Facebook are evil

[nogojones]

I did just get followed by the Green Party's Natalie Bennett at Twitter so out of my meagre 592 I now have a contact in the House of Lords.

@devereuxmatthew
@natalieben

A figure like Matthew Hancock, who hasn't tweeted once since his resignation letter, has 436,000 confused people following him at Twitter.

@MattHancock

Most of those 436,000 are just hoping they get a multi-million pound contract from him on the basis of their acquaintance.

 

[magneze]

Today's real story: The Facebook monopoly | TechCrunch

To the average person, Facebook’s monopoly seems obvious. But obviousness is not an antitrust standard. Monopoly has a clear legal meaning, and thus far Lina Khan’s FTC has failed to meet it.

techcrunch.com

Long and fairly technical article, but interesting nonetheless.

 

[Argonia]

Most of those 436,000 are just hoping they get a multi-million pound contract from him on the basis of their acquaintance.

I think the 436,000 are desperate to get into his boxer shorts like Coladangelo

 

[hitmouse]

Cleaners' union CAIWU are now saying their rep has been removed from the facebook job:

 

[magneze]

Facebook’s Secret War on Switching Costs

Update, October 1, 2021: The original version of this essay incorrectly stated that Metcalfe's Law dictated that the number of connections in a network doubled with each new user; that has been corrected, below.When the FTC filed its amended antitrust complaint against Facebook in mid-August, we...

www.eff.org

 

[magneze]

WhatsApp issued second-largest GDPR fine of €225m

The Irish data watchdog has handed WhatsApp the second-highest ever GDPR fine.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[magneze]

Rules are rules, unless you're famous.

Leaked documents reveal the special rules Facebook uses for 5.8M VIPs

"These people can violate our standards without any consequences."

arstechnica.com

It’s gotten so bad that elite users have been reportedly able to publish everything from disinformation to threats of violence, revenge porn, and more, allowing posts that violate Facebook’s policies to nonetheless appear on the feeds of thousands to millions of people.

Even in cases where the content is ultimately removed, Facebook has treated VIP users differently from others. In the documents reviewed by the WSJ, the case of Neymar, the Brazilian soccer player, stands out. In 2019, he posted a video to his Facebook and Instagram accounts that contained nude photos of a woman who had accused him of rape. He claimed that she was extorting him.

For normal users, posting “nonconsensual intimate imagery” triggers a straightforward response—it is immediately deleted, and the person’s account is deactivated. Instead, Neymar’s video remained up for more than a day. Regular moderators couldn’t touch it, and by the time it was taken down by the XCheck team, 56 million people had seen it. The video was reposted 6,000 times, and many commenters bullied and harassed the woman. Neymar denied the rape allegations, and no charges were filed. But despite posting what Facebook itself called “revenge porn,” Neymar’s account was not deleted.

“After escalating the case to leadership, we decided to leave Neymar’s accounts active, a departure from our usual ‘one strike’ profile disable policy,” a Facebook review said.

 

[two sheds]

Was surprised this bloke got done for fraud - you'd think it would be easy enough to invent invoices that were legally doable (but what do I know? )

A man stole $122m from Google and Facebook using fake invoices

Evaldas Rimasauskas, from Lithuania, sent fraudulent demands for money to Google and Facebook between 2013 and 2015 totalling $122 million.

inews.co.uk

 

[magneze]

And more troubling research on Instagram. By Facebook itself.

Facebook has kept internal research secret for two years that suggests its Instagram app makes body image issues worse for teenage girls, according to a leak from the tech firm.

Since at least 2019, staff at the company have been studying the impact of their product on its younger users’ states of mind. Their research has repeatedly found it is harmful for a large proportion, and particularly teenage girls.

“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said a slide from one internal presentation in 2019, seen by the Wall Street Journal. “Thirty-two per cent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” a subsequent presentation reported in March 2020.

Facebook aware of Instagram’s harmful effect on teenage girls, leak reveals

Social media firm reportedly kept own research secret that suggests app worsens body image issues

www.theguardian.com

 

[hitmouse]

Facebook office cleaner who led protests at London site fears for his job

Suspended union rep calls on social media giant to intervene after exhausted workers complain of extra workload

www.theguardian.com

Facebook’s facilities management firm has demanded the removal of a union activist leading a campaign against “impossible workloads” imposed on exhausted cleaners at the US tech giant’s London offices.

Emails seen by the Observer show JLL @ Facebook, which manages the social media firm’s London sites, asked Churchill Group, which employs the cleaners, to remove the workers’ elected union rep, Guillermo Camacho, from Facebook’s offices after he helped organise protests against a doubling of cleaning duties in July.

“The number of floors we have to clean has gone up from five to 12 [at Facebook’s offices on Brock Street]. But they haven’t brought in more staff. It’s impossible – I was having to come before my shift and leave late to get it done,” said Camacho. “It’s making us all really stressed and sick. That’s why we had to protest.”

One cleaner claims she suffered internal bleeding, after she was timed cleaning the Brock Street offices by a manager in June. Another cleaner says she has to take painkillers to work after developing excruciating back pain.

Miriam Palencia, 42, who has cleaned Facebook’s Brock Street offices for more three years, said: “A manager threatened me with a sanction if I didn’t clean one-and-a-half floors. He timed how long I took. It was hell. I had a haemorrhage on one of my shifts because of the stress.”

The building’s 22 to 24 cleaners, who earn £10.85 an hour and are represented by the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIWU), claim they were ordered to clean a washroom, with five toilet cubicles and a shower, in one minute and 30 seconds.

Camacho, 39, has a seven-year unblemished disciplinary record in the building. Yet the email from JLL @ Facebook requests that “Camacho... be removed from the [Facebook] account” for an alleged “lack of proactiveness in managing the team and maintaining a high cleaning standard”. It was sent on the same day he led protests outside the offices in July.

Churchill Group said it couldn’t comment on individual cases but insisted “any employee relations matters are unrelated to any protest activity or union involvement”. The company said the additional floor space had been added to the account but it had not resulted in increased workload because the cleaners’ tasks had been realigned. “Each task has been timed and undertaken by our own management to ensure they are realistic and achievable; this has been backed up by time-and-motion reviews specifically designed to each site,” said a spokesperson.

Alberto Durango, the union’s general secretary, called on Facebook to take responsibility for the plight of the cleaners in its offices. “It is disgusting that low-paid cleaners are being worked to the point of exhaustion in the building of a fabulously wealthy firm that is making billions of dollars in profit every year,” he said. “Facebook cannot turn a blind eye while its contractors are trying to break the union and intimidate cleaners by forcing out their rep.”

The union raised the cleaners’ concerns with Facebook, which has seen its profits double to $10.39bn, in July and August. But email exchanges seen by the Observer show Facebook’s managers repeatedly referring the union back to Churchill, claiming “we are not the correct organisation to correspond”.

Camacho said: “We worked throughout the pandemic. We kept Facebook’s offices open. But now Facebook is trying to wash their hands of us and say we are nothing to do with them. Facebook is the boss of these companies – it can tell them what to do.”

This week Camacho, who is currently suspended after the removal request, faces a crunch meeting. Minutes from his last meeting with Churchill reveal he will be dismissed if another role cannot be found for him “specifically due to a third-party removal request”.

“I have two young children and a wife to support – as well as my extended family in Bolivia. My kids keep asking me why I’m not at work. I don’t know what to say. I’m worried about losing my job,” he said. “It makes me feel depressed. I won’t be able to pay the rent.”

Facebook said the wellbeing of anyone working in its offices was of the utmost importance and it had ensured all of its contract workers continued to be paid throughout the pandemic. “As a Facebook supplier, JLL must adhere to our strict vendor standards, including ensuring that anyone contracted is paid the London living wage as minimum,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

JLL said: “We pride ourselves on our reputation for integrity and ethics and we hold all our vendors to the same standard in our vendor code of conduct. The health and safety of our people, including those employed by our vendors, is of utmost importance.”

A spokesperson said Churchill Group put employee wellbeing above anything else. It added it had not seen any extended sickness on the contract. “We will not comment on the specifics of individual cases but we are confident with the governance of our HR processes and state that we follow legislation and operate with transparency and integrity throughout the management of every case.”

Camacho has now been sacked - only just seen this, but there's a protest for his reinstatement this afternoon:

 

[magneze]

Facebook had it rough last week. Leaked documents—many leaked documents—formed the backbone of a string of reports published in The Wall Street Journal. Together, the stories paint the picture of a company barely in control of its own creation. The revelations run the gamut: Facebook had created special rules for VIPs that largely exempted 5.8 million users from moderation, forced troll farm content on 40 percent of America, created toxic conditions for teen girls, ignored cartels and human traffickers, and even undermined CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s own desire to promote vaccination against COVID.

Facebook’s latest “apology” reveals security and safety disarray

"Hard to say" who is responsible for platform-wide safety and security.

arstechnica.com

 

[Chilli.s]

And their UI is fuckin crap too

 

[paul mckenna]

It's all about Reddit nowadays. They've managed to crack the nut of online community. Hope with their upcoming IPO they can take it to next level. Not sure it's possible at FB scale however given the amount of moderation they employ.

It's a culture thing also - i bet Urban75 has a pretty high moderator/user ratio also but this is a toxic dump i think we'd all agree

 

[two sheds]

I hardly see any objectionable stuff in my reddit feed, do they still have the extremely unpleasant subreddits though?

 

[paul mckenna]

I hardly see any objectionable stuff in my reddit feed, do they still have the extremely unpleasant subreddits though?

yeah there are gore a-plenty so forth. But because of the effective moderation it gets put in the correct channel quickly it seems

For me, it's the language everyone uses. Generally positive and discussion subthreads sprout off on factoids or POVs. I think it shows that we're more heavily influenced by peers than we'd have thought. I find my language takes a different tone on there

 

[hitmouse]

I've tried using reddit, but don't find it draws me in all that much - although maybe them not working that well as a timesink is actually a good thing? Oh, and their servers are fucked. In terms of what platforms are actually on the up, surely it's still insta more than anything?

Anyway, was mostly just coming here to post facebook cleaner news:

 

[paul mckenna]

I've tried using reddit, but don't find it draws me in all that much - although maybe them not working that well as a timesink is actually a good thing? Oh, and their servers are fucked. In terms of what platforms are actually on the up, surely it's still insta more than anything?

Anyway, was mostly just coming here to post facebook cleaner news:

I suspect you've not found your niches yet and subscribed. The granularity is endless but worthwhile.

 

[two sheds]

How do you actually subscribe to subreddits you want to subscribe to and unsubscribe from ... ?

 

[yield]

Mark Zuckerberg’s “Metaverse” Is a Dystopian Nightmare

The Facebook founder intends to usher in a new era of the internet where there’s no distinction between the virtual and the real — and no logging off.

jacobinmag.com

The term Metaverse first appears in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash, which follows the futuristic adventures of Hiro, a pizza delivery driver for the Mafia who moonlights as a hacker, immersed in what’s described as “a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones.”

The book has long been a Bible for the priests of high tech. Stephenson is revered as a prophet, credited for inventing the concepts of avatars and cryptocurrency in addition to the Metaverse. Snow Crash was once required reading for Facebook’s management team. Stephenson was befriended by Bezos and hired by the augmented reality company Magic Leap in 2014 to help actually build the Metaverse.

Apparently, no one in Silicon Valley has a sense of irony. Snow Crash is a dystopian novel, not a utopian one.

 

[magneze]

There's 4 podcasts that go into the WSJ investigation here:

The Facebook Files, a Podcast Series

The Facebook Files, an investigative podcast series, dives into an extensive array of internal Facebook documents that provide an unparalleled look inside the social media giant.

www.wsj.com

It's interesting stuff and seems to be proving at least as much of an issue for Facebook as Cambridge Analytica was. Time will tell if anything actually changes though ..

 

[rubbershoes]

My current peeve with FB is that the people it suggests as friends to me are all anti vaxx loons. I wouldn't ever friend someone I didn't know and don't even check out their profiles. The banners on their profiles are often about freedom or immune systems and are enough of a clue that they're nutters. But I don't read anti vaxx stuff online so I don't know why FB thinks I'd be interested in their ilk.

 

[paul mckenna]

How do you actually subscribe to subreddits you want to subscribe to and unsubscribe from ... ?

hit the Join button i think ?

 

[paul mckenna]

It's too late in the game now for competition but FB's social graph isn't actually that hard to replicate - it's basically your phonebook and there are ways of slurping that up. Twitter's social graph is the valuable data as that is people you've chosen to follow

 

[yield]

Twitter's social graph is the valuable data as that is people you've chosen to follow

Facebook own Instagram and WhatsApp as well

 

[magneze]

It's too late in the game now for competition.

TikTok, Snapchat, etc etc. The tech industry is littered with companies that thought they were invincible. Facebook certainly don't think they are - see the purchases of Instagram & WhatsApp.

In other news:

Facebook whistleblower to claim company contributed to Capitol attack

Former employee is set to air her claims and reveal her identity in an interview airing Sunday night on CBS 60 Minutes

www.theguardian.com

Nick Clegg says it's 'misleading'. So probably 100% true.

 

[magneze]

While the company repeatedly claims it is helping stop hate speech, at least on its own products, one internal Facebook document leaked by Haugen says, “We estimate that we may action as little as 3-5% of hate and ~0.6% of V&I [Violence and Incitement] on Facebook despite being the best in the world at it.”

Another document was even more blunt. “We have evidence from a variety of sources that hate speech, divisive political speech, and misinformation on Facebook and the family of apps are affecting societies around the world.”

Haugen claims the root of the problem is the algorithims rolled out in 2018 that govern what you see on the platform. According to her they are meant to drive engagement and the company has found that the best engagement is the kind instilling fear and hate in users. “Its easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions,” Hagen said.

Facebook encourages hate speech for profit, says whistleblower

The whistleblower made numerous bombshell allegations to 60 Minutes

www.theverge.com

 

[magneze]

... and an interesting development for those who believe TINA:

Tim Berners-Lee and the BBC stage in data privacy project

Terms and conditions apply, and that’s a good thing

www.theregister.com

 

[existentialist]

... and an interesting development for those who believe TINA:

Tim Berners-Lee and the BBC stage in data privacy project

Terms and conditions apply, and that’s a good thing

www.theregister.com

I spent a happy year or two working alongside the BBC R&D bods, and they do some very interesting stuff. This sounds like a bit of a departure, though...

 

[magneze]

I spent a happy year or two working alongside the BBC R&D bods, and they do some very interesting stuff. This sounds like a bit of a departure, though...

It's interesting to see the BBC putting some practical bones on some of the theory here. Unsurprisingly for anyone who has followed Tim Berners-Lee recently, this is based on Home · Solid which is theoretically great but no-one will use it without some kind of practical application.

Another good question is where a personal data store (or pod in Solid parlance) could reside.

 

[On Fire]

Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram back after outage

Facebook says the outage, which lasted nearly six hours, was caused by a faulty configuration change.

www.bbc.co.uk