The Antisocial Network

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Friday
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Friday » Tue Oct 05, 2021 3:36 am

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mharr
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby mharr » Thu Oct 07, 2021 7:58 am

Just in case you missed it, here's the general shape of why Facebook shutting down for thirty minutes to shred their documents turned into a massive shitshow:

Prokopetz@tumblr wrote:The fact that Facebook was hindered in resolving their network routing issues in part because those same routing issues made their keycard readers stop working and locked them out of their own server rooms implies that Facebook’s building-internal security systems are on the same network as their public-facing social media infrastructure, which is both terrifying and hilarious.

Like, you know how funny it is that we never know why Tumblr is down because the page that reports Tumblr’s current status – and to which all outage messaging explicitly directs you – is hosted on the same server as the main site, so anything that takes out the main site also takes out the status page?

This is like that times a million.

And you know what the crowning cherry atop the clowncake is?

They ended up having to break out the angle grinders and cut their way into their own server room not because there was no lock-and-key backup for the electronic security, but because the personnel who held the keys to the lock-and-key backup couldn’t be reached.

Why couldn’t they be reached?

Well, Facebook’s internal messaging app was also down (of course), and because Facebook’s company policies forbid making use of any communication method other than the app, no one had bothered to maintain a phone contact list. The whole situation could have been resolved much more quickly if anyone, anywhere had simply known the keyholder’s phone number – but not a single person did.

Like, there’s failing to implement redundancies, and then there’s wilfully obstructing your own ability to make use of redundancies that already exist, and the preponderance of evidence suggests we’re looking at the second one.

Clowns.

EDIT: Okay, upon further review, the part about the angle grinder has apparently been retracted by various media sources due to unreliable sourcing. However, the part about being unable to use the lock-and-key backup because, without the internal communication app, nobody knew the keyholder’s phone number is confirmed. Still!

So apparently 2020 techbro corporate culture is so mired in control freakery they're functionally incapable of disaster recovery. Expect plenty more of this nonsense.

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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Mongrel » Fri Oct 29, 2021 2:12 pm



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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby atog » Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:28 pm

nice that he also managed to (perhaps even inadvertently!) appropriate the Métis infinity sign including its colours, dark blue on white background, for his shit respec

what, did he just misspell "meta" in the google search bar for half an hour stealing what he could?
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby mharr » Sat Oct 30, 2021 5:05 am

I'm just gonna copy paste rando q redditor here:

u/Deradius wrote:Imagine you’re a kid in college screwing around and making a simple tool for people at your school to find and get to know each other, possibly because you want to collect pictures of hot girls and rate them with your buddies.

And suddenly you wake up one morning and five thousand people have signed up. Then ten, then fifteen.

Like an old timey oil driller looking at a black geyser, you realize your whole life has changed and you don’t even understand why yet.

But it’s because you’ve managed to monetize a nearly bottomless resource; human narcissism. You’ve put a turnstyle on the little dopamine hit we get when people laugh at our jokes, or the satisfaction we feel when we (artificially) feel heard. People are willing to give you their privacy for one more hit - to be seen - to not be alone. And all you’ve got to do is sell their secrets, which, let’s face it, aren’t even secrets any more.

Tens of thousands become millions and then billions, and pretty soon you’re at the head of the table in boardrooms and it’s kind of foggy how you even got there.

Everyone thinks you’re a genius; after all, you’re the kid that bottled lightning. You’ve got the Midas touch. With all of the power you’ve got now, who can tell you no? Who would?

And there’s your problem. Surrounded by yes-men, people who want nothing more than to curry your favor, you’ve only got yourself as a barometer - and a poor one at that, because you’re totally out of touch with normal life (which you barely got to experience).

When you throw an idea out there, it’s “Great idea boss!” (Don’t fire me) and “Let’s make it happen boss!” (Make me rich like you)….

I mean, it’s got to be that normal people are eventually going to transition into a virtual environment, right? So we can do that, can’t we? Build that?

“Sure boss! You can do anything!”

I suppose I can. Nothing has stopped me so far….

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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Mongrel » Sat Oct 30, 2021 11:44 am

I feel like that view absolves him of a lot of Bad Stuff FB does which even someone as sheltered as he's been should know is Wrong.
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby mharr » Sat Oct 30, 2021 1:36 pm

Possibly, although I see 'monetizing narcissim' as a clear value judgememt at the core of it all. Mostly I'm just taking hope from the apocalyptic overstep and fall that narrative hangs above the fireplace.

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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Mongrel » Sat Oct 30, 2021 1:48 pm

God, we can only hope it leads to a fall.
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Friday
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Friday » Sat Oct 30, 2021 3:20 pm

Subjugate your egos, folks.
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Blossom » Sat Oct 30, 2021 8:07 pm

Mongrel wrote:I feel like that view absolves him of a lot of Bad Stuff FB does which even someone as sheltered as he's been should know is Wrong.


Yeah I saw something recently that cast it in a bit of a Light. That his haircut isn't just a stupid techbro haircut, but specifically him trying to look like Caesar. That ... really speaks to outlook and motivation, I think.
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Friday
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Friday » Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:45 pm

specifically him trying to look like Caesar.


hahahaha are you serious

if that's true, that's

I mean, other than like serious historians, every single person who's into Rome is a maximum Chudfuck

"the birthplace of white civilization" and all that fucking bullshit nonsense racism
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Mongrel » Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:51 pm

Friday wrote:
specifically him trying to look like Caesar.


hahahaha are you serious

if that's true, that's

I mean, other than like serious historians, every single person who's into Rome is a maximum Chudfuck

"the birthplace of white civilization" and all that fucking bullshit nonsense racism

In part it's a signal because Caesar is otherwise fairly middling as far as "revered historical leaders" go. Hell, in Rome itself Alexander was the yardstick rather than any Roman.

The place where Caesar (among a couple other Romans) tends to be reached for first is in Neoclassical circles. And guess who LOVES Neoclassicism?
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Mazian » Sun Oct 31, 2021 1:36 am

I've always thought another resemblance was stronger.

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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Thad » Sun Oct 31, 2021 12:42 pm

Friday wrote:
specifically him trying to look like Caesar.


hahahaha are you serious

AFAICT the haircut thing is unconfirmed conjecture sourced to "one person on Twitter", but it's plausible; regardless of whether he's intentionally trying to look like him, his fascination with Augustus is real. The New Yorker:

Zuckerberg told me, “You have all these good and bad and complex figures. I think Augustus is one of the most fascinating. Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established two hundred years of world peace.” For non-classics majors: Augustus Caesar, born in 63 B.C., staked his claim to power at the age of eighteen and turned Rome from a republic into an empire by conquering Egypt, northern Spain, and large parts of central Europe. He also eliminated political opponents, banished his daughter for promiscuity, and was suspected of arranging the execution of his grandson.

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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Mongrel » Sun Oct 31, 2021 1:31 pm

For a certain definition of World Peace.
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby mharr » Sun Oct 31, 2021 3:11 pm

It's always the Arnold Judas Rimmers of the world that wouldn't last five minutes in an expansionist military empire isn't it.

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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Mongrel » Tue Nov 02, 2021 9:22 pm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/ ... liticians/

Twitter reported last week that its timeline algorithm is more likely to amplify right-wing politicians than left-wing politicians.

The social media company prioritizes content (presenting it higher in the timeline) if it thinks that you are more likely to engage with that content, based on your past behavior or what other readers have been interested in. These algorithms remain highly controversial, because in some cases they can promote harmful information. According to documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen and outside academic research, for example, Facebook’s algorithms appear to have led to increased outrage on the platform, incentivizing people to post controversial content (and then argue about it).

Why would Twitter’s algorithms promote conservative politicians? Our research suggests an unlikely but plausible reason: It’s because they get dunked on so much. Our data shows that conservative politicians in the United States are more likely than their peers to — in Twitter slang — be “ratioed.”
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Yoji » Wed Nov 03, 2021 1:12 am

Can't say I'm surprised there. You don't get as much "engagement" from baby pictures as you do with shitty takes on things. A leftist position like "we should feed poor families" will get you a few sage nods, but a good rant about welfare queens will go off like a hand grenade.

On a related note, I think I managed to switch my birdsite timeline to chronological order instead of most active, and it feels so much more tolerable now.
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby Mongrel » Wed Nov 03, 2021 2:21 am

Yoji wrote:Can't say I'm surprised there. You don't get as much "engagement" from baby pictures as you do with shitty takes on things. A leftist position like "we should feed poor families" will get you a few sage nods, but a good rant about welfare queens will go off like a hand grenade.

On a related note, I think I managed to switch my birdsite timeline to chronological order instead of most active, and it feels so much more tolerable now.

IIRC, it's been documented for a fair while now that anger is the one emotion that outstrips horny in effectiveness of spreading information.

But they cited dunking, so this is a bit more subtle... it's not so much a generalized anger as it is an illusory frontier justice. A drawing of a public hanging, or at best consigning someone to the stocks to be spit on. There's a vast mass of things to be perfectly reasonably angry about. And when you're constantly angry about everything, people will avail themselves of any target they can.

People in power should theoretically be terrified about the sheer volume of anger on the boil. Not because we'll get real justice and send the right folks to jail or the guillotine, nah, if anything it will erupt in misguided nonsense that harms everyone (as it already sporadically does with say, mass shootings), but that much destruction usually gets the rich and powerful anyway because it's going to hit everyone, and by definition they have the most to lose.

In a strange way, the plague has offered up a desperately needed one-time safety blow-off. Everybody gets a reprieve for a while, some wealth gets spread around. How much of that generates meaningful mid-term or long-term change, well, we'll see.
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Re: The Antisocial Network

Postby IGNORE ME » Wed Nov 03, 2021 2:37 am

Of course this means that cancel culture has been monetized.

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