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Still Evil After All These Years October 6, 2021

Posted by Peter Varhol in Software platforms, Technology and Culture.
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I’ve been railing against Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg for a long time, to no avail (and no surprise).  But I would like to be on the side of right, which Facebook definitely is not.  And I’m not a billionaire, which Mark Zuckerberg definitely is, many times over.

But to quote the movie title, something’s gotta give.

Anyone who has read the expose by the Wall Street Journal, and watched the testimony by Frances Haugen, knows that Facebook continues to be evil.  Worse, they used to apologize and say they are making improvements.  As of two weeks ago, they are not even bothering with that lie.  They are trashing Frances Haugen, and saying they are in the right.

I have never been a member of Facebook, and will never be a member of Facebook.  I’ve been told that I have to be, for job, or to obtain information that organizations only post on Facebook.  I’m sorry.  You are the ones that are morally bankrupt, not me.  And if you use Facebook, you are also morally bankrupt.  You stand for nothing.

Here is Zuckerberg’s real problem.  If you were already by far the richest person in the world, in your 30s, what is the rest of your life for?  I obviously am not in that position, but I’ve tried to give it some thought.

I would like to think that I would try to be remembered as a kind and equable person who contributes positively to society.  Do you really need another billion dollars?  Yet it seems that Zuckerberg is not a particularly deep thinker.  He has to know that his espousing of connecting people for peaceful purposes is highly flawed, but he does want that extra billion.  He is driven by money, and by what money measures. So Zuckerberg doesn’t know what the rest of his life is about, except for acquiring that next billion dollars.  To tell you the truth, I’m not sympathetic.  He is not mentally well, and because of the power he wields, he needs to get his act together.

Free Speech and Social Media October 29, 2020

Posted by Peter Varhol in Publishing.
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The likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have dramatically changed how we communicate with others today versus two decades ago (I’ve done talks on how we communicate with others; here is an example – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gby8XGUbieA&t=3s). This trend has led to discussions and accusations concerning how much freedom these online platforms give us to express our views.

In many cases, people express their positions as they believe them based on how they have evaluated the evidence they have seen. In other cases, people selectively edit evidence and sometimes make up evidence, and, well, tell lies to promote a particular point of view. I confess that I don’t understand this mindset; “the truth shall set you free” (yes, and I know whose motto that is – the CIA).

But many of us have the belief that we have the fundamental right to say whatever we want on social media. That’s what the Constitution is all about right? Even our politicians believe that.

Um, no.

The Constitution is an agreement between the Federal government and the people; not between individual people, or between corporations and people (legally, a corporation is considered to be a person under U.S. law). That means that the likes of Twitter and Facebook have wide discretion on what content they allow to remain published on their platforms. Only the Federal government is bound by the First Amendment.

And Section 320 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 absolves those companies that provide a platform for user-generated content from being responsible for untrue or made-up claims. Individuals bear some responsibility for honestly trying to be truthful, because of libel and slander laws, but these tend to be applied with a light touch in practice. We as a society want people to speak out.

Now, you may believe that anything should be allowed to be published, thanks to the First Amendment, or because you are fundamentally opposed to censorship of any kind. There is something to be said for such a position, from an individual liberties point of view, even though it’s not covered by the First Amendment.

Now, I come from a publications background, back when publications were printed on paper, and I still have the strong belief (possibly old-fashioned) that anything that is published should be vetted by those responsible for publishing for truth and accuracy. I think that Facebook and Twitter take far too many liberties with the truth in the name of freedom of expression. While we shouldn’t go around spouting First Amendment protections for anything we say, people should take some responsibility for publishing truth, rather than known lies or absurd rumors.

But this is a hard problem with no clearly right answer. Mostly people need to internalize that publishing known falsehoods on social media platforms and promoting them is childish and petulant. And even if you honestly believe some of the absurdities making the rounds, give yourself a reality check before you propagate some of the dubious or clearly false information out there.

Facebook and Zuckerberg Offend Yet Again February 3, 2020

Posted by Peter Varhol in Software platforms, Technology and Culture.
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I admit that I criticize Mark Zuckerberg on a pretty regular basis.  My primary defense is that he deserves it.  In attempting to (yet again) redefine the scope and mission of Facebook and associated properties (Instagram, et. al.), he has said that he will use his own guiding principles.  These guiding principles are:

  1. Free expression. In other words, Facebook users will be able to say whatever they want, within the scope of applicable law, without interference from Facebook. Get ready for a Facebook that doesn’t even bother to give lip service to truth.
  2. Privacy. Ah, not private from Facebook, who wants to monetize your most intimate details, but private from outside requests for transparency, including from law enforcement agencies.

So here’s the problem.  Zuckerberg is welcome to express his personal principles, and I might even be in agreement with some of them (though I doubt it).  The problem is that principles don’t get you very far when you’re trying to define workable solutions in the real life for millions of diverse users and other stakeholders.  Real life, with multiple concerns and stakeholders, doesn’t easily lend itself to clean and obvious answers.  His pious spouting of so-called principles is really a weak justification for exploiting the billions of Facebook and Instagram users to the max.

Tellingly, as I am writing this, writer Stephen King has bailed from Facebook with the same thoughts, that there is far too much obviously false information on the site, and that he has grave doubts about their desire and ability to offer privacy.

All this brings me to conclude that Zuckerberg has just one guiding principle in life – to make as much money as possible.

Face it, Facebook is a rogue company, led by a sociopath who cares only about himself.  Yet so many people let it control so much of their lives.

Are Cell Phones the Cause of Society’s Schisms? January 9, 2020

Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture, Uncategorized.
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More broadly, we might ask this question of social media in general, since the phone is simply a proxy for a wide range of services.  This intriguing article in the MIT Technology Review provides an anecdotal tale of a philosophy professor who, believing that he wasn’t communicating with his students effectively, offered extra credit to those who would give up their use of cell phones for nine days, and write about the experience.

While it doesn’t have the same academic rigor as Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation, it is a telling story of teens finding out that there is more to the world than is available from their phone screens.

And it’s not a new thesis, but stories like these also reinforce that there have been drastic changes in society and culture in a short period of time.

At one level, social media lets us engage many people without actually seeing them.  When you look someone in the eye, and gauge their reaction in real time, what we say can be very different.  When we don’t, negative messages seem to be magnified.

At another level, social media lets us pick and choose who we communicate with.  Generally, that means we are less likely to be exposed to different ideas, and more inclined to believe unreliable or bogus sources.  I would like to say that is our choice, except that it’s not clear we easily have any other choice.

What we have created is a massive societal experiment in which within a decade we have dramatically shifted the nature of interpersonal interactions.  Whereas the majority of interaction was face to face, today it is largely remote.  Where most interaction were one on one, we find that the remote interactions are more one on many.  And where many of our interactions were casual encounters with random people, today they are with people we already know and associate with.

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook say it’s all for the good of society, and that’s what they stand for.  They are too biased to offer an honest take, with hundreds of billions of dollars at stake.  I will say that it’s instructive that Zuckerberg, while publicly promoting openness and sharing, has chosen to build his own personal estate behind walls.  Let him live in a walkup for a few years; he never has, and never will.  Live like your users live, Mark, is my final word to him.  You have created this world; you are not responding to it.

In the meantime, are cell phones good or bad?  I will offer that they are a tool, and it is the apps that we choose to use make them one or the other.

When A Grab for Revenue Looks Like Conspiracy November 14, 2019

Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture.
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As I’ve explained on several occasions, I don’t believe in conspiracies, despite their current popularity.  They simply go against rational thought.  Ten thousand people cannot possibly keep a secret about Roswell, and Area 51.  Kennedy was killed by a single deranged gunman, not a cabal of the Russians and the CIA (aside: I love the cartoon from the early 1990s, where two Kennedy assassination researchers were examining photos of November 22, 1963 – “Look!  There behind the grassy knoll.  It’s . . . Bill Clinton!”).

My thesis is that the only way that three people can keep a secret is if two are dead, and that logic is impossible to argue against.

So I generally believe in what those in positions of authority say about controversial events.  It’s simply too hard to make up a credible alternative.

Yet a surprising number of people believe in aliens, a Kennedy conspiracy, or, well, that vaccines are deadly (or at least deadlier than no vaccines).  In some of these conspiracy issues, there are reasonable questions that science doesn’t have definitive answers for, but that is the nature of science.  Science is rarely definitive, and allows for alternative theories backed with rigorous science.

But not with vaccines.  The only anti-vaccine study that even pretended to be scientific was immediately discredited and was eventually withdrawn from the medical literature.  Yet that doesn’t stop people from referring to it ad nauseum.  Other cited studies are bogus, unrefereed, or made up, and all refer back to that original, discredited study.

Why was it discredited?  It was performed by a group paid by lawyers suing vaccination manufacturers.  The sample selection was biased toward those children already diagnosed with autism, whether or not they had vaccines.  Fast-forward thirty years, and no unbiased study has found a link between vaccinations and autism or other childhood afflictions.

Let me repeat.  No unbiased study has found a link between vaccinations and autism or other childhood afflictions.

Yet Google, Twitter, and Facebook are still accepting money from anti-vaxxers for advertisements that cite this, as well as bogus research on the health detriments of vaccination.  Google and Twitter claim that they don’t, although the above link demonstrates conclusively that they do.  Facebook, the money machine that it is, proudly accepts such advertising, although it claims to place such advertising lower in its priority list (whatever that means).

Folks, wise up.  Google, Twitter, and Facebook aren’t here to let you search for information, share your thoughts, or keep in touch with people you don’t even remember.  They are here to help sell you stuff.  And if they have to bend the bounds of logic to do so, well, let the buyer beware.

About Facebook and Free Speech October 18, 2019

Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture.
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I read Mark Zuckerberg’s commentary on Facebook and free speech with a measured amount of incredulity.  Measured, because it was about what I expected him to say.  Incredulity, because with Facebook standing for fake users, made up news, fake ads, political influencing, and the dark underside of the Internet, he has the chutzpah to claim that he is all about free speech, and the rest be damned.

Free speech is a wonderful ideal, and rallying cry.  I would love to be able to claim a free speech mulligan for anything said online.

It’s not that easy.  Especially today and in the future, when speech is not just limited to face to face.  We tend to say things online that we would never say in a live setting.  And can do so anonymously, or even with a pseudo identity.  And we can make up things, and manufacture news, and it is accepted by many readers.

So if we let everyone say anything they want, in any identity they want, we end up with people with the time, money, and clout who say whatever it takes to get attention.  They can slur individuals without evidence, make absurd claims without proof, and bring discord and division to people who should know better.

So this is where free speech gets messy.  When so-called free speech includes lies, slurs, insults, unwarranted accusations, and more that can potentially reach millions of people, it is dangerous to individuals and society.  We try, imperfectly, to mitigate that danger through laws governing bias and hate, but the likes of Zuckerberg battle against both honesty and integrity, in the name of the almighty dollar.  You heard me correctly; Zuckerberg has no personal or professional integrity.

And that means that Facebook has no desire to mitigate such danger.  Zuckerberg knows this, but his advertising dollars are more important to him.  In a sense, he is propagating his own set of lies in order to achieve his goals of money and power.  And he is succeeding, despite the cost to society.

I debated writing this at all, because no one has listened to my screeds of Facebook in the past.  And Zuckerberg certainly has a much broader reach than I could ever hope to achieve.

I don’t believe that Zuckerberg is naïve to the subtilities and practical limitations of free speech in the Facebook era.  However, he is highly cognizant of the profits he makes by allowing anything, whether or not truthful in any sense of the word, to be given the same credence as real news and facts.

And don’t kid yourself; the MSM still delivers the vast majority of truth that is published.  Facebook is not a news creator; they have no reporters or editorial staff.  They get their “news” from those whose interest it is to manufacture it, and to pay for it.

The only other thing I will add is that we (well, not me, because I have never used Facebook) enable Zuckerberg to pervert free speech into whatever he wants in order to make money.  Remember that the next time you log on.

The Balance Between Promotion and Privacy June 16, 2019

Posted by Peter Varhol in Algorithms, Uncategorized.
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I have a (very) minor, and I hope positive, reputation in technology.  I’ve authored many articles and spoken at dozens of tech conferences over the past decade or so.  I am occasionally called upon as a subject matter expert to advise investors, present webinars, and author opinions about various aspects of software and their accompanying systems.

At the same time, I am deeply concerned for my privacy.  Other than a seminal moment in my personal heath, several years ago, and one or two nondenominational political statements (we all must take a stand in some fashion), I comment on technology issues.  I would like to think I do so with thought and sensitivity, and I like to think that my ideas have been on the leading edge on a number of occasions.

I do a modest job of promoting myself, through my blog (this one), Twitter (https://twitter.com/pvarhol), and LinkedIn (never Facebook), because I hope it helps my career (such as it is) in some fashion.

But at the same time I am concerned that public or Internet exposure could invite violations of privacy.  You may think that I have given up any call to privacy once I participated in social media, and you may well be correct, but I think about every foray I make on the Internet and how it may affect my privacy.

I am not so stupid as to believe that I can keep much about me to myself.  Once others have access to some information, they can likely get other stuff.  With too much transparency, you are opening yourself up to data theft, financial fraud, and reputational damage.

And this is the fundamental reason I will never sign up for Facebook.  With Facebook, you are the product, and never forget that.  Despite years of promises, Facebook has sold, given to so-called partners, or simply had stolen data from tens of millions of users.  Yet we seem to be okay with that.  I talk to many people who say “I only use Facebook to keep track of old friends”, but the fact of the matter is they often do much more.  I know that despite my non-participation, I have exposure to Facebook, due to updates and photos from friends.  When asked, I beg them not to use my image or name, but they rarely comply.

I suspect that I’m not the only one who is trying to work through the compromise of visibility and privacy.  I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that an important part is to not have anything to do with Facebook.  As for the rest, I can only advise to weigh the risks versus the benefits carefully.

We are quickly headed toward a society where little if any information about ourselves will be owned and controlled by us.  Many of us try to practice “security through obscurity”, or trying to hide in the weeds of everyone else, but in an era of Big Data analytics, it will be a piece of cake to pinpoint and take advantage of us.  I try to remediate where I can, but I’m not prepared for this world.

Do We Even Exist if We’re Not on Facebook? March 3, 2019

Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture.
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It’s a rhetorical question, so please don’t respond.  This LinkedIn video provides a hilarious take on a young person in a fledging relationship who is shocked, absolutely shocked, at her potential partner’s absence on any form of social media.  “Have you ever seen a photo of his d***?”  Her friends ask.  “No, I’ve only seen the real thing!  I have a selfie of my boobs, but I don’t know where to put it so he can see it.”

It’s over the top, of course, but there is still more than a grain of truth here.  Has it become such that if something is not on social media, it is not real?  I would guess that some people think that way, especially in the era of fake news by the Russians and others.  If we are not constantly engaging face to face, is that a tell for an alternative reality of social media exchanges?

And, to be fair, if you are a digital native, why wouldn’t you accept social media as ground truth?  As we navigate our way through life, using primarily digital media to communicate and express ourselves, is this the inevitable outcome?  That we don’t believe it unless it is published on social media?

That’s not really a question, because of course it’s true.  After all, many people get all the information they need and want through news feeds of various types, and through retweets and the like by friends and colleagues.

The end result is that many people today are mixing real and social media experiences, often seamlessly, in their minds and activities.  That doesn’t make it right or wrong, but it does give one pause.  Should, in fact, social media be accorded the same status as in-person interactions?  A higher status?  While the answer may seem obvious, don’t forget that the world is shifting under our feet daily, where we have accusations of fake news and declarations of alternative facts.