from the crimes-scenes-want-to-be-anthropomorphized dept.
While there are still lessons to be learned from how the Russians used the social platform to sow discord ahead of America's 2016 presidential election, critics say Facebook — and Zuckerberg — aren't acting quickly enough to prevent meddling in the upcoming midterm elections.
"Facebook is a living, breathing crime scene for what happened in the 2016 election — and only they have full access to what happened," said Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google. His work centers on how technology can ethically steer the thoughts and actions of the masses on social media and he's been called "the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience" by The Atlantic magazine.
Source : Facebook is a 'living, breathing crime scene,' says one former tech insider
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:21PM (4 children)
I agree. Facebook is a crime ... against humanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:49PM (1 child)
s/crime//
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @09:03PM
Ack. s/ Scene/./
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:05PM
"They trust me. Dumb fucks."
- Skynet Zuckerborg Artilect Kurzweil Camacho
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Touché) by fyngyrz on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:28AM
Facebook is a soulless monolith, constructed by people. The executives who dictate its policies — and those policies — should be the concern here. Some very specific people and policies.
Corporations are not people. Humans are people.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:33PM (2 children)
They are bitter that far-left ideology went down in flames. No, most of the USA doesn't have San Francisco values. We don't think that bringing in a bunch of people with 3rd-world values and 3rd-world education will be good for women's rights, LGBT rights, or a living wage. No, we don't think that communism will be a worker's paradise but just wasn't done correctly every other time.
So they will meddle. They are already doing so.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @09:12PM
So says a living breathing propaganda huffer. If you put your laptop into a paper bag it really helps you peak.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by coolgopher on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:44PM
You hint at what I see as one of the major issues with today's politics - ideology. Untempered ideology every-fucking-where, be it red, blue, green, what-have-you. Practicalities be damned, because, you know, IDEOLOGY.
Ideology is great, but it MUST be tempered by realities, or you're off into lala-land before you know it.
I hate politics. *sigh*
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:37PM (6 children)
Ok this is getting pretty sad at this point. Look the guy won. As someone 2 weeks after Obama told me 'get over it'.
The DNC ran a bad candidate. The media picked one they thought she could win against.
I knew she was done when when Bill Maher was begin shown by Scott Adams what here campaign was doing and he put his head down and he goes 'oh god its that bad'.
I personally said there was one man that could make me vote for her was Donald Trump. Well she doubled down on insulting people. At that point I picked the one who at least blew smoke up my ass...
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @09:18PM (2 children)
You made me go and read the actual article, and I can safely say you are taking an incorrect track. Not a single mention of Trump, not a single mention of stealing the election, just a focus on how social media was used to create chaos in the US. While I do not believe any of it can be called a crime I do see it as something that needs to be discussed. Trying to play it off as crying about the election is disingenuous and shows how sensitive the winners are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @09:42PM (1 child)
The mainstream media too!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:24PM
Indeed. What's worse is that the reason that the media is failing is because they're pushing faux-left ideology. After reading WSWS for a while, I go back to WaPo or similar, and it's like a wasteland. I don't care about the things WaPo is reporting. They're all distractions. It's all bullshit about waaah waaah Trump won and sucking Zuckerfuck's cock by providing zero information to readers about Failbook alternatives. The reporters have no spine and offer no analysis. Just yet another article that's telling me why I should be blinded by outrage.
Yeah, Trump won. What are we going to do about it? All the press has to offer is impotent rage.
(Score: 1) by bobthecimmerian on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:00PM (2 children)
With the amount of smoke this guy blew, there are Chinese cities with clearer air than DC.
I understand hating Hillary. I do. I hate her myself. But the Republicans found their only possible candidate that made Hillary look like a great choice... and he still got into office. How's that 30 day plan to defeat ISIS working out? Explain how the master of the art of the deal managed to get nothing of his legislative agenda passed all year last year except for a big tax cut he funded by growing the deficit - the exact thing he and his team blasted Obama for doing. And his dealmaking tanked again with the government shutdown. The guy who blasted Obama for golfing took eleven trips to Mar-a-lago already. That's what we got.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @03:07PM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by bobthecimmerian on Monday January 22 2018, @06:07PM
His legislative progress is the tax bill. Everything else was actions he either had nothing to do with (the economy was growing well before he was elected) or that he could do on his own (executive orders). Again, master "art of the deal" couldn't make any deals except the one that inflated the budget deficit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by requerdanos on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:44PM (3 children)
This is an enormous improvement over the moronic "Russia hacked America's 2016 presidential election," which implies that Russia or its agent(s) somehow hacked a majority of thousands of separate, separately operated county or district voting operations, a suggestion dumb enough that I am surprised that anyone repeats it at all (but that I have heard frequently in the national news).
Sigh. Such a promising start, and now this.
People say, post, and share dumb, inaccurate, wrong, things. Many people are lying when they post, or post for reasons that they do not disclose.
People who do not understand the above are guaranteed the right to vote without poll taxes or intelligence tests by the U.S. Constitution.
"Facebook and Zuckerberg" are not going to--cannot--fix nor change that.
America is "hacking" itself, and blaming Russia.
If Russia posting dumb things on Facebook to stir up the emotional, sure, I can see it being a crime, but a minor one--and if it was really a crime to do things like that, almost the entire userbase of Facebook would be posting from "Dumb Share-Like-Comment Prison."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday January 20 2018, @09:09PM (2 children)
And further along this line, I don't trust this "the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience" dude's ideas any more than I trust Facebook. Google has their own agenda, and it appears its far left of the US average.
We've just had a very good teaching moment:
We've learned not to trust the press.
We've learned never to trust polls.
We've learned that a free press sans ethics and impartiality is at least as bad than a non-free press.
We've learned that libel laws in the US are way too loose.
We've learned that some random weakly attributed rant spewed across the internet does not constitute public opinion, or civil discourse.
.
There are more lessons coming in the next few months.
Will we be able to apply our newly learned lessons or simply double down on dumbness?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:08AM
Agree with most of your points, except - "We've learned that a free press sans ethics and impartiality is at least as bad than a non-free press."
I'm not saying that I am sure that you are wrong, but I don't believe that is true. At least there is a chance that I am presented information in a way that isn't pure propaganda when the press is free. Would be willing to reconsider if you presented an argument for the point, though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:42PM
We've certainly learned rich people get tax cuts and federal agencies get gutted.
But we've not yet learned anything about infrastructure, ex-coal miner jobs, beautiful healthcare, negotiating (lol).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday January 20 2018, @09:12PM (8 children)
This isn't metaphor. It isn't simile. It is duckspeak.
You can tell it is duckspeak because despite feeling/sounding good the moment you think about it it falls apart. Neither facebook, nor crimescenes, live and breath. This is just gibberish. Someone in marketing probably wrote it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @09:24PM (7 children)
Body of a rape victim is a living breathing crime scene.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:14PM (5 children)
I want to explore every nook and cranny of it. With a camera in one hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:35PM (4 children)
OK, you can get a sperm sample out of the guy's ass.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:00AM (3 children)
Only women can be rape victims.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:42AM (1 child)
You really have not thought this through.
If what you mean is that a man will only be erect if he wants to do the deed, and that this makes the male of a male-female pair not a rape victim, that's at least worthy of discussion (though I doubt you can make that case adequately in such a forum.) But to simply say "a man can't be a rape victim" or "only women can be rape victims" entirely glosses over what rape is, even if you restrict it to penetrative sex. Consider the plight of a male convict raped in prison by other male(s): Is such a man not a rape victim? How about a man who is raped by a woman using an object?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:52AM
I have a problem. I can't get it up when a woman is not consenting. I think most men are like that but they pretend to be this hyper masculine alpha moron because of one reason (A), which in turn depends on a second reason:
(A) They are raised in a father-less society where the male figure is only present in action movies and crime thrillers.
(B) The society has always done this hero worshiping, and media just amplifies it up to the 11.
I read your comment and this is what I thought, so I said it :) On topic, though, what do we expect a Google employee to say? This is called sour grapes. After failing to create a social media platform and gutting the one they bought (Orkut) purely due to mismanagement and zero respect for their customer, they are now talking about Facebook being a crime scene. I don't think it is because they are left of the center. I think they are no where, as in they are part of the ruling class now. They preach to the choir now. And San Jose is pretty blue area, so...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:46PM
“It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:02PM
Then your best bet is to advocate for funding to police departments to process rape kits and for policies that require rape kits to be tested in a timely manner.
But you don't do that, do you? You're not interested in justice. You frankly don't give a shit whether any of those rapists are brought to justice, because you've declared 3.7 some odd billion people collectively and severally responsible. When you advocate for collective and several accountability, you let violent criminals go free. You, ma'am, are the worst enemy of rape victims.
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:18PM
So basically he wanted/wants to commit the same 'crime' is the Russians...
I say 'crime' instead of crime because, even if you struggle to pronounce the letter V [youtube.com], posting shit on social media is still (unfortunately) legal.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by splodus on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:20PM (4 children)
In the UK, we also have the 'first past the post' election system, where a political party can get elected with a handful of swing constituencies...
We suffer with 'safe seats', 'swing constituencies', etc. We have ended up with a two-party democracy. A fraction of a percent in a few key wards can see a majority government - or not!
The problem with intervention by foreign states is that it doesn't take much to alter the course of politics. Sure, the efforts Russia made to cause problems were a handful of paid adverts on social media? But perhaps that's all it needs to make a difference?
The issue, of course, is; can we stand interference? If our electoral system is based on proportional representation then it's unlikely that a bunch of social media posts will have any effect! But for the UK system, (and the US system, I guess?) - just a tiny shift in a few places, and governments change!!
We can call for checks and balances on the 'media' (and I think that's worthwhile!)
But really, the problem lies with a democratic system that is so easily influenced. So easily gamed. It should not be the case that half a dozen geographical areas, that are split by less than 1%, decide the political landscape for everyone, for the next 4 or 5 years...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:48PM (3 children)
Yes it's the worst possible system. Remind be about the others again?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:06PM (2 children)
They mentioned one. Proportional voting. Another good one is approval voting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:53PM (1 child)
Theoretical ones don't count. Still waiting for an actual example of a better system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:13PM
There are some countries with proportional representation. Like New Zealand and Germany.
Many in NZ complain about it - e.g. harder for government to get stuff passed, but I'd call that a feature especially when the country already has plenty of existing laws and regulations which mostly work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:01AM (2 children)
this message has been paid for by the Hiliary Foundation
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:34AM (1 child)
yet another alt-fact
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:19PM
Thanks for Correcting the Record!
(Score: 4, Informative) by jmorris on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:15AM (2 children)
Assume, for the purpose of debate only, that Russia meddled in our election by apparently committing the horrific crime of Journalism by releasing emails revealing multiple felonies and arguably treason. Did not President Obama dispatch his a large contingent of his campaign staff to foreign countries to influence their elections? Did he not openly spend US taxpayer dollars on the project? Did not President Obama openly take a side in the BrExit election, including openly threatening one side of that question with U.S. retaliation? Has the United States not operated "Voice of America" with the explicit purpose of influencing nation states we have policy disputes with? Did not Google, Facebook and Twitter openly dispatch personnel and other corporate resources to assist the "Arab Spring" revolutions?
Is not this a case of a whore preaching abstinence? Cheech and Chong suddenly agitating for longer sentences for smoking weed?
Now lets drop the assumption for debate purpose and deal with reality. There WAS collusion with Russia, but it was between the Clinton campaign and still to be determined factions in Russia, probably including Putin because not much goes there where an ex KGB officer like him doesn't know about it. Every legacy and alt news source agrees the Steele "dossier" was co-produced by Russian intel assets. Fusion GPS is a spinoff operation from the Wall Street Journal. Every source agrees it was funded by the Clinton campaign and most now agree the FBI also provided funds. It is increasingly clear it was used to obtain a FISA warrant to wiretap the Trump campaign. If that final charge proves out, and you know it will, it officially becomes worse than Watergate. So we have Big Media (WSJ is as big as it gets outside the NYT itself), the Clinton Campaign, Obama's FBI and Russia all working to stop Trump from being elected or quickly end his presidency. Watergate was a few personal minions of Nixon pulling a black op against the DNC, this directly involves the sitting President using the official law enforcement and intelligence assets of the U.S. to assist his preferred successor, with an assist from a foreign power. K-A-B-O-O-M-!
#ObamaGate, get used to the hashtag because you will grow tired of it over the next year. #releasethereport
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:50PM
Fast escalation +1
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:33PM
I don't disagree with any of that, but another way I've seen it described is the legacy news spends 1% of their time complaining about foreign influence on the USA as though thats somehow bad, wrong, or illegal, and 99% of the time gleefully triumphing the USA influencing foreign nations as though thats destined by god and is a holy obligation. So we bombed three countries today and verbally threatened two and sent the navy to make a high speed pass at a third, but the real problem with the world is some Russian supposedly posted a pepe meme on facebook. Uh huh...
An interesting meme thats been rolling around lately is weaponizing the usual leftist hipster supports for immigration against the Russian witch hunt. Yo foreign influence is great they just want to introduce us to vodka and caviar and the food at their restaurants is gonna be great and its so great to see vibrancy and diversity... so what exactly is the problem with Russians "hacking" facebook?
(and also, WTF, the Russians? Why the Russians? Why not the Australians or the Congolese or the Chileans? I mean, if you're gonna make something up, freshly out of whole cloth, at least show the propaganda victims the respect of making up something creative, not badly retread a 70s James Bond movie plot)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tangaroa on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:00PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:53PM (1 child)
It's sounds like there's a worldwide conspiracy. Does it sound like one to you? What's your real name, friend?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:21PM
Doesn't sound like a conspiracy to me. It's just the way things are. This is what it means to have free speech.
Most of the actors GP identified aren't working for the Anunnaki anyway.
(Score: 1) by DeVilla on Monday January 22 2018, @02:44AM
...
Without addressing the whole Russian angle, this guy sounds off-the-scale creepy to me. Misguided scifi villain creepy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @03:46AM
If one of those check-out counter tabloids that has UFO headlines every other week becoming popular enough to shape the decisions of the idiotic sheeple, do we start to regulate it?
If we do, and those said idiotic sheeple moves on to the next junk news/information platform, do we continue the with the nanny state lock-down?
Wouldn't it be better to spend the effort looking at why the sheeple are not using the mainstream reputable news sources instead of these 2 bit garage startups... oh wait, hahaha, mainstream reputable news sources... hahaha, that's gold! Nevermind... bring on the nanny state.