All The News That's Fit To Monetize
All The News That's Fit To Monetize
Who Would Take Free (As In Beer) To A Riot?
FaceMash Would. FaceMash Does.
And Then Blames The Brewers.
Originally shared by John Wehrle
Sometimes it's easier to see your own problems when they are played out in someone else's life.
For many, if not most, Sri Lankans Facebook is the internet. That didn't happen by accident. It was the result of a concerted effort by Facebook begun in 2013 to bring the internet to many more people around the world. Here's Zuck's introduction to the project: https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/12057105_1001874746531417_622371037_n.pdf?_nc_cat=0&oh=a6aa766e7f02de936d323d7e417c22c4&oe=5B52DE27
But that increased access to the internet had a distinctly Facebook-flavor. So much so that in 2015 researchers were noticing that a significant numbers of people in developing countries knew they used Facebook but did not know they were also using the internet. Why?
Facebook is “often the only accessible application,” as Orriss puts it, but that’s because Facebook—which did not respond to requests to comment on this story—has worked to ensure that it is the easiest and cheapest to access. The company backs internet.org, an initiative to “bring the Internet to the two thirds of the world’s population that doesn’t have it.” Yet internet.org’s showpiece, an app now available in nearly half a dozen countries, provides free access only to Facebook, Facebook messenger, and a handful of other services (the precise lineup varies by country).
Most of these other services are well-meaning and related to development: Women’s rights. Jobs. Maternal-health information. An Ebola FAQ. The only concessions to the wider web are Wikipedia and Google search. But clicking through on a Google search result requires a data plan—and that must be paid for by the user. (Despite the name, internet.org is not a non-profit concern, but very much a part of Facebook Inc.)
https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/
So, let's consider the situation. Facebook's penetration of the developing market has been such a success that many, perhaps a majority of, people use it as their sole source of news. Facebook makes money by selling the data of its users to people who then use that data to influence those users - many of whom won't look for outside news. This is happening not just in the US and the UK but also in South East Asia ( https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-for-many-people-in-south-east-asia-20180322-p4z5nu.html ) All of this takes place while Facebook seems unable or unwilling to keep up with the enforcement of its own community standards:
Kill all Muslims, do not spare even an infant, they are dogs,” a Facebook status, white Sinhalese text against a fuchsia background, screamed on 7 March 2018. Six days later – after hundreds of Muslim families had watched their homes ransacked and their businesses set on fire – it was allowed to remain online, despite being reported for violating the company’s community standards.
...
In the immediate aftermath of the violence in March, Facebook representatives met with members of government and promised to better address the hate speech that the platform had been used to spread. In further communications with local civil society, they have promised to increase the number of Sinhala-language content reviewers. This is something that local activists, who have been documenting the generation and spread of and engagement with hate speech on the platform, have highlighted for years.
So while Facebook wanted to become everything to everyone it seems that it has been slow to see the inherent responsibility such a role brings with it.
On the other hand, it's also easy to scapegoat Facebook so as to avoid our own responsibilities. Consider the Sri Lankan situation and its parallels to those in the US and the UK:
The constant stream of divisive, abusive content is a result of the deeply entrenched ethno-nationalist biases informing mainstream media, law enforcement, party politics and political leadership in the country. In addition, postwar narratives endorsed by the state, that herald military victory over terrorism, have been sweepingly reinterpreted as the majority’s dominance over a minority; spurring on those who believe in “protecting” the country that is solely “theirs”. These old divides and perceptions, sewn into the country’s social fabric, are now updated for the digital age on Facebook.
Violence by sections of the majority community against minorities forms a large part of Sri Lanka’s history, in a pattern that repeats itself with startling precision. A common factor in all of the violence is successive governments who are afraid to call out and condemn extremist ethno-religious nationalism for the toxic influence that it is.
The same can be said of the US and the UK.
Fascistic tendencies didn't begin with Facebook but when Facebook sought market dominance it didn't bargain on what that dominance might associate it with. The organization has not to come to terms with its new role in internal national politics, human rights, and journalism. Indeed, the denial is ongoing.
But none of that absolves us from the responsibility to seek out multiple sources of news with a critical eye. Nor does it absolve us of our own biases which were the reason the tactics of Cambridge Analytica worked in the first place. All of us have a minimum obligation to ourselves and our communities to look outside of social media for our news and to examine ourselves with a critical eye.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/05/facebook-anti-muslim-violence-sri-lanka
Who Would Take Free (As In Beer) To A Riot?
FaceMash Would. FaceMash Does.
And Then Blames The Brewers.
Originally shared by John Wehrle
Sometimes it's easier to see your own problems when they are played out in someone else's life.
For many, if not most, Sri Lankans Facebook is the internet. That didn't happen by accident. It was the result of a concerted effort by Facebook begun in 2013 to bring the internet to many more people around the world. Here's Zuck's introduction to the project: https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/12057105_1001874746531417_622371037_n.pdf?_nc_cat=0&oh=a6aa766e7f02de936d323d7e417c22c4&oe=5B52DE27
But that increased access to the internet had a distinctly Facebook-flavor. So much so that in 2015 researchers were noticing that a significant numbers of people in developing countries knew they used Facebook but did not know they were also using the internet. Why?
Facebook is “often the only accessible application,” as Orriss puts it, but that’s because Facebook—which did not respond to requests to comment on this story—has worked to ensure that it is the easiest and cheapest to access. The company backs internet.org, an initiative to “bring the Internet to the two thirds of the world’s population that doesn’t have it.” Yet internet.org’s showpiece, an app now available in nearly half a dozen countries, provides free access only to Facebook, Facebook messenger, and a handful of other services (the precise lineup varies by country).
Most of these other services are well-meaning and related to development: Women’s rights. Jobs. Maternal-health information. An Ebola FAQ. The only concessions to the wider web are Wikipedia and Google search. But clicking through on a Google search result requires a data plan—and that must be paid for by the user. (Despite the name, internet.org is not a non-profit concern, but very much a part of Facebook Inc.)
https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/
So, let's consider the situation. Facebook's penetration of the developing market has been such a success that many, perhaps a majority of, people use it as their sole source of news. Facebook makes money by selling the data of its users to people who then use that data to influence those users - many of whom won't look for outside news. This is happening not just in the US and the UK but also in South East Asia ( https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-for-many-people-in-south-east-asia-20180322-p4z5nu.html ) All of this takes place while Facebook seems unable or unwilling to keep up with the enforcement of its own community standards:
Kill all Muslims, do not spare even an infant, they are dogs,” a Facebook status, white Sinhalese text against a fuchsia background, screamed on 7 March 2018. Six days later – after hundreds of Muslim families had watched their homes ransacked and their businesses set on fire – it was allowed to remain online, despite being reported for violating the company’s community standards.
...
In the immediate aftermath of the violence in March, Facebook representatives met with members of government and promised to better address the hate speech that the platform had been used to spread. In further communications with local civil society, they have promised to increase the number of Sinhala-language content reviewers. This is something that local activists, who have been documenting the generation and spread of and engagement with hate speech on the platform, have highlighted for years.
So while Facebook wanted to become everything to everyone it seems that it has been slow to see the inherent responsibility such a role brings with it.
On the other hand, it's also easy to scapegoat Facebook so as to avoid our own responsibilities. Consider the Sri Lankan situation and its parallels to those in the US and the UK:
The constant stream of divisive, abusive content is a result of the deeply entrenched ethno-nationalist biases informing mainstream media, law enforcement, party politics and political leadership in the country. In addition, postwar narratives endorsed by the state, that herald military victory over terrorism, have been sweepingly reinterpreted as the majority’s dominance over a minority; spurring on those who believe in “protecting” the country that is solely “theirs”. These old divides and perceptions, sewn into the country’s social fabric, are now updated for the digital age on Facebook.
Violence by sections of the majority community against minorities forms a large part of Sri Lanka’s history, in a pattern that repeats itself with startling precision. A common factor in all of the violence is successive governments who are afraid to call out and condemn extremist ethno-religious nationalism for the toxic influence that it is.
The same can be said of the US and the UK.
Fascistic tendencies didn't begin with Facebook but when Facebook sought market dominance it didn't bargain on what that dominance might associate it with. The organization has not to come to terms with its new role in internal national politics, human rights, and journalism. Indeed, the denial is ongoing.
But none of that absolves us from the responsibility to seek out multiple sources of news with a critical eye. Nor does it absolve us of our own biases which were the reason the tactics of Cambridge Analytica worked in the first place. All of us have a minimum obligation to ourselves and our communities to look outside of social media for our news and to examine ourselves with a critical eye.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/05/facebook-anti-muslim-violence-sri-lanka
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