Social media controls the world

Yep, we’re already in The Matrix.

That’s more S1m0ne than the Matrix.

Definitely an Idoru, Rei Toei situation.

It’s Macross + the movie.

Coming from someone that is creeped out by social media in general, that’s just… fucking weird, to me.

This one is fun, too. Man, what an icky company.

This one is insidious because it reveals that FB is playing with de-anonymizing anonymous data. This is the data equivalent of being able to crack prime number crypto. If they can do this, then thousands of data sharing agreements which “safely” anonymize data to share it, can all be considered leaking your data with your identity to those who have the tools to unwrap it (or rent the access from someone like FB).

cf what the NHS and Google did in the UK with patient data.

I found this article fairly clarifying. Is it true that Google doesn’t directly sell user data?

The new way—the Google / Overture / Amazon way—is for them to pay attention to what the user searches for (“how to stop neighbor’s leaf-blower noise”) AND to learn what advertisers care about (“I want leaf-blower-noise haters to see this ad”)—and then do a kind of dating service where the right kind of users see the right kind of ads.

In this model, perfected by Google, there is a very strict hygiene in place: the user’s behavior and interest is held in secret by Google and the advertiser never has a hint of it. All that happens is that the right ad is inserted in the right person’s webpage.

It is critical to understand that the advertiser has NO IDEA who cares about leaf-blower noise. All they know is that someone who Google thought would care about it, was shown an ad for it and then clicked on it: a qualified customer lead for anti-leaf-blower-noise has teleported into the advertiser’s website and the advertiser can take it from there, with questions like “are you interested? iIf so, what is your email or visit our store.”

However that date works out, NO USER INFORMATION LEAVES GOOGLE.

The newer way, the one that propelled FB and MZ to wealth, is totally different. In this approach, the company builds a place for everybody to share life events with friends and family. Since FB owns that place, they can record what you tell your kids and spouse and friends, and use that to understand you and by extension, something about your friends.

Over time, they learn that the user named JAMES FALLOWS in WASHINGTON DC has a penchant for BOILED FROGS and QUIET LEAF BLOWERS. [JF note: and beer, and aviation, and the future of California, but let’s continue.] Here’s where the new way comes in—FB sells access to this description to advertisers. My quiet-leaf-blower company can find out: “Who likes quiet leaf blowers?”

This list is golden. It is more valuable to me than just having Google do an anonymous introduction. It means that I “own you” and can send you leaf blower ads, quiet lawn mower ads when I expand my product line, and so on. It means that I learn about you, and as has been clearly reported, I can know about your age, eating habits, travel schedule, phone and text use, the same for your kids, your neighbors, other leaf-blower antagonists, and so on.

This is marketing nirvana. It has made FB endlessly wealthy. It has nothing to do with any other web advertising company. The closest peers would be credit scoring companies, because their customers also get “the report on the specific user” rather than an “anonymous introduction to certain users.”

To be clear, THE USER INFORMATION LEAVES FB AND GOES TO THE ADVERTISER/ POLITICAL MANIPULATOR/ whatever.

If you are asking for a way to not be logged into apps or websites using your Facebook account, or basically remove the log in, yes. You just go to settings, look at Apps and Websites and you’ll see a list that you can remove. Now… I am not hugely confident with what Facebook says it does and what it actually does but that is supposed to remove those sites when you tell it to.

I am more concerned with the other apps/sites knowing what my facebook page is (and other info). Will they delete what they know about me if I remove them from that list?

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I feel like you and I have a better chance at being selected to board a spaceship to stop a life ending meteror than us ever getting our data back from any business or site that currently has it… and that’s not just because GreenManGaming seems to be asking me to sign away all my European rights in order to get sales.

Zuckerberg is such a fucking robot. I hate him. He answers every question starting with “Senator” and he has no humanity.