Are we being programmed? This explains it

[RV_]

I despised FaceCrook calling it "Social Media" and only finally got a FaceCrook page just so I could see what pages with info I needed for some research. I stated that I was not interested in validation on a frat age level of popularity, big kahuna, or king of the hill. Joining others in shaming or shunning others was repellent to me. But I saw the first fake news websites being stood up with specific agendas. Orwell was right but it happened years ago.

I told real friends that I was not interested in keeping in touch with a High School popularity website where people get validated for joining the herd. Reading this article today from the very founders acknowledging they knew what they were doing confirmed my feelings. My FaceCrook page is uninviting, has misleading posts by me, I won't participate and could care less if a group of mindless drones clicked like on my page. I also had twitter. And an actual website I ignored in favor of posting here and on a couple of other forums.

I am posting this here for the folks who may not be monetizing FaceCrook and going along to get along. Most folks are dopamine validation addicts online, and the rest are also just a step away from the Handmaid's Tale. I don't know if it can be turned around but at this point I doubt it.

Here are the Mea Culpss from the founders of FaceCrook and Twitter.

Excerpt:

"Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society

‘No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth.’

Another former Facebook executive has spoken out about the harm the social network is doing to civil society around the world. Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth, said he feels “tremendous guilt” about the company he helped make. “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” he told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business, before recommending people take a “hard break” from social media.

Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem — this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.”

He went on to describe an incident in India where hoax messages about kidnappings shared on WhatsApp led to the lynching of seven innocent people. “That’s what we’re dealing with,” said Palihapitiya. “And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.” He says he tries to use Facebook as little as possible, and that his children “aren’t allowed to use that shit.” He later adds, though, that he believes the company “overwhelmingly does good in the world.”

Palihapitiya’s remarks follow similar statements of contrition from others who helped build Facebook into the powerful corporation it is today. In November, early investor Sean Parker said he has become a “conscientious objector” to social media, and that Facebook and others had succeeded by “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” A former product manager at the company, Antonio Garcia-Martinez, has said Facebook lies about its ability to influence individuals based on the data it collects on them, and wrote a book, Chaos Monkeys, about his work at the firm.

These former employees have all spoken out at a time when worry about Facebook’s power is reaching fever pitch. In the past year, concerns about the company’s role in the US election and its capacity to amplify fake news have grown, while other reports have focused on how the social media site has been implicated in atrocities like the “ethnic cleansing” of Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic group.

In his talk, Palihapitiya criticized not only Facebook, but Silicon Valley’s entire system of venture capital funding. He said that investors pump money into “shitty, useless, idiotic companies,” rather than addressing real problems like climate change and disease. Palihapitiya currently runs his own VC firm, Social Capital, which focuses on funding companies in sectors like healthcare and education.

Palihapitiya also notes that although tech investors seem almighty, they’ve achieved their power more through luck than skill. “Everybody’s bullshitting,” he said. “If you’re in a seat, and you have good deal flow, and you have precious capital, and there’s a massive tailwind of technological change ... Over time you get one of the 20 [companies that become successful] and you look like a genius. And nobody wants to admit that but that’s the fucking truth.”

There are videos in it too but they don't auto play, that link is:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16761016/former-facebook-exec-ripping-apart-society

More here in these articles:

https://ideapod.com/former-facebook-executive-dont-realize-programmed

I'm an ex-Facebook exec: don't believe what they tell you about ads

I believe the social media giant could target ads at depressed teens and countless other demographics. But so what?

"For two years I was charged with turning Facebook data into money, by any legal means. If you browse the internet or buy items in physical stores, and then see ads related to those purchases on Facebook, blame me. I helped create the first versions of that, way back in 2012.

The ethics of Facebook’s micro-targeted advertising was thrust into the spotlight this week by a report out of Australia. The article, based on a leaked presentation, said that Facebook was able to identify teenagers at their most vulnerable, including when they feel “insecure”, “worthless”, “defeated” and “stressed”.

Just as Mark Zuckerberg was being disingenuous (to put it mildly) when, in the wake of Donald Trump’s unexpected victory, he expressed doubt that Facebook could have flipped the presidential election.

Facebook deploys a political advertising sales team, specialized by political party, and charged with convincing deep-pocketed politicians that they do have the kind of influence needed to alter the outcome of elections.

I was at Facebook in 2012, during the previous presidential race. The fact that Facebook could easily throw the election by selectively showing a Get Out the Vote reminder in certain counties of a swing state, for example, was a running joke.

Converting Facebook data into money is harder than it sounds, mostly because the vast bulk of your user data is worthless. Turns out your blotto-drunk party pics and flirty co-worker messages have no commercial value whatsoever.

ut occasionally, if used very cleverly, with lots of machine-learning iteration and systematic trial-and-error, the canny marketer can find just the right admixture of age, geography, time of day, and music or film tastes that demarcate a demographic winner of an audience. The “clickthrough rate”, to use the advertiser’s parlance, doesn’t lie.

Without seeing the leaked documents, which were reportedly based around a pitch Facebook made to a bank, it is impossible to know precisely what the platform was offering advertisers. There’s nothing in the trade I know of that targets ads at emotions. But Facebook has and does offer “psychometric”-type targeting, where the goal is to define a subset of the marketing audience that an advertiser thinks is particularly susceptible to their message.

And knowing the Facebook sales playbook, I cannot imagine the company would have concocted such a pitch about teenage emotions without the final hook: “and this is how you execute this on the Facebook ads platform”. Why else would they be making the pitch?

The question is not whether this can be done. It is whether Facebook should apply a moral filter to these decisions. Let’s assume Facebook does target ads at depressed teens. My reaction? So what. Sometimes data behaves unethically.

I’ll illustrate with an anecdote from my Facebook days. Someone on the data science team had cooked up a new tool that recommended Facebook Pages users should like. And what did this tool start spitting out? Every ethnic stereotype you can imagine. We killed the tool when it recommended then president Obama if a user had “liked” rapper Jay Z. While that was a statistical fact – people who liked Jay Z were more likely to like Obama – it was one of the statistical truths Facebook couldn’t be seen espousing.

That article is here:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/02/facebook-executive-advertising-data-comment

Now some may understand why my web page has ideology walls. But I think that I'll leave my page there as I don't get alerts nor allow new "friends" or family. So please don't send friend requests to my FaceCrook page. I am not a participant, I just have access for in and out research once a month or so. My son posts the articles on his page I send him like this one here. 

If you can't understand why some people believe the outlandish things they do online, and believe them just because a good manipulator said a Pizza parlor was a front for human trafficking, an entire wave washed over the country. Then when proven a manipulative lie, he wasn't fired. One ex military went there with an AR and supposedly fired a shot and demanded the slaves be freed right now! Poor guy, he needs an ideologue reality check.

I'm not above it, I just sidestepped it when I saw what was obvious to me. If you look back here in the computer forum I have said the above a number of times. It is only recently that I see it weaponized.

Why can't people be woken up from it?

This is a 59 second youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVPdyYeaQU

No politics please, just the facts about "Social Media" from their creators.

[NDBirdman]

I personally dislike facecrook.  I only joined for some chicken breeding pages and am getting bored of the politics, er, B.S. that goes on.  My page is very sparse, only have one so I can get on, read about some chickens.  I would not miss it if it failed and dropped off the internet.  It was created after all to make some computer snot nose kid rich off our backs.

[Dutch_12078]

I should turn off my adblockers sometime to see what ads FaceBook is serving on the page I use. It's registered to our now gone dog, complete with her picture, correct birth date, and her obedience school listed under "Education". The few pages that I care to monitor from time to time don't seem to mind...

[RV_]

ND Birdman , I hear ya.

Dutch, you have the best solution yet!

I have no use for the Social media websites but indulge here and on one other. I am old fashioned and have my out of date by ten years website in my sig block below. But it has all our 7 years of RV fulltime newsletters from the road and articles I wrote about Guns in RVs under Lifestyle etc. I need to move my website to GoDaddy where my Domain is registered. That old Earthlink website I can't even change anymore. Good tech articles I wrote too on Propane systems etc.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

I refuse to sub come to the FaceBook world.  I have over 15 years of accumulated information in my websites and the FaceBook format just doesn't fit me.

[sandsys]

20 hours ago, RV_ said:

 

Sorry. My cursor moved and I deleted the wrong part. I just wanted to tell RV that his post had no signature block.

Linda

[Twotoes]

Regarding the hoax messages about kidnapping in India where 7 innocent people were killed, do you remember the Salem witch hunt in the 1600s

[chirakawa]

51 minutes ago, Twotoes said:

 do you remember the Salem witch hunt in the 1600s

No, I was too young at the time.

[RV_]

Amen Mark.

Chirakawa, now that's funny, I don't care who you are.

Two toes, Salem was the Protestant's answer to the Catholics' Inquisition. Thus our forefathers separation of church and state. Both dead wrong.

Linda, my Sig block is there below that says:

---

 

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998

"When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself."  Confucius

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

 

[Kirk W]

13 hours ago, Twotoes said:

do you remember the Salem witch hunt in the 1600s

 

12 hours ago, chirakawa said:

I was too young at the time.

And I thought that I was old!  

I went on Facebook mostly to keep up with our kids and grandkids. I have discovered a couple of groups which I participate in that can be informative and I learned to ignore the posts that bother me reading the forums on this and other websites. With Facebook you can very easily "unfollow" people and they don't know or you can "unfriend" and then they know. Either way, you don't have to see what they post! I know some folks who refuse to even get a "smartphone" but I prefer the modern world, even with the negative things that come with it. I don't hesitate to ignore or avoid what I don't like, just as I can "block" those who post here that I wish to avoid.  Like most new innovations, social media is good or bad mostly according to how one chooses to use it. 

[DJohns]

I agree with RV........ I warned my two girls  that it is bad and someone was going to get there feelings hurt over gossiping. I lost a daughter and son-in-law  to facebook. It is the devil dressed in pretty cloths!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

[Dutch_12078]

Heh! When I mentioned on a non-RV forum the great group hiking photos one of our daughters posted on her hiking club's Facebook page, someone went on a rant calling me out as a bad parent for allowing my kids to post personal photos on Facebook where pedophiles can see them. When I mentioned that our twin daughters are 50 years old, they finally shut up... 

[Kirk W]

2 hours ago, Dutch_12078 said:

When I mentioned that our twin daughters are 50 years old, they finally shut up...

My kids are all near to or past the age of 50 also. These folks are trying to protect you & I!

[sandsys]

15 hours ago, RV_ said:

Linda, my Sig block is there below that says:

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998

"When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself."  Confucius

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

That looks familiar but it still doesn't show up in the post above where you referenced it.

Linda

[Aggie79-82a]

No a Facebook believer.

 

 

[wildmandmc]

parts of fb can be fun, but rule of thumb or (mouse). if a post has clickable link don't like it, click it or anything. the bs post are one's that play on your emotions such as if "madona can get one million likes can this baby get one" those are total bs.  But fb does have some good points. i few yrs ago found 2 of my army buddies on their that i haven't seen since 70's. we all went thru boot camp an MP school together. 

[FL-JOE]

wildmandmc, I am not on fb and never will be.  Two years ago I asked a veterans internet group (togetherweserved) to help me locate two army buddies that were with me in VN.  It only took them about a week and I had both of their addresses and phone numbers!  

 

[RV_]

OK folks slow down. It is apparent many here did not bother to read the articles in the links I was passing along because it is rare to see the folks who create something say they were too successful and harm can and has come from it.

The FaceCrook believers that love it,  fine by me. But this thread was about the shocking articles where the FaceCrook founders/programmers admit to manipulating their folks that are on there. Look at how many posts here ascribe my reaction to the article, and the fact that I now have a FaceCrook account but it is only allowed to be seen by a few friends and family members. That way I can zip in to take advantage of things like the Smith and Wesson sweepstakes and yes they already have my info because they had a $75.00 mail in rebate last year for their M&M shield .40 cal pistols and I bought one and got the rebate within a month. I got extra entries for liking them. On their page not mine.

This was about the unheard of admission of the FaceCrook founders that they intended to do what they did. Personally I don't care whether one has FaceCrook or not. If you don'y like the articles that this thread has for a topic, why comment off topic. No feelings were addressed in the topic. But my goodness, why all the excuses for using it or the outright defending it??

Try reading the articles if you missed them in the OP. And thanks for the ones on topic who are obvious by their comments about the founder's comments.

The rudimentary psychology behind it was seen as early as BF Skinner and Pavlov before him.

The thread topic is "Holy Smokes, the founders are saying chilling things about their own creation and the operant conditioning manipulating our own dopamine easily.