Of course. All it requires is some naive (usually older) family members. In this case, my in-laws are in their 70s, and extremely right-wing. They would share stuff from the Nation in Distress group all the time before Facebook banned it. That is just one example; Facebook has been extremely instrumental in providing a platform for disinformation and propaganda. Just because you don't see it in your own bubble, does…
These large dominating companies are monopolies in every sense of the word and need to be broken up. The Bell System was broken up and didn't have a tenth of the tracking and control of people's lives that Google and Facebook do. Ma Bell didn't actively harm its users and cause depression. Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. https://en.wikipedia.org/…
> [Facebook colluded] with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. This is a conspiracy theory, and really diminishes the level of the conversation here.
[Facebook colluded]
I'm not sure what source you're quoting, or what the original text was that you're attempting to simplify.
EDIT: missed the quote when reading the message above somehow - sorry.
What I struggle to understand is how could esteemed AI researchers like LeCun and many others work for such a company to give it even more powers and edge? How can they justify this as scientists? The huge influx of money into research (here AI, but could be anything in the future) combined with the disfunctions of academia is very troubling.
I joined a year ago to lead the AI team (Yann is part of it but I am not answering for him here). It's a choice as I don't have to work any longer. Why am I there? - I believe Facebook's products are good for the world. They have had an extremely positive impact on my family in particular. - It is the one place where AI can have a really positive impact on the world. - It's is the most talented set of people I have e…
These large dominating companies are monopolies in every sense of the word and need to be broken up. The Bell System was broken up and didn't have a tenth of the tracking and control of people's lives that Google and Facebook do. Ma Bell didn't actively harm its users and cause depression. Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. https://en.wikipedia.org/…
I definitely don't contest the amount of tracking these companies do. I wouldn't even be surprised if it goes beyond what I can even imagine. But when it comes to control can we at least attempt to quantify it or at least make it a bit more exact. For example I'm positive these companies have influence over what brand of headphones I buy next, but I'm even more positive, at least on a personal level, that these companies have zero influence when it comes to convincing me to take money out of my IRA and using it to buy something I can't afford. Frankly what I'm getting at is I buy into the argument that these companies can influence smaller behaviors, like restaurant A or B but I'm really dubious of their influence reaching to more important decisions like to get a divorce or not maxing out my 401k and/or IRA. So I find myself not really caring about their influence because I don't think it pertains to the big decisions that I really care about.
I understand this is a manifesto, but really the dialogue around Facebook and social media has truly become unhinged. Facebook is just a symptom, it seems What is there to be _done_? Pandora's box is open, so to speak. If Facebook disappeared overnight, are we really going to assume the problems they're in are going to go away? Everyone is potentially connected to everyone, everywhere, on the entire planet. There has…
"What is there to be done ?" A $0.01 tax per ad impression. Such a thing would not destroy the advertising industry, but it would do wonders for making it much less worthwhile to deploy massive surveillance technology to make .03 cents more per user per day, and leave only very high-value advertising behind. It would probably anti-decimate it or more, though (leave only 10% behind instead of destroying 10%). $0.10 pe…
It's almost as if websites had to pay for the bandwidth they sent to the browser would change the economics of blasting out ads everywhere.
I understand this is a manifesto, but really the dialogue around Facebook and social media has truly become unhinged. Facebook is just a symptom, it seems What is there to be _done_? Pandora's box is open, so to speak. If Facebook disappeared overnight, are we really going to assume the problems they're in are going to go away? Everyone is potentially connected to everyone, everywhere, on the entire planet. There has…
"What is there to be done ?" A $0.01 tax per ad impression. Such a thing would not destroy the advertising industry, but it would do wonders for making it much less worthwhile to deploy massive surveillance technology to make .03 cents more per user per day, and leave only very high-value advertising behind. It would probably anti-decimate it or more, though (leave only 10% behind instead of destroying 10%). $0.10 pe…
According to https://blog.adstage.io/google-display-ads-cpm-cpc-ctr-bench..., advertisers spend around $2.80 for a thousand impressions in display advertising. You're proposing a tax that is 3.5 times as much as the thing itself costs. That would have pretty steep ramifications on the industry.
Also, when one thinks about high-value advertising, it doesn't always correlate with high-value to society, but rather things that are expensive. That of course would incentivize advertisers to make sure their ad spends are effective which would in turn create more incentive for more ad tracking.
> [Facebook colluded] with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. This is a conspiracy theory, and really diminishes the level of the conversation here.
[Facebook colluded] I'm not sure what source you're quoting, or what the original text was that you're attempting to simplify. EDIT: missed the quote when reading the message above somehow - sorry.
> Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president.
In the context of an argument about why Facebook is a more dangerous monopoly than Ma Bell, this implies that Facebook did collude with Russia.
> [Facebook colluded] with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president. This is a conspiracy theory, and really diminishes the level of the conversation here.
[Facebook colluded] I'm not sure what source you're quoting, or what the original text was that you're attempting to simplify. EDIT: missed the quote when reading the message above somehow - sorry.
The person I'm replying to said "Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president". They're implying that Facebook, in contract to Ma Bell, did do these thing.
The right had Obama birth certificate conspiracies, the left has Russian election hacking conspiracies. Different sides of the same idiotic coin for stupid people.
Except it's not just the left, and there are open indictments against many of the President's team.
That so far, two years in, have nothing to do with collusion.
Russia has been playing both sides to destabilize the country, and the left's selective hysteria is playing right into the strategy, straight out of the KGB playbook.
The easiest man to fool is the one who thinks he cannot be fooled.
It depends how you see things. imho some things are intrinsically wrong, doing them because "someone else would have lined up to take advantage of the opportunities" doesn't change the fact that it's wrong in the first place. Just the same way that if something wrong is done by a lot of people it doesn't make it right (smoking, drinking &c.).
What if the alternative is to be shot yourself? Where do you morals stand then? Unfortunately our morals are easily swayed when the alternative choice is death.