Last night, I gave the annual #MarshallMcLuhan lecture at the #transmediale festival in #Berlin. The event was sold out and while there's a video that'll be posted soon, they couldn't get a streaming setup installed in the Canadian embassy, where the talk was held:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Ban Online Behavioral Advertising, please Mr. #facebook and Mrs. #meta
"Such targeting supercharges the efforts of fraudulent, exploitive, and misleading advertisers. It allows peddlers of shady products and services to reach exactly the people who, based on their online behavior, the peddlers believe are most likely to be 🤪vulnerable to their messaging. Too often, what’s good for an advertiser is actively harmful for their targets"
THIS IS SO BADASS. This man runs a very queer friendly café, in 2018 he woke up to find his café’s #Facebook page deleted, so he decided to file an action to get back some lost revenue from people thinking he was closed because it was suddenly gone. #Meta lied and lied, and he won.
How owner of Teatotaller cafe defeated social media giant Meta in court
If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of #PavingTheDesirePath. A #DesirePath is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.
Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences - they also love to bandy about the idea of #MoralHazard: economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak).
Interesting read on #PaperMills and a criminal world that pays editors to accept papers, people paying for papers and even downright bribing!
Worrying trends!
@RonaldVisser@academicchatter I fail to understand why people continue to submit papers to predatory publishers like MDPI. They say “oh because the process is fast”. Yes, it can be as short as 2 weeks from “first submission to acceptance/available online”. But why is there such a rush to have papers accepted? And if you want a “fast + no peer-review”, why not just upload manuscripts to #facebook ? 😀
“A new CR [Consumer Reports] study has found that the average study participant had their data shared to Facebook by 2,230 companies – not only a person’s online activity, but what they do offline as well: places visited, events attended, products ordered, and so on. Facebook and other platforms use this data to create profiles to target consumers with advertisements.” #privacy#Facebook#FTC#advertising
Posting a #meme about how bad ass your generation was and following up with a post later whining about "the kids today" is straight up #boomer level shit
"Meta’s content moderation policies and systems have increasingly silenced voices in support of Palestine on Instagram and Facebook in the wake of the hostilities between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups."
I feel like the reason #Mastodon, and the #Fediverse at large, aren't taking off has to do with the fact that they're actually social networks. People don't seem to want a social network, they want content platforms. People aren't using #Twitter or #Threads or #TikTok to keep up with their friends these days, they're using these apps to entertain themselves. And since #Facebook and every other platform that used to be a social network began pivoting toward content promotion, I think society has forgotten what a social network is supposed to actually be anymore.
oh, here's some JUICY rumored details about meta's plans for the fediverse
tl;dr "Meta will only federate with select larger instances from the beginning. There will be contracts which also provide for financial compensation for the instance owners."
can't entirely verify their validity but it's still worth posting just in case