The Antisocial Network

[Büge]

I'm reminded about Thad and Brent talking about security updates yesterday and how we're just driving everyone towards trusting nothing.

Speaking of which, Discord added a rider to their TOS to deny users the ability to take part in a class-action lawsuit against them.

[Mongrel]

@ Thad: Oh yeah, fuck Autoplay.

[Mongrel]

I'm reminded about Thad and Brent talking about security updates yesterday and how we're just driving everyone towards trusting nothing.

Speaking of which, Discord added a rider to their TOS to deny users the ability to take part in a class-action lawsuit against them.

Pretty sure this is already defacto illegal in most states and many countries due to inherent consumer protection laws.

[Brantly B.]

Man, the Facebook thing is... huge. I couldn't even begin to scratch the surface of the fucking iceberg of what this really means.

Two things though, neither related to video, because I'm a hyperlexic person and not best suited to commenting on the virtues of a format I'm predisposed against.

First, the idea that companies should and can be expected to own their analytics: This is nice, but on the whole is as unworkable as asking consumers to secure their own IoT devices. Big Data is complex, resource-intensive, full of pitfalls and unfortunately currently riddled with charlatans. Not even the largest corporations can run their in-house analytics reliably; I know because I work for one of the largest corporations and 20% of my time is dealing with the in-house analytics platform creaking under the weight of unrestrained optimism. Being able to subcontract to a reliable and scalable third party is vital to most businesses.

Second, one of the largest of those subcontract services just admitted that their product is completely unreliable and thus worthless.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Not that this is a huge surprise, but it IS a stick against the already buzzing beehive of this industry. What does this all mean? What do we do about it? What CAN we do about it? Can we trust any of these services moving forward? Can we even trust our OWN STAFF? (In a lot of cases: No.)

So yeah, kind of A Big Damned Thing here. REAL fun if you're an advertising provider (which is another 20% of my time). My crystal ball is frequently wrong about these big tidal shifts, so I'm just going to begin and end with "Fuck" and go drink fifths of rum until I forget why I'm doing it.

[WingSounds]

Can I ask some security folks a weird question, then?

I've never used facebook, or instagram, or what'sapp. Part of this has to do with my really weird religious beliefs, but it's not out of opposition to technology, or something. I've just never seen the appeal; and when I was pressured to get a linkdIn, or however that's spelled, I basically had already gotten my foot in the door, so...

Although I used discord once or twice, I hated it like I hate most instant-messaging. Even in a small crowd, everyone is talking over one another, and it never seems laid-back and relaxing, to me. Just - awful. To each their own of course, but... I don't even have a smartphone. It can text, and call, and that's about it.

Where do all these changes leave me? I feel kind of like the younger generation is more skeptical of social media in a really interesting way, and these - gargantuan mistakes will have all sorts of effects that I am nowhere near smart enough to perceive.

Putting all of that aside.

Brentai, I'm well aware of things falling to bits under the strain of... 'WE CAN DO IT!' and 'THIS infrastructure/project/etc IS UNSINKABLE!', but for what it's worth, I'll cheer you on, as an individual. It may mean nothing, but don't lose all hope.

[Brantly B.]

Oh I'm far from losing all hope. My reaction and I think the general reaction of tech professionals with two eyes open is just "NOW what?", as it is with most tectonic lurches of this sort. But thanks for the vote of confidence.

[mharr]

One of the horrifying things about Facebook is that unless you're a mountain hermit with like three friends, they already have a page set up for you and a fairly accurate idea of who you are, what you look like and who you associate with, just from analysing other people's photos and messages.

The main horrifying thing is the way they've become a mass-personalised National Enquirer that all your relatives treat as gospel, obviously.

[WingSounds]

My contribution to the day:

According to the Financial Times, Facebook just hired Nick Clegg.
My only prayer is that this coalition goes as successfully as the last one he entered into.

Brentai, it's all I can do. I like bolstering people where I can, though... Even if I've a naturally gloomy personality, that just means I appreciate how much it can mean. Anyway, I appreciate your insights.

Oh, and mharr, funnily enough, I kind of am?! Aha, I'll tell you the full story, or maybe make a topic on it later. What's more important is that my extended family - largely the only people I interact with digitally - only use e-mail. We've been compared to Mennonites before, it's not an entirely bad comparison. And mountain, sickness, some thing, really. But the phrase 'personalised National Enquirer'... Gack, terrifying stuff.

[Thad]

First, the idea that companies should and can be expected to own their analytics: This is nice, but on the whole is as unworkable as asking consumers to secure their own IoT devices. Big Data is complex, resource-intensive, full of pitfalls and unfortunately currently riddled with charlatans. Not even the largest corporations can run their in-house analytics reliably; I know because I work for one of the largest corporations and 20% of my time is dealing with the in-house analytics platform creaking under the weight of unrestrained optimism.

I'll defer to your expertise on the complexity of the problem; I've never worked analytics on that scale.

I have to figure that the biggest media players (Disney, Comcast, AT&T/Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, Newscorp) do it in-house. Netflix certainly does. But I can see how it's a hard problem for something the size of the New York Times that's big enough to require serious analytics work but not big enough to afford it on the same scale that the major players can.

A lot of this feels like misplaced priorities, though. Univision spent somewhere around $200 million on a controlling stake in The Onion, with the two major results of (1) ruining the AV Club and (2) deciding to sell it. Tribune spent a nontrivial amount of money changing its name to Tronc and then changing it back to Tribune because Tronc is a stupid name. I don't know what kind of infrastructure and engineers they could have bought with that kind of money; maybe it still would have been wasted if that was where they'd put their resources. But I have a hard time imagining a scenario in which it would be a bigger waste than the stuff they actually wasted that money on.

Being able to subcontract to a reliable and scalable third party is vital to most businesses.

Second, one of the largest of those subcontract services just admitted that their product is completely unreliable and thus worthless.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Not that this is a huge surprise, but it IS a stick against the already buzzing beehive of this industry.

And that's another thing: no, it's fucking not a surprise. The extent to which the media have been hitching their wagons to Facebook is insane.

Yes, Facebook presence is absolutely essential in that industry; that's inescapable. But there's a difference between having a Facebook profile where you post articles, advertise, and engage readership, and outsourcing your goddamn fundamental infrastructure to the "They 'trust me' -- dumb fucks" guy.

The appropriate way to treat Facebook is as a necessary evil. It should absolutely not be one of trust.

The same is true of Google, though at least I'd be a little more surprised if Google carelessly torched its reputation as an analytics firm in exchange for short-term gain.

So perhaps the answer is "outsource it to a third party but have at least something running on your own servers and somebody auditing it in-house to make sure the numbers check out."

What does this all mean? What do we do about it? What CAN we do about it? Can we trust any of these services moving forward? Can we even trust our OWN STAFF? (In a lot of cases: No.)

Nothing in life is certain, but the steps required to encourage company loyalty are well-researched, well-documented, and antithetical to the way most major publicly-traded corporations currently function.

So yeah, kind of A Big Damned Thing here. REAL fun if you're an advertising provider (which is another 20% of my time). My crystal ball is frequently wrong about these big tidal shifts, so I'm just going to begin and end with "Fuck" and go drink fifths of rum until I forget why I'm doing it.

I don't know about big tidal shifts, but this is certainly one more thing that's bad news for Facebook.

[Brantly B.]

So perhaps the answer is "outsource it to a third party but have at least something running on your own servers and somebody auditing it in-house to make sure the numbers check out."

Oh absolutely; that's the specific job of the people who did see the video numbers go out of whack and instead of saying "This is incongruent and suspicious" went ahead and said "YO THIS IS HOT DAWG WE GOTTA GET ON THIS." And the reason for that is simple: One reaction makes your bosses nervous, the other makes them excited, and when you're busy trying to sell your own brand of snake oil you don't want people to start watching out for snake oil.

I don't know about big tidal shifts, but this is certainly one more thing that's bad news for Facebook.

Yeah, I got a little worked up there. You'll notice I downgraded the analogy to "tectonic lurch" later on. Altogether this is going to cause some changes (unless people start double-fisting their Kool-Aid, which is a pretty popular reaction to things these days), and most of those will be generally increased skepticism towards the "magic" of market research. Which is great for those of us in Test, heh heh heh.

[Mongrel]

According to the Financial Times, Facebook just hired Nick Clegg.

Oh, and mharr, funnily enough, I kind of am?! Aha, I'll tell you the full story, or maybe make a topic on it later. What's more important is that my extended family - largely the only people I interact with digitally - only use e-mail. We've been compared to Mennonites before, it's not an entirely bad comparison. And mountain, sickness, some thing, really. But the phrase 'personalised National Enquirer'... Gack, terrifying stuff.

Say Wings, if you don't mind the question, whereabouts are you?

I don't mean specifics (better NOT to post those), and obviously you don't have to say anything if you don't want to. Just curious what State you're in (I'm assuming sorta based on your posts that you're in the US).

(joke answer: "Denial")

[WingSounds]

I don't mind any question! You'll get a cagey public answer, though I prefer de Nile to denial!.. Oho, what witty folk are we.
The short of it is that I moved around a lot, which sounds a lot more exciting than it is. Let's say I'm in the northwest of North America, for now?

Another (minor) contribution, from Reuters; more pressure on Facebook, twitter, reddit et all to admit compromised status. Not that they'll do anything, but it's interesting to see how far they'll go...

[Mongrel]

EDIT: Bonus, dril sacrificing his account for the greater good:

[WingSounds]

On the one hand, I am absolutely thrilled that this is happening, because it's might be the sort of change that shakes up twitter enough to cause a portion of their userbase to wander off, grumbling. And if they don't, I do actually think turning things into a popularity contest only benefits people like me; this would also disempower certain spurious 'news' accounts which have mysteriously high follower and like accounts.

On the other, losing dril would be a tragedy of unknowable proportions, even if I suspect they're likely similar to Horse_ebooks...

[Mongrel]

If Jack actually had the temerity to ban dril, I suspect all of Twitter would be burned to the ground and the net salted in its wake.

[nosimpleway]

Twitter is getting rid of karma omg

[mharr]

Twitter had karma?

[WingSounds]

One can only hope that all the karma they have accrued weighs upon them.
While I'm dreaming, however, I'd like my pomegranates to be doing better than they are.

[mharr]

I just received a first offence lifetime ban from another liberal minded group for making a throwaway comment and not proofreading it from the PoV of someone with no idea who the hell I am. Which is fair enough in isolation, retreats from generalised internet bullshit are needed, and mods don't have time to second-guess every random asshat that shows up on a public forum, but...

The recruitment network that leads people to the far right doesn't do this. They have layers upon layers of progressively less progressive groups to shuttle Joe Random between. They're skilled and enthusiastic about recruiting from the middle. I feel like the "Let's try giving a shit about people" side of the internet doesn't have anything much similar to that?

[Mongrel]

I just received a first offence lifetime ban

liberal minded group

Actions speak louder.