Twitter staff fears Musk will undo censorship programs (that they deny existed)
In an inconsistent twist, Twitter staff are said to be distraught that Musk will undo censorship features they implemented (but denied they had implemented). What?
Twitter accepts Musk purchase offer, locks down source code
Twitter was just acquired by Elon Musk. The company, fearful of retribution by staff, has locked down the source code to prevent sabotage by employees. What does that say about the company culture?
Weird Facebook “anti-misinformation”
Facebook gives a bizarre “fact check”.
Russian TikTok Influencers Paid to Spread Kremlin Propaganda
VICE News confirmed that someone unknown (possibly Russia’s government?) has been paying TikTok social media influencers to spread untrue lies as propaganda messaging on TikTok.
The scary ways the “metaverse” will control your views and your identity
How the “metaverse” may cause us to become even more uniform in our views to conform to group identiies.
Study finds massive censorship of Covid-related information, by social media companies
Study finds widespread censorship of social media posts, by “BigTech” social media companies. In many cases, scientific skepticism, since show to be correct, was deleted by FB, Twitter and so on.
FB content that caused emotional responses ranked higher in The Algorithm
Years ago I suggested that FB was designed to create a “culture of perpetual outrage”. People who are emotionally engaged are more susceptible to advertising messages – plus, they are likely to stay connected to FB for more minutes. Internal documents reveal that FB not only knew this but gave emotional content posts higher leverage in The Algorithm that decides what you see online.
Simple Facebook experiment demonstrates how FB amplifies left and right extremist perspectives
A simple research study demonstrated how FB’s algorithm readily amplify extremist political viewpoints on the left and right. The root cause is that FB optimizes for time spent engaged with FB – and does not optimize for what you may wish to see. The result is FB optimizes to keep you perpetually outraged.
Facebook’s algorithms reward outrage
The algorithms lead to an increase in angry people and divisiveness, leading to a world of angry people, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Norway passes law requiring influencers to label retouched photos on social media”
Interesting – retouched photos, posted by advertisers and social media influencers must disclose the retouching. The law, though, does not define re-touching and it is unclear if it applies to exposure, contrast, saturation, sharpness adjustment.