Why are there antitrust or monopoly laws? Why is the usual interpretation of the Chicago School really, really bad for the United States? Umair Haque’s latest post spells it out pretty well, in my opinion. Just an idea: let’s not import any of their dangerous ideas into our society, or allow their ever-growing giants […]
Read More… from Facebook goes even more pro-bot with change in group policy
‘We can’t level, you crazy bastard, we’re in advertising!’—Paul Reiser as Stephen Bachman, in Crazy People (1990) Signal You can run ads with misinformation, and you can launch bot nets of thousands of accounts, but what can’t you do on Facebook? Buy ads that expose their tools with which you have bought their […]
Read More… from How to get your Facebook ad account shut down: do something honest
This is a pretty typical story: find fault with Big Tech, try to alert the appropriate people in the firm, get fired. Julia Carrie Wong’s excellent article for The Guardian shows a data scientist, Sophie Zhang, find blatant attempts by governments to abuse Facebook’s platform, misleading their own people, in multiple countries. Of course […]
We already know that Facebook does nothing if you want to use scripts to join groups, even if the scripts all give roughly the same answers. Apparently that’s not enough to trigger the systems at this company that’s worth almost a billion dollars (that’s a proper billion, or what the Americans call a trillion). Unless, […]
I’m not entirely sure I need to block out the email addresses here since they’re likely to be burner Gmail accounts, but I’ll give these spammers the courtesy they don’t deserve. As shown below, they’ve been coming for over a year; there’s a chance I may have even received them in 2019. […]
Read More… from Computing in 2021: Gmail’s advertorial spammers, Facebook bots, and Twitter fatigue
Whichever side you are on with Facebook imposing a ban on Australians sharing news content, this says it all about the level of intelligence over at Menlo Park. In Australia, Facebook has not only de-platformed legitimate governmental bodies and non-profits, it has de-platformed itself. Maybe taxing these companies would have been easier, and […]
Read More… from Reduced Facebook? Australia is the lucky country
My friend Keith has been away from Facebook for six weeks, for work reasons, and hasn’t missed it. And he asked, ‘Was it all really a waste of time?’ I know you think you know what I’m going to say, but the answer might surprise you a little. Fundamentally, it’s yes (this is […]
Read More… from Facebook fooled us into thinking we were being creative
Two fantastic items in my Tweetstream today, the first from journalist Jehan Casinader, a New Zealander of Sri Lankan heritage, in Stuff. Some highlights: As an ethnic person, you can only enter (and stay in) a predominantly white space – like the media, politics or corporate leadership – if you play by the rules. […]
Read More… from A refreshing piece on diversity in our mainstream media
Further to my Lucire op–ed on January 8, and my blog post on January 11, I hinted that this could happen. From the World Socialist Web Site: On Friday, Facebook carried out a purge of left-wing, antiwar and progressive pages and accounts, including leading members of the Socialist Equality Party. Facebook gave no explanation […]
Read More… from In the ‘I told you so’ department: Facebook purges left-wing, anti-war accounts
You know the US tech giants have way too much power, unencumbered by their own government and their own country’s laws, when they think they can strong-arm another nation. From Reuter: Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Friday it would block its search engine in Australia if the government proceeds with a new code that […]
Read More… from Like communist dictatorships, Google and Facebook threaten Australia