I’m surprised Facebook isn’t being talked about on here yet. So much that I decided to write my own diary about it, which will be my first! Yay me! And, I guess that just reveals to you how much I dislike Facebook. The unfortunate part is I got off it 2 years ago and never looked back. In fact, it was the easiest break up I’ve ever had! But, then I changed careers and had to create a new profile on Facebook to join the professional groups I’m required to be a part of. It hurts every day when I have to log-in. Ugh! But, that just goes to show you how intertwined Facebook is in everyone’s lives, even those who aren’t registered! And, it’s not for the good either. I mean, I thought they were bad, but no…they’re worse than I imagined.
Here, Jason Kint on Twitter breaks down the written answers to the Senate Intel questions provided by Facebook. I found these ones to be interesting…
- The second tweet basically states that your mobile device is the same thing to Facebook as a profile. So you don’t need to have a registered FB profile for them to track you. If you visit a web site or app that contains their technology, which so many have, that’s how they get information.
- Jason points out the monster data collecting machine Facebook has become and we or the government have no control over it.
- Just a reminder: Global Science Research (GSR) is the company that harvested Facebook data using a personality app under the guise of academic research and later shared the data with Cambridge Analytica.
- Say what? Facebook provided employees to work along side Cambridge Analytica!
Okay yes, this is old news and we already know all this. But, we’re also STILL using Facebook! And, why is Mark Zuckerberg so scared? If Facebook didn’t do anything wrong, why NOT answer questions by the UK Parliament?
Maybe the NYTs article that came out yesterday can shed some light on it? Nick Confessore was one of the authors of this bombshell article. 👇
This was news to me! Zuckerberg actually questioned whether Trump violated FB policy. So now my question is, did he?
- I’m not sure how responding to DISINFORMATION would be taking sides, but whatever, right?
Oh Chuck Schumer...whose side are you really on?
(Sorry for the repeat tweet! Still learning how to write these diaries!)
If you wanna see the NYT article highlights in writing, David Carroll posted his thread about the NYT article.
- Let this one really sink in: Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protestors, in part by linking them George Soros.
- I mean, they spotted the Russian cyberware in 2016 and what it was being used for, how did that NOT concern Facebook?
- Facebook was more concerned about how they looked rather than doing something about the potential threat Russia was to our democracy. And, then tried to cover it up by deflecting it all over Apple and Google. That’s some dark stuff ya’ll!
- Let’s read that again: Facebook paid for disinformation. Their new motto: “If you can’t beat them, join them!” Right?
- One has to wonder why Zuckerberg’s senate hearing was so...really not that bad! When I watched it on TV, I thought they were very easy on him with exception of a few questioners. Or they just weren’t prepared..either way it sent the same message.
(Sorry for the repeat tweet here!) 👇
- Facebook + Cambridge Analytica + Trump’s campaign = A meddled election
So, how did Facebook respond to this article? From Forbes:
Facebook terminated its contract with Definers Public Affairs following a bombshell New York Times investigation that detailed how Facebook hired the Republican opposition researcher to counter criticism of its role in spreading Russian misinformation and exposed its users to political ad targeting firm Cambridge Analytica.
Side note: Hey, didn’t they respond the same way when they “found out” about Cambridge Analytica? They fired them immediately.
Facebook strategy: Fire when caught. Otherwise, nothing to see here.
In fact, NBC News reports that:
Facebook’s ties to the lobbying firm, Definers Public Affairs, were first reported on Wednesday in The New York Times, which detailed how the group aimed to “discredit activist protesters [of Facebook], in part by linking them to liberal financier George Soros,” who has become the subject of widespread right-wing conspiracy theories for his philanthropy work.
The report resulted in widespread criticism and accusations of hypocrisy by Facebook for its use of a lobbying firm that pushed narratives on behalf of its clients disguised as news articles. And some of the firm’s more inflammatory political ads for other clients were removed by Facebook itself for violating its advertising policies.
Definers runs a website called NTK Network, which has a verified page on Facebook with more than 120,000 followers that publishes and promotes articles about the firm’s clients as well as their competitors.
A former employee of Definers, who asked not to be identified in order to protect professional relationships, told NBC News that NTK Network was “our in-house fake news shop.” Some clients would actively pay for NTK Network’s positive coverage, which the ex-employee said would then be pushed out through Facebook in the hopes of being picked up by larger conservative media outlets such as Breitbart.
...And now it turns out that Facebook was not just the platform for this kind of opposition work, but had actually hired a practitioner to do so on its behalf.
And, this is just about our country. Facebook is hurting others too and they admit it. From NBC News:
Facebook has admitted it failed to prevent its social media platform being used to incite violence in Myanmar.
An independent report commissioned by the tech giant was published Tuesday, finding that Facebook had been misused in a way that contributed to human rights abuses in the country.
"A minority of users (in Myanmar) are seeking to exploit Facebook as a platform to undermine democracy and incite offline violence," it said.
On that note, Reuters thought this was important to share today as well:
Facebook Inc (FB.O) said here on Thursday it had identified about 2.1 million posts as being bullying or harassment in nature on the social network between April and September.
The company revealed the numbers in its second community standards enforcement report, in which the company introduced a new category of data with details on bullying or harassment posts.
In summary, per Slate’s article, Facebook is a Normal Sleazy Company Now:
The leaders of Facebook can no longer pretend they are special people running a special company. Facebook is now just another normal sleazy American company run by normal sleazy executives, engaged in normal sleazy lobbying and corporate propaganda.
..The three features that make Facebook Facebook also make it the ideal platform for working on behalf of dangerous and violent forces. The first is scale. Facebook gathers posts from more than 2.2 billion people in more than 100 languages. The second is algorithmic amplification. Facebook promotes extreme content like hate speech and conspiracy theories over thoughtful, balanced, deliberate work. And the third is the best advertising system ever created. Facebook can put an ad in front of exactly the type of person who might respond to a sales pitch or a call to political action and ignore those who might not.
Zuckerberg and Sandberg can’t fix Facebook because to fix Facebook is to scrap one or more of these essential attributes. The problem with Facebook is Facebook.
We are stuck in the world Facebook made. It was a terrible idea in the first place, but as long as advertisers, authoritarians, and Chuck Schumer protect it, Facebook will face little significant pressure in most of the world. All Zuckerberg and Sandberg need to do is ride out this moment, boast about making a good effort to clean the thing up, and keep those campaign contributions flowing. Facebook will be just fine. Democracy will not.
UPDATE: Sheryl Sandberg responds in a CBS interview:
“We absolutely did not pay anyone to create fake news – that they have assured me was not happening. And again, we're doing a thorough look into what happened but they have assured me that we were not paying anyone to either write or promote anything that was false. And that's very important.”
I applaud Norah O’Donell for asking this question:
O'DONNELL: Well George Soros is now calling for Facebook to have an independent investigation. Will you do that?
SANDBERG: Well I'm looking into what happened. The form of that investigation I don't know but I am aggressively looking into what happened.
O'DONNELL: But George Soros is calling for an independent investigation. Is Facebook considering that?
SANDBERG: Right. We're thinking through what that would look like.
O'DONNELL: But that's the charge, Sheryl, is that every time you're presented with a problem and people ask for transparency or an independent investigation Facebook deflects and says, "Well, we'll look into it," that the company is not transparent.
So basically she’s deflecting the blame onto her communication team and saying it’s not their fault. Typical Facebook.
O'DONNELL: If you didn't hire Definers and didn't know what they were doing on behalf of Facebook, who did?
SANDBERG: The communications team.
O'DONNELL: Who leads the communications team?
SANDBERG: Norah, here's the thing: We take performance really seriously. We move people out of the company, we move people into the company, we change jobs, we actually are quite rigorous on this. What we haven't done and we're not gonna do is Mark and I are not gonna hold up other people out and say that person is a problem and they're gone because we think we should hold ourselves accountable and that's not the way to run a company and not the way to lead. But, you should know that we take this seriously and we do make employee movements. Strong ones.
I had no idea that Facebook paid for disinformation before. It continually seems like Facebook isn’t capable of learning from their mistakes. Or maybe it’s that they don’t care to:
O'DONNELL: I don't have to remind you about Burson-Marsteller in 2011 when you hired them to get misleading and negative stories about Google into mainstream media outlets, and then apologized when you were caught. Did you learn anything from that episode?
SANDBERG: I think we should have learned to be more careful in the agencies we use. We're a big company, we're using a lot of agencies and we're taking a very, very careful look.
Well, one thing I’ll say is if Sandberg really is telling the truth about not knowing about this firm, then why wouldn’t they want help in regulating Facebook? If I were them, I would feel totally out of control right now, especially if situations like this was happening right under my nose. And, to make matters worse, Shaun King tweets about a new report from engadget:
This is a crisis and it needs to be addressed. The only way to stop this, just like stopping our government, is us...THE PEOPLE. We put the Trump regime in office by not voting. So, what did we do in the mid-terms? We voted and now big change is coming. Same can be applied to Facebook! We create a movement to stop using it. I know people have tried that already, but there needs to be more of an effort by educating Facebook users on what’s really happening. I wrote my organization yesterday to encourage them to follow thru with their plans on transferring our groups to their business website. I’m also going to encourage others within the groups to put pressure on them as well. Little efforts like these can turn into big ones, just like voting, to remove all this negativity from our world.
Otherwise, I don’t have a solution, but I’m open to ALL ideas! I’m doing my part now and I hope you’ll do yours too:) And, THANK YOU all for reading and recommending my first diary. It meant the world to me and not because I was on the Rec list, but that it shows we all care about our country and we’re taking this Facebook disaster very seriously. To me, it’s just another positive sign that we’re ALL changing the world TOGETHER for the good and education is a KEY part of it. Daily Kos is brilliant for that. Have a great weekend!