Yikes.

  • DarkWasp@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    50
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    “Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

    Zuck: Just ask.

    Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

    [Redacted Friend’s Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?

    Zuck: People just submitted it.

    Zuck: I don’t know why.

    Zuck: They “trust me”

    Zuck: Dumb fucks.“

    • 001100 010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      How the fuck did Harvard students act so stupid and give out their info like that? I thought they were like the smartest people in the US. 🤔

      • TesterJ@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        1 year ago

        Most Harvard students are still just 18-22 year old “kids”. Think of how dumb/naive you were at that age.

        • Captain_Nipples@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          1 year ago

          Try telling that to a 18-22 yr old. You think you know everything at that age. Then you get older and realize no one knows any fucking thing

          • Syrc@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            To be fair, when you’re at that age and come into contact with dozens of “adults” that never mentally grew past 12, you’re bound to think you’re “very smart”.

          • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            There’s a reason second-year students are called sophomores. It’s a compound with the same roots as “sophisticated” and “moron”. It literally means “learned idiot”. It’s referring to the students who have a year of schooling under their belt, and think that they understand everything about the world. It’s basically referring to the Dunning-Krueger Effect, where people who know very little about something are the most likely to overestimate their knowledge on the topic.

        • BornVolcano@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          As a 21 year old I would be offended but then I remember I just admitted my exact age on the internet

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      This is still I think the most telling glimpse into who the “ZUCK” really is. Looking at what meta has become, how it has operated… No matter how professional and respectable he acts.

      This is who he really is.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t it’s a fair assessment - dude was just a kid.

        I’ve watched some podcasts and interviews and I think he’s a much more complex of a person. I do genuinely think he’s thinks he’s doing good and I do think that Meta stuff is a net benefit to the humanity.

        Even if you hate Facebook it brought people together in so many places, especially if you consider developing world.

        • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Doing good does not absolve you of having done evil.

          Zuck has utterly failed in preventing facebook from doing clear, preventable, harm.

          I don’t get to walk free, no matter how many homeless people I feed, if I kill one.

          The same should go for corporations. If they do evil, once, they should done. Not fined. There is no math which makes the bad that facebook does, necessary to achieve the good it does.

          • Syrc@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            The same should go for corporations. If they do evil, once, they should done.

            You kinda just gutted 99% of corporations. And done overall nothing for society because they already all reopened under different names.

            • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Why are you assuming the legal framework for ending corporations couldn’t have mechanisms to prevent that?

              For example, offending corporations could be broken up, and have their assets sold to their competitors. The resulting money used as severance for the employees, who didn’t necessarily do anything wrong.

              A company can’t just “start back up” if you take all their capital. And no-one would re-invest in people known for taking legal risks that might make that investment go “poof”.

              And 99% of corporations wouldn’t be evil if it wasn’t fucking legal, and basically required to compete!

              • Syrc@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                1 year ago

                I don’t think it’s even legal to give away a company’s assets without their consent, be they criminal or not.

                And anyway, that’s easy to get around that too. Full of companies that already “”“go bankrupt”“” to avoid paying their due and then reopen with money magically appearing from “somewhere”. In the end to me it just seems the more rules/laws you add, the more the average person will suffer because of it while not really causing any for assholes.

                • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  “This thing would be illegal” is a pretty shit argument when changing the law is on the table.

                  And I see you’re a fan “anti-regulation” ideals. Did it occur to you that this system could entirely replace a shitload of micro-managing bs current regulation? And did you miss the part where re-investment in criminals wouldn’t be a thing if it was that expensive? The only reason it happens right now is because it is technically legal, and cheap.

        • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I do genuinely think he’s thinks he’s doing good and I do think that Meta stuff is a net benefit to the humanity.

          The problem I see is that you’ve bought into his lie. He might “sound” genuine in thinking he’s done good, much like Bill Gates sounds genuine when he talks about his philantropic shenanigans. It’s all an act.

          The only net benefit I see off FB/Meta is that it taught us how dangerous and shitty a centralized internet is.

        • Yendor@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Have you watched ‘The Social Dilemma’?

          Facebook actively promotes things that will make you scared and angry, because those are the emotions that drive the most engagement and get the most clicks.

  • mokoshark69@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    44
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is a reminder to lemmy users, that this new meta expriement will use the ActivityPub protocol, meaning that it can interact with other lemmy instances, please urge your lemmy instance admins to de-federate from this crap as soon as it launches!

    • mnstrspeed@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      But why? Isn’t the whole point of federation that we can interact with people in other communities? Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub? Completely walling them off seems counterproductive

      Not defending Meta, just curious

        • RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          1 year ago

          Interesting and I’d say you’re right. If you were to see a mass adoption of the fediverse (such as Twitter imploding and mastadon becoming the replacement) there would be an immediate attempt by the big tech players to gain control of it in some way. And this is exactly how they would try to do it.

        • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          What’s the alternative? They go with a non activity pub system and woo away all our users anyway?

          • clara@feddit.uk
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            1 year ago

            realistically, yes :(

            opinion time: not everything has to be about fast/unsustainable growth, in the pursuit of profit. i would prefer that the fediverse grows organically, and entices quality users, posters and commenters to join based on the merits of the service, and not on it’s access to inflated VC budgets, huge advertising campaigns, and exploitation of a first-mover advantage.

            facebook/meta will slay us, because we are a threat to it’s profit model. why are we even contemplating negotiations with a tiger while we have our head in it’s mouth? it beggars belief…

            • Lemmino@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              I feel like there’s no winning if you’re a dev at one of these companies. Go with a centralized protocol, you get shit for creating a walled garden. Take part in federation, and people give you shit for that too. I think it’s genuinely amazing that we are seeing engineers that have made some of the most fundamental software that the internet runs on dip their toes into federation.

              • clara@feddit.uk
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                1 year ago

                i don’t blame the devs, in the same way that you can’t blame a cog in a machine. it’s the machine that i’m complaining at here, not the devs

                historically, big tech companies have exploited their dominant position to snuff out federated protocols in the past. why would they suddenly choose to take a sweet tone to fediverse/activitypub now?

                meta has a few options here for Threads, i will list some routes:

                1. co-operate fully with activitypub forever and ever, always in alignment with activitypub protocol, always does the right/moral thing, makes a meager profit and growth for doing so
                2. all of option 1, but then after building up user lock-in and momentum, then start adding “meta-net” exclusive features to entice users to instances under their control. wait patiently until dominant market share established, and then stop federating outside of meta-net, to force non users to switch over. make a bigger profit and growth.
                3. all of option 2, but also compete with fediverse using the strength of it’s inherited capital from meta, to gain market share quickly. bribe and buyout instances to join meta-net through sheer weight of money, send frivolous lawsuits/dmca to crush the dissenters. astroturf comment sections on non-meta instances to sway public opinion. harvest all data from activitypub to keep shadow accounts on non meta-net AP users. make even bigger profit and growth

                the machine is obviously going to take option 3 here. i feel sorry for the devs, who know full well that what they make can and will be used in this way.

          • lich_hegemon@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            1 year ago

            If people want to crawl back into Meta’s clutches I’m not going to stop them. Don’t give the one nice thing we have to a corporation that only wants to exploit us.

        • damnYouSun@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Is there a fediverse version of Facebook?

          Very roughly,
          Lemmy and Kbin = Reddit
          Masterson = Twitter

          So what equals Facebook

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            I think Diaspora* is the federated FB alternative

            There was also a crypto backed and “freeze peach absolutist” alternative, Minds, dunno how that one’s going

          • devfuuu@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Diaspora as said was it long ago. Nowadays I guess the Movim project based on xmpp can give and experience similar to it.

          • Risk@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            Presumably Facebook’s move into ActivityPub is to prevent or limit users moving to a decentralised alternative to Facebook?

          • Risk@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            Presumably Facebook’s move into ActivityPub is to prevent or limit users moving to a decentralised alternative to Facebook?

      • graphite@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        1 year ago

        Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub?

        No. We don’t. The more hands they have in the fediverse pie, the more influence they have over it. The more influence they have, the more control. The more control, the more at the whim of their decisions you are. The more at the whim of their decisions, the more power they have over you.

        This should be common sense at this point.

          • graphite@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            You may be right - perhaps it’s inevitable, one way or another. I don’t know.

            I’m passive at this point.

        • Lemmino@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          IMO this is such a shortsighted take and defeats the point of federation because of a knee jerk response.

          There is the potential for federation to grow massively with the injection of billions from big tech.

          • graphite@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            There is the potential for federation to grow massively with the injection of billions from big tech.

            Sure, of course it would grow. But at what cost? And then who effectively owns it in the end? There’s an inevitable outcome - one that you apparently aren’t aware of.

          • catastrophicblues@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            My take is that we should defederate them so that they don’t become the de facto instance in the Fediverse. That way, the Fediverse remains what it is now—open and truly decentralized. By defederating and discouraging them, we’re signaling to potential new users that they’ll be stuck in their own bubble.

      • Burstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub?

        I certainly don’t. I abandoned Facebook years ago because of how BS they were getting with privacy concerns and social manipulation. Last thing I want is to bring those dumpster fires here. They join the platform, I will migrate to whichever Instances defed them or leave Lemmy entirely if necessary. Simply put, it’s been a breathe of rational, civil air here. While it is early days keeping that hostile-to-humanity crap out of here is obvious minimum we should be doing.

      • Izzy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        We want individuals to adopt ActivityPub. Whether that be in the form of hosting new instances or contributing content. We don’t want corporations here trying to turn it into something they can use to make a profit. Once it becomes about the money it is on a death spiral like everything else before it.

      • graphite@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub?

        No. We don’t. The more hands they have in the fediverse pie, the more influence they have over it. The more influence they have, the more control. The more control, the more at the whim of their decisions you are. The more at the whim of their decisions, the more power they have over you.

        This should be common sense at this point.

        • flop@lemmy.fmhy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I don’t even know if I disagree with “big platforms” using activitypub. Like Tumblr integration could be cool, but fucking facebook? Eww

      • mokoshark69@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Were talking about meta here, this is a bait and switch attempt (I see it that way)

        They launch their new twitter competitor, everyone moves over to their new twitter clone, they will try and hold the power on standarts of federation (like any big tech corporation that has a smaller rival that succedes more then them, see microsoft vs netscape for refrence)

        If they will fail with that, they will try to seduce lemmy and mastodon instaces with monetization and big money handouts, were talking about facebook here after all, they are not short of scummy tactics

          • devfuuu@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            A pratice as old as time, done and proved to work. It’s not even theoretical, it’s gonna happen. You either are proactive in protecting the network or we will be too late to do anything. Always works like that. If you think that giving the benefit of the doubt and wait and see is an option, then you already lost.

      • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m don’t know how the federation protocol works exactly, but I’m pretty sure Meta can throw more resources into it than all the independent instances combined. Again, I don’t know anything about the specifics of the fediverse so I don’t know if that applies here, but generally once you control more than 50% of something that does not have a central authority - you became, de facto, that central authority.

        • Lemmino@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          There is incentive for competition from Google, Twitter, etc, that would cause federation as a whole to grow without resulting in a single authority taking over the network.

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        If they can embrace and extend the fediverse you know they’re gonna extinguish it, too. They’re s bad faith actor, we don’t want them interacting with us or influencing us.

      • LargeHardonCollider@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Another really big concern I have is that activity pub by definition shares all your posts with any instance that hosts your followers. So if you have a mastodon follower on FB’s activity pub/twitter replica, FB automatically gets your data even though you don’t use it

      • LargeHardonCollider@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Another really big concern I have is that activity pub by definition shares all your posts with any instance that hosts your followers. So if you have a mastodon follower on FB’s activity pub/twitter replica, FB automatically gets your data even though you don’t use it

        The type of things they get are

        1. Your profile
        2. Whatever you post
        3. Who interacts with your posts
    • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      I don’t understand why people call Facebook Meta now

      I don’t accept that name

      It’s Facebook

      • Izzy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        I believe they actually changed their corporations name to Meta. As crazy as that rebranding is.

        • UnstuckinTime@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah but they largely get it because the name Facebook became so toxic and poisoned and it’s probably better just to force them to have to stay in the cultural millieu as Facebook, the company that runs psychological experiments on its users and creates profiles illegally on non-users as well. That pays to be installed on Android devices and not be allowed to be uninstalled.

          • Izzy@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I wonder how long it will take to tarnish the Meta name. Assuming it isn’t already. The concept of the metaverse is a complete failure and they also never really stopped being terrible with data harvesting.

    • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      but homeboy wanting to open the fediverse to Meta really still out here like "oh, there’s nothing malicious here, not at all; water’s fine"

  • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Crazy thought, but people don’t need Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, any Twitter replacement, etc. I.e. ya’ll don’t need ‘social media’.

      • Kaanta@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Meh, not really tho, it’s more like forums, instances/forums will never be as big as centralized websites for social media.

          • Kaanta@slrpnk.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yeah now that i think about it, you’re right. What i meant to say was that it’s usage is not centered around micro-blogging, like what the usage of “social media” refers to.

      • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Cake is bread but no one is making a ham and cheese with it.

        Lemmy and Reddit the individual user is just that, an individual. But on these other ones, you are encouraged to be a brand. Hell, it’s almost expected. And they are just platforms of false affirmation because it’s only positive reactions.

        So whole yes, this does fall under social media in a broad sense, I would argue it’s in a very different category.

      • Nackledar@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes, and I’d also argue that we don’t “need” it. It’s certainly a good tool you can build to suit your needs/wants like news, funny stuff, etc, but we can also go without. The big difference between social media really is whether you are the product or not.

        • CashmereWitch@vlemmy.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I get what you’re saying but it’s not really an impactful argument. We don’t really “need” most things (except food and water, etc.) but that doesn’t mean they have no value or don’t bring us enjoyment. Sure, we don’t “need” social media, and you could probably make a case that the good outweighs the bad, but that doesn’t mean that it has no value or shouldn’t exist. I have a lot of concerns about privacy and there’s a lot about social media in general that I think is problematic, but I also get a lot of use out of it and there are definitely benefits to using it.

    • Wrench Wizard@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      People really don’t. I deleted my FB for years and quit using it. Whole time I’ve been telling people that it’s poison for your mind.

      After a few years of not using it I’d forgotten that and began to wonder if it was true or if maybe it was just my mental state at the time.

      Solved that question easily. Reinstated my account a few days ago to get in touch with someone and found myself creeping like I used to.

      What did I learn immediately from that? It REALLY IS POISON!! It’s horrible for your head!

      After going without it for a while I effectively had my “blinders” on and was only focused with my daily life. I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been this year.

      Within a half hour of browsing Facebook that peace of mind had vanished! I was once again focusing on the lives of others more than myself. I was thinking of things I could post to show that I have a “life” just like them. I checked on people who didn’t like me in the past and found myself perceiving their comments or memes they’ve posted to be about me. I thought to myself “I’ll show them, I’ll do this and this, wait until they see it!”

      I also found myself feeling lessed blessed than I am. Suddenly my recent accomplishments didn’t seem so grand in comparison to all the happy pictures I was seeing. My simple life and simple job seemed like it wasn’t enough anymore. I didn’t feel enough.

      I checked up on my exes, women I’ve been GLADLY apart from for years and got jealous of how well they seemed to be doing in comparison to what I had going on in life. Little things like them having a partner. This was major irony because I’ve had the chance to have these partners back and it was a hell no.

      So quick. Didn’t even browse a full hour and it almost killed the peace of mind I’ve been working all of these years to obtain. I quit browsing, thankfully.

      That night when I laid down, I didn’t sleep restfully. Instead of my usual happy thoughts routine while drifting out I had all kinds of negative emotions pop up.

      It took me a day or two to snap out of it and focus on what I’M doing in life without the worry of others.

      Being connected to others is great. Constantly comparing ourselves to others and thinking about them instead of channeling 100% of our energy into OUR lives is not good for anyone.

      I feel like we just haven’t evolved to handle that properly. In a small village it’s important to keep an eye on each other and care about each other.

      Caring about, comparing and keeping an eye on everyone in the entire world? No. We’re not meant for that.

      What strangers are doing is knowledge I just don’t need, unless they’re posting self help videos or… anything beneficial really.

      99% of the posts I saw were just “Look what I bought! Look how awesome my life is! Vacation!!!”

      And people being super fake.

      Fb was cool when we just posted text of how we were actually doing. I cared about that sometimes. That wasn’t detrimental to my mental health. Everyone acting like their life is perfect isn’t good for anyone bc it makes you wonder why your life isn’t that “good” not realizing you’re just not being informed of all the struggle, or luck that pays for lives that lavish.

      Idk much, but I know that shit is poison And could rant about it more but… Lemmy don’t need my pants. Typo, Lemmy don’t need my pants, okay I mean rants there but pants is valid too.

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’ve said it here before and I will say it again: Facebook and Google’s entire approach to ads from data is based on an incorrect assumption of using enough data to build a profile on a person to predict what they are going to be interested in, when if you stop and think about it, it doesn’t make any sense: people’s needs will always change with circumstances at the time, ex. no amount of data in the world will help you predict whether I’ll want a burger or Thai food for lunch tomorrow even if you do the digital equivalent of creeping on me outside my window and digging through my trash can. If you want to know what people want to buy, why not ask them?

    Unfortunately, they’ve deluded themselves for more than a decade with the lie, so now the rest of the world also think that internet ads by them actually works.

    I’m not going to rag too hard on Facebook here because most thing has been said by others already, but I will say that since literally every single one of their social media product took the same approach of maximize data to sell things, why is it that they are all losing people and their most successful place at selling things is actually Facebook Marketplace?

    • XYZinferno@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      While I hate the shady data harvesting practices of companies like Meta, I do want to play devil’s advocate here, as far as the value of data goes, if only for the sake of me understanding the shortcomings of it better. If a company were to dig through your trash can to get an idea of what you want to eat, so to speak, they’d probably find data on a history of foods you have eaten, if you’ve been interested in burgers, or any other foods you’ve been interested in. Or if you’ve been an adventurous eater in general or if you prefer to stick to variants of the same stuff you normally eat.

      It may not give you a foolproof way of knowing what your next actions will be, but wouldn’t it give a company an educated guess, at the very least? Enough to improve the chances of targeted ads being more effective, as opposed to missing altogether.

      If catching the user’s interest is a dice roll, then wouldn’t the data at least improve the odds of rolling a number you want?

      • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Ok, think of it this way, if your friend ask you for a local restaraunt recommendation, would you dig through their trash to find their leftover to figure out what kind of food they like, or would you just ask them what they usually like to eat?

        That’s why people went to forums like reddit for help with everything, because people helping people with volunteered info always work better than being a creep.

        • XYZinferno@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Oh yeah, I agree it’s more effective, by far. I imagine that’s why Google has Opinion Rewards and other companies use surveys to directly understand the needs of their customers. Though getting people in mass to volunteer that info, especially without some small profit incentive like Opinion Rewards might be tricky.

          At least in the realm of targeted advertising, the closest example to user input would be when you set up an account, you’re prompted to select your interests. Like with Windows 10, when you’re setting it up for the first time, you’ll be asked about your interests, which Microsoft will then use to send ads and news pertaining to those categories.

          But yeah, I see what you mean

    • restingboredface@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree. I hate the idea of Meta or anybody having that much data on me in one place. However - - even Amazon, which supposedly has some of the most sophisticated purchase data and analytics out there doesn’t seem to be able to do anything with it. I mean, I buy a blender there and the next thing they recommend to me is… A blender. That only stops until I buy something else which they then continue to recommend more of, as if I only want multiples of the exact things I’ve already purchased. The recommendation engine is the whole point of having my data to begin with so but they seem unable to recommend anything new to me at all.

      It’s like they have all this information written in front of them but they can’t read.

      • ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Amazon’s recommendation engine feels like it is still designed for media, even though they sell everything now. Buying a blender doesn’t mean you want more blenders, but buying a science fiction novel probably means you want more science fiction novels.

    • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      Ads are so backwards in general.

      Why would I trust a brand just because they inconvenience me for 30 seconds before I can watch a YouTube video I’m actually interested in? Or the branding that interrupts me reading an article with a “trendy and hip”, horribly made auto-play clip that bolsters an audio volume level so high, it almost deafens me?

      I almost actively avoid products that I see advertisement for on a daily basis because they piss me off so much.

      I get wanting to promote your product and it’s not the company’s fault that many places aggressively spam ads in your face to nickle and dime their user base.

      I really feel like ad revenue should not be based on how many ads you show, but how much return the advertiser gets. Google’s ad service has a return of about 4%, which means for every 100 bucks a company pays to Google to advertise a product, they can expect to recoup 4. I dunno how that is even worth it.

      • PloKoon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        And yet, it continues… I think they’re thinking that brand recognition is all that matters and that eventually you’ll come around and get Geico or Use some product that has been assaulting you for months simply because you’ve seen it enough and it’s stuck in your mind. Honestly, I would rather have a customer associate good thoughts with my brand, but no one seems to ascribe to that thought anymore…

    • count_duckula@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree with what you say as one aspect of it. But there could be insidious uses of your data. What if your insurance company pays a couple of raccoons to sort through your trash and find out you eat fatty burgers and fries for most meals? When the raccoons get back with that report, what is to prevent your insurance company from raising your premium since you are at risk (according to them) of a heart attack?

    • desconectado@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      They can’t identify particular and specific interests, but they definitely can predict trends on consumer behaviour. I don’t think Google wants your data to predict when you will want Thai. That’s preposterous.

      They are reaping billions on ad revenue, it definitely works, it won’t forever, but it does at the moment.

    • Vyxor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      They do their best to get your money. They monitor your past behavior to know what you’re likely to listen to in the future. For example, if you eat basic burger/fry foods, they’ll send you more ads for those types of places, but if you tend towards Mediterranean, then they will send you those places instead. As another example, dog food ads aren’t worth sending to people who don’t have dogs.

      What I worry about is Alexa and the other voice boxes. Every time we talk about getting food around it, I open my phone and have ads for the places we were talking about. That’s literally creeping on someone.

    • SSTF@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      The issue is that while even if they build a perfect profile, they are still limited by which advertiser is paying more.

      Google might know you don’t like cheeseburgers, but CheeseBurger Inc. just paid $200 million to have ads run, so you’re getting cheeseburger ads so that Google can’t report to the client that they’ve served ads.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      no amount of data in the world will help you predict whether I’ll want a burger or Thai food for lunch tomorrow

      they TELL YOU want to want. that’s why you see ads for fat juicy burgers. will everyone who sees those ads go out and get a burger? no. but a few do.

  • Grant_M@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Don’t allow Zuck and the billionaire anti-democracy tech bros into Federation.

  • ChonkyManul@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    1 year ago

    This. We’re all bashing on reddit but the reason why I went to reddit and then here was to take a break from meta-owned social media. They don’t only take and sell our data, they also exploit small businesses and creatives by making them pay or post several times a day for “visibility” (translation: not to be shadowbanned) without providing anything back.

    • brawnybunkbedbuddy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Yeah, as people would expect seeing something else here.

      Stay fucking away from facebook, meta and zuckerberg as much as you can people

    • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      I (and probably others) are surprised that it’s so brazen. I think most companies wouldn’t dare do this. Not because they’re morally superior, but because it’s such a bad look.

    • EpicBadass@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I don’t think it’s surprising to anyone that has seen any of Metas terms before. The people on FB that repost all the BS about Facebook charging for access probably have no idea that they are the product. Too many people would gladly give all that info away because they don’t know any better

  • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    I bet they said something like “we don’t use most of that information, we just need access in case we add a new feature in the future that uses it”. And then it’ll come out that they’ve always been using it, and it’s been associated with your identifying info. And then their server will be hacked (because the admin password was “meta123”) and the all the info will leak. The modern internet sucks.

    • 5BC2E7@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      They tried to use the same excuse with their privacy policy for oculus. ie they can even watch the cameras if they want but they promise they won’t…

    • just_change_it@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      We need massive punitive fines for misusing data farming. Data leaks of health and financial information should literally put billion dollar businesses out of business for good.

      If they can’t manage the data they don’t deserve it, full stop.

  • Squiglet@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    When Instagram replacement on Fediverse? Fediverse also needs youtube replacement. Lets go all the way and hit these greedy mfers where it hurts. Unfortunetly my dev skills are poor, but I can offer moral support.

    • NoughtE@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      1 year ago

      Let’s not forget that they were fined $5 billion for deliberately misleading users about how their personal data was used in regard to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that effectively swayed over 200 elections all over the world, including both Brexit and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

      Seriously, everyone seems to have forgotten about that shit and it’s fucking insane.

        • NoughtE@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Cambridge Analytica was a company that used machine learning algos on Facebook user data to target hyper-specific political propaganda to many small segments of voters, rather than few large segments. They spent years testing and refining their process in the developing world in preparation for deployment in the West.

          Steve Bannon was the VP. As soon as they pulled off Brexit, he left to head up Trump’s campaign using the same techniques.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica

    • saruwatarikooji@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      I can see you put in /s but for anyone who really doesn’t know Meta(previously Facebook) was basically constantly in court for various data violations. Anything you give them, they will be selling it and rarely will it be within their own guidelines let alone the law.