Internet ethics, anyone?
Speaking truth to power: 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8a, 8b, 8c, 8d, 8e, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13
After posting about total obfuscation here then some truthing here, let’s look at the mechanics lurking behind fake news prevalent on the Internet, shall we?
Update 1: follow-on in the companion Medium Channel here: artificial intelligence driven digital content creation
Update 2: see at bottom a recent case of weaponizing the internet. and a news update at the bottom
A discussion started after a friend posted a TEDx talk on success off social media here. The speaker makes 3 points countering critiques (being ‘in’, productive and entertained) and points out 2 negatives (producing fluff & mental health effects) but couldn’t resist a product placement (his book, surprise!). I found it light weight but I guess you don’t get much in ¼ hr…
You miss it if you didn’t know the name — he’s mentioned just in passing in the TEDx video — but Jaron Lanier is the original anti socal-media maven if you want a deep dive into quitting social media (Google Books). He’s my generation and for ex. original VR goggle designer (Wikipedia): he’s no luddite, but rather one who knows from the innermost circle why social media are what they are…
Here are two points I raised in a language group about machine learning and translation, a third point it raises and a conclusion:
- Being in the IT data mgmt. business in So. Cal. for 5 yrs. until 15 yrs. ago, I knew Google search was in fact a meta-search: Google stores all our searches, and then scans those — not some “magical encyclopaedia hidden somewhere in the heavens” we used to quip somewhat irreverently — so not only do searches improve over time, but they also do so for commonly used therefore hi traffic topics such as IT and porn, but less so for esoteric topics like medieval history I’m an amateur in.
Google Translate works the same way, meaning you improve it over time by adding your searches — even suggesting corrections as an additional tool — which therefore were pretty bad at first but are now acceptable as far as machine translations are concerned.
- Google raised as-yet-unaddressed ethical issues of interest to us w.r.t. legality: no-one was ever asked to opt-in for their searches to be stored and re-used[1], and it reinforces biases toward culturally dominant groups[2] — see news update at bottom
- A third point coming out of this, is that social media found a way to invert the flow of info in a capitalist regime. Then: time was money, you offered a service and you got paid for it. Now: social media has free rein to use up your time for the sake of FOMO (fear of missing out), and it has free rein to poach your ideas to then resell it… go to ‘Then:’ above!
Did you know every time you think your browser or the Internet are slow, they aren’t? Not only is Google amassing your traffic stats [3], but an auction also happens every second selling your click-stats to the highest bidder [4]! Facebook takes it so far as to inject code into your apps &/or browsers to let it spy on your traffic [5], under the weak pretext of user consent [6].
I say alcohol, sugar and tobacco are legalised drugs and tax is legalised theft: not only is the Internet all of that, but it’s also not even legalised! And governments allow themselves to be run roughshod [7] by the likes of Facebook that legalised stalking in the first place[8], or whose leader is on record calling us all “dumb fucks”[9]. No wonder Cambridge Analytica not only existed in the past, but is also still a threat [10]…
That’s why I quit social media… & you’ll have been warned!
Tip: go to my professional channel here for more on internet security...
In this recent article, a journalist used YouTube to stalk his victims: Another journalist reported “[that] it was a ‘scandal’ that Belfield could report his own case on YouTube and said the law was still catching up with new technology”, and that “[social media] companies just say no [to taking down offensive posts]. They don’t have any moral values.” Not only are laws & enforcers not up-to-date as above, but its consequences can be devastating in an area I’ll develop next.
TechCrunch reports here that one government is finally taking steps… what’s interesting is the angle of data breach rather than the business ethics itself:
“France fines Clearview AI maximum possible for GDPR breaches
Clearview AI, the controversial facial recognition firm that scrapes selfies and other personal data off the Internet without consent to feed an AI-powered identity-matching service it sells to law enforcement and others, has been hit with another fine in Europe.
This one comes after it failed to respond to an order last year from the CNIL, France’s privacy watchdog, to stop its unlawful processing of French citizens’ information and delete their data.
Clearview responded to that order by, well, ghosting the regulator — thereby adding a third GDPR breach (non-cooperation with the regulator) to its earlier tally. […]”
1: not only is it the standard Internet practice, but also when you suggest a translation your effort disappears down a rabbit hole, used but not acknowledged, again with neither request for permission nor consent to do so
2: “Social networks are actually perfectly designed to reinforce rather than challenge our views”, Gaza-Israel: Twitter’s map of Mid-East conflict, BBC Click
3: “Google may be collecting far more personal data and information than you might realize. Every search you perform and every YouTube video you watch, Google is keeping tabs on you. Google Maps even logs everywhere you go, the route you use to get there and how long you stay, no matter if you have an iPhone or an Android”, There’s a way to delete the frightening amount of data Google has on you, CNET
4: “Real-time bidding is the process by which publishers auction off ad space in their apps or on their websites. In doing so, they share sensitive user data — including geolocation, device IDs, identifying cookies, and browsing history — with dozens or hundreds of different ad-tech companies”, Google Says It Doesn’t ‘Sell’ Your Data. Here’s How the Company Shares, Monetizes, and Exploits It, Electronic Frontier Foundation
5: citing Android & iOS apps plus browsers, Krause quoted therein cites only iOS apps, Meta injecting code into websites to track its users, research says, The Guardian
6: “Sometimes, when processing information shared with us by sites and apps, those sites and apps will ask for your consent before allowing Google to process your information”, bolding mine, Privacy & Terms, Google
7: The key moments from Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony to Congress, The Guardian
8: “It began at Harvard University in 2003 as Facemash, an online service for students to judge the attractiveness of their fellow students”, §4 in Facebook, Britannica
9: Mark Zuckerberg called Facebook’s users “Dumb Fucks”, Reddit (banner pic)
10: “Even though Cambridge Analytica has dissolved, the capabilities are still there, the platforms are still there, the people are still there”, Why Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Christopher Wylie Is Still Worried, Time
