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News Uses of social media

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scout86

MyPTSD Pro
This is an article I found both interesting and alarming. If I didn't need my Facebook account for my business, it would be as deleted as I can find a way to make it.

I'd have put this under the US thread, but it's been used in the UK too and I can't see any reason it can't be used anywhere. The whistle blower behind the article says Cambridge Analytica will work for literally anyone who will pay them. Anyway, food for thought.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...er-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump
 
I took my dog for a walk before I replied to this, because I personally find this fascinating!

To me? The concept that ‘psychological profiling’ (which Hollywood has made into a pretty scary concept) is becoming more sophisticated - there’s nothing really new there for me. Sounds intimidating, but it’s not a new thing.

I used an instant message app on my phone to chat with a friend yesterday. All of that got translated into data by a company somewhere in the world, and the technology is sophisticated enough that it can not only finish my sentences for me, it can understand what the messages mean with enough accuracy that it can suggest colourful image responses (like a cute dog hugging a big red heart) that I might want to use as my reply.

All of that data? Is going somewhere.

To me, it’s not the fact that the data is being used by companies for profit that comes as a surprise. What comes as a surprise to me? Is that a lot of people seem to have this concept of that data being ‘private’. ‘Private’ from whom??

Snapchat uses facial recognition software that is sophisticated enough to recognise my dog’s face, and Facebook? Knows that I’m more likely to watch funny dog videos than funny cat videos. Google knows what I’m talking about when I ask it where the nearest ‘servo’ is, and it also knows where I am, and if I opt to use the map it offers, how I get there, what time and day I’m needing some petrol, which company I’m giving my business to...

To me? The issue is not that this data is being collected (I know that - my phone remembers everything), or that this data is being stored and used (next time I spell ‘petrol station as ‘servo’, I get the info I need because it remembers that’s how I spell petrol station!).

The issue to me is how the concept of ‘privacy’ comes into it. At all. What privacy do I honestly have when I’m constantly inputting data about every minute detail of my life, and sending that data out there into the ether? What do we mean by ‘privacy’ when it comes to technology?

It’s not this apparent breach of privacy that alarms me. It’s that people using this incredibly sophisticated technology have such a profound sense of privacy to begin with. I don’t actually understand what people mean when they talk about things like ‘privacy’ in places like FB.
 
It’s that people using this incredibly sophisticated technology have such a profound sense of privacy to begin with.
True! (And one of the reasons I shared the article.)

In this particular case, it appears that the data is being used to manipulate people. To convince them, for example, that immigrants are dangerous. They are looking for the things that influence people's thinking and then attempting to use them to influence people's thinking. And, I suspect, anyone who thinks Facebook is private probably isn't going to stop and think about where information comes from or how accurate it is.
 
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