Cambridge Analytica + (good reading)

Destry · 2018-03-25 13:44:08

In case you missed these, I recommend you find the time later. Good reading.

Cloak and Data: The Real Story Behind Cambridge Analytica’s Rise and Fall, Mother Jones
Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica problems are nothing compared to what’s coming for all of online publishing, Doc Searles

Doc’s is one to put in your feed reader.

Destry · 2018-03-25 13:47:33

Btw, how can we, as friends, peers, confrères, etc of the Txp community share links like this among/with ourselves without the forum, which seems ill-suited, and without having to designate a centralized suck hole for the purpose?

That seems to be a thing people would like but lacks. Or do I not know what it is (probably)?

colak · 2018-03-25 14:11:42

Destry wrote #310334:

Btw, how can we, as friends, peers, confrères, etc of the Txp community share links like this among/with ourselves without the forum, which seems ill-suited, and without having to designate a centralized suck hole for the purpose?

That seems to be a thing people would like but lacks. Or do I not know what it is (probably)?

Hi Destry,

The General Discussions part of the forum was made for these kind of posts. I do not believe that we should have any other way as decentralisation damaged this community in the past.

>ps… I’m following the Cambridge Analytical case as closely as my time allows me…. I am also interested in the distinction on the treatment of Christopher Wylie by the press and public versus that of Edward Snowden back in 2013.

Furthermore I am following the news as they unfold on Shahmir Sanni, the Brexit whistleblower.

Finally Snowden’s Message on Facebook’s data leak scandal with Cambridge Analytica might be of interest.

Last edited by colak (2018-03-25 14:20:22)

Destry · 2018-03-25 15:42:55

colak wrote #310337:

The General Discussions part of the forum was made for these kind of posts.

Fair enough.

One thing I’ve considered doing at the new blog, maybe, is a weekly round up of ‘top reading’ as curated by yours truly. Other people have been doing this for a long time, Bruce Lawson comes to mind, as example.

It’s a fantastic way to get a print NYT substitute for the morning coffee or weekend brunch. When you get enough people doing that kind of thing, so know where to look for reading lists on different subjects areas and/or topics your interested in, it can be useful.

Ideally we could get a copy of the reading itself filtered through an ad-tracking stripper so we wouldn’t have to visit media sites at all. ;)

colak · 2018-03-25 16:07:17

This is what paper.li is doing. ie architecture news. Although I know that external links are inevitable and many times (ie in citations) very necessary, I would always encourage original content. We all try to harvest the info in the net, be it via news sites, web-zines, blogs, etc. You wrote a post in this forum some days ago about the hopeful decentralisation of the web, away from social media. I am so much looking forward to that day but I am not at all optimistic as most of the younger crowd do not even know the difference between the internet and facebook for example.

My penny’s worth. I believe that you are a good writer and your posts here are always engaging. Keeping your visitors in your site is always better…

michaelkpate · 2018-03-25 16:31:10

If the topic is the use of Big Data and Social Media in Elections, I would also recommend:

bici · 2018-03-25 17:44:05

Time to once again use a Text-based web browser on unix

Last edited by bici (2018-03-25 17:44:24)

colak · 2018-03-25 17:49:15

bici wrote #310352:

Time to once again use a Text-based web browser on unix

?

Destry · 2018-03-25 19:50:17

colak wrote #310347:

most of the younger crowd do not even know the difference between the internet and facebook for example.

My understanding of that is opposite, actually. Most young people are abandoning FB, or have already. It’s the parents and grandparents that still stick with Facebook. The “kids”, OTOH, all went to Snapchat. But even that’s not going to last long. My kids are savvy of all this, but then I make them that way. ;)

I’m slightly more optimistic about a decentralized revival of some sort, but it’s unclear how it might emerge. It likely won’t be personal blogs, though I do hope we see a some people returning to that. More likely it will be an ever-growing interest in alternate social media tools that are decentralized. This is actually starting to happen, though you may not see signs yet if you’re not actually using those tools.

As people know, I’m in Mastodon, which is a decentralized alternative to Twitter, and it’s steadily growing, while also being a source of information about other alternative tools. For example, there’s a lot of talk about existing, decentralized chat and video platform alternatives, among many others. I’ve been hearing about a decentralized Slack alternative, but I forget the name.

Ever since news broke of Cambridge Analytica, Mastodon gained a big burst of new accounts. This article helped too, I think: The new technology that aspires to #DeleteFacebook for good

I believe that you are a good writer and your posts here are always engaging.

I appreciate that. You will like my blog even more, then. ;)

michaelkpate wrote #310349:

If the topic is the use of Big Data and Social Media in Elections

Uh, no. The topic is about how focked up centralized social media is. ;)
Though, granted, this turd floats around the bowl of politics.

In fact, a little quote from a long article I’m working on, coming at you soon via The Full Point。:

No greater proof is needed for this claim than the 2016 American elections. I’m not talking about the results, because the entire duopoly system is a complete disaster. The GOP (Grand Old Party, seriously) and DNC (Democratic National Convention) can both get stuffed. I’m talking about the corruption and mindlessness made easy through centralized social media — high-lighted by those elections — and the surreal shit-show that plays out every day in such platforms, like Twitter, ever since.

Yes, I’m going down like King Leonidas, with a hundred arrows in me.

Kjeld · 2018-03-26 23:01:58

I wasn’t aware of Mastodon yet, Destry. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Destry · 2018-03-27 05:45:11

You’re welcome, Kjeld. I see you’re in Japan. Japan happens to be the biggesst user of Mastodon so far, followed by Europe, France and Germany, especially. Though US is catching up now, I think.

colak · 2018-03-27 05:54:22

Hi Destri,

Did you create an instance of Mastodon in your site? What kind of traffic does it generate? Would a shared server with limited bandwidth be able to cope with it? As I understand it, the instances communicate between them which means that there is constant traffic, if anything just to get a 200 response. Tell us more…

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#1 2018-03-25 13:44:08