According to The Guardian, one of world’s biggest advertisers — Unilever — says it will avoid platforms that ‘create division’. It further threatens to take its ad purchases off Facebook and Google, if they cannot reign in hate and protect children. Their chief marketing officer says their online spending sometimes is "little better than a swamp in terms of its transparency".
If this finally is it, I say good riddance to surveillance capitalism.
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How Close are we to Peak Social Media?
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:23AM (29 children)
it's a win win
big advertisers pull out - platform declines - investors run away - users run away - win
big platforms obey to big advertisers - platform becomes a whitewashed jail - users run away - platform declines - investors run away - win
there is only one way forward, which has been the only way forward. A Network made of Protocols, not actors. All the rest is digging pits you are bound to fall into.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:41AM (28 children)
Need socializing online? Use soylentnews.org
(grin - careful what you wish for)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Informative) by Snotnose on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:27PM (20 children)
Good News! For breakfast I made a shrimp and guacamole omelette, with 2 slices of bacon and homemade hash browns. I made the guac over the weekend, I think it turned out really good. Shrimp is always good.
On the bummer front I just found out Aunt Donna died 2 weeks ago :( Was trying to track down uncle Bill's phone number (lost when mom died) so I could let him know dad was dying when google showed me Donna's obit. sad.
That funny lump under my armpit turned out to be benign, the doc took it out Monday and just called with the news. Looks like I'm gonna be around for a while!
Trump sux, amirite?
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:41PM (7 children)
I got it examined at the urgent care clinic but the doctor said only a biopsy could determine whether or not it was cancer.
I stayed up way past my bedtime tonight so I could do my taxes. The most time-consuming part was adding the last few months of transactions to GnuCash, as well as correcting errors in my books.
I'm hungry. The only store that's open right now is 7-Eleven, but that's OK I like their Big Bites. The 7-11 near my home doesn't carry Spicy Bites - I like those better.
I plan to get a cat soon but before I can I must go to my storage locker to retrieve my cat carrier. I could either use the bus pass I've got and take three busses, or I could pay extra for an express day pass, which would enable me to take only two.
If you believe in the Space Spaghetti Monster, don't mod this post, copy it to a post of your own.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:25PM (6 children)
I think i'm an alcoholic (1 monthish sober), my son is moderately autistic but doing pretty good... will be getting out of high school as soon as we can afford it because HIGH SCHOOL SUCKS for people like him... in public school they know what they are doing. High school? They know squat.), and my wife has uterine cancer and will have surgery in 2 weeks (two weeks and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting). My daughter is moving into her own apartment soon and is doing well for herself, spank me very much!
My neighbour hasn't shoveled her driveway for a couple weeks now: could be dead, but meh...she's a renter, so....
I learned some new things lately from a girl my mom told me to avoid (i think that's how it goes?) and i still can learn new things!
Hrmmmm..... and Canada won another gold! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:48PM (5 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2TuohSsw4k [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:03PM (4 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLQ24DDpOhk [youtube.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Touché) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:37PM (3 children)
i like turtles
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:35PM (2 children)
True to your username...
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @09:42PM (1 child)
But what if it is interpreted as TOO MUCH turtle?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday February 14 2018, @03:28AM
Turtle turtle!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Apparition on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:43PM
We're going to need the "TMI" mod...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:48PM (2 children)
This sounds a lot like ham radio 75M SSB nets.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:41PM
No, it's bacon radio.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:24PM
Not enough neonazi propaganda for that yet.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:56PM
Journal, mate, your own journal is for this.
Nothing stops you in keeping the timeline of your life events there. The only restriction: has to be in UNICODE format, the utf8 encoding is taken care automatically (I think)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:40PM (2 children)
Sad thing is, my first 2 paragraphs are true, there never was a lump, and the Trump Sux was clickbait.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:57PM (1 child)
careful when you try to invert reality, those kinds of things are serious business and you shouldn't talk lightly about them. You want people to think you like trump?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:17PM
As someone once said, instead of trying to figure out why someone hates you, figure out why you care.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:16PM (3 children)
Here is the complaint:
When you say "Trump sux, amirite?", you are expressing hate. This will create division. The children see him as a superhero who protects them by deporting evildoers and by keeping democrats like Anthony Weiner in prison.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:52PM
How much of the $505 are we about to lose by disappointing Unilever ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @02:35PM (1 child)
Don't know if you're trolling or not, but try sneaking into any other country in the world and see how much you are welcomed. Or overstay your visit and see how happy they are to welcome you to stay. Illegals' apologists are crazy...
And Anthony Wiener/Weiner is a pedophile. I thought you #metoo types and "progressives" hated on that shit.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday February 15 2018, @09:47AM
I would be an illegal apologist myself if the narrative were true, because it's proper karma for displacing redskins.
But the narrative about people escaping war and famine by immigration is complete nonsense as soon as one investigates a little, so I'd say WWIII has started and the weapon is the womb. (well the previous 2 wars were about creating a new society too, but more intent on destroying infrastructure).
The controlled opposition puts this in a context of a race war, which is very handy as it's difficult to switch to a different body, but it's really a culture war, on one side existing cultures, already destroyed among the immigrants, bound to be destroyed among the so called civilization, on the other side the brave new world which will be offered as the only way to stop fights and terror.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:14PM (6 children)
Oh, God, what have I done? What have I DONE!?!
I should have thought of it, Soylenters are humans (well... except bot), can't expect them to be rational!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 13 2018, @08:17PM (2 children)
Now that you have started it, c0lo, tell us about the vegemite. And the dingos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @09:44PM (1 child)
Koala pics plz
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 14 2018, @04:01AM
I have a nice koala ascii art.
Unfortunately
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday February 14 2018, @11:29AM (2 children)
Upcoming SN modding options, substituting current modding system:
👍 Like — Thumbs Up +1
❤️ Love — Beating Heart +1
😂 Haha — Laughing Face +1
☺️ Yay — Smiling Face +1
😯 Wow — Surprised Face 0
😢 Sad — Crying Face, showing an animated tear -1
😡 Angry — Red / Angry / Pouting Face -1
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 14 2018, @11:45AM (1 child)
Et tu, bot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday February 15 2018, @02:27AM
👍
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:10PM (9 children)
I read the article this morning and the decline that they were predicting was weird: a gradual linear decay of Facebook usage. This seems to completely misunderstand what Facebook is. People don't use Facebook because they like Facebook, people use Facebook because other people that they want to communicate with use Facebook. Just as it saw rapid growth when it reached a critical mass, if Facebook starts to die it will be sudden. Everyone who quits Facebook makes it less useful to their friends (and groups that use it for communication, including advertisers). As soon as it's no longer the most convenient way of communicating with their friends, people will quit. As soon as they do, it becomes less useful to their Facebook-remaining friends, and some of them will quit and so on. As with MySpace, I expect that Facebook's decline will have a sudden inflection point where it goes from being the thing all of the cool kids use to the thing that none of the cool kids use in a couple of weeks.
If you're on Facebook, why not hurry the process along: use Facebook to coordinate a group of 10 or 20 of your friends to close their accounts simultaneously, and see how much of a ripple that causes. As soon as there's a strong perception that people are leaving, it becomes a lot less attractive to advertisers, and when the bottom drops out of that market then I'll be very happy.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:17PM (3 children)
You can't really hurry the process along however. As you said, Facebook is a communications channel that people use to keep in contact. There has to be another, relatively better channel available to people first before they will leave this one. Right now it looks like Snapchat may be that medium [qz.com], at least among teens and younger users. Time will tell I guess.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:14PM
I've had a semi-dormant Snapchat account for a couple years now, so I fired it up to see how it might be a replacement for FB.
It seems everything is geared toward "right now". Maybe I'm just too old now, but without an events/calendar/planning feature it can't replace FB as my primary social network. I know the younger generation(s) aren't into planning things even a couple days in advance, never mind weeks, but surely *some* gatherings need a definite yes/no RSVP? I'm not talking concerts, proms or weddings even, where a large number of peers will surely post "can't wait for x" snaps, but smaller ones with say same-aged relatives? What are they using for planning things?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)
That's what everybody who gets into it says.
Until they find out it has taken over their lives.
Its what Facebook wants you to say! (Zuckie thanks you for playing along).
The thing is, humans were never intended to hang onto every person they ever met. People come into your life, you interact with them for a few years, and they leave. Let them go. You're old enough to make new friends, you don't need the same clowns you went to highschool hanging around, nor your sister's ex, your creepy uncle that you met exactly once.
Pretty soon Facebook is your source of news, none of it vetted. You can't get out of bed in the morning without checking Facebook, nor go to bed any night without posting or commenting. Instead of letting people wonder whether you are an idiot, you start clicking those keys and prove it to everyone by responding to someone's picture of their lunch.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 14 2018, @10:04AM
Really? That's quite sad, if that's how people use it.
I created a Facebook account when it first started because I had been watching social media platforms since Yahoo, Meetup, Friendster, and other predecessors and was interested in how Facebook's approach achieved greater viral spread than others did. It was novel at that time to reconnect with people I hadn't talked to since grade school. But after a handful of awkward exchanges when it was clear I had nothing in common with people who had never left the small town where we were children, I walked away from the platform and haven't touched it since.
So, you're right--it's not natural for us to stay in touch with everyone forever, because we ourselves don't remain the same people, with the same interests. If we lose the ability to move on with the networks of people we know, then we lose the ability to reinvent ourselves as what we hope will be a better iteration.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:26PM (3 children)
It has to start somewhere. It seems to be starting to die where it started to grow.
https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-users-decline-instagram-snap-emarketer [recode.net]
Besides, I disagree with your basic premise. The remnants of ancient social media are like the walking dead, There are people still using ICQ for pete sake!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:47PM
No joke, ICQ uids from the 90s still work. I went to the website as a joke when I found out it still existed, and managed to remember my number and password from 18 years ago.
My contact list was a ghost town, though. Was gaming contacts from 1999-2000.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 13 2018, @08:55PM
The problem is that FB can easily use the "Where are they going to? I'll buy that" argument ...
If Google or MS got their social networks to expand, they could kill FB (teens flocking to MS would be quite a sight).
Smaller actors will be happy to cash in a few billion to get FBorged.
The phone manufacturers/networks carry a responsibility too. Pre-installing the PB app isn't quite as bad as Win pre-installs, but it still helps FB retain people who might have hesitated.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday February 14 2018, @11:11AM
i didn't even get why everybody abandoned ICQ. It worked great for its purpose so I had no desire to move off it, but pretty soon no-one else had it and couldn't easily be persuaded to install it. Most people seemed to move onto M$N. Why are people so damn fickle? A lot of people seem to abandon e-mail accounts as well. I think part of it is that their computer "breaks", they buy a new one and then they can't log in anymore to anything that was "on" the old one. Or their password just gets hacked.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:56PM
Need to remember that Facebook is publicly traded, and highly overvalued. Investors, big and small, are banking on Facebook. Facebook won't implode. Remember "to big to fail"? Facebook may deflate, over a long period of time. But, it has accumulated enough money/power to prevent dying off in any short to medium term timeline. Facebook is going to be around long after all of us Soylentils are dead and gone.
Don't get me wrong - I would LOVE to see Facebook wither and die within the next decade. It has a net negative value to society. But, it just isn't happening.
(Score: 1) by Yaa101 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:34PM (1 child)
They just using their leverage to get a better deal and doing damage control to safe their brands from poisening.
No comment...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:19PM
I see what you did there, leverage indeed!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:35PM (7 children)
There is so much online advertising that it has become ineffective. How many purchasing decisions do you make each day? How many online ads do you see each day? Enough said.
While Working Software claimed to be a software publisher, really it was a direct mail business. Our software facilitated the direct mail but really the business was mostly about direct mail.
Back then every software publisher maintained a mailing list of registered users that they would rent to other direct mail companies.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:53PM
I would not disagree but would toss out another suggestion that there's entire classes of products that seem to only be sold to people on various web discussion board technologies, so you can expect astroturfing and slashvertisement type stuff to increase.
For example does anyone buy a iopteron astrophotography camera mount other than via discovering it from online astrophotography discussions (not traditional social media of my auntie and my coworker, but "legacy" hobby discussion sites)
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:11PM (4 children)
I think direct mail is still big, but it has gone paperless by using email. I keep an account that gets only advertisements and purchase receipts, and I check it often. I don't really purchase much based on the ads, but I do enjoy looking at them.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:17PM (3 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:23PM (2 children)
If they respond to just one offer they're likely to respond to many others.
A really good list consists entirely of names that have responded to at least one offer
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by kazzie on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:51PM
A fact that is also remembered by scam operators.
(If you respond/fall for one scam, your details may be sold to other scammers as "easy pickings".)
(Score: 4, Funny) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:28PM
But that poor Nigerian prince said he just couldn't get to his money! I felt so sorry for him and the reward he offered to help was SOOOO generous!
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 14 2018, @10:16AM
There is a formula advertisers use to calculate how many repetitions it takes to move consumers to action. If we as consumers limit our exposure to advertising, it's entirely possible to keep ourselves below that threshhold number.
I don't know if there are any other cord cutters around here, but since we cut the cord more than a decade ago and installed Adblocker and other ad-blocking plugins on our browsers, our exposure to advertising dropped dramatically. We live in NYC, too, where the relative amount of what advertising calls "Out of Home" (billboards, subway ads, ads in bus shelters, etc) is greater than other places. Without the reinforcement of TV, radio, and other platforms that greatly augment repetition, the OOH stuff seems anachronistic and laughably ineffective.
To me, that's a hopeful sign. The Facebooks and advertisers of the world are not all-powerful. They are quite vulnerable.
Having worked in advertising at the big houses on Madison Avenue and seen the raw numbers for the biggest of the big brands, their core customers number in the tens of thousands, not the millions; so even in the world of Cable TV and mass media your purchase decisions as a consumer always did matter, and your ability to influence your social circle to buy or not buy mattered even more.
So, speak up, and do vote with your wallet. It matters a great deal.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:07PM (12 children)
With the 1984 doublespeak redefinitions of common words, much like "justice" now means promotion of leftist propaganda, "hate" now means any belief not sanctified by the Democratic party policy wonks. Although doublespeak is a fun topic, the real problem is polarization into "antifa-only" separate but not equal political segregation.
So now social media is religiously pure highly devout political leftism, which means a large fraction of the population cannot or will not participate, and thats not a very good selling opportunity for advertising. Furthermore, who in America has more money, the average middle class white male Trump voter or some antifa stooge student with a criminal record and negative net worth? You can make money advertising to lower socioeconomic classes but I don't think a "facebook" or "twitter" advertising nothing but daytime TV commercials to antifa members will make it.
Consider the ad revenue at something popular and cross cultural, well, boomer-culture anyway, like the SuperBowel, vs ad sales during the occasionally televised Democratic Party Conventions which recently have been nothing but big pharma ads for weird medical conditions, which fits in with observations of right wing health vs left wing health.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:43PM (5 children)
It would be logical to have ads for meds for weird conditions thrown at you, if you were watching the superbowel.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fyngyrz on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:50PM (4 children)
No shit!
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:51PM (3 children)
Is that one of the conditions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:59PM (2 children)
It's the state of social media when the leftists join the superbowel network.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @09:50PM (1 child)
Way to ruin the joke turd monger. I hear there is an ointment for that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @09:51AM
Stop making fun of me!
--
the superb owl
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:45PM
You can always sell them the rope they'll use to hang you.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday February 13 2018, @08:04PM
Should you really split hairs here? It's clear they're looking for a platform from a provider that's the reigning leader in 'hate', but second or third place would likely be fine for them, regardless of your definition of hate. Thinking about the children is always important, though.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 13 2018, @08:42PM
Oh, you stupid, illiterate Nazi, VLM! Common words, like "reign", as in "to rule, preside over", somehow come to be redefined as "rein", a line or strap attached to a bit or other device designed to control a horse, and when used as the phrase "rein in" means to "stiffle, curb, restrict"? Is this what you are talking about, you racist anti-democratic person who rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven?
And then, there is this: "like the SuperBowel". Never having appreciated what the Americans call "Football" (yet another redefinition!), I accept your creative respelling of this most expensive of advertisement venues!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday February 13 2018, @08:43PM
It's not that simple. "Justice" now means online mob justice, whether that be alt-wrong phenomena like Brexit and Trump or "leftist" things like not bullying the less fortunate.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @09:48PM
You're so fucking off your rocker. Unplug from whatever streams of shit you're into. Maybe toss your TV in the garbage and blackhole the following domains: msnbc, foxnews, breitbart, stormfront, and probably about 90 other sources of stupid. You need prevention, abstinence, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:31PM
https://www.c-span.org/video/?439822-1/after-words-david-frum [c-span.org]
https://www.c-span.org/video/?440037-1/how-democracies-die [c-span.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:11PM (1 child)
Translation into English is someone's tired of paying lots of money for meaningless clicks and likes from bot farms.
Unilever is a supermarket monopoly that literally owns about half the brands at my local supermarket, possibly more. My point being why would I buy a pint of ice cream merely because some bot farm in China clicked like on a Ben and Jerrys purchased promoted post?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:14PM
Yep. That's it right there. They and many others are tired of throwing their money away. All they needed was a little push.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:15PM (3 children)
Where is it even implied that "surveillance capitalism" is going anywhere? What does that have to do with the price of rice?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:08PM (2 children)
Price of rice? I don't understand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_currency [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:53PM
Try this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_that_got_to_do_with_the...%3F [wikipedia.org]
I'm more familiar with "eggs" instead of "rice".
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:03PM
Price of rice? I don't understand:
:-) I think you do
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_that_got_to_do_with_the...%3F [wikipedia.org]
Sorry, you gotta copy and paste to read it...
Hey Soylent, You're breaking the link!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:19PM
Keep your eyes open for the next big fad which is aggressive interruption and intentional delay. Notification spam on your mobile and desktop devices, long advertising filled game/application "boot up" delays. Legacy Brick and Mortar hyperintensive tracking monitoring and spamming. Its the new thing. Social hasn't been cool for years, spamming the hell out of people in advanced new alternative technical means is where its at, now.
Hardware always gets faster, software always gets slower at a faster rate. We were promised automation would free the office, but everyone knows computers are just another form of data entry, nothing more, in most offices. Likewise the better a game or app is, the longer you have to wait in anticipation, and may as well put an ad for coke or pepsi on the splash screen or lock screen etc etc.
I'm just saying one way to monitor the level of the money at the old place is to watch the money flow to the new places.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @01:57PM
How many human hours are spent on social media in a day?
Divide by how many human hours are in a day.
They have lots of more time to waste.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:22PM (1 child)
remember when only people from a certain UNI could join facebook (email test)?
anyways, "peak social media" is what we have in china and other repressive states.
a free, open country will NEVER reach "peak social media", per definition, it is open ...
the way to "peak social media" for free countries is by firstly empowering the elite (money is power)
with an exclusive comms channel, then letting in the sheep and then making this channel even more
powerful by letting the elite censor or police this "social media".
of course this does sound very much like what is happening in repressive autocracies? *shock*.
as for facebook, they dropped the ball to rule the USA (silent revolution, blackmail, insider trading, secret information, etc. etc.),
because the end-goal can ONLY be (HAS to be) total authority over all comms, of any company in this business; but maybe the IPO was the real goal all along?
if money were fish, then thanks a lot for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @10:05PM
You kidding? FB totally has it, just not 100% total control over everyone. I disagree that the end-goal HAS to be total authority over all comms, but hey it sure shows how YOU think about it. *shocking*
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:44PM
Because I stayed up all. Night.
So are telling me SN won't let me post pictures? How about videos? Surely I can post videos
I'm on the I-5 bridge across the Columbia. They've been trying to replace it for twenty years but they can't agree on whether the yellow line should go across it
You'll be proud of me: I didn't eat an apple fritter this morning. I likes me some apple fritters
It's a beautiful clear day today but the mild winter is likely to lead to a drought
I'm at the yellow line station in north Portland. I really hate waiting for the train
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:02PM
Isn't this decision a bit... divisive?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:05PM
The process of social networking tools works something like this:
1. They start off with a specific small community and purpose, and enable people to easily communicate with each other without having to, say, run their own webservers. This is very convenient and useful.
2. Because it's convenient and useful and free of charge, millions of people sign up. It eventually reaches the point where you won't know basic social dynamics without reading through your real-life friends' presence on that social network.
3. Also as it grows, the time and expense of running it grows. And that causes whoever started it to, possibly in combination with investors, seek out sources of revenue.
4. As they seek to "monetize their user base", they add in heavy advertising, spying on users, and other things the users don't like at all. The site becomes a horrible bloated mess that people are using only because their friends are using it and you won't know the basic social dynamics without reading through it.
5. Eventually, somebody has the idea of "Why don't I set up my own social network, without all the horrible bloated mess." They do so, and the cycle starts all over again.
This cycle has already played out a couple of times, which is why, for instance, we're not talking about MySpace right now. Facebook has had a better run than most at step 4, but there's no reason to think it's immune to step 5.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:08PM (3 children)
I think tamping down on some loosely defined element called "division" only makes matters worse. Years of stifling people via political correctness has CREATED more division, rather than stamping it out. Society needs the freedom to have release valves, whether in the form of humor or whatever. Otherwise, stifling thought just causes the pressure to build up until it blows.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 13 2018, @10:08PM
> Years of stifling people via political correctness has CREATED more division
I know, right? It's crazy! Long before all that PC bullshit, I could easily find uniformity everywhere I went, because things were neatly sorted between real men and obedient women, and dem negroes went through the other door and to the bathroom by the reservation where all the Indians just drank their booze together. Everyone on the TV and in the movies looked like me and Jesus, too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @10:09PM (1 child)
Ah yes, let us be racist and demeaning cause we NEED it! So, you gonna stop yelling about feminists and antifa then? I mean they need their release valves too...
Don't worry, I actually think this backlash against PC is a good thing, it will let everyone know who around them is truly regressive and should be shunned. Nothing like a voluntary scarlet letter!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:01PM
Are you suggesting that the Big Red "A" no longer stands for "adultress"?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:38PM
This is not the end of "surveillance capitalism." What Unilever is saying is that the existing platforms of social media are not *surveilled enough* to tell them if their advertising money spent is effective. They feel that the content of the platforms they're advertising on aren't homogenous enough for their brands. They need what they feel is trustworthy content to anchor their advertising to... which means they have to know that you ARE trusting the content being delivered... which means they have to surveil you to be sure that when that interstitial for Dove soap comes up it's done so in a way that it's made a favorable impression on you.
This is the cusp of Surveillance Captialism 2.0, not freedom from it.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:37PM
Large concentrated platform may go away, replaced by more smaller ones where a particular social circle deems currently hip, but social media itself won't. It will also open up opportunities for aggregators.
So "surveillance capitalism" will not go away as long as the govies can strong-arm organizations. If they can do it to large behemoths like FB and Google, they can sure as hell do it to small ones - heck I wouldn't put it past them that they have a hand in pushing toward this direction of smaller players.