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another paper on exploitation suggested by Savvas

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SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research

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Subscription and open access journals from SAGE Publishing, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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paper on exploitation suggested by Savvas

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The Valorization of Surveillance: Towards a Political Economy of Facebook | Cohen | Democratic Communiqué

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The Valorization of Surveillance: Towards a Political Economy of Facebook

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/05/01/facebook-exploited-emotionally-vulnerable-teenagers-sell-adverts/

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Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, flickr, Tumblr, LinkedIn, etc. (the list could go on and on) are all well-known social networking sites. They have all become popular communications media for the vast majority of people. Take a minute to think about what some of these sites might say or what information they might have about you.

Got it?

Now think about that information and if someone with malicious intent might be able to use it against you. Below is a quick list I created concerning typical information from these sites:

All of the items listed above could be used to create a profile and potentially exploit you or a loved one. When I say exploit, I mean someone looking to harm you could use that information in a phishing email, letter, phone call and so on, or even to find or stalk you. Think about those targeted junk emails or advertisement phone calls you may have received that are specific to something about you. They could have taken that information from a public social media site. Kind of a scary thought, isn't it?

You might be asking yourself, "Why is someone trying to scare me about using social media?" An average social media user might not see the harm in letting the world know what they like. Not knowing the risks involved in using social media, leaves a user open to exploitation.
How social media can be used against you
Around the holidays, my dental hygienist was asking how she could protect herself against someone stealing her passwords. My first question was, "how complicated is your password?" Her response was "I think it's OK," which prompted a few additional questions:

Is your password comprised of your kids' names, birthdays and so on?

Did you include your maiden name or birthday?

Did you use a name or title of where you live, work or travel?

The look on her face was priceless, because I had identified parts of her password without even really knowing her. The information that I asked about is almost always part of an online profile that just about anyone can see, especially if a profile isn't private. I later described to her some password tips, such as not using words which appear in the dictionary, and using a mixture of letters, numbers and symbols. Most importantly, I told her to not use information someone can obtain from social media profiles.

Another example of how easily information you share in social media can be exploited, is from a show called Mr. Robot from USA Network. The show has a couple of different themes, but the main character is a hacker who does some questionable things (although with good intentions) by night, and by day works at an information technology company. What caught my eye was how accurate the hacking and forensic pieces were. It gives basic users an idea of how information on a social networking site might be used against them.

In one of the episodes, the main character uses his skills and information obtained from social networking sites to profile the person he was targeting. He used that information to gain access to a user's email, credit cards and phone. For the hacker, this was just information gathering, research, if you will. It was just one example that the show used, but it might be the greatest representation of how a hacker goes about getting information.

Another example that the show uses is when the hacker is trying to break into a secured location. The hacker does his research on a couple of employees within the company. He uses information from a person's Facebook page to get them out of the way. For one of the employees, he finds out their significant other is pregnant, so sends them a text that that person is in labor. For the other employee, he uses personal information found on social media to get past their defenses and let them into the secured location. Talk about social engineering.

These examples show seemingly harmless information being used to help the hacker reach his ultimate goal and in turn shows us to protect ourselves on social media sites.

Social media exploitation is very scary and very real. There are so many examples of how hackers use these networks to get information about their targets. As we continue to grow in this digital age, and use more and more sites that require personal information, users need to be aware and use caution about what type of information they are sharing.
References: http://www.usanetwork.com/mrrobot
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Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, flickr, Tumblr, LinkedIn, etc. (the list could go on and on) are all well-known social networking sites. They have all become popular communications media for the vast majority of people. Take a minute to think about what some of these sites might say or what information they might have about you.

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Facebook's founders knew they were creating something addictive that exploited "a vulnerability in human psychology" from the outset, according to the company's founding president Sean Parker.

Parker, whose stake in Facebook made him a billionaire, criticized the social networking giant at an Axios event in Philadelphia this week. Now the founder and chair of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Parker was there to speak about advances in cancer therapies. However, he took the time to provide some insight into the early thinking at Facebook at a time when social media companies face intense scrutiny from lawmakers over their power and influence.

Parker described how in the early days of Facebook people would tell him they weren't on social media because they valued their real-life interactions.

"And I would say, 'OK. You know, you will be,'" he said.

"I don't know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying," he added, pointing to "unintended consequences" that arise when a network grows to have more than 2 billion users.

"It literally changes your relationship with society, with each other. It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains," he said.

He explained that when Facebook was being developed the objective was: "How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?" It was this mindset that led to the creation of features such as the "like" button that would give users "a little dopamine hit" to encourage them to upload more content.

"It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology."

Parker, who previously founded the file-sharing site Napster, joined the Facebook team in 2004 five months after the site had launched as a student directory at Harvard. Parker saw the site's potential and was, according to Zuckerberg, "pivotal in helping Facebook transform from a college project into a real company".

In 2005, police found cocaine in a vacation home Parker was renting and he was arrested on suspicion of possession of a schedule 1 substance. He wasn't charged, but the arrest rattled investors and he resigned shortly after.

Thanks mostly to his brief stint at Facebook, Parker's net worth is estimated to be more than $2.6bn. He set up the Parker Foundation in June 2015 to use some of his wealth to support "large-scale systemic change" in life sciences, global public health and civic engagement.

Parker is not the only Silicon Valley entrepreneur to express regret over the technologies he helped to develop. The former Googler Tristan Harris is one of several techies interviewed by the Guardian in October to criticize the industry.

"All of us are jacked into this system," he said. "All of our minds can be hijacked. Our choices are not as free as we think they are."

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Ex-Facebook president Sean Parker: site made to exploit human 'vulnerability'

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Facebook's founders knew they were creating something addictive that exploited "a vulnerability in human psychology" from the outset, according to the company's founding president Sean Parker. Parker, whose stake in Facebook made him a billionaire, criticized the social networking giant at an Axios event in Philadelphia this week.

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Sean Parker told Axios in an interview that the goal of Facebook is: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible'

He went on to state that this is achieved by exploiting human weakness and creating a 'social-validation feedback loop'

'And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo,' explained Parker

He said he now considers himself a 'conscientious objector' to social media, despite most of his $2.4 billion fortune coming from Facebook

One of the biggest names in Silicon Valley criticized Facebook and other social media sites in an interview with Axios earlier this week.

Sean Parker said that people like himself and Mark Zuckerberg had just one goal it mind when it came to these platforms: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible'

The answer, according to Parker, was by exploiting human weakness.

Parker said that he now sees himself as 'something of a conscientious objector' to social media, despite the fact that he owes most of his massive $2.4 billion fortune to his involvement with Facebook.

He also joked that Mark Zuckerberg would probably end up blocking him in the wake of his comments.

Parker said that he and people like Zuckerberg realized they could keep their users engaged by 'exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology' and creating 'a social-validation feedback loop.'

He explained: 'And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you ... more likes and comments.'

Parker, who now has two children, said: 'It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains.'

Parker seemed to suggest that he now regrets his involvement with Facebook during his remarks in Philadelphia.

'When Facebook was getting going, I had these people who would come up to me and they would say, "I'm not on social media." And I would say, "OK. You know, you will be." And then they would say, "No, no, no. I value my real-life interactions. I value the moment. I value presence. I value intimacy.' And I would say, "We'll get you eventually,"' said Parker.

He later added that the size and scope of Facebook's audience 'literally changes your relationship with society,' noting the now 2 billion users on the social network.

The billionaire recently founded the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

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Facebook exploits human weakness says Sean Parker

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Sean Parker told Axios in an interview that the goal of Facebook is: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible' He went on to state that this is achieved by exploiting human weakness and creating a 'social-validation feedback loop' 'And that means that

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FACEBOOK EXPLOITING USERS

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'Facebook advances an ideology of liking in the form of its "Like button". For a long time, it was only possible to like pages and postings, but not to dislike them. Facebook wants to spread an affirmative atmosphere, in which people only agree and do not disagree or express discontent and disagreement. It was a common long term criticism of Facebook that users complained about the one-dimensionality of the like button.' chapter 7.3 in Social Media: A Critical Introduction

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But who is Mark Zuckerberg? What drives him? Jewish raised, he now describes himself as an atheist - before he dropped out of Harvard he was studying computer science and psychology. He was known for his love of classics, reciting the Aeneid and the Iliad at meetings. His portrayal on film in The Social Network has been criticised by friends for depicting him as nasty and sarcastic, when he's more likely to be funny or earnest. Like Bill Gates, he has signed "The Giving Pledge", promising to donate at least half his fortune over the course of his lifetime. He was named "The Most Generous American" of 2013 by The Chronicle of Philanthropy for giving away so much already, including making the largest single donation of the year. It is unlikely that anyone has ever earned - or given away - as much as Zuckerberg has, as quickly.

As Ezra Callahan - one of Facebook's earliest employees - wrote on the online question answering service Quora, Zuckerberg's motivation has not appeared material. "He lived an absurdly spartan lifestyle. Well after the point that Facebook's valuation passed $1 billion, Mark still lived in a small, c----y apartment and slept on a mattress on the floor. All he really cared about was work and he spent most of his waking hours at the office, so it didn't seem to matter much to him to furnish his apartment or spend money on much of anything (food, clothes ... anything really). He didn't move into a real house until just a couple [of] years ago when Facebook's security team and advisers more or less forced him."

And yet there is another Zuckerberg, too: ferociously ambitious, if primarily for his platform, keen to make money even if he continues to live modestly. In the deals he has made so far, whether it is for photo-sharing service Instagram - a mere $1 billion, that one - or for WhatsApp, he has conducted negotiations himself, and has presented them to Facebook's board as what some describe as a fait accompli. If it's not arrogance, it is at least a certainty of vision. He has changed the world already, and wants to do so further.

That sense of purpose aims to make Facebook not just a website, but, for many, all the web they will ever need. In developing countries, where the latest smartphones are catching up fast, a special version of Facebook connects even the poorest people. Zuckerberg knows that by connecting them to each other he is empowering them to make better lives, but he is also unlocking the world's next great market. For many people, viewing the internet only via a telephone, Facebook will be their first and main interface with the online world. New features will enable shopping and networking on a scale that will change economies and countries more fundamentally than any industrial revolution. That, in sum, is Facebook's reach. Although Zuckerberg has been eager to condemn the US government's spying on users, and he routinely sits at the same table as presidents, his company has ambitions that go beyond mere countries. With more than 1.2 billion users, its founder wields the kind of "soft" power of which a politician can but dream.

The question, however, is just what he would like to do with it. Thus far he has taken a gentle, pragmatic approach: what good he has done has come largely from his philanthropy, rather than from the direct work of Facebook. In fact the site's laissez faire approach to free speech, allowing depictions of beheadings to persist online, has enraged some, while it has also allowed others to share such images just so they might be more widely condemned.

"Mark's main motivations were pretty clearly based around materially changing the world and building technology that was used by everyone on the planet," wrote Callahan, that early employee. "My impression back then was that if he had to choose, he'd rather be the most important/influential person in the world rather than the richest. Even today, while Facebook makes a ton of money, it could probably make magnitudes more if that were its primary goal."

Zuckerberg has even said that the only reason Facebook is a corporation rather than a charity is because corporate reward is the best motivator of human beings. "We make money to build better services," he wrote in the prospectus when Facebook went public.

It would be naïve to think Zuckerberg has no interest in making money. But it would be cartoonish to think it is his only motivation either. Thanks to Facebook's scale and its ambition, the site he built has more in common with a country than a traditional business. Zuckerberg, indeed, has built a world power - even if he has yet to articulate precisely what he wants to do with it. And, thanks to that scale, it's doubtful whether he could do precisely what he wished, anyway.

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But who is Mark Zuckerberg? What drives him? Jewish raised, he now describes himself as an atheist - before he dropped out of Harvard he was studying computer science and psychology. He was known for his love of classics, reciting the Aeneid and the Iliad at meetings.

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"The goal of the company is to help people to share more in order to make the world more open and to help promote understanding between people." --- hiding their commercial interests ideologically behind the ideas of sharing and openness.' Social Media: A Critical Introduction - The contradictions of privacy in capitalism: Facebook and Google

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Sometimes the most obvious solutions might be the best. While the U.S. wrings its hands over what to do with online haters and abusers on social media, other countries have a more direct approach: throw the book at them. That's effectively the U.K.'s new approach, which will now treat online "hate crime" as seriously as offenses carried out in real life.

The U.K.'s director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, said the Crown Prosecution Service, which prosecutes criminals for the state, will ask courts to consider tougher penalties for those who use social platforms like Twitter, Facebook and others to hurl abuse at people. The new plans do not require Parliament to pass new legislation. And, for once, this doesn't involve the government hurling abuse at the social platforms themselves.

The innovation, if you want to think of it in that way, is mainly to do with the U.K.'s interpretation of free speech. In the U.S., the first amendment allows you to say basically anything, as long as it's not immediately dangerous or directly threatening to someone. That means you can burn a cross or two, or walk around shouting racist slogans, so long as no one gets hurt at the time. Paradoxically, no connection is made between that and any real-world consequences, and the law has never been updated for the rapid spread of these ideas through radio, TV or the internet.

In the U.K. that just doesn't wash. So, for instance, there's a law against "incitement to racial hatred," which is a criminal offense. The new CPS rules mean that the law now applies to anything said online, as well as offline. There also is a law against "incitement to religious hatred," in case you were wondering.

Writing in the Guardian, Saunders said: "Left unchallenged, even low-level offending can subsequently fuel the kind of dangerous hostility that has been plastered across our media in recent days." That is why countering it is a priority for the CPS. "Whether shouted in their face on the street, daubed on a wall or tweeted into their living room, hateful abuse can have a devastating impact on victims."

She referred specifically to the extremist hate seen in Charlottesville in the United States recently, saying the new rules were needed because there is a direct correlation between online abuse and violence.

Saunders said the new plans were based on the growing need to protect those online from crimes such as abuse, as people spend an increasing proportion of their lives on the internet. In addition, there is a realization that abuse in the virtual world has real-world consequences, with the spreading of fear online resulting in acts of physical violence.

In a world of grotesque physical attacks that may appear a heavy-handed approach to some. But perhaps we should ask the question, what is it that the perpetrators seek to achieve? One common thread that links online purveyors of hate with those who commit physical hate crimes or real-world terrorists is "the desire to undermine and instil fear in those they target," both individually and collectively in their communities, because of their characteristics, be that "race, religion, gender, sexuality and even disability," she wrote.

The CPS intends for the new guidance to generate more prosecutions, with longer sentences for those convicted, thus leading to some level of prevention.

The new guidance covers hate crime pertaining to race, religion, disability and crimes that are homophobic, biphobic and transphobic.

Government figures have shown a 20 percent rise in hate crimes reported to the U.K. police in the first quarter this year, and these figures are considered to be highly under-reported.

The U.K. is perhaps heading in the direction of Germany.

Public displays of Nazi and Communist symbols are banned in Germany, and Holocaust denial is punishable by up to five years in prison. Inciting hatred or violence against anyone for their ethnic or religious identity is also a crime.

In July, German government officials ordered the police to carry out a nationwide crackdown on racist or xenophobic social postings. They raided the homes of 36 people suspected of being behind the posts, but no arrests were made.

Germany also has approved a new bill that punishes social networking sites if they fail to swiftly remove illegal content such as hate speech or defamatory fake news. If infracted, the laws impose fines of up to 50 million euros ($53.4 million) on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Germany's latest solution is much more heavy-handed on tech platforms, when it seems smarter to simply remind people to be respectful of each other's views and ask them to debate in a civilized manner. And if they can't do that, then they can go to jail. Or perhaps that's too much to ask these days?

Featured Image: TechCrunch

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Online hate crime to be treated the same as face-to-face crime in the UK

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Sometimes the most obvious solutions might be the best. While the U.S. wrings its hands over what to do with online haters and abusers on social media, other countries have a more direct approach: throw the book at them. That's effectively the U.K.'s new approach, which will now treat online "hate crime" as seriously as offenses carried out in real life.

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Last Updated: October 12, 2017

Facebook's News Feed algorithm is in a constant state of flux. In the below timeline, we mark the major changes both marketers and businesses need to be aware of. With Facebook's 1.98 billion monthly active users, it continues to be critical for businesses to have a presence on the platform.

If your company needs help staying up to date with the newest Facebook trends or maximizing its reach on the network, give us a call and we can schedule a no-cost consultation!

How Facebook Algorithm Changes Affect Marketers

Along with Facebook's ever-evolving algorithm changes, the digital marketing opportunities have increased as well. As the News Feed was introduced and updated, advertising increasingly found its way into users' News Feeds. Now, whenever a user brings up their News Feed, Facebook's algorithm determines which advertisements are best catered to the user based on their Likes, Reactions, listed interests, and interaction with other Pages. This means that in order to fully take advantage of advertising through Facebook, marketers must create their ads with a focused and targeted audience campaign. Marketers will also determine the amount they are willing to spend on their ads which will directly affect the probability that their ad will reach the intended audiences.

Users are now able to dictate which ads they want to see on their News Feed. If a user hides an ad from their feed, they are essentially telling Facebook that that ad does not apply to them. Facebook is more engaged to considering user feedback concerning ads which will ultimately lead to more ads users want to see and less ads that are not applicable. What this means for marketers is that their ads will more likely reach the audience that wants to see those types of ads, which should inevitably lead to more interaction and conversion rates.

What Marketers Need To Know About Advertising Through Facebook In 2017

Advertising through Facebook will continue to evolve just as it always has in the past. What marketers need to know going forward in 2017 is that engaged conversations will get their posts and advertisements shown more regularly in others' News Feeds. Also, News Feed will begin weighing Reactions more than Likes on a post or ad. This increases the need for quality content that will make users want to engage in the conversation. Your post has the ability to recycle through News Feeds as users comment and interact causing more and more users and friends of friends to see the post.

Mobile devices are now more popular than ever, especially when it comes to interacting on Facebook. Marketers not only need to worry about producing quality content, but they must make sure that anything they post (including links to articles) must be optimized for mobile devices.

One of the most important things marketers must do is stay up-to-date with every algorithm change. What worked in the past does not necessarily work now, and what works now may not work in the future. Stay current on how social media evolves and be prepared to evolve with it.

Sources

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Last Updated: October 12, 2017 Facebook's News Feed algorithm is in a constant state of flux. In the below timeline, we mark the major changes both marketers and businesses need to be aware of. With Facebook's 1.98 billion monthly active users, it continues to be critical for businesses to have a presence on the platform.

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Social media and young people's mental health and wellbeing

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RSPH and the Young Health Movement have published a new report, #StatusOfMind, examining the positive and negative effects of social media on young people's health.

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Four of the five most popular forms of social media harm young people's mental health, with Instagram the most damaging, according to research by two health organisations.

Instagram has the most negative impact on young people's mental wellbeing, a survey of almost 1,500 14- to 24-year-olds found, and the health groups accused it of deepening young people's feelings of inadequacy and anxiety.

The survey, published on Friday, concluded that Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter are also harmful. Among the five only YouTube was judged to have a positive impact.

The four platforms have a negative effect because they can exacerbate children's and young people's body image worries, and worsen bullying, sleep problems and feelings of anxiety, depression and loneliness, the participants said.

The findings follow growing concern among politicians, health bodies, doctors, charities and parents about young people suffering harm as a result of sexting, cyberbullying and social media reinforcing feelings of self-loathing and even the risk of them committing suicide.

"It's interesting to see Instagram and Snapchat ranking as the worst for mental health and wellbeing. Both platforms are very image-focused and it appears that they may be driving feelings of inadequacy and anxiety in young people," said Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health, which undertook the survey with the Young Health Movement.

She demanded tough measures "to make social media less of a wild west when it comes to young people's mental health and wellbeing". Social media firms should bring in a pop-up image to warn young people that they have been using it a lot, while Instagram and similar platforms should alert users when photographs of people have been digitally manipulated, Cramer said.

The 1,479 young people surveyed were asked to rate the impact of the five forms of social media on 14 different criteria of health and wellbeing, including their effect on sleep, anxiety, depression, loneliness, self-identity, bullying, body image and the fear of missing out.

Instagram emerged with the most negative score. It rated badly for seven of the 14 measures, particularly its impact on sleep, body image and fear of missing out - and also for bullying and feelings of anxiety, depression and loneliness. However, young people cited its upsides too, including self-expression, self-identity and emotional support.

YouTube scored very badly for its impact on sleep but positively in nine of the 14 categories, notably awareness and understanding of other people's health experience, self-expression, loneliness, depression and emotional support.

However, the leader of the UK's psychiatrists said the findings were too simplistic and unfairly blamed social media for the complex reasons why the mental health of so many young people is suffering.

Prof Sir Simon Wessely, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "I am sure that social media plays a role in unhappiness, but it has as many benefits as it does negatives.. We need to teach children how to cope with all aspects of social media - good and bad - to prepare them for an increasingly digitised world. There is real danger in blaming the medium for the message."

Young Minds, the charity which Theresa May visited last week on a campaign stop, backed the call for Instagram and other platforms to take further steps to protect young users.

Tom Madders, its director of campaigns and communications, said: "Prompting young people about heavy usage and signposting to support they may need, on a platform that they identify with, could help many young people."

However, he also urged caution in how content accessed by young people on social media is perceived. "It's also important to recognise that simply 'protecting' young people from particular content types can never be the whole solution. We need to support young people so they understand the risks of how they behave online, and are empowered to make sense of and know how to respond to harmful content that slips through filters."

Parents and mental health experts fear that platforms such as Instagram can make young users feel worried and inadequate by facilitating hostile comments about their appearance or reminding them that they have not been invited to, for example, a party many of their peers are attending.

May, who has made children's mental health one of her priorities, highlighted social media's damaging effects in her "shared society" speech in January, saying: "We know that the use of social media brings additional concerns and challenges. In 2014, just over one in 10 young people said that they had experienced cyberbullying by phone or over the internet."

In February, Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, warned social media and technology firms that they could face sanctions, including through legislation, unless they did more to tackle sexting, cyberbullying and the trolling of young users.

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Facebook and Twitter 'harm young people's mental health'

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Poll of 14- to 24-year-olds shows Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter increased feelings of inadequacy and anxiety

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I wouldn't call it an outright lie but my postings on Facebook do not exactly reflect the reality of my life. They do, however, reflect an idealized version of my life - if you have your beer goggles on and use your imagination.
Food Pictures
Take this picture that I posted on Facebook, for example. I made this Spiral Vegetable Tart all by myself (and then photographed the hell out of it before I let anyone have a bite). That is the truth. And then I shredded the recipe and drove my SUV over the pan in the driveway so I'd never have to suffer through making it again. All those damned parboiled strips of vegetables. They were all over the kitchen and the floor. Damned thing took forever to assemble.

But the veggie tart actually tasted good and I have been asked by various family members to make it again. Which I did, only without the spiraling part. Tasted just as good but I didn't post this picture on Facebook.
My Garden and Plants
You'd think from the pictures I post on Facebook that I have such a green thumb!

Not so! That one plant is still alive but for my other plants, the reality is less impressive unless you are impressed by plants that are largely denuded.
Photos of Me
Ha! You won't see many of these because I don't like looking my age. So I post photos of my dog instead.
Family Vacations
I can always manage to find a few pictures of my family enjoying a vacation while avoiding posting the pictures of jet-lagged children whining about being dragged to see yet another museum full of boring paintings. But you won't see on my Facebook page any of the hotels that I booked without doing adequate research (because I was too busy coiling vegetables into Dante's Inferno tarts).

And you won't see any postings from me on Facebook showing the hotel beach with the barbed wire fences running the length of the property down to the water. That kinda kills the relaxing beach vibe.

You'll just see photos of the time I got it right.
Pearls of Wisdom
Pearls of Wisdom I can post with wild abandon! Save the [some good thing]! Stop the [some bad thing]! Do something today that your future self will thank you for! I don't even know what that means. Yet another lie, most likely, as I may not always take my own advice. I may do nothing today that my future self will thank me for unless my future self thanks me for the yummy wine that I enjoyed tonight that reduced my stress today.
Cute Pet Photos
My handsome black lab doesn't have to do anything to look terrific on Facebook but I have a compulsion to somehow make the photos funnier so I hang signs around his neck as if he is thinking what it says on the sign. Amuses the hell out of me. But it's a lie. He's not a thinker. He's an eater.

So as of right now, I am vowing to reform and be more HONEST on Facebook.

Here we go: This is a picture of me in my new bikini!

Ooops! No no no. That's a dessert I made.

OK. I bought it.

Nevermind!

Photos courtesy of the author.

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I wouldn't call it an outright lie but my postings on Facebook do not exactly reflect the reality of my life. They do, however, reflect an idealized version of my life - if you have your beer goggles on and use your imagination. Food Pictures Take this picture that I posted on Facebook, for example.

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The Ethnographic Use of Facebook in Everyday Life

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Facebook

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sourced from google dictionary

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sourced from google dictionary

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This is Official Facebook Advertisement. and it is amazing and full HD. All The Rights go to Facebook.

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So what is the politics of, say, Facebook? I guess is it essentially classically liberal – generally, it likes to give a platform for free speech, and favours the free market. It is dotcom neoliberalism, cyber hipster libertarianism, that some theorists have labelled “the Californian ideology“.

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So what is the politics of, say, Facebook? I guess is it essentially classically liberal – generally, it likes to give a platform for free speech, and favours the free market. It is dotcom neoliberalism, cyber hipster libertarianism, that some theorists have labelled “the Californian ideology“.

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A social network isn’t a neutral space. It is designed for a purpose, and that purpose is ideological... (Graham et al., 2017)

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A social network isn’t a neutral space. It is designed for a purpose, and that purpose is ideological... (Graham et al., 2017)

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Pew Research Center's Journalism Project

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The advent of social media has opened up new ways for people with similar interests to find, share and talk about news - including news about politics - with friends and colleagues.

Facebook is now a widely-used source for news about government and politics. Nearly half (48%) of the panelists say they accessed news about politics and government on Facebook in the past week, about as many as got news about these topics from local TV (49%). (Note that this survey is representative of the 89% of Americans who have access to the internet. Based on the full population, somewhat fewer-39%-get news from Facebook in a typical week.)

As a platform that links to content from many different sources, Facebook draws about twice as many political news consumers among web users as the aggregation sites Yahoo News (24% in the past week) or Google News (22%). And Facebook far surpasses other social media sites, such as YouTube and Twitter, as a source for news about politics and government. Just 14% say they got political news in the past week from YouTube, 9% from Twitter, 6% from Google Plus and 3% from LinkedIn.

In part, this stems from Facebook's broad reach; it is by far the largest social media platform. Fully 77% of web panelists use Facebook. That compares with 63% who use YouTube and much smaller shares who use Twitter (21%), Google Plus (24%) or LinkedIn (25%).

But even holding its more widespread use constant, a greater portion of Facebook's audience gets political news there than is true for other social networks - 62%. That compares with 40% of all Twitter users, about a quarter of those on YouTube (22%) or Google Plus (25%) and just 12% of LinkedIn users .

As Pew Research found in a 2013 study of the role of news on Facebook, not all of these users are specifically seeking out political news when they log on to the site, but they nonetheless come across it in the mix of posts shared by those in their feed.

One unique feature of social media is how the political news you see is impacted by your choice of friends and your past behavior on the site. Each individual sees a different mix of content, depending on who is in his or her feed, as well as the kinds of posts he or she has responded to in the past. So when it comes to politics, a common question to ask is the degree to which people create circles of friends that reflect their own ideological views. The evidence suggests that while nearly all users get a mix of views, those with stronger ideological tendencies are more likely to surround themselves with like-minded opinions.

Overall, consistent conservatives are somewhat less likely than consistent liberals to get government and political news on Facebook or Twitter, primarily because they are somewhat less likely to use the sites in the first place. About half (49%) of consistent liberals (and a similar share of those with mixed ideological views) say they got news about government and politics in the past week from Facebook, compared with 40% of consistent conservatives. And while 13% of consistent liberals say they got political news on Twitter in the past week, just 5% of consistent conservatives (and 8% of groups in between) say the same.

The data also find that those who use social networking sites for news about government and politics are also getting this news through other channels at the same time. Respondents who got political news on at least one social networking site in the past week got such news from an average of 4.8 other news sources as well ( out of the list of 37 asked about), similar to their peers who don't learn about politics through social networks. (For further evidence of this phenomenon, see 2013 Facebook and News report.)

Looking Deeper at Facebook Habits by Ideology

At the same time that consistent conservatives are less likely to use Facebook than other groups, those who do use it are highly engaged with political news. Two-thirds of consistent conservatives who see political posts on Facebook pay "a lot" of (19%) or "some" attention (47%) to those posts. Similarly, six-in-ten consistent liberals who see political posts on Facebook pay "a lot" of (14%) or "some" (46%) attention.

But as with interest in political news from traditional media sources, there is a "U-shaped" pattern in how ideological groups engage with political news on Facebook. Smaller shares of those who are less ideologically consistent pay attention to Facebook posts about government and politics than those with stronger ideological ties. These middle groups are about half as likely to pay a lot of attention to political posts.

Overall, those who see posts about politics on Facebook are exposed to a variety of views. Only about a quarter of those who pay attention to these posts say the posts they see are nearly always (2%) or mostly (21%) in line with their own political views. A 62% majority of these users see political content in line with their views "some of the time," while just 13% say they see such posts "not too often."

But consistent conservatives and, to a lesser extent, consistent liberals are much more likely to be exposed to views similar to their own. Among those who pay attention to posts about politics, nearly half of consistent conservatives (47%) say the opinions they see are mostly or always in line with their own views; among consistent liberals, about one-in-three (32%) say the same.

Among mostly conservative Facebook users who pay attention to political posts, 28% say the posts they see are always or mostly in line with their own political views. Those with mostly liberal views (13%) and mixed ideological views (17%) are the least likely to see like-minded posts about politics.

And how do different groups respond to political views with which they disagree? About one-in-four (26%) Facebook users have hidden, blocked, defriended or stopped following someone on a social networking site based on disagreements over political posts. While consistent conservatives are the most likely to see Facebook posts in line with their political views, consistent liberals are the most likely to block others on social networking sites because they disagree with their content.

More than four-in-ten consistent liberals who use Facebook (44%) say they have blocked someone on a social networking site because of a political post. Consistent conservatives are less likely to have done this (31%), as are those with more mixed ideological views (about two-in-ten).

Beyond personal friends and colleagues, what kinds of groups and organizations do these news consumers on Facebook follow? Among those who pay at least some attention to politics on Facebook, about three-in-ten (29%) "like" or otherwise follow political parties, candidates or elected officials. A somewhat greater share of users follows news organizations, reporters or commentators (36%), and about four-in-ten (41%) follow issue-based groups on Facebook.

Of those paying attention to political posts, the two most ideologically consistent groups are about twice as likely as those with mixed views to follow political parties, candidates or elected officials. About half of consistent conservatives (49%) and 42% of consistent liberals "like" or follow parties, candidates or officials, compared with three-in-ten or fewer of those with more mixed ideologies.

Consistent liberals on Facebook are the ideological group most likely to follow issue-based organizations: 60% of those who pay some attention to political posts follow such a group, compared with 46% of consistent conservatives.

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Section 2: Social Media, Political News and Ideology

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The advent of social media has opened up new ways for people with similar interests to find, share and talk about news - including news about politics - with friends and colleagues. Facebook is now a widely-used source for news about government and politics.

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In our offline lives, people tend to surround themselves with others who share their beliefs, thoughts and feelings. Sure, your family or coworkers may not share your exact ideology, but we tend to gravitate toward people who think like us. Online, ideologically insulating yourself is even easier-on social networks, you may very rarely bump into ideas and thoughts you disagree with.

This political polarization could be partly Facebook's doing. After all, its algorithms are fine-tuned to show us content we're going to love. But it could also be our own doing because we don't seek out or click on stories that conflict with our beliefs. So who's to blame, the social network or the social networker?

A new study out today conducted by information scientists at Facebook has tried to answer the question of how much we make these ideological bubbles ourselves-and how much of it is created by Facebook. By parsing through the data of 10 million Facebook users in the US, the scientists found that Facebook's News Feed algorithm modestly decreases the amount of politically discordant links and articles you'll see and click on-by about 5 to 8 percent, depending on your political ideology. But we're isolating ourselves to a much larger degree, the scientists found.

"You have to occasionally engage with people with different views to understand them."

"There's a growing concern that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow us to more precisely engineer our informational environments than ever before, so we only get info that's consistent with our prior beliefs," says David Lazer, a political and computer scientist at Northeastern University who authored a commentary on the paper in the journal Science.

"The issue is that, in a democracy like ours, occasionally bumping into opposing points of view is a good thing. You have to occasionally engage with people with different views to understand them... rather than demonize them."

In the study, a trio of information scientists at Facebook analyzed the linking, clicking, and viewing data of 10 million Facebook users in the U.S. who publically share their political ideology. Dissecting this data, the scientists immediately identified an ideological bias across friendships. Only 20 percent of a self-described conservative's friends were, on average, liberal-leaning. And the same was true vice-versa. (Not a big surprise to many Facebook users.)

The researcher's second step was to see which news websites were shared by left- or right-leaning users, and rank those websites accordingly. They found that websites like Fox News were shared largely by conservative users, and sites like The Huffington Post by liberal ones. Again, no surprise there. (Lazer notes a possible issue with this website-wide ranking system: "A conservative Op-Ed on The New York Times, which was found to be modestly left-leaning, would be considered liberal," he says.)

Having ranked each website, the Facebook researchers could see how often users clicked on links to sites with political views different from their own. They also tracked how the site's newsfeed algorithm impacted users' ability to see or click politically-challenging links. "Many people may not realize it, but Facebook sorts what you'll see, to keep people engaged," Lazer says. "If you saw everything all your friends posted on Facebook, I guarantee you it would be deadly boring."

"In a democracy like ours, occasionally bumping into opposing points of view is a good thing."

The Facebook researchers found that people largely created their ideological bubbles by themselves-without any help from the algorithm, they ignored or scrolled over stories from sites they'd tend to disagree with. But Facebook's behind-the-scenes curating still had an effect: causing people to see roughly 5 to 8 percent fewer ideologically discordant stories.

The algorithm's added effect might be small, Lazer says. But it shouldn't be ignored. These personalized algorithms "have largely invisibly permeated our virtual world," Lazer says. Lazer notes that Facebook's social algorithms are constantly changing (including a big update last month) and such changes could drastically increase or decrease this ideological bubble effect.

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Facebook: You're the Reason Your Feed is an Echo Chamber

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In our offline lives, people tend to surround themselves with others who share their beliefs, thoughts and feelings. Sure, your family or coworkers may not share your exact ideology, but we tend to gravitate toward people who think like us.

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Facebook allegedly helped advertisers with targeting the 2016 election season by offering a template of how it perceives the U.S. electorate is ideologically split.

Using its own demographic data, the social media company turned tech conglomerate broke down the American populace into 14 segments, and included descriptors based on race and religion, according to a BuzzFeed News report. The finding, if legitimate, shows that Facebook's outreach for advertising is quite robust since it reportedly provided advertisers precise areas to target, and what the personal characteristics of those sectors mean for marketing aims.

On the "Very Liberal" end of the "US Political Segmentation 2016" chart, for example, a section titled "Youthful Urbanites" lists "561,000 Hispanic and "1.6M AA" (presumably Asian-American). Interests for that roughly 10.2 million person subdivision, according to Facebook's purported blueprint, are "comedy TV" and boxing, and their political topics of choice are former President Barack Obama and "women's issues." The other five independent segments in the larger liberal subsections include "Politically Engaged City Dwellers," "Politically Engaged Adults," "Multicultural Millennials," "Mainstream Millennials," and "Transitionals."

On the conservative side, there are "Diverse Parents," "Traveling Baby Boomers," "Small Town America," and "Millennial Country Culture." "Post Grad Nest Builders," "Family Values," and "The Great Outdoors" were political classified groups listed on the "Very Conservative" edge.

"The Great Outdoors" includes people with the average age of 41, and their politics entail the National Rifle Association, the Tea Party and the stopping of Obamacare. "Small Town America" hobbies include "hunting, shooting [and] fishing," and is a population that is "anti-Obama."

Facebook, along with fellow Silicon Valley corporations Google and Twitter, is set to testify Tuesday and Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee - a hearing centering on allegations of Russian interference during the run up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Congressional investigators, as well as special counsel Robert Mueller, have been investigating how the tech companies have been utilized or exploited by Russian operatives. All the companies appear to be cooperating so far by handing over critical files and providing the public with some key updates.

The incident that sparked this public intrigue came when Facebook admitted that it sold $100,000 worth of ad space to a suspicious Russian firm, which may have connections to the Kremlin. While the ad sales were very meager, especially especially in a two-year time span and relative to the larger, expansive political advertisement ecosystem, it worries officials who see it as Russian government's attempts to sow seeds of divisiveness in an already schismatic U.S. political climate. (RELATED: Former Hillary Clinton Strategist Refutes Claims That $100,000 Had Huge Impact On Election)

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed atonement during the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur after finding out that certain users ostensibly employed the social media platform "to divide people." He also apologized earlier for calling the idea that "fake news" could impact the 2016 presidential election "pretty crazy."

Zuckerberg still chose to defend his company on several occasions during the ostensibly remorseful appeal. He specifically referenced the fact that "campaigns spent hundred of millions advertising online to get their messages out even further" and "that's 1000x more than any problematic ads we've found." But his respective public acts of purported contrition and ignorance related to the utilization of his platform to further cultivate political rifts amongst the U.S. electorate may fall on deaf ears, since Facebook's template, according to BuzzFeed News, shows it may have directly aided in those exploitative efforts.

Facebook did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation's request to verify the authenticity of the chart and elaborate on the alleged particulars by time of publication.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected] .

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Report: Facebook's Election Team Gave Advertisers A Breakdown On America's Ideologies

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Facebook allegedly helped advertisers with targeting the 2016 election season by offering a template of how it perceives the U.S. electorate is ideologically split. Using its own demographic data, the social media company turned tech conglomerate broke down the American populace into 14 segments, and included descriptors based on race and religion, according to a BuzzFeed News report.

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What is the ideology of your social network?

A social network isn't a neutral space. It is designed for a purpose, and that purpose is ideological.

Is your social network designed by techies, out of a pure love for seeing what is technologically possible? Is it designed to bring people together, to help them organise? Or is it designed to sell them things, and to collect data? Or, more insidiously, is it designed to give the illusion of bringing people together, so that it can sell things and collect data?

If it's collecting data, what is the date being used for? Sociological research? Control and surveillance? Marketing? Or is it to help people organise politically?

All technology is political, and it's useful to think through the politics if we are going to use it. This will help us to stay in control, and not be manipulated by subtle design elements.

So what is the politics of, say, Facebook? I guess is it essentially classically liberal - generally, it likes to give a platform for free speech, and favours the free market. It is dotcom neoliberalism, cyber hipster libertarianism, that some theorists have labelled " the Californian ideology ".

Facebook is opposed to privacy, and sees your data as a commodity to be profited from.

Personally, Facebook makes me feel manipulated. I feel like someone is trying to sell me something, to monetise my connections. I feel like it's a parasite, using my relationships with people to sell us things, and to map our connections, and our ideas about society through the pages we like. Facebook wants you to pay to share content now, so unless you have deep pockets, activist groups aren't going to see their stuff go viral any more.

Certainly, it's the biggest database of people ever created, and people are adding the information willingly. The fact that the spies in the NSA and GCHQ have access to it means we are doing the spooks' jobs for them, monitoring and reporting back on ourselves and our friends.

Twitter, by contrast, feels functional and quite free to me. There is little distraction, just a stripped down, simple interface. Hashtags and mentions mean it is very easy to find the information you want, and to communicate to a lot of people. Twitter's ideology seems to be about making communication as effective as possible by stripping it back to the bare minimum: 140 characters of succinct, well-crafted text, enhanced with embedded metadata. But twitter also leaves me feeling exposed, sometimes, because anyone can pile in and attack you if they don't like what you say. It's also easy for a tweet to be retweeted many times, and to lose its context in the process, so that you become bound to a rash statement made in the heat of an argument.

Because it's such an effective communication mechanism, it needs to be treated carefully.

What are your views on the politics of social networks?
The unobtrusive social network is most effective
How many social networks do you belong to? Most people would answer three or four, and list Facebook, Twitter and maybe Instagram, Tumblr or some others.

But what about the social networks you don't notice?

If you have a Google account - for Gmail, or YouTube, or your Android phone - you already have a Google+ profile. If you comment on newspapers, magazines and blogs online, you probably have a profile on Disqus.

Some newspapers - like the New York Times and Guardian - require you to create an account in order to comment. Maybe you have a profile there, made up of your comment history. There are a number of other examples. Social networks have become ubiquitous, and most of us are on many of them. The ability to log into new networks using your Facebook or Twitter identity just makes the whole experience more seamless.

These social networks are insidious - you don't even notice that you've joined them, so you don't think consciously about how you use them. They might have a totally benign effect on your life - for instance, being able to let off steam on Comment is Free - but they might not.
An ethical alternative: political by design
At USi we use pretty much all the social networks that have any traction: we're on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Sina Weibo, Flipboard and a whole host of others we don't need to mention. We feel it is important for unions to colonise as much of cyberspace as possible with a positive, pro-union message. This is how we will reach the next generation of workers.

But none of these is adequate for organising people politically. They all have an ideology of some kind, a hidden curriculum that distorts or distracts from our organising. Trying to mobilise people on Facebook is hard when your followers are distracted by paid advertising and Farmville, and Facebook is restricting the reach of your posts unless you cough up for adverts. This is made even worse by the rise of Facebook disciplinaries - people getting into trouble at work for the things they say online.
The Organising Network
This is why we built our Organising Network (ON). Like all social media - all technology - it is ideological. But the ideology is to create a safe space for people to organise politically.

ON is built on Elgg, which is Open Source. It has plugins, developed by Lorea, that enable political organising and democratic decision making. Members of the Occupy Wall Street and Boston tech committees use the software, and are working to further develop the Lorea plugins. It is hosted on a secure server - named Chelsea, in honour of Chelsea Manning - by a left wing technological membership organisation, Mayfirst.org. USi are members of Mayfirst.

ON isn't designed for social networking. Though you're welcome to do so, this isn't the place to post snaps of you out on the lash, or to connect with your old school friends.

This is not a left wing alternative to Facebook.

ON is an organising network. It functions like a social network, but its purpose is to help people organise politically, securely, with an accountable and transparent decision making process. It's ideal for union branches and campaigns, or activist groups, who for whatever reason, can't meet physically.

You can create groups - for instance, for your branch. These can be hidden and invite only, or open to all. Within your group, you can post a blog - with pictures - about your latest campaign. You can upload important files. You can start discussion threads.

More importantly, you can take decisions democratically. Within your group, you can make a proposal. Other group members can vote on it, comment, or make a new proposal. The discussion is visible online for all logged in members to see, which helps transparency.

You can also link a proposal to an assembly - what ON calls meetings. You can set meeting dates, and if you link proposals to assemblies, they automatically go on the agenda. You can have the meeting in a physical space, or online using our web conferencing facility. Or you can just use the meeting date as the cut off point for decisions, and allow people to comment and vote in their own time.

We think ON is a useful organising space for activists, and we invite you to join and use it. There is a learning curve - there is with any new technology - but get in touch, and we will help set you up.

Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. Let's use all the wonderful social media tools out there to spread the word about unions fighting back against austerity, and building a world based on justice, equality and dignity. But let's also be conscious of the ideology of the tools we use, and create our own safe spaces too.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.

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What is the ideology of your social network? A social network isn't a neutral space. It is designed for a purpose, and that purpose is ideological. Is your social network designed by techies, out of a pure love for seeing what is technologically possible? Is it designed to bring people together, to help them organise?

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Mark Zuckerberg, the 31-year-old founder and CEO of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), recently told an adoring audience of Silicon Valley developers:
We've gone from a world of isolated communities to one global community, and we are all better off for it... [Our mission] is to connect the world... [The danger is in] people and nations turning inwards against this idea of a connected world and community...[i]
All great founder-CEOs have vision. Bill Gates foresaw a computer in every home at a time when most people would have scoffed at the notion. Steve Jobs foresaw that every handbag and man-bag would hold a smartphone. But these visions drove clear business strategies. My question is: is what the Zuck articulates a business strategy or an ideology? And if it is the latter, what are the implications for us and for the future of Facebook?

Facebook tells us that it has 1.6 billion users - up from a mere 100 million in 2008. According to Worldometers Population[ii], there are 7.423 billion people alive today: so 22 percent of everybody alive is on Facebook. Actually, though, the Facebook user number is almost certainly exaggerated. For one thing, there are a lot of people out there with more than one Facebook profile. (I know one senior who creates a new profile every time he logs on. When I told him that he was confusing everyone with his multiple personas, he would not have it.) For another, an indeterminate number of those 1.6 billion "users" are not individuals but corporate entities including businesses (from cupcakes to cruise missiles), churches, campaigns, charities, or just "communities" of people who come together to pursue a common interest - much as they do elsewhere on the internet. And another thing: a lot of profiles are actually empty husks with just one photo and no data. (Is it possible "to resign" from Facebook? What happens when people die...? How would they know how many user profiles are dead people?)

That said Facebook has an unimaginably large following. Although I still reckon that more people use Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) more regularly. I mentioned in my piece on Google earlier this week that there are 3.5 billion searches on Google every day; but I don't know what is the average number of Google searches per Google "user", so I can't work out how many individuals search on Google per day. In my case, I search on Google maybe 50 times a day - but then I have an enquiring mind.

Anyway, I think it's fair to say that Facebook and Google between them - dominate (even control) the internet - which is a big deal. Just as Google owns YouTube and much more, Facebook owns Instagram, a phot-sharing service, which has 400 million users, and WhatsApp, a mobile communications tool, which has more than one billion users. I presume that virtually all Instagram and WhatsApp users are Facebook users, though not vice-versa.

Moreover, access to Facebook opens up an Aladdin's Cave of functionality. Facebook Messenger enables people to communicate privately, even if they don't have an email account. Of course, Facebook is listening in, using "bots", which can for example monitor brand loyalty and commercially sensitive social trends. Eventually, the goal is a computational model of social interaction. Chatbots (horrid word, I know) allow businesses to offer automated customer support. Imagine that you are telling your friend that you can't find a taxi - and then Uber emails you to say that there's a taxi waiting for you, just outside! Already Livestream enables users to stream video feed from their mobile phones straight to their Facebook page. So you can be at a wedding (or a rave) and your friends can watch it live. This is in direct competition to Twitter's Persicope.

Apparently, in the US the average 18-34 year old spends 26 hours a month on Facebook. Is that all? I remember, as a 13-year old, receiving a lecture from a tweedy schoolmaster lamenting that the average British child spent a pernicious three hours a day watching (rubbish) television. Come on Zuck, you can do better than influencing the young for just 50 minutes a day!

Facebook has also rolled out a free package of apps to mobile phone users across 37 countries. This suite allegedly enables the Zuck and his team to herd users towards the Facebook cyber-sphere - just as Google's Android operating system favours Google-inspired content. But fundamentally, despite the "community" vision thing, Facebook and Google are the same. They are generally benevolent ( Do No Evil!) snoops, using algorithms to convert your every click and "like" and (later regretted) "comments" into a profile of what you might buy - for purely commercial reasons. And yet, the really spooky thing is, we can't live without them.

Of course it works both ways. Facebook's satellites nudge us towards Facebook; and once on Facebook, we click on links to outstanding media posts (such as the Master Investor website). Win-win. But, hang on; that means that Facebook is influencing us as to what media we consume. Is Facebook giving us a menu and asking to choose what news we read; or are they "guiding" us towards their preferred agenda? Especially since Facebook, some way behind Google, is developing artificial intelligence (AI).

Last week there were reports in the USA that Facebook suppressed stories with a conservative bias. The Zuck said that he would meet with conservative leaders to discuss the allegations[iii].

The fact that an algorithm can recognise our photo and identify us (and they don't even have eyes, let alone brains) should give us pause. The next stage is to use algorithms fashioned by anthropologists and psychologists to interpret our expressions and body language in those photos. Perhaps, eventually, analysis of our present emotions will yield the secrets of our intentions - things that we don't even know about ourselves.

There are still alternative technologies snapping at Facebook's heels. Facebook tried to buy Snapchat (a messaging service favoured by youngsters) in 2013 for US$3 billion, but was rebuffed. So they tried to replicate it - Slingshot - and failed.

On 27 April Facebook announced Q1 2016 revenues to 31 March of US$5.382 billion[iv] - that's about one quarter of Google's revenues over the same period. Like Google, those revenues were overwhelmingly from advertising, with only US$181 million coming from "Payments and other fees". Net income after tax was US$1.510 billion giving a diluted EPS of US$0.52. This was beyond analysts' expectations and the share price jumped from US$116 to US$119.

The real downside risk for Facebook and Google is that, in disrupting conventional consumer models through technology, they might end up disrupting advertising itself, which is where, this side of the AI economy, they make their money. Of the two, Facebook is the more vulnerable because it is smaller and because its technological reach, although extraordinary, is more limited than Google's. Google will remain the dominant player until such time as the world changes again in way that we cannot foresee.

In my reading of history ideologies are belief systems which serve those who seek to take, and then hold, power. People believe in them to the extent that they extract advantage. And then they drop them when they cease to work. I'd give this one maybe ten years. And when the technology and the ideology part company, the Zuck will depart from Facebook and will no doubt do something remarkable elsewhere.

The Iron Lady said: There is no such thing as a free lunch. At some point we shall cease to see Facebook as a social good and see it as the technology it is. We shall pay it micro-pennies each time it connects us to what we seek. I wish the Zuck, and his grey T-shirts, and Priscilla and Max and Beast all the very best. But remember what they say in Silicon Valley: If you're not paying for it, then YOU ARE THE PRODUCT.

[i] Reported in The Observer, Sunday, 24 April 2016: One Site Fits All? By Olivia Solon, page 23.

[ii] http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ accessed 19/05/2016.

[iii] See Zuckerberg in row over 'Left-leaning Facebook', by David Lawler, Daily Telegraph,Saturday, 14 May 2016, page 21.

[iv] See: http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=967167

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Facebook: Technology or Ideology? - Master Investor

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Mark Zuckerberg, the 31-year-old founder and CEO of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), recently told an adoring audience of Silicon Valley developers: We've gone from a world of isolated communities to one global community, and we are all better off for it... [Our mission] is to connect the world...