The Antisocial Network

[Mongrel]

The other, of course, involves Orcs.

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[Büge]

[Thad]

You’ll need a Facebook account to use future Oculus headsets

[Mongrel]

So, RIP Oculus I guess?

[Thad]

Facebook bans QAnon but also antifa, because Both Sides, amirite?

[mharr]

MovieBob briefly details the history of the phrase 'breadtube'
With the epilogue "Then several people turned out to be assholes and it didn't last", which neatly sums up every group I ever entrusted with some hope for the future.

[mharr]

Regarding QAnon, that thing seems to have metastasized real hard during the pandemic lockdown, apparently preachers are losing their flocks to it (https://outline.com/2qF4Ys) and I'm sure it's the wellspring of all the conspiracy newbie noises I'm hearing from friends and family these days.

It already feels more dangerous and pervasive than the CoS ever were, it's like the AI apocalypse but stupid. Anyone had any success talking people off the ledge?

[Silversong]

Ooof. I haven't, and I completely lack all skills related to arguing and debate and confrontation in general. But one of my friends of 20 years started spouting how COVID is a Chinese bio-weapon and simultaneously isn't a big deal that needs a lot of precautions and I was very O_O
Don't know if it's this particular flavor of conspiracy theory, but I don't like seeing it in my friends regardless. (I think all I replied was "Please don't be a conspiracy theorist.")

[Thad]

iOS 14 privacy settings will tank ad targeting business, Facebook warns

Facebook is warning developers that privacy changes in an upcoming iOS update will severely curtail its ability to track users' activity across the entire Internet and app ecosystem and prevent the social media platform from serving targeted ads to users inside other, non-Facebook apps on iPhones.

There's plenty to criticize Apple for, but this seems like a really positive step.

[Brantly B.]

Anticompetitive motivation for sure though.

[Thad]

Is Apple in the ad business now? I thought they were mostly still selling things.

[Brantly B.]

They're in the business of selling shares of their company. Not good for them if there's more than one symbol that people use to gage the health of the tech sector.

[Thad]

I think by the time you're defining "anticompetitive" so broadly as to consider a publicly-traded company to be a competitor of literally any company that could affect its stock price, you've abstracted it to the point of meaninglessness. It would mean that virtually any time any publicly-traded company does anything it's anticompetitive.

There's no question that Apple's making this move out of self-interest and not altruism, same as anything else it does. But that doesn't make it anticompetitive.

[Brantly B.]

I think there's a difference between coming out with a windowed GUI because your competitor has one, and firing a bullet into the spine of an indirect competitor's entire monetization strategy because they were getting uppity.

Not that I weep for Facebook, but I'm never happy to see this sort of mutual destruction going on.

[Blossom]

Is Apple in the ad business now? I thought they were mostly still selling things.

When it comes to phones, they're in the business of competing with Google. And built-in breaking of targeted ads is aimed very plainly at Google. That's what makes it anticompetitive.

[Thad]

A fake protest led to armed resistance in Prescott, showing the power and danger of social media (paywalled)

The posts spread like wildfire through Prescott Facebook groups.

Area residents posted information from "a friend" warning that the county sheriff had said antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters were planning to gather at the historic courthouse square on Sept. 11.

I know I shouldn't be surprised anymore by just how fucking gullible socons are, but Jesus Christ.

Prescott is small and Republican and Steve, Girard, and I were lucky to get out of there. Ain't no fuckin' BLM and antifa gatherings happening in that courthouse square. A Pat Buchanan rally? Sure, saw one of those there once.

But "antifa and BLM are descending on the courthouse square" is one of those things like "Obama is trying to impose Sharia law": my brain has to kind of pause for a second and process that oh yeah, people believe this fucking shit.

Similar posts claimed 1,000 protesters “landed in Chino Valley” and that officers were guarding trails to keep them from starting fires.

The entire population of Chino Valley is under 11,000.

[Mongrel]

There's hundreds, if not thousands of these stories, but somehow a Newfie company selling garden seeds makes it just that much funnier.

Facebook lifts ban on Newfoundland company’s ad for onion seeds deemed ‘overtly sexual’

Meg Sinclair, head of communications for Facebook Canada, blamed the company’s filtering technology.

“We use automated technology to keep nudity off our apps, but sometimes it doesn’t know a Walla Walla onion from a, well, you know,” Sinclair said.

[Brantly B.]

#NotTheFemalePresentingNipples

[Thad]

What If Cambridge Analytica Owned Its Own Social Network? CA Backer Rebekah Mercer Admits She's A Co-Founder Of Parler

[Mongrel]

Step into my Parler.