Regular readers of this blog / forum (all two or three of you)
will know I am no great fan of Facecrap and in fact do not subscribe
to it and so my concerns are based upon second hand reports and
observations, however this article shows others more knowledgeable have
similar concerns.
Taylor Owen an assistant professor of Digital Media at UBC writes
“The Facebook model has also incentivized the spread of low-quality
clickbait over high-quality information, enabled a race to the bottom
for monetized consumer surveillance.........”
“A key feature of the platform is that each user sees a
personalized news feed chosen for them by Facebook. This
microtargeting enables buyers to define audiences in racist, bigoted
and otherwise highly discriminatory ways......” This type of
misinformation is not eclusive to Facecrap, in point of fact almost
any information obtained on the internet must be viewed with the
source in mind, even reading the morning news on line reveals the
wide variety of sources and often misleading or outright deliberate
misinformation out there. Even with 'ad block' enabled many platforms
find ways to bombard you with 'opinion' peices and unrequested
content.
“The Facebook system is also a potent political weapon.......
Bloomberg reported that in the final weeks of the U.S. election,
Facebook and Google employees collaborated with extreme activist
groups to help them microtarget divisive ads to swing-state
voters...... content regularly goes viral regardless of its quality
or veracity, disorienting and misleading huge audiences.” That a
total moron like Trump can be elected to a suposedly democratic
country like the U.S. of Eh clearly demonstrates the “power” of
the internet and how spin doctors can sway public opinion and “buy”
an election!
“How exactly should the Canadian government (or for that matter
any govenment) protect the integrity of the next federal election, in
which interest groups, corporations, foreign actors and political
campaigns may all run hundreds of thousands, or millions, of
simultaneous microtargeted ads a day? “ Thats a damned good
question and one which I fear there is no good answer to given the
prevalance of “social media” and the ease and speed with which
'news' (truthfull and accurate or otherwise) can be spread.
With so many people “communicating” via Facecrap and other
“social media” there is a great deal of pressure to join the
crowd in order to “talk” to friends and other who are not
avalable on line by other means but this old fart will continue to
avoid the temptation!
Mr Owen's full article may be read at
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/is-facebook-a-threat-to-democracy/article36661905/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
Readers CAN comment on my remarks via the blogger comment link at
the bottom of the page......
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6 comments:
The same personalized algorithms are used by YouTube and Twitter to a somewhat lesser amount. We only see articles etc from posters who live within our bubble.
Originally designed to provide.advertisers with a more targeted base of potential consumers and increase FBs ad rates.
It is somewhat ironic that corporate greed and the publics consumerism led to what could be considered the end of democracy in the US.
Willy
Good to see you back, Rural. the problem your post outlines is a serious one, but it is not unique to FB. The kinds of narrow casting it enables is only one of the many means by which people can have their ideological bents fed.
For example, I get Google alerts sent to my email on climate-change articles. I also subscribe to a newsletter on the same topic, the same way those who are bent can subscribe to racist sites, etc. I realize this is not quite what you are talking about here, but the fact that ads are targeted according to readers' interests are but another application of the same technology.
The Internet is only as good or as bad as people decide to make it.
What really threatens our democracy, Rural, is our inability to talk across the divide.
Owen, I admit to be highly biased on this subject but remain very troubled by the impact that social media is having upon society.
Lorne, like it or not we all tend to gravitate to a narrow field of interest and often fail to consider outside of our usual reading. Targeted ads do not help us view a wider selection.
Willy, we are constantly being manipulated by our internet choices!
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