Sacha Baron Cohen on the state of society

Lol who is taking this seriously? I mean I fully agree with his views on big tech but come on...

  On 11/24/2019 at 2:45 PM, chassis said:

Here I made a handy diagram

 

 

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And how exactly is Facebook going to actively remove the mass murder videos, there's no algorithm for that, and even if there was, more advanced software than deepfake is gonna come along and make it completely useless, and furthermore, what if it's Livestreamed?

As for "racist shit", there's also no algorithm for detecting this, and this is something that can also be subjective.

Fake news? If my aunt starts posting on fb saying donald trump killed her dog is that supposed to be automatically removed? There's no algorithm for truth here. If your auntie photoshops those pictures from her trip is it fake news? I agree fact checking political ads should be necessary but outside of that it's just impossible.

The liability should be on the people using the platform for harm, not the platform for allowing something that is impossible to stop.

Facebook is already brainwashing people knowingly or not just based on how it decides what content to show people, it's that algorithm that I think is the most solvable issue here.

Maybe teach people not to be gullible sheep, get a hobby, stay off social media unless it's for something entirely positive.

Look around you, look at how many total cunts there are who suck it all up. They fucking love it!

Get the Just Eat App. Press a button and get a doner kebab delivered to my door by some scabby freak who looks as though he would wank off in the pitta bread. Don't matter as long as I don't have to move my fat lazy arse from the sofa, just deliver my food. JUST EAT.

The tangent has been explored.

  On 11/24/2019 at 4:21 PM, vkxwz said:

And how exactly is Facebook going to actively remove the mass murder videos, there's no algorithm for that, and even if there was, more advanced software than deepfake is gonna come along and make it completely useless, and furthermore, what if it's Livestreamed?

As for "racist shit", there's also no algorithm for detecting this, and this is something that can also be subjective.

Fake news? If my aunt starts posting on fb saying donald trump killed her dog is that supposed to be automatically removed? There's no algorithm for truth here. If your auntie photoshops those pictures from her trip is it fake news? I agree fact checking political ads should be necessary but outside of that it's just impossible.

The liability should be on the people using the platform for harm, not the platform for allowing something that is impossible to stop.

Facebook is already brainwashing people knowingly or not just based on how it decides what content to show people, it's that algorithm that I think is the most solvable issue here.

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i'm not aware of anyone suggesting automated solutions. i think people are suggesting a fact-checking department, like tv stations have, for political ads submitted to them.

  On 11/24/2019 at 4:52 PM, very honest said:

i'm not aware of anyone suggesting automated solutions. i think people are suggesting a fact-checking department, like tv stations have, for the ads submitted to them.

I definitely agree with having that. My point was more about non ad content.

  On 11/24/2019 at 4:58 PM, vkxwz said:

I definitely agree with having that. My point was more about non ad content.

oh, yeah. i think the issue under discussion, with regard to facebook, right now, is mainly focused on their ad platform, because of how it allows sophisticated targetting that was successfully utilized by Cambridge Analytica in 2016 for both the UK Vote Leave campaign and the Trump campaign, in order to manipulate voters to support unpopular positions. Russians were engaging with CA at the same time as those campaigns, and were interested in suspiciously overlapping services as what those campaigns were interested in. and we know russia was running ad campaigns on FB, themselves, directly, in the US. so, in addition to the thing being a dangerously powerful manipulation weapon, it is already getting exploited as a national security vulnerability.

but zuck is happy to rake in billions so he can own half a hawaiian island. he doesn't owe anything to america. let it crumble in confusion, that's someone else's problem.

there's already two jordan peterson threads tho

  On 11/24/2019 at 4:21 PM, vkxwz said:

The liability should be on the people using the platform for harm, not the platform for allowing something that is impossible to stop.

 

Incorrect, this is not how any business works.

  On 11/24/2019 at 1:04 PM, very honest said:

the targetting, as cambridge analytica did it, looks for certain types of people that could be swayed by certain things (and then gives them those things, whether true or not). it can also target by state and area. 

Much more accurate than state, voter districts within US counties. 

  On 11/24/2019 at 6:18 PM, Richie Sombrero said:

Much more accurate than state, voter districts within US counties. 

thanks, yeah. i've been reading christopher wylie's new book. it's good. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mindfuck

  On 11/24/2019 at 5:08 PM, very honest said:

oh, yeah. i think the issue under discussion, with regard to facebook, right now, is mainly focused on their ad platform, because of how it allows sophisticated targetting that was successfully utilized by Cambridge Analytica in 2016 for both the UK Vote Leave campaign and the Trump campaign, in order to manipulate voters to support unpopular positions. Russians were engaging with CA at the same time as those campaigns, and were interested in suspiciously overlapping services as what those campaigns were interested in. and we know russia was running ad campaigns on FB, themselves, directly, in the US. so, in addition to the thing being a dangerously powerful manipulation weapon, it is already getting exploited as a national security vulnerability.

but zuck is happy to rake in billions so he can own half a hawaiian island. he doesn't owe anything to america. let it crumble in confusion, that's someone else's problem.

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and

In short: it's close to impossible to prove the impact of political ads on FB. Not that there isn't an impact. It's just that spending huge sums on FB ads doesn't automatically give you an equally huge impact.

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest impact the social media trolling campaigns have, is that people start to doubt everyone and everything. People with different ideas tend to be portrayed as stupid bigots. And vice versa. From all sorts of perspectives, the others are perceived as bigots and what not. Everything becomes a stereotype. And all stereotypes get all kinds of nonsense bullshit attached to them. That's something different to pushing people to vote for Trump. That's creating a culture of doubt, mistrust, anger and a lack of tolerance.

If you want to know what that's like, open the "how the world view the US" thread. It's full of posts showing how bigotted Americans are supposed to be. Are they really? Or have we reached a point where we are made to think they are? As far as I'm concerned, that thread is just as healthy as FB trolling campaigns.

  On 11/24/2019 at 2:45 PM, chassis said:

Here I made a handy diagram

 

 

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Good job ignoring the entire post you responded to.  I’m impressed.

  On 11/24/2019 at 7:58 PM, drillkicker said:

Good job ignoring the entire post you responded to.  I’m impressed.

Haha wow angsty.

I'm not very impressed, its pretty easy. Most websites have been able to moderate users and content for years. Youtube as an automatic closed caption ability now, even if it's not perfect you could easily come up with a list of words that would flag a video.

The point is at the moment Facebook doesn't even enforce it's own codes of conduct, I know of some "news" pages who have functioning facebook pages for years despite repeatedly reporting of crimes that immigrants committed which turned out to be false. Alex Jones was kicked of facebook and twitter only this year, despite claiming for years that grieving parents were actors and made their homes public knowledge. A video of a man beating up a toddler stayed online after 3 times being reviewed by facebooks in house content review process.

It's not hard, we want facebook to be accountable for upholding their OWN codes of conduct, they've shown repeatedly they are unwilling or incapable of doing so. So now is time to force them to do it.

You know what's better than an algorithm? A person. Poor company though, couldn't afford that, they only have a revenue of 17bln.

  On 11/24/2019 at 7:35 PM, goDel said:

and

In short: it's close to impossible to prove the impact of political ads on FB. Not that there isn't an impact. It's just that spending huge sums on FB ads doesn't automatically give you an equally huge impact.

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest impact the social media trolling campaigns have, is that people start to doubt everyone and everything. People with different ideas tend to be portrayed as stupid bigots. And vice versa. From all sorts of perspectives, the others are perceived as bigots and what not. Everything becomes a stereotype. And all stereotypes get all kinds of nonsense bullshit attached to them. That's something different to pushing people to vote for Trump. That's creating a culture of doubt, mistrust, anger and a lack of tolerance.

If you want to know what that's like, open the "how the world view the US" thread. It's full of posts showing how bigotted Americans are supposed to be. Are they really? Or have we reached a point where we are made to think they are? As far as I'm concerned, that thread is just as healthy as FB trolling campaigns.

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Nate Silver is making an evidentiary point. proving that case would take work but i think it's possible. it's noteworthy that cambridge analytica was owned by robert mercer at the time, a billionare trump supporter. i think CA only charged trump 5 million for their work, but i believe christopher wylie said trump received the benefit of far more of CA's work than that. 

Nate Silver did a big ol fuckin’ whoops with his posts there. 

  On 11/24/2019 at 8:11 PM, chassis said:

So now is time to force them to do it.

Or better yet, just don't use Facebook.  It works for me, anyway.

  On 11/24/2019 at 8:19 PM, very honest said:

i see people walking around believing cooked up propaganda points that were manufactured and delivered as part of a deliberate propaganda strategy, so i disagree with your statement that the impact is only to make people doubt things.

i didn't state that the only impact was doubt. 

it's not an either or thing. arguing either way is equally wrong. when people doubt things (like for instance that the whole impeachment procedure is partisan nonsense), it allows them to believe any bullshit they want to believe. and if people believe in stupid shit, that doesn't mean they've been swayed by propaganda. not necessarily. it takes more than a couple of FB ads to change peoples beliefs. it often take other people. often their peers.

there's more to 2016 than just CA and fb ads. or twitter. or youtube. or the media. or the internet. or wikileaks. or russia. ... 

also, i highly doubt that CA was just in the business of running FB ads. my guess is they went way beyond FB. but you're reading the christopher wiley book, so you could tell me. 

  On 11/24/2019 at 8:46 PM, goDel said:

i didn't state that the only impact was doubt. 

it's not an either or thing. arguing either way is equally wrong. when people doubt things (like for instance that the whole impeachment procedure is partisan nonsense), it allows them to believe any bullshit they want to believe. and if people believe in stupid shit, that doesn't mean they've been swayed by propaganda. not necessarily. it takes more than a couple of FB ads to change peoples beliefs. it often take other people. often their peers.

there's more to 2016 than just CA and fb ads. or twitter. or youtube. or the media. or the internet. or wikileaks. or russia. ... 

also, i highly doubt that CA was just in the business of running FB ads. my guess is they went way beyond FB. but you're reading the christopher wiley book, so you could tell me. 

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sorry, didn't mean to misstate your view. i understand your point now. yeah you're right, people are unmoored and maybe more likely to believe bullshit, consequently. i have noticed that. there used to be reputable sources of information in people's eyes, maybe, but now a lot of people honestly don't know where to look or how to begin sorting through the pile of crap, and there are now more angles going in more directions. is nyt leftish propaganda? what is the good news source?

people do get swayed, though. i see people believing lies that were carefully crafted to be believed. the masses do not have the journalistic sense to look for source attribution in an article. they read an article and think "who knows," then they go by consensus. and if you're in a key district of a swing state and looking at facebook for an hour a day, you might think consensus is that hillary clinton was peeled off satan's ass. that's the thing that's so insidious about the new manipulation tools that are available, they are good enough to work. that's why christopher wylie went whistleblower, he thought the thing that he built was ethically wrong and that people needed to know about it. the dude who designed the algorithms spooked himself with how sophisticated and effective they are.

The mueller report gives a good idea about the different dimensions the meddling in the 2016 elections was taking place. Fb was just a piece of the puzzle. My guess is political donations ( to politicians, but also the nra) would be more effective than just the fb ads.

The stuff on FB helps to create a giant swamp of nonsense. But the irony is that it was the media and the politicians breathing life into it. My guess is theres plenty people who consider themselves conservatives who believe Nunes and Jordan moreso than facebook ads. And if the president is basically pushing russian nonsense, non stop, .... yeah, the bets are off. 

Again, if it was just FB without all the other stuff, I dont believe there would be as big of an impact on us society as currently seems to be the case. Regarding the IRA, i highly doubt that their activities on FB were their most effective. It was part of it. But if they didnt do all the other stuff, it would have just annoyed a bunch of people. 

same could be said about the uk/ brexit. Regular media (tabloids) and politicians played a huge role. 

  On 11/24/2019 at 8:26 PM, drillkicker said:

Or better yet, just don't use Facebook.  It works for me, anyway.

A truly outstanding way to miss the point.

I don't have a car so I really don't care if oil companies conform to a reasonable standard.

But cars are a necessity for many people, while Facebook is a necessity for absolutely nobody.

  On 11/30/2019 at 12:15 AM, drillkicker said:

But cars are a necessity for many people, while Facebook is a necessity for absolutely nobody.

Necessity is irrelevant, as soon as you are interacting with the public you are required to uphold certain standards. If that's your own standard or a standard that someone places upon you.

^ yes, but

- if any of those standards are harmful, exploitative, fascistic, colonial, racist, bigoted etc. in any way, 

- if orwellian standards become normalised w/r/t big data,

then wat ?

mbe its just shit that both cars & social media have become prescribed & acceptable necessities, standard reality 4 many ppl. 

mbe its time 2 make make both less toxic.

  On 11/30/2019 at 5:49 AM, chassis said:

Necessity is irrelevant, as soon as you are interacting with the public you are required to uphold certain standards. If that's your own standard or a standard that someone places upon you.

I'm curious whether you implied FB to be the "you" in that post. In the sense that FB is required to uphold certain standards.

Thing is, I don't consider FB a "you". Rather a platform for "us" to interact. A tool. And "we the people" using that. With the danger of coming across overly archaic, I think thats an important distinction. Because it immediately shifts the various responsibilities in different directions. FB is responsible for the tool to work properly. And the people, or users, are responsible to use that tool in a certain way. 

And this is where I can put it back to you. Because now we can look at FB as a tool and the functionalities and limitations it (should) have. There's potentially lots if discussions here. Should this tool have a newsfeed? Should that newsfeed have some kinds of regulations? And what about those ads? 

Generally speaking, I'd support the idea that FB should be governed similarly to how we govern similar "tools" in our society. Their newsfeed should be regulated like others. And similarly the ads. If that is already the case, than youd either have to live with FB as it is, or change regulations for everything (here, newsfeeds and ads). Not just FB. 

So if you want to change FB -by new regulations- you have to consider more than just FB. If you want FB to change itself, without new regulations, well, your best bet is to build a better alternative and hope that people will follow.