Author Topic: The Goolag, Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, Twitter, Gov censorship via Tech Octopus  (Read 132006 times)

Crafty_Dog

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« Last Edit: December 04, 2021, 08:22:36 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Tucker Carlson and Mark Steyn
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2018, 07:17:09 PM »
« Last Edit: January 18, 2018, 07:20:03 PM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Prager vs. youtube
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2018, 07:28:57 PM »
Third post

We Are Suing YouTube for Censoring Our Videos


Dear Valued Subscriber,

As you know, PragerU’s videos are available on a number of platforms, one of which is YouTube. And as you may also know, YouTube has chosen repeatedly to restrict some of our videos for violating their “Community Guidelines.”  Those guidelines are meant to protect users against viewing sexual content, violent or graphic content, and hate speech.

As a PragerU viewer, you know as well as I do that our videos contain nothing even remotely close to any of these categories.

To date, YouTube has restricted nearly 40 PragerU videos, addressing topics ranging from religion and freedom of speech to the history of the Korean War.
More than a year ago, we filed a complaint with YouTube, hoping that there was some kind of innocent mistake.

That’s when we were told by YouTube that after reviewing our videos they determined that they were indeed “not appropriate for a younger audience.” Of course, we have this in writing.

Think about the millions of actually inappropriate videos on YouTube and then ask yourself, “Why is our content restricted?”

Unfortunately, the answer is rather obvious, isn’t it?  YouTube has restricted PragerU videos for only one reason: Ideological discrimination.

Of course, YouTube is owned by Google, which was founded to, ironically, “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

YouTube has made some of our most important videos inaccessible to the very audience PragerU seeks to reach: young people.

Let me be clear: they don’t like what we teach and so they intend to stop us from teaching it. This kind of censorship is what we have seen on college campuses for years. But it is far more dangerous in this circumstance because the internet is where the world goes to get informed.
 
Can you imagine if the left owned the internet the way they own our universities?

Can you imagine what the world would look like if Google is allowed to continue to arbitrarily censor ideas they simply don’t agree with?

Well, this is why Prager University filed suit against YouTube and Google. We are not fighting this only for PragerU—we are taking this on for America and possibly the world.

Can we count on your support as we fight to end the censorship of our conservative ideas by Google/YouTube?

 
Now, I have to tell you ... this was not an easy decision.

Over the summer, former Governor of California Pete Wilson — who has been a longtime supporter of PragerU — approached us and posited the idea: “We have to sue them,” he said. “Google is hubris.”

Those words weighed heavy on our entire team as we considered our options.  Obviously, a fight with Google will be hugely difficult and costly, and we hate the idea of deploying energy and resources away from producing more content and reaching new audiences.  We simply cannot do that.  So, before taking any such action, we decided we’d attempt a more diplomatic approach one last time. On the one-year anniversary of Google blocking our content, or the “BANniversary” as we had come to call it, we renewed our complaints to YouTube and re-circulated an online petition urging Google to change course. Many articles have been written and many people, including many very prominent and influential people, rallied in support of our cause. To date, well over a quarter-of-a-million people have added their names to our petition.

What was the result of our efforts?

Nothing. YouTube ignored us. In fact, they have since restricted 11 more PragerU videos.

With our hands tied, we knew Governor Wilson was right—Google’s hubris had to be challenged.

So, we have built an all-star legal team, including Governor Wilson’s Law Firm, Eric George, Alan Dershowitz, Barak Lurie, Kelly Shackelford, Mat Staver, and more.
It’s an impressive group, because this is an important case; not only for PragerU, but for the fundamental American right to freedom of speech.

But this is not going to be easy and it isn’t going to be cheap.

Despite the fact that our amazing attorneys have agreed to reasonably cap their legal fees, there will be additional personnel, research, marketing and public relations costs to PragerU.

This case will be tried in the court of public opinion as much as in the courtroom, and we intend to win in both venues.

However, we cannot deplete our operating budget to fight this case. Thanks to you, PragerU has reached more than 1-out-of-4 Americans on the internet. Sixty-three percent of them are under 34. We plan to continue to focus on this growth and reach 3 out of 4 Americans. We can’t let up now.

We are fully committed to the lawsuit but we won’t let them slow the growth of PragerU.

This is why our board of directors and many staff members have donated, in addition to our annual gift, to what we are calling the “YouTube Action Fund.” Dennis Prager, Allen Estrin, and I have all given extra this year.

Now, here is how you can help:

1.   Please go to our website and sign the petition against YouTube censorship. It already has nearly 400,000 signatures; please add yours if you haven’t done so already, and ask 10 of your friends to do the same.

2.   More importantly, please contribute to our action fund if you can, over and above your planned support for PragerU. Our initial goal for the legal fund is $1 million, and we think we can reach that goal with your help.

Many of you have already given so generously and I am embarrassed to ask for more. But if you think this fight is important please support us in whatever way you can.

It seems like a lot to ask…until you consider how much we have to lose.

Perhaps Goliath could teach Google a little bit about where hubris leads ... when a David comes slinging.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Marissa Streit
CEO, PragerU


Can we count on your support as we fight to end the censorship of our conservative ideas by Google/YouTube?




Crafty_Dog

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G M

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Options
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2018, 09:52:51 AM »
Stop using anything google. www.startpage.com and ixquick.com and Firefox as a browser. Gab rather than twitter.

ccp

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Re: The Orwellian Tech Octopus
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2018, 10:18:34 AM »
oh yeah .  and everything is wireless, everything is going to the 'cloud" and everything connects to everything else..

therefore forget any privacy and don't fool yourself for even a second this is on purpose to increase control profits

criminals who know how to get into this certainly are .  just forget law enforcement in this area.  it is not existent except for the very few with a LOT of resources if at all.

the younger generations have NO clue.

Not a world I want to live in though I have enjoyed this board for 15 yrs


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The Googlag vs. Dennis Prager
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2018, 06:39:59 PM »
 




We Are Suing YouTube for Censoring Our Videos


Dear Valued Subscriber,
As you know, PragerU’s videos are available on a number of platforms, one of which is YouTube. And as you may also know, YouTube has chosen repeatedly to restrict some of our videos for violating their “Community Guidelines.”  Those guidelines are meant to protect users against viewing sexual content, violent or graphic content, and hate speech.
As a PragerU viewer, you know as well as I do that our videos contain nothing even remotely close to any of these categories.
To date, YouTube has restricted nearly 40 PragerU videos, addressing topics ranging from religion and freedom of speech to the history of the Korean War.
More than a year ago, we filed a complaint with YouTube, hoping that there was some kind of innocent mistake.
That’s when we were told by YouTube that after reviewing our videos they determined that they were indeed “not appropriate for a younger audience.” Of course, we have this in writing.
Think about the millions of actually inappropriate videos on YouTube and then ask yourself, “Why is our content restricted?”
Unfortunately, the answer is rather obvious, isn’t it?  YouTube has restricted PragerU videos for only one reason: Ideological discrimination.
Of course, YouTube is owned by Google, which was founded to, ironically, “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

YouTube has made some of our most important videos inaccessible to the very audience PragerU seeks to reach: young people.

Let me be clear: they don’t like what we teach and so they intend to stop us from teaching it. This kind of censorship is what we have seen on college campuses for years. But it is far more dangerous in this circumstance because the internet is where the world goes to get informed.
 
Can you imagine if the left owned the internet the way they own our universities?
Can you imagine what the world would look like if Google is allowed to continue to arbitrarily censor ideas they simply don’t agree with?

Well, this is why Prager University filed suit again YouTube and Google. We are not fighting this only for PragerU—we are taking this on for America and possibly the world.
Can we count on your support as we fight to end the censorship of our conservative ideas by Google/YouTube?

 
Now, I have to tell you ... this was not an easy decision.
Over the summer, former Governor of California Pete Wilson — who has been a longtime supporter of PragerU — approached us and posited the idea: “We have to sue them,” he said. “Google is hubris.”
Those words weighed heavy on our entire team as we considered our options.
Obviously, a fight with Google will be hugely difficult and costly, and we hate the idea of deploying energy and resources away from producing more content and reaching new audiences.  We simply cannot do that.
So, before taking any such action, we decided we’d attempt a more diplomatic approach one last time. On the one-year anniversary of Google blocking our content, or the “BANniversary” as we had come to call it, we renewed our complaints to YouTube and re-circulated an online petition urging Google to change course. Many articles have been written and many people, including many very prominent and influential people, rallied in support of our cause. To date, well over a quarter-of-a-million people have added their names to our petition.
What was the result of our efforts?
Nothing. YouTube ignored us. In fact, they have since restricted 11 more PragerU videos.
With our hands tied, we knew Governor Wilson was right—Google’s hubris had to be challenged.
So, we have built an all-star legal team, including Governor Wilson’s Law Firm, Eric George, Alan Dershowitz, Barak Lurie, Kelly Shackelford, Mat Staver, and more.
It’s an impressive group, because this is an important case; not only for PragerU, but for the fundamental American right to freedom of speech.
But this is not going to be easy and it isn’t going to be cheap.
Despite the fact that our amazing attorneys have agreed to reasonably cap their legal fees, there will be additional personnel, research, marketing and public relations costs to PragerU.
This case will be tried in the court of public opinion as much as in the courtroom, and we intend to win in both venues.
However, we cannot deplete our operating budget to fight this case. Thanks to you, PragerU has reached more than 1-out-of-4 Americans on the internet. Sixty-three percent of them are under 34. We plan to continue to focus on this growth and reach 3 out of 4 Americans. We can’t let up now.

We are fully committed to the lawsuit but we won’t let them slow the growth of PragerU.

This is why our board of directors and many staff members have donated, in addition to our annual gift, to what we are calling the “YouTube Action Fund.” Dennis Prager, Allen Estrin, and I have all given extra this year.

Now, here is how you can help:
1.   Please go to our website and sign the petition against YouTube censorship. It already has nearly 400,000 signatures; please add yours if you haven’t done so already, and ask 10 of your friends to do the same.
2.   More importantly, please contribute to our action fund if you can, over and above your planned support for PragerU. Our initial goal for the legal fund is $1 million, and we think we can reach that goal with your help.
Many of you have already given so generously and I am embarrassed to ask for more. But if you think this fight is important please support us in whatever way you can.

It seems like a lot to ask…until you consider how much we have to lose.

Perhaps Goliath could teach Google a little bit about where hubris leads ... when a David comes slinging.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Marissa Streit
CEO, PragerU


Can we count on your support as we fight to end the censorship of our conservative ideas by Google/YouTube?




Crafty_Dog

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Soros goes after Facebook and Google
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2018, 09:32:36 AM »
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/01/26/facebook-and-google-are-doomed-george-soros-says/?undefined=&utm_term=.b348fa1efd39&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1


Facebook and Google are doomed, George Soros says
By Hamza Shaban January 26 at 3:25 PM

George Soros, billionaire and founder of Soros Fund Management LLC, speaks at an event on day three of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018.  Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Billionaire philanthropist and leading donor to liberal causes George Soros predicted Thursday that regulation and taxation will soon dethrone Facebook and Google, describing the tech industry's major players as powerful monopolies that harm individuals, market innovation and democracy.

In a wide-ranging, scathing speech delivered at a dinner event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Soros applauded the European Union's heightened enforcement aimed at Web giants. He also called for greater regulation of the tech companies, seizing on a growing backlash against Silicon Valley.

“Facebook and Google have grown into ever more powerful monopolies, they have become obstacles to innovation, and they have caused a variety of problems of which we are only now beginning to become aware,” he said, according to a transcript of the speech.


Soros made the remarks as officials in Washington and industry critics continued to ramp up their scrutiny of the tech sector. That pressure has been directed at a broad array of issues,  perhaps most prominently online advertising and the spread of disinformation on popular social media platforms. In response, Facebook and Google have said they are open to greater government oversight in their ad operations. But Facebook has gone even further in recent weeks, publicly grappling with its role in global society. Last week Facebook even admitted in a blog post that social media can sometimes harm democracy.


Soros suggested that American officials draw from their European counterparts, particularly E.U. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, whom he described as the “nemesis” of American tech monopolies. Vestager, a former Danish economy minister, and other E.U. officials have recently advanced a host of enforcement actions against prominent U.S. tech companies. E.U. officials have sued Google over alleged antitrust violations tied to its search engine, its mobile operating system and its ad platform. In 2016, competition authorities ordered Apple to pay Ireland more than $15 billion in uncollected taxes; and Facebook has been penalized by several privacy watchdogs for breaking data protection rules.


Soros acknowledged that Europe's approach to antitrust law and regulation differs from that of the United States. But his criticism of Facebook and Google may empower Democrats who have already expressed skepticism toward Silicon Valley and the broader world of tech and telecom.

In October, for instance, congressional Democrats, with notable support from Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), introduced legislation that would place greater disclosure requirements on Web platforms that run political advertisements. The lawmakers behind the bill say the rules will help prevent Russia and other foreign powers from exploiting social media and undermining U.S. elections. And last summer, the Democratic Party released a broad economic agenda, dubbed a “Better Deal," that included stricter enforcement of antitrust laws and a push against corporate monopolies.

While Soros is often criticized by conservative figures who oppose his political projects, his attack on the tech giants highlights a brewing convergence between leaders on the left and the right who have come to view Silicon Valley as a perverse influence on the country.

“It is only a matter of time before the global dominance of the U.S. IT monopolies is broken,” Soros said. “Davos is a good place to announce that their days are numbered.”



Crafty_Dog

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MEF asks for public's help collecting examples of Tech Censorship
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2018, 05:38:24 PM »
MEF Asks for Public's Help Collecting Examples of Tech Censorship
News from the Middle East Forum
February 19, 2018
http://www.meforum.org/7207/mef-asks-for-public-help-collecting-examples

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The Value of your personal data
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2018, 07:18:11 PM »
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dW7k_GZYLwk

Watch it all.

Very important.

Crafty_Dog

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Youtube deleted this video
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2018, 05:24:54 AM »

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WSJ: Tech Giants are less powerful than they seem
« Reply #15 on: February 24, 2018, 11:14:16 AM »
Tech Giants Are Less Powerful Than They Seem
A hallmark of companies cresting into middle age is a preoccupation with regulatory politics.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Feb. 23, 2018 6:18 p.m. ET


Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that the Facebook algorithm will be revamped to downgrade third-party “news” may have been a lot of things—a way to calm critics of Facebook’s election role, a way to re-engage users who were turned off by the political din.

But it was also something else: At this late date, Mr. Zuckerberg, with two billion users and a $560 billion market cap, is still hunting for a sustainable product and revenue model for his company.

Idiocy is in a waxing phase in America. We know that. And Facebook and its social-media fellows have plenty to answer for in the court of public opinion, with their algorithms constantly supplying us things to be unhinged about. But antitrust is not a solution for the privacy and fake news problems that come with social media. And neither is antitrust called for on traditional monopoly grounds.

Google is said to be dominant in a certain kind of “search,” but searching for purchasable items now often begins on Amazon. Meanwhile, much of the online information that most preoccupies Americans is to be found inside Facebook, Twitter and other apps whose data isn’t reachable by Google.

Facebook is surely dominant in the business of algorithmically sifting your friends’ posts to decide which you’ll see, but there remain plenty of other ways for friends to exchange information.

Facebook and Google together are said to be dominant in digital advertising. But digital ads are ads, a $540 billion annual market they hardly dominate.

Amazon is said to be dominant in e-commerce, with a 44% share. But its share of total U.S. retail sales is 4%. Its share of global retail sales is less than 0.5%.

What’s more, companies dominant today won’t be dominant a decade or two from now. That’s the lesson of history. Today’s leaders will guard existing cash flows and leave it to others to try to catch the next bit of lightning in a bottle. And for good reason: The iPhone, Google’s search box and the Facebook twist on social media were far from certain to be the windfalls they turned out to be.

Are we not catching whiffs of impending maturity? Amazon is hunting for a second headquarters to house 50,000 new staff. It’s bulking up on storefronts and fleets of trucks and planes. Wasn’t the appeal of digital economics supposed to be the ability to grow without a commensurate rise in overhead? And who will run this sprawling retail conglomerate when Jeff Bezos is gone?

Facebook not only is running out of new users to sign up, its adherents are starting to notice that they see only a tiny, Facebook-biased fraction of what their “friends” intend them to see.

Apple is lashed to a single product, the iPhone, whose latest model is hardly leaping off the shelf. Apple’s fabulous margins are increasingly maintained by jacking up prices. The company is moving into a grandiose new headquarters even as it falls far behind in the video-streaming market it once imagined conquering.

Already visible down the road are wearable technologies, augmented and artificial reality, various services that render the limitations of location meaningless. Anybody who thinks he knows which companies will capture these opportunities is fooling himself.

The truth is, today’s digital giants are providers of easily dispensable or replaceable services, so must act constantly to keep users happy or risk being eclipsed.

Their targeting by activists on the make is the best evidence of their pending maturity. Barry Lynn, a researcher at the Google-sponsored New America Foundation, orchestrated his own firing as a stunt to launch his new anti-“monopoly” research shop. Lina Khan, the Yale Law Journal author, became a national figure in 2017 with her argument that Amazon is too powerful because, you know, it’s too powerful.

No wonder Facebook is frantically doing penance for Russian ads and fake news during the 2016 election. Or that Google has now become the biggest corporate lobbyist in Washington. Or that three of the finalist sites picked by Amazon in its headquarters search are in the Washington area, where Mr. Bezos already owns the Washington Post and clearly craves to increase his sway with the political class.

The tech giants were all but pushed into being influential voices in the net-neutrality fight, not because they believed in the cause, but because anything that centralizes control in Washington naturally appeals to companies with the biggest lobbying clout. At the same time, their greatest fear is Congress deciding their own platforms should be treated as “public utilities” too.

To be absorbed in rent-seeking battles is increasingly the fate of America’s established tech giants. That’s one more reason to expect the next truly big thing to be invented by someone else.

Crafty_Dog

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What went wrong at Newsweek
« Reply #16 on: February 26, 2018, 05:42:45 AM »
https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/what-went-wrong-at-newsweek-according-to-current-and-former-staffers.html

", , ,Though Newsweek has had more than its share of instability over the past decade, the rapidity and sensationalism of the magazine’s latest implosion is, in ways, exceptional. (Disclosure: I interned at Newsweek in the summer of 2010.) Few other major U.S. publications have seen their internal strife strewn across national headlines; still fewer have to worry about their owners funneling money to a religious institution, as Newsweek’s parent company is alleged to have done.

"But much of the story, as insiders tell it, will ring disconcertingly familiar to anyone involved in the modern news industry. It’s a tale of a precarious business model, a roller coaster of explosive growth and cruel contraction, mercurial corporate ownership, and journalists forced to produce work so shoddy and craven that they were embarrassed to attach their name to it, all in the name of “saving the company”—and their jobs. At a time when Google and Facebook have become the prime conduits to online news, Newsweek’s downfall highlights the existential vulnerability of even the best-known media brands to the whims of tech companies’ algorithms. It also suggests something more chilling: how quickly a reputable news organization can disintegrate in the hands of the wrong owners.


"All media outlets are on a constant hunt for traffic, but not all newsrooms are managed the same way. With near unanimity, the staffers I spoke to described a newsroom ruled by fear, internecine rivalry, and a slavish obsession with clicks at all costs. They told of reporters covering beats such as science, culture, and foreign affairs being judged not on their work’s merit but on their ability to meet targets of 500,000 or 1 million page views per month. They told of top editors angling for one another’s jobs by trying to persuade higher-ups that they could bring in more traffic. Allegations of sexism, favoritism, and bullying were rampant. , , ,"

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Protect the News from Google and Facebook
« Reply #18 on: February 26, 2018, 07:26:04 AM »
third post

Protect the News From Google and Facebook
A partial exemption from antitrust laws would help publishers and readers.
By David Chavern
Feb. 25, 2018 4:42 p.m. ET
42 COMMENTS

The news business is suffering, but not because people don’t want news. They do—more than ever. The problem is that the money generated by news audiences flows mostly to Google and Facebook , not to the reporters and publishers who produce excellent journalism.

The Duopoly now captures 83% of all digital ad revenue growth and 73% of U.S. digital advertising, according to a CNBC report. As a result, newspapers’ online audience growth does not produce revenue to match. According to data from Pew, newspaper advertising revenue fell from $22 billion in 2014 to $18 billion in 2016 even as web traffic for the top 50 U.S. newspapers increased 42%.

Local news is most at risk. As print circulation declines, community news publishers have the hardest time adapting to the ever-changing demands of Facebook and Google algorithms. We think of “fake news” as a national phenomenon, but in the absence of a workable news business model, wild rumors and conspiracy theories could become more influential at the local level, too.

Tech savvy, digital-only publishers are also struggling. BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said in December that Google and Facebook are “paying content creators far too little for the value they deliver to users,” and that “this puts high-quality creators at a financial disadvantage, and favors publishers of cheap media.”
A user launches the Facebook app on his phone.
A user launches the Facebook app on his phone. Photo: Elise Amendola/Associated Press

Google and Facebook have become the primary and de facto regulators of the news business, and governments around the world are starting to recognize the danger. British Prime Minister Theresa May announced earlier this month that her government would review the economics of internet news consumption. Regulators in Germany, Israel and South Korea are investigating how Google’s business practices have disrupted the media market and harmed publishers and consumers. U.S. regulators, on the other hand, have rarely looked into Google or Facebook—and never at their influence in the news marketplace.

Some voices on the left and right are calling for Google and Facebook to be regulated as utilities. But there is an easier solution: exempt news publishers from certain aspects of antitrust regulation.

U.S. antitrust laws, designed to promote fair competition and prevent consolidation, actually make it harder for traditional news outlets to compete with Silicon Valley giants. Under current law, for instance, news publishers cannot get together and agree to withhold their product unless they receive a return on their investment. Let’s start by changing that simple inequity. News publishers should be able to use their collective leverage in negotiations with big tech.

Rep. David Cicilline, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, is expected to introduce a bill to do that next week. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2018 is a low-regulation, pro-market way to unleash the news industry’s negotiating power. If antitrust enforcers can’t protect society from the outsize influence of modern-day trusts, the least the government can do is get out of the way and let publishers protect themselves and their readers.

Mr. Chavern is president and CEO of the News Media Alliance, a trade association representing some 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.

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Re: WSJ: Protect the News from Google and Facebook
« Reply #19 on: February 26, 2018, 05:46:21 PM »
Problem noted but solution rejected - MHO.  

Note the bias; WSJ is a provider of news.  They charge plenty but aren't getting the ad revenue - or enough subscribers.  They are in need of a new profit paradigm.

If you are receiving a product for free, you ARE the product, not the customer.  Google and Facebook are selling you, not news.

Facebook has a liberal bias and other flaws.  It is a fight to get good information from Google when what you seek doesn't fit their narrative, global warming for example.  Young people are turning away from Facebook.  I would love to turn away from Google, but they give quite a bit of free value and their ads mostly miss me, advertising today what I searched and bought yesterday.

My point is that both of these companies are one competitors' disruptive innovation away from losing their grip on the market, whether it is a year from now or a hundred years.

Content providers, like rock stars, need to get some free play to us until we're hooked, then somewhere down the road they make money and plenty of it if they connect.

WSJ: Good product but they only sometimes set themselves apart.  They are looking at other ways to deliver it.  I notice they are doing more and more podcasts, not for revenue yet but for exploring avenues.  They are way behind the innovation curve.

Drudge Report and Craigslist both built their marketshare to a top 10 internet destination in the world before they started to make money.  Craigslist is the first reason all the newspapers are in trouble.  Why didn't NYT, LAT, McClatchy or whoever do that first or do it better?  Clayton Christensen has an answer for that - the entrenched player in the market CAN'T do it.  They would lost too much in revenues to disrupt their own market.  I remember having a Wednesday night deadline for Sunday rental ads and being audited by the IRS because the cost was so high when rents were low.  To that newspaper, good riddance I wish, you couldn't have provided worse service or value.  Google and Facebook have their own life cycle and someday face a similar fate.

DBMA public forum, excellent content!  What do we charge readers and how much do we pay our writers?  Free information built the internet, there will still be sources of value outside of any cartel.

This problem with media is not new.  Look at the fall of Enron.  How big was this company?  How many people did they impact?  Yet there was NOT ONE investigative reporter on it during the whole implosion until after it fell all the way to the ground. The elite media don't have a corner on the information. When they wait until everyone knows to tell us, war breaks out or trump gives a speech, they do not own that news or the rights to sell it.  
« Last Edit: February 26, 2018, 06:03:42 PM by DougMacG »



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WSJ: Here's how FB really is spying on you.
« Reply #28 on: March 07, 2018, 09:35:04 PM »
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-really-is-spying-on-you-just-not-through-your-phones-mic-1520448644?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=video&cx_artPos=4#cxrecs_s

Photos and graphs at the URL
==========================

 By Joanna Stern
March 7, 2018 1:50 p.m. ET
161 COMMENTS

“Can I try the Cole Haans in a size 8?”
Later that night on Facebook: An advertisement for Cole Haan pumps.

OK, maybe a coincidence.

“What’s the best high-tech scale?” my wife asks aloud.
Five minutes later on Instagram: An ad for scales.

Wait, are they listening?

“Get the little red Sudafed pills,” my mom says after I sneeze.
That afternoon: An advertisement for Sudafed PE.

Yep, they’ve even wiretapped my bodily functions.

A conspiracy theory has spread among Facebook and Instagram users: The company is tapping our microphones to target ads. It’s not.

“Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed,” says Facebook.

Yeah, sure, and the government swears it isn’t keeping any pet aliens at Area 51. So I contacted former Facebook employees and various advertising technology experts, who all cited technical and legal reasons audio snooping isn’t possible.

Uploading and scanning that much audio data “would strain even the resources of the NSA,” says former Facebook ad-targeting product manager Antonio Garcia Martinez. “They would need to understand the context of what you are saying—not just listen for words,” says Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook operations manager.

I believe them, but for another reason: Facebook is now so good at watching what we do online—and even offline, wandering around the physical world—it doesn’t need to hear us. After digging into the various bits of info Facebook and its advertisers collect and the bits I’ve actually handed over myself, I can now explain why I got each of those eerily relevant ads. (Facebook ads themselves offer limited explanations when you click “Why am I seeing this?”)

Advertising is an important staple of the free internet, but the companies buying and selling ads are turning into stalkers. We need to understand what they’re doing, and what we can—or can’t—do to limit them.
What You’ve Bought

The story of how that Sudafed ad got to me begins at Walgreens. As I bought tissues and Afrin, I keyed in my phone number so I could get loyalty points.
When you enter your email address, phone number or other customer ID when checking out at a store, data brokers could get your purchase history.
When you enter your email address, phone number or other customer ID when checking out at a store, data brokers could get your purchase history. Photo: Robert Alcaraz/The Wall Street Journal

Information about the contents of my shopping bag began to spread. A third-party data collector—likely Nielsen-Catalina Solutions—added it to the purchase history it acquires from Walgreens.

Johnson & Johnson, maker of Sudafed, paid the data broker for that information. With the use of Facebook’s tools, the information from my loyalty card—email, phone number, etc.—was matched with my Facebook account. (Data brokers run personal information through an algorithm before uploading so it’s not identifiable, Facebook says, but it still can be matched with Facebook account information.)

Then via Facebook, Johnson & Johnson decided to target adults ages 25 to 54 who bought Sudafed or a competing brand. In other words, me.
Opt Out of Data Gathering

Follow the links below for instructions to stop tracking by the largest data brokers.

    Acxiom
    Epsilon
    Experian
    Oracle Data Cloud
    TransUnion
    WPP

Do this: For starters, either don’t use loyalty cards, or register them to an email address or phone number you don’t use.

Facebook works directly with six data brokers, all of which allow you to opt out from their sharing of your personal data, everything from your email to your purchase history.

Of course, it isn’t  easy. You need to go to each broker website and fill out your form with, yes, your personal information.
Where You’ve Been

What could be better than your purchase history? Location, location, location. Did you stop by a shop? This ad will remind you to come back! Are you close to one of our stores? Here’s a coupon!

My colleague Christopher Mims detailed in his recent column how advertisers are using all sorts of location signals—your phone’s GPS, Wi-Fi access points around you, IP addresses, etc.— to follow your breadcrumbs.

Do this: Limit Facebook from knowing where you are. In the mobile app (iOS and Android), go to Settings > Account Settings > Location and turn off location tracking. Disable location history, too.
In Facebook's app, tap Settings then follow these steps to prevent the social network from keeping tabs on your whereabouts.
In Facebook's app, tap Settings then follow these steps to prevent the social network from keeping tabs on your whereabouts. Photo: Wilson Rothman/The Wall Street Journal

Other apps can pinpoint your location and serve you ads back through Facebook. Before granting any app location access, think it through. On the iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and go through the apps you’ve granted location access. (They should all say “Never” or “While Using”—not “Always.”) On Android, go to Settings > Location.
Which Apps You’re Using

A few days before my wife mentioned that digital scale, I downloaded LoseIt, a food-tracking app, to my iPhone. No more than 24 hours later, my entire Facebook and Instagram feeds were taken over with fitness and weight-loss ads. (Yes, Facebook-owned Instagram pulls from the same ad selection.)

The free version of LoseIt shows ads from Facebook’s Audience Network. Even if you don’t log into the app via Facebook, the companies swap information. In my case, LoseIt’s maker FitNow Inc. used my iPhone’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), a number stored on my iPhone, to match up any other history associated with my IDFA, including my Facebook account.
In the iPhone's Settings menu, you can limit the ability of advertisers to get hold of your iPhone's unique identifier.
In the iPhone's Settings menu, you can limit the ability of advertisers to get hold of your iPhone's unique identifier. Photo: Wilson Rothman/The Wall Street Journal

FitNow confirmed that, when I opened the app, my IDFA became associated with “Healthy Living” and “Weight Loss,” which are now marked on my Facebook advertising profile.

Do this: Apple gives you the ability to limit advertisers from getting your IDFA. In iOS go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising > switch on Limit Ad Tracking. At the same time you should reset the advertising identifier. With Android’s similar system, just go to Settings > Google > Ads > Opt out of Ads Personalization.
What You’ve Clicked or Tapped

Of course, there’s another way Facebook knows, well, pretty much everything about me: my web browsing history. Facebook Pixel is installed on millions of websites and apps, enabling advertisers and Facebook to see what you do on there. It’s why you may see an ad for a spatula after browsing spatulas. Add something to a shopping cart? Click on a different product or article on the site? Pixel can know.

Do this: Interest-based advertising is used across the web by the big technology companies. Facebook, Amazon, Google and others offer ways to opt out on their own websites. On Facebook, go to Settings > Account Settings > Ads > Ad Settings and turn off all the settings on that page. You can also delete any interests Facebook may have gathered about you previously.

On your computer’s browser, install the Ghostery or Privacy Badger extensions. Both allow you to see—and disable— trackers that are running on webpages.
Who You Really Are

All that information, combined with your activity on Facebook and Instagram—which pages or posts you’ve liked, the people you are friends with and more—gives the social networking conglomerate a very good portrait of you.

The portrait gets clearer with even more information from data brokers: your salary, car preference, home size, political affiliations, spending habits and far more.

It’s what allows any advertiser to log into Facebook Ads Manager and start targeting. Even I was able to log in and laser focus on people in a certain NYC ZIP code who have bought furniture and cooking spices—and who are “likely to move soon.”

Do this: Short of deleting Facebook and living in a bunker, there isn’t anything you can do to stop this entirely.

“When ad targeting is used well, it makes advertising better,” says Facebook spokesperson Joe Osborne. “That’s why we build our targeting tools in a way that doesn’t share people’s personal information with advertisers and that gives people control over the ads they see.”

My problem is, we still don’t have enough transparency about how these ads are getting to us. The more we focus on the realities—not that they’re listening, but how they’re monitoring our app downloads and trips to the supermarket—the more we’ll know where our privacy is at stake.

But hey, if you’re still worried about the mic, by all means, turn it off. (On iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy > Microphone > Facebook. On Android, go to Settings > Apps > Facebook > Permissions > Disable microphone.
In the iPhone's Settings menu, you can disable the Facebook app from accessing your microphone.
In the iPhone's Settings menu, you can disable the Facebook app from accessing your microphone. Photo: Joanna Stern/The Wall Street Journal

Crafty_Dog

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G M

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We must build our own platforms
« Reply #30 on: March 08, 2018, 12:22:39 PM »

Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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The coming State-Goolag conspiracy
« Reply #32 on: March 12, 2018, 11:22:37 AM »


Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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NRO: Cambridge Analytica
« Reply #36 on: March 20, 2018, 05:04:36 AM »

ccp

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Is not the sudden interest astounding ?
« Reply #37 on: March 20, 2018, 06:16:33 PM »
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/20/what-facebook-could-learn-from-wells-fargos-woes/
“What you find is that there’s never just one cockroach in the kitchen,” Warren Buffet explained"

I remember it being announced OBama was using FB information and they gladly shared with the most powerful "ONE" who they must have thought would help Hill win.

with Sandberg's blessing

As Rush pointed out that FB MO is to sell data for marketing purposes
so what is new? 
Thats how they make their money.

The only thing new is now the Dems are on the receiving end and now , now we hear them and their media accomplisses having a hissy fit.
Rush was rightly laughing about the ways the Dems are contorting to implicate "russians" 
Talk about fake news. 


Crafty_Dog

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The Goolag Loves You
« Reply #38 on: March 23, 2018, 11:56:01 AM »
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-20/google-and-amazon-antitrust-fears-are-misplaced

Does not address the implications of Google/youtube/FB controlling the town square and steering public discourse through its algorithms.


Crafty_Dog

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Stratfor: Are Corporations Poised to Overtake Countries?
« Reply #40 on: March 25, 2018, 06:07:07 PM »
Are Corporations Poised to Overtake Countries?


It can be difficult to separate the important from unimportant on any given day. Reflections mean to do exactly that — by thinking about what happened today, we can consider what might happen tomorrow.


    Corporations such as Facebook and others will continue to outdo the state in accruing massive amounts of personal data on individuals, particularly in the West.
    Massive firms could use such information as part of an effort to reshape people’s allegiances.
    As states perceive corporations as potential threats to their power, they will take action to keep such companies at bay.

 

Will the corporation supplant the state as the world's dominant organizational structure in the coming century? It's a question to which many world thinkers adamantly answer "yes." In this bold vision for the future, national borders gradually wither away as transnational companies become ever more powerful, leading governments by the nose in pursuit of perfect supply chain efficiency. For advocates of this vision, the prevailing trends throughout the world, large companies' growing influence, the giant cash piles of companies like Apple and diminishing trade barriers all point to the coming predominance of the corporation. Skeptics, by contrast, say the obituary for the state is decidedly premature but concede that the corporation is likely to eat away at national power in the decades to come.

The Big Picture

Major changes are afoot in the global economy, especially when it comes to advances in technology — the most geopolitically important of which Stratfor follows under its Fourth Industrial Revolution theme. Many of these new technologies will empower corporations, possibly even to the point at which they could challenge states.


The history of the world is essentially a history of the invisible lines that have shaped the global population. The basic societal unit, the human, is largely the same the world over, but systems have emerged to turn humans into cogs in larger machines. Organizations and institutions exercise power thanks to individuals' willingness to subordinate themselves to wider goals. In feudal times, a king's power depended on the loyalty of his lords, who themselves needed to keep their peasants in line to ensure their own continued strength. While ostensibly preoccupied with the world to come, the Catholic Church once wielded a large degree of power in the present realm. Today, however, the institution is a shadow of its former self because it has not succeeded in persuading as large a percentage of the population to believe in it, thereby reducing its power on a relative basis. In the centuries that followed the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the nation-state began to supplant the church, ultimately providing a common sense of identity for which large groups of diverse people were willing to die.

But the idea that individuals could begin to rally around the corporation more than the nation-state is flawed. First off, the favorable geopolitical circumstances that have permitted corporations to thrive over the last seven decades might not continue. Beyond that, however, there are also deeper philosophical problems with the idea, centered on the question of personal motivation.

If corporations are to overtake the state in global importance, individuals would need to collectively switch their primary allegiance (or be compelled to do so by circumstance) to massive companies over their current polities. The situation would also require the average person to prize a corporate identity more highly than a national one – something that few have been willing to do thus far. National identities have coalesced over many centuries, becoming woven into families, cultures, traditions and languages. Corporations, by contrast, are relative newcomers to the realm of identity politics and have not managed to achieve the same degree of penetration into people's lives. Still, recent developments portend a shift in power from country to corporation.

Harnessing Knowledge in Pursuit of Power

In recent years, personal information has become an increasingly important commodity, particularly in Europe and North America. But whereas one would have expected the state to collect such information in the past, today it is the corporation that is amassing such knowledge. Western populations have been relatively content – the present fallout from the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica incident notwithstanding – to allow companies to learn vast amounts of information about them. Over the last two decades, companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon have become interwoven in the daily lives of Western citizens, and they have amassed extraordinary amounts of information at an individual user level for the purposes of targeted advertising. These developments have given technology corporations the ability to gain access to a degree of knowledge over individuals' lives that a Western politician seeking election could only dream about.

Large proportions of people's lives are migrating online into areas such as social media, and if the trajectory continues at its current rate, corporations such as Facebook and Amazon could soon possess more knowledge about individuals in a Western country than national governments, which are largely restrained in the information they can gather and retain.

Large proportions of people's lives are migrating online into areas such as social media, and if the trajectory continues at its current rate, corporations such as Facebook and Amazon could soon possess more knowledge about individuals in a Western country than national governments, which are largely restrained in the information they can gather and retain. In a battle for hearts and minds, it is not hard to imagine Apple one day enjoying a better chance than a national government of persuading an individual to align with its interests. This could be the key to enormous persuasive power; indeed, it is possible that it could provide corporations with a path to ultimately win the battle for a population's hearts and minds.

Already, it appears that states are preparing a counterattack against the corporate challenger, particularly by resorting to antitrust legislation. Judicial officials in the European Union have launched legal action against major U.S. technology companies through such avenues, while a similar debate has begun in the United States as well.

The planet is a long way from sitting down to watch a World Cup match pitting Amazon versus Facebook instead of the likes of Brazil versus France, yet corporations will continue to make inroads into the lives of people around the globe to the degree that they could come to rival the state for power. As the recent legal proceedings in the European Union show, the first salvoes have been fired in the great battle between the state and the corporation, and more are likely to come.


Crafty_Dog

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Do not let shiny objects distract us from this question
« Reply #42 on: March 26, 2018, 07:58:28 PM »
second post:

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/03/26/zuckerberg-fundamentally-uncomfortable-deciding-what-counts-as-hate-speech/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_content=links&utm_campaign=20180326

With the pressure on FB and with FB being the progressive organization that it is, a grand compromise wherein pressure is eased up on FB in return for it being a dutiful soldier in the Orwellian mind control mission of the Deep State is the deep danger.

G M

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DougMacG

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Re: What Facehugger and Goolag have on you. Facebook broke campaign laws
« Reply #44 on: March 28, 2018, 07:26:45 AM »
https://mobile.twitter.com/iamdylancurran/status/977559925680467968

I don't do Facebook and they still probably have everything on me.  I surrendered to the free and powerful features of Google and what they have on me is frightening.  Leave your cell phone at home if you have anything secretive to attend to...
------------------------------------------------

Facebook broke campaign laws in Obama campaign

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-scanadal-trump-obama-campaign-election-meddling/


 "they were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn't have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side."

Federal law "bans corporations from making 'direct or indirect' contributions to federal candidates."

Exactly what they did.  read the whole piece and the links within it.

Law with no enforcement or consequence, util a Republican or conservative does it.  Then watch out!


DougMacG

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