Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #adobserver
Most recents (8)
Google's search quality has been in steady decline for years, and Google assures us that they're working on it, though the most visible effort is replacing links to webpages with lengthy, florid paragraphs written by a confident habitual liar chatbot:
pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/twe…
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/pai…
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The internet is increasingly full of garbage, much of it written by other confident habitual liar chatbots, which are now extruding plausible sentences at enormous scale.
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The city of Stockholm commissioned Skolplattform, an omnibus app to deliver timely information to students, teachers and parents. It was a mess: a late, SEK 1B (USD 117M) "IT disaster" boondoggle with a 1.2 star rating.
play.google.com/store/apps/det… 1/
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If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2021/11/09/skr… 2/
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Among the groups that were poorly served by the app were parents, and among those parents was Christian @Landgren, a software developer. Landgren created a streamlined version of the app just for parents that he dubbed Öppna (open) Skolplattformen. 3/
#Facebook is a rotten company, rotten from the top down, its founder, board and top execs are sociopaths and monsters, committers of non-hyperbolic, no-fooling crimes against humanity. They lie, they cheat, they steal. They are some of history's greatest villains.
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If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kro…
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pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kro…
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Because Facebook is a terrible company run by terrible people, it periodically erupts in ghastly scandal. Sometimes whistleblowers or reporters reveal historic crimes, including (but not limited to) deliberately helping to foment genocide.
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@Anton_P_Nym @theKeenUrbanist Mandate interoperability so that people can leave the platforms without leaving their communities, and set moderation policies that reflect their interests, not multinational corporate priorities.
@Anton_P_Nym @theKeenUrbanist Prevent tax evasion through profit shifting by imposing a global minimum tax, so that Canadian rivals don't start with a 35% penalty relative to giant tech companies.
@Anton_P_Nym @theKeenUrbanist Fully fund the Competition Bureau, to subject anticompetitive mergers to meaningful scrutiny, and unwind previous mergers.
Facebook just redoubled its attacks on transparency, terminating the accounts of the NYU researchers behind #AdObserver, an independent project that monitors paid disinformation on the platform.
pluralistic.net/2021/08/05/com…
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If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get…
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pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get…
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This is inexcusable, but that doesn't stop Facebook from trying to excuse it. That defense has two prongs. The first is a false claim that Ad Observer compromises Facebook user privacy.
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Facebook just escalated its war on NYU's #AdObserver project, a project that monitors and discloses Facebook's failure to live up to its promise to block paid disinformation.
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Here's how that works. Facebook users volunteer to download and install Ad Observer, a browser plugin. This plugin scrapes the ads Facebook shows that user. They are cleaned of any personally identifying information and uploaded to the #AdObservatory.
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The Observatory is an archive that accountability journalists and researchers can mine to see whether FB is keeping its promises to label political ads and block paid disinformation. It's proof that FB does NOT live up to these promises.
pluralistic.net/2020/11/20/sov…
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pluralistic.net/2020/11/20/sov…
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Facebook has SUCH a sweet racket. First, they used the Roach Motel model - data checks in, but it doesn't check out - to trap you and all your friends in a mutual hostage-taking situation, where you can't leave because they're there, and they can't leave because you're there.
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All those address books they imported, the data they gathered from publishers' websites through the Like buttons (which gather data whether or not you click them), the data they bought or snaffled up through free mobile SDKs is now permanently siloed inside of FB.
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FB is a walled garden: when you leave, you leave behind your friends and communities - you can't switch to a Diaspora instance or even Twitter and exchange messages with FB.
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Facebook has just entered antitrust hell, as nearly every US state and the federal government have taken the giant company to court, asserting that the company used predatory acquisitions to achieve its monopoly.
pluralistic.net/2020/12/10/bor…
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pluralistic.net/2020/12/10/bor…
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But while we definitely need to pay close attention to the company's acquisitions, it's also worthwhile to look at the parts of its business it outsources - parts of the business that are key the safety of its users and its compliance with the law.
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A new, engrossing, lengthy @BuzzFeed article by @CraigSilverman lays out a detailed case that Facebook systematically profits from disinformation: financial fraud, identity theft, dangerous scam products, and political disinformation.
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