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Facebook whistleblower Testimony
noisyturtle:
best part is how FB got hacked during this time
Leslieann:
--- Quote from: tp4tissue on Tue, 05 October 2021, 11:34:51 ---Hang on, so if they're saying young people depression is amplified BY facebook algorithms. Well how the heck would they make that claim when there isn't a baseline of depression.
--- End quote ---
They can claim this because Facebook is probably they best psychological tool ever created.
As a doc you couldn't sit and follow a patient 24 hours a day, Facebook does it for you. It tracks where they go, who they interact with, how they interact, what they buy, how they talk, intimate phone conversations, anything and everything. Facebook knows more about you in some cases than you do, look at the woman who was annoyed she was getting prenatal ads then a week later found out she was pregnant. The algorithm saw it before she did. They know if your spouse is cheating, they know if you're cheating, they know your kid is failing at school they know you suck at your job. If you live your life on Facebook and it collects all that data, it's going to pick up on trends and know things about you that any living person never could no matter how close you studied them. It's the perfect third party observer. It never tires, sees everything, never judgemental and always watching and listening.
Is it smart, oh hell no, it's just following patterns and feeding you what it thinks you want and while it seems to be good at it, it's actually not.
It feeds to our most basic fears and desires and does so without our knowledge or input and worse, it's not allowing you to counter those fears or work to ward off those anxieties, it only knows how to feed them. Worse still, it allows advertisers to use them to get you to do what they want. It's like the old meme "I heard you like __ so we put __ on your blank so you can ___ while you ___."
Ever get stuck in the Youtube rabbit hole?
You click on some weird news story and suddenly your feed is full of stories related to that and takes weeks to go away, Facebook works similar but instead of suggesting videos it suggests groups but you knew that part. Most think it ends there or with some ads, but oh no... The less obvious part part is it can also recommend friends who are into that and pull info from them, guess what their feeds are full of. Slip in a story now and then so you see it, but not be inundated by it and now suddenly it seems like everyone you know is into the same thing you are even though you never joined the groups or anything else. And if this is your primary news source, all it takes is slipping in a few well placed mentions and suddenly you have this "organic" seeming movement that rose out of nothing. Sound familiar? If it was smart and was working for you (!), it would detect that you're depressed and slowly lift your spirits, if happy it would try and keep you happy but because advertisers fund it, and fear and anger sells and brings repeat customers far better than happiness and rainbows, advertisers and therefore Facebook caters to it.
This is why Facebook is toxic and always will be so long as it's advertiser and "news" friendly.
Getting rid of news feeds would be a gigantic step in the right direction, between it and the data harvesting it's just too much power in the wrong hands. Facebook probably hasn't really been social media in a long time, it's probably now best described as corporate and government psy-ops posing as social media.
fohat.digs:
--- Quote from: Leslieann on Wed, 06 October 2021, 05:33:52 ---
Facebook is probably they best psychological tool ever created.
If you live your life on Facebook and it collects all that data
--- End quote ---
Great write-up. Makes me glad that I have always avoided Facebook "like the plague" which it turns out to be, pretty much.
tp4tissue:
--- Quote from: Leslieann on Wed, 06 October 2021, 05:33:52 ---Facebook probably hasn't really been social media in a long time, it's probably now best described as corporate and government psy-ops posing as social media.
--- End quote ---
Well, there's an interplay sure.
And I agree our Hive Mind needs to adapt and evolve. I don't believe a disconnected Pre-FB society is necessarily better, it was more ignorant and less aware.
Even if we look at "instagram" and how it's "Toxic" to some segment of the population, well the flip side is, it exposes INCOME INEQUALITY, people SEE IT, now they're PISSED, and that's the SEED of CHANGE.. Discontent.
YoungMichael88:
--- Quote from: fohat.digs on Wed, 06 October 2021, 08:33:23 ---
--- Quote from: Leslieann on Wed, 06 October 2021, 05:33:52 ---
Facebook is probably they best psychological tool ever created.
If you live your life on Facebook and it collects all that data
--- End quote ---
Great write-up. Makes me glad that I have always avoided Facebook "like the plague" which it turns out to be, pretty much.
--- End quote ---
I got rid of Facebook about 4 years ago. The amount of times I picked up my phone to check FB and then remembering I quit was crazy. It was as habitual as the hand to mouth part of a smoking addiction. On top of that, tho it wasn’t an insanely strong feeling, I still felt a little disappointed when I put my phone back down.
That didn’t last that long tho and I’m happy to only be on instagram just to see people decorate cakes, bake bread and post vinyl records.
I stay out of the comments entirely. I don’t read them or post in them. Nothing but garbage in there.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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