OneMeaningManyNames

Full time smug prick

  • 14 Posts
  • 132 Comments
Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2024

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  • Fancier algorithms are not bad per se. They can be ultra-productive for many purposes. In fact, we take no issue with fancy algorithms when published as software libraries. But then only specially trained folks can seize their fruit, which it happens it is people working for Big Tech. Now, if we had user interfaces that could let the user control several free parameters of the algorithms and experience different feeds, then it would be kinda nice. The problem boils down to these areas:

    • near-universal social graphs (they have all the people enlisted)
    • exert total control on the algorithm parameters
    • infer personal and sensitive data points (user-modeling)
    • not ensuring informed consent on the part of the user
    • total behavioral surveillance (they collect every click)
    • manipulate the feed and observe all behavioral response (essentially human subject research for ads)
    • profiteering from the above while harming the user’s well being (unethical)

    Political interference and proliferation of fascist “ideas” is just a function that is possible if and only if all of the above are in play. If you take all this destructive shit away, a software that would let you explore vast amounts of data with cool algorithms through a user-friendly interface would not be bad in itself.

    But you see, that is why we say “the medium is the message” and that “television is not a neutral technology”. As a media system, television is so constructed so that few corporations can address the masses, not the other way round, nor people interact with their neighbor. For a brief point in time, the internet promised to subvert that, when centralized social media brought back the exertion of control over the messaging by few corporations. The current alternative is the Fediverse and P2P networks. This is my analysis.


  • If you model and infer some aspect of the user that is considered personal (eg de-anonymize) or sensitive (eg infer sexuality) by means of an inference system, then you are in the area of GDPR. Further use of these inferred data down the pipeline can be construed as unethical. If they want to be transparent about it they have to open-source their user-modeling and decision making system.



  • You think the Meta algorithm just sorts the feed for you? It is way more complex and it basically puts you on some very fine-grained clusters, then decides what to show to you, then collects your clicks and reactions and adjusts itself. For scale, no academic “research with human subjects” would be approved with mechanics like that under the hood. It is deeply unethical and invasive, outright dangerous for the individuals (eg teen self esteem issues, anorexias, etc, etc). So “algorithm-like features” is apples to oranges here.




  • OneMeaningManyNames@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.mlHow the turntables...
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    7 days ago

    The premise of this meme is overly simplistic. Effectively equating a social media platform with a website hosting specific beliefs.

    Here are, from the top of my head, some ways Big Social is different, regardless of country.

    • Hosting a platform with millions or billions of users.
    • Exploiting algorithms that mine sensitive data to an invasive degree.
    • Control the flow of information, to a very granular degree of precision.
    • Experimentally collecting behavioral data in response to said control of information.
    • Modeling user’s life expectancy, sexual orientation, political beliefs, consumer patterns, terminal illnesses.
    • Selling said data and model outputs to private insurance companies as well as police states.
    • Addicting users to withdraw from real life, and get hooked to their screen where they can happily serve the company for data mining.

    I hardly think that any of the above should be gauged by the standards of individual rights to free speech. Even corporate entities viewed as individuals with a right to free speech.

    This is something else entirely, and whoever owns it, out of whichever country must have their ass regulated off.

    Even harder than the EU did.

    Operations of this type and size should be eventually dismantled. They are inherently antisocial, corporatist, and totalitarian in their conception and daily function.

    Sometime ago I started a discussion about the “Role of Attrition” in the effort to dismantle Big Social enterprises Here it is





  • For me, Lemmy was a place where I mostly found like-minded people. Even if we don’t always agree (and we shouldn’t) I have had some genuine feedback to the thoughts that haunt me or tickle me. Nevertheless, I was surprised at the interinstance drama which I mostly ignore. And I think that the base probability of transphobia is higher than the sidebar rules would implicate. I am always surprised when I see naive and uninformed takes.

    Although I do have found a place to share such thoughts with less harassment and backlash than Reddit, there is some unearned harassment and hating here as well, eg there are some consistent downvoters, to the effect I have a single downvote to anything I post.

    Although I think that here in Lemmy I enjoy a higher probability of getting thoughtful responses and well-intended humor to what I post, I feel that a number of people I have interacted with me were highly prejudiced I was a troll or a bad faith actor.

    This lack of trust to other users is one of the greatest achievements of fascists and spooks, and they have successfully used it with freedom movements everywhere.

    I was also surprised at how conservative the privacy community is. Compared to the amount of radical content posted on every other topic, I find myself among those who think that c/Privacy actively discourages newcomers from developing advanced privacy and anonymity skills.

    The privacy thing and some aspects of the Democrats situation pre- and post- election make me think that there is some “manufacturing of consensus” bad faith actors among us. This can lead to disbanding of any project, so we need a solid mindset, in which we assume good faith, but have exact methods for handling disagreement and genuine questions, but also look out for bad faith actors and take steps to build healthy online communities for anarchist and communist free and private software enthusiasts.

    Afterthoughts

    • The sitewide rules ask us to assume good faith, be civil, and discuss thoughtfully. As it happens, we fail to adhere, and I am to blame as well. I am quite uncivil to people I disagree, but it is often forgiven because a lot of other people are cheering. This makes us a stupid crowd by the way.
    • As a Disclaimer, I switched sides wrt to Democrats. Although I had chosen not to post anything pre-election, I was like “Quit this nonsense and vote Democrats already”. I was radicalized after the election, and now think that Democrats are lobbying grifters and can stuff it.





  • Oh, I got one of my own: The notion that Linux is for enthusiasts that spend most of the time tweaking their computer, and therefore Linux can’t be used by an end user who just want to get things done.

    Close to this is the classic adage: “Linux is only free if you don’t value your time” which is an extension that assumes that extensive tweaking is necessary to get to work, not an option available to the power user.

    (But they still complain when Microsoft fucks over their workflow on every update. It is a double standard because Microsoft is “a brand”, so yes, I will say it is a Linux-specific bias.)





  • I adore that your sources were: Yourself

    It is a whole thread, not just my analysis. I also put thought into it, so I won’t recite every point I carefully phrase there to a rando centrist, so live with it.

    a comic strip and a paraphrasing of a (solid) late night comedian

    Directly responding to your very argument though, are you going to engage with these responses or what?

    I did watch Stewart’s take

    Stewart took on an Alabama MAGA moron legislator on trans youth heatlhcare bans. We are probably not talking about the same segment. The part you are talking about is probably the one I am criticizing in the thread you refused to read because it was written by me, so why should we bother with your tired argument? This borders on sea-lioning since a couple iterations ago, and I think if this is the case it is actionable.

    Which is as dumb as people on the Right saying that “trump said he respects and loves women so I don’t get how the libs think he’s anti woman.”

    But you talked about pitching to the progressive base, not the opposite side. MAGA fanatics are cult-minded morons that dismiss everything that diverts from their narrative. There is no comparison to centrist and center-left democrats base, who operate under totally different rules than a fucking Nazi cult.

    Your example about the Ad is addressed to a cult.

    You said:

    no way to rebut it without alienating our progressive wing, so we just take the L on this

    Just searching around Lemmy you can find fine rebuttals to this bullshit. You make it sound like it is unthinkable to rebut these hateful tropes. This is more or less what Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro tout: That their common sense is unrebuttable. It is not.

    to ZERO pushback from Harris

    She could have rebutted, and take them on. Same goes for Rachel Levin. They chickened out of it. Furthermore, the mainstream progressive media not only omitted to address misconceptions and dangerous cliches, but they chimed in with thinly veiled TERFism, and this is because the interests behind the Democrats are in part transphobic as well.

    This also responds to these words of yours:

    To say that trans issues weren’t a thing this election because your side didn’t talk about then is absurd.

    I keep saying they abstained from matching the excessive anti-trans propaganda. What is your point?

    I said that Oliver and Stewart, the Scientific American, the APA, and several other bodies have addressed trans issues to the progressive base, and no-one in the left thought they were unpalatable until now. The progressive media would have protected against this, that is more than a decade in the happening, but they did not.

    Given that it’s an issue that some 70% of America disagrees with us on

    Shit man, this is such a complex study that I can easily point out that 60% of Democrats think that trans representation has not even gone far enough.

    Above all, I don’t think that trans issues are edgy and unpopular at all. Until a couple years ago it was a strictly medical thing, with a very niche activism surrounding it, mostly on legal representation and medical gatekeeping issues.

    It was the fascists who spent millions to demagogue on that point for many years, and I think people should be educated on trans issues as they should a decade ago.

    At this point people who take anti-trans propaganda seriously are lost causes to me, and this includes people who fall for an ad like the one you posted. There is no point to cater to them from a pro-trans perspective, it is like trying to appeal to a 1936 German crowd applauding Hitler about the human rights of Jews at this point.

    The view you defend here is essentially a compromise to concurrent Nazi discourse, which as I said is unacceptable, and I don’t care about Democrats ratings. I rather see that the extreme left everywhere dials up the pro-trans issues and organize defense and survival programs.

    such an easy bone to throw moderates with almost no real world costs (apologies to the handful of high level trans athletes

    Again I have cited arguments against the supposedly self-evident low hanging fruit you evangelize here.

    I think that I have responded to all your concerns here or elsewhere in my Lemmy posts and comments, and I won’t respond further. You probably come from a naive self-designated center-left perspective, but the discourse of this post borders too closely to sealioning and concern trolling, that I will not waste more of my time on.