big company does this “integration” in a clever way, going back to the pre-integration days is possible, but time consuming, expensive, and probably a job that will take more than a couple of days or a week.
“Facebook Is Sliding Into Instagram’s DMs. Literally” reports:
Facebook apparently began rolling out an update that integrates its Instagram and Facebook Messenger chat systems in the U.S. The new integration was announced quietly via a cheerful pop-up message that appeared to users when they opened Instagram on their phones on iOS and Android.
The article points out:
Allowing cross-messaging between Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp has been part of Zuckerberg’s master plan for some time. Although each of apps will remain standalone, Facebook is working on integrating their underlying technical infrastructure. This means that people who only use one of Facebook’s apps could communicate with others in its empire, even if they don’t use the same app.
That’s a good point; however, it is not the main point in DarkCyber’s opinion. The goal of Facebook is to be impervious to break up. Integration is Job One. The fact that Facebook can add to Apple’s woes is like a hot fudge ice cream treat with a cherry or small fruit on top.
Life for Facebook was easier before its methods made headline news and caught the attention of usually sleepy government officials. So, heigh ho, heigh ho, to integration we go.
Stephen E Arnold, August 17, 2020
The WhatsApp Information Warp: Small Worlds and Willful Blindness
August 6, 2020
WhatsApp is part of the new Facebook. Messaging, not email, is becoming the go-to way to handle many online tasks. Need to make a voice phone call? WhatsApp first to set up a time. Want to buy contraband? Consult a WhatsApp group populated with fellow WhatsAppers. Want to get accurate information? Ask a person whom one knows or consult members of a small world.
“WhatsApp Adds Web Search Feature to Help Users Debunk Misinformation” explains:
WhatsApp users in Ireland can now quickly check the contents of forwarded messages in a web search to help expose misinformation… The trial is WhatsApp’s latest attempt to stop the spread of misinformation on the platform after it introduced a limit to the number of times a message can be forwarded on earlier this year. The company confirmed that the new web search feature would begin rolling out today on both Android and iOS for users of the latest version of WhatsApp in Ireland, the UK, the US, Brazil, Italy, Mexico and Spain.
Helpful? Facebook is just another member of a WhatsApp user’s world, a very small world. The user has WhatsApp individuals in his or her circle of friends or contacts. Facebook is just in that circle, whether its consists of five or fifty individuals. Small worlds are a way of cutting out noise and trimming big knowledge tasks down to a more manageable size. [Note below] A small world may be a function of human intelligence and help explain why individuals prefer to interact in digital echo chambers. A participant in a small world operates in a conceptual space with fewer risks, surprises, and push backs. Stanford wizards explain that “short path lengths between nodes together with highly clustered link structures necessarily emerge for a wide set of parameters.”
Small worlding may be a coping mechanism.
What happens when a widely used messaging service facilitates small worlds and then adds a workflow which defines what is and is not misinformation. The person in the small world, by definition, does not go looking for a broader context into which to plug an item of information. The WhatsApp user is likely to accept the designation provided by Facebook, which is the provider of the system, the context, and the signal about an item of information. Using an icon circumvents words. Over time, the WhatsApp user relies on the signal and the small world of friends and contacts to provide data, facts, ideas, and validation.
What users and possibly competitors and regulators may overlook is that WhatsApp does more than provide a handy messaging service. WhatsApp becomes a control mechanism either intentionally or unintentionally. Users, happy with the small world’s perceived value and functionality, become more satisfied with their small world. The small world is comfortable, predictable. Why question what one learns in a small world?
Why not? The WhatsApp small world is the digital equivalent of talking with friends and like minded individuals. Facebook, however, may not be a benign enabler and participant in a WhatsApp small world. Facebook can inject messages (advertising), shape content presented to clarify an issue, and herd members of many different small worlds toward a goal. Those in each small world do not, cannot, or choose to ignore a larger world.
WhatsApp warrants informed scrutiny because the small world phenomenon may put filter bubbles into a hypersonic chamber, accelerating molecules of thought to speeds unattainable outside of the WhatsApp machine. Determining what is and what is not valid information is a big play even for Facebook and WhatsApp in my opinion.
[Note] See also “Journalists’ Twitter Use Shows Them Talking within Smaller Bubbles”
Stephen E Arnold, August 6, 2020
Facebook and Google Get the Scoop in Australia
August 6, 2020
I read “Forcing Tech Giants to the Table.” The write up explains how the pay Australian publishers scheme will function. The article quoted Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg making the framework crystal clear:
We want Google and Facebook to continue to provide these services to the Australian community, which are so much loved and used by Australians. But we want it to be on our terms.
Those high school science club managers are not likely to find the phrase “on our terms” what is required to sit at the physicists’ and mathematicians’ table in the cafeteria.
The services required to deliver cash are summarized this way:
The range of Facebook services subject to arbitration includes Facebook News Feed, Instagram and the Facebook News Tab. The Google services are Google Search, Google News and Google Discover.
That defeats the whole purpose of the “free” services Google provides. On the other hand, if Google does pay for news in an above board manner, maybe the online ad giant can run sponsored messages, really tasteful ads, and present news in a logical order determined by black box algorithmic magic?
The write up adds:
A breach of the code by Facebook or Google could have a few potential outcomes. The first is an infringement notice which has a penalty of $A133,200 for each breach. If the ACCC takes one of the tech giants to court, the maximum penalty is the higher of $A10million, 10% of the digital platform’s turnover in Australia in the past 12 months, or three times the benefit obtained by the tech giant as a result of the breach (if this can be calculated).
Net net: The science club crowd is likely to pout and be forced to fork out real money to legal eagles. These advisers will say, “This Australian thing will not fly.”
In the meantime, Facebook and Google will keep on doing stuff like selling ads, buying market share, and innovating to solve problems like death.
Stephen E Arnold, August 6, 2020
Fordham University Professor Makes Startling Assertion about FAANG
August 5, 2020
In an online publication called Chron.com, a startling assertion was made. “The Legal Fight Against Big Tech Is Like the Fight Against Organized Crime” states:
There are more than a few similarities between the organized crime and these four companies. Like the Mafia, the threats that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google pose to American democracy flow from the power they have over key services (from email to social media to music and film), the way they use dominance in one area to achieve dominance in others and their ability to use fear to stop challenges to their control.
The author points out:
Like the Mafia, they are a resilient, surveillance-based shadow government. So citizens are dual subjects – of the country, and of the flawed online markets created by these companies. Like the mob, big tech has friends in very high places. Likewise, big tech is an oligarchy with several bosses, who compete in some territories but generally divide power among themselves, without consulting elected officials. Obviously, I am not saying Facebook and Google murder and kneecap their opponents, or burn down businesses that refuse to play by their rules; I am not equating tech companies with the mob.
DarkCyber is not sure if this lawyerly statement will assuage the Big Four. Who will step forward and suggest that these firms are the Gang of Four reincarnated in bro cloths in Silicon Valley type endeavors?
Interesting: Mob, threats, surveillance, and money. Sounds like a tasty mob polenta.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2020
WhatsApp: Expiring Messages
August 3, 2020
DarkCyber noted “WhatsApp Is Working on Message Deletion Feature.” Encrypted messaging is a communications channel with magnetism. I pointed out in one of my recent lectures that:
messaging can provide many of the functions associated with old style Dark Web sites.
Messaging applications permit encrypted groups, in-app ecommerce, and links which effectively deliver digital content to insiders or customers.
Facebook, owner of WhatsApp, according to the article:
is working on an Expiring Messages feature.
The idea is that the Facebook system will:
“automatically delete a particular message for the sender and the receiver after a particular time.”
The innovation, if it is under development, begs the question, “Will Facebook retain copies of the deleted content?”
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2020
Amusing Moments: Facebook Pushes Back at a Mere Government
July 29, 2020
The trusted outfit — Thomson Reuters — published “Facebook Sues EU Antitrust Regulator for Excessive Data Requests.” The report is probably typical of every day behavior. The US Congressional hearing looms. Rumors that Facebook will say it defends America against — gasp — China is floating around.
Reuters notes that Facebook does not want the European Union’s regulators asking for documents. The regulators apparently want information suggesting that Facebook took action to further its interests, not those of the EU and its citizens.
But Facebook is defending America. If the Reuters’ story is accurate (which is different from trusted), Facebook believes the best defense is taking the regulators to court.
Defense and defending have some nuances of meaning some in Europe may have overlooked.
Stephen E Arnold, July 29, 2020
Ah, Irony: Facebook, Meet Oedipus. Oedipus, Meet Jerome
July 23, 2020
I spotted an Axios article called “The Continuing Problem of AI Bias.” Therein was a line ripped from the lost scrolls of Sophocles. The line is:
GPT-3 can “easily output toxic language that propagates harmful biases.”
The updated version of Oedipus Tyrannus is loosely translated Zuckerberg Tractatori. The story concerns a brilliant person who created a social empire and failed to see that its technology consumed the world upon which the service was built. Irony? Cambridge Analytica? House testimony? Yes, the reality of working in one context and failing to see that “harmful biases” are what a social system generates. Which is worse? The mom thing or social erosion? Stay tuned for the next Quibi episode.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2020
Facebook: Grudgingly Takes Steps Toward Adulthood
July 21, 2020
I read “FB Says Open to Be Held Accountable over Users’ Data.” The write up reports:
Admitting that it does not have all the answers when it comes to ensuring data privacy, Facebook has said there are many opportunities for businesses and regulators to embrace modern design methods and collaborate to find innovative ways to hold organizations, including itself, accountable.
Interesting. Facebook was founded in 2004. Sixteen years old and ready for a drivers license. Baby steps are good.
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2020
Facebook Ascendant: Will the NSO Group Documents Become Public?
July 18, 2020
Exciting news for the highly ethical outfit Facebook. According to Bloomberg, a “real” news outfit:
WhatsApp and its parent Facebook Inc. can press ahead with a lawsuit accusing Israeli spyware maker NSO Group of creating accounts to send malware to mobile phones of 1,400 people to snoop on them.
The story “Facebook Beats NSO’s Attempt to Crush WhatsApp Malware Suit” is thin on context. Note: The item is behind a paywall and may not be available to some people.
Will the legal action result in public access to documents about NSO’s “practices”?
DarkCyber will be interested to learn how this case unfolds. The “documents” may be particularly interesting. One question which DarkCyber has may be answered: “Did Facebook attempt to hire NSO Group or license its specialized software?”
Stephen E Arnold, July 17, 2020
Scam Ads: Easy to Do Apparently
July 8, 2020
A somewhat shocking assertion appears in “Easy for Fraudsters to Post Scam Ads on Facebook and Google.” The article reports that researchers posted fake ads on Google:
They found that Google did review the adverts submitted, but failed to verify whether the business was real and did not ask for ID. In under an hour, the adverts were approved by the search engine firm for both dummy businesses, gaining almost 100,000 impressions over the space of a month. The fake advert for Natural Hydration was displayed above the official NHS Scotland pages when users searched for “hydration advice”.
A Facebook ad was given similar treatment:
using a personal Facebook account, Which? created a business page on the social network for Natural Hydration and produced a range of posts with pseudo health advice to promote it. A paid promotion of the page gained some 500 likes in the space of a week. Facebook responded to the investigation saying the page set up by Which? does not violate its community standards and is not currently selling products.
Are these data accurate? Regulatory authorities seem to lack tools to influence the large online advertising monopolies.
Stephen E Arnold, July 8, 2020
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