Ironically, the day after speaking to the parent/guardian group about social media and safety, the whole Rose McGowan thing exploded on Twitter. I decided to participate in #WomenBoycottTwitter, and went dark at 00 October 13th.
For me, it's not so much about Rose McGowan specifically, but rather a growing outrage over the Russian hacking and the distorted over-intellectualized interpretation of free speech that rationalizes giving self-professed Nazis a platform for hate speech - while collecting ad dollars and blowing off users who report flagrant violation of Terms of Service. It's the lack of standards coupled with a thinly veiled drive to keep "big names" on board tweeting up a storm, regardless of the horrific destabilization those threats are causing to our global political fabric (why does @realdonaldtrump still have an account?!). It's the fact that I've played the Report and Block game since August of 2016, but at most Twitter recognizes 30% of the accounts I report as being in violation - and then I STILL find those accounts active, blasting away their vitriol.
It's knowing all the research that has come out pointing to the role Twitter's army of bots and sock puppets played in the 2016 Presidential election, and how very how easy technically it would be to clean-up the platform, but instead Twitter had the balls to show up at the congressional hearings with 200 accounts identified from the Facebook data instead of conducting independent research.
Which really gets at the heart of the matter: Twitter does not "believe" there is a problem. Or maybe they just think they're smarter than everyone else and no one will notice how lame the response is.
Hopefully the boycott will rattle some cages at Twitter HQ. I miss my virtual friends. Here's the final outline with links to a few articles.
Social Media and Safety
Social Media and Safety
What is social media? Online community with networking ((engagement) and/or shared content. Technically there is a distinction but …lines getting increasingly blurred.
- Google Top 10: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, tumblr., flickr, YouTube, reddit, 4chan, Snapchat, Google+, WatsApp, Meetup, foursquare, Tinder, Medium, MySpace
- World-wide Top 10 is not the same as in America. Investors rate social media based on reported MAUs (monthly active users).
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/30/top-10-social-networks-how-many-users-are-on-each.aspx:
- Facebook (1.9 billion users): Social media, networking, IM, and gaming (VR)
- WhatsApp (1.2 billion users): Cross platform IM (acquired by Facebook 2014)
- Messenger (1.2 billion users): Facebook IM
- YouTube (1 billion users): Video content and comments (acquired by Google 2006)
- WeChat/Weixin (889 million users): Chinese IM (Tencent released 2011)
- QQ (869 million users): Chinese IM (Tencent released 1999)
- Instagram (700 million users): Photo/Video editing and sharing (acquired by Facebook 2012)
- Qzone (638 million users): Chinese Blog (Tencent released in 2005)
- Twitter (328 million users): Micro-blog and streaming video (hold that thought…)
- Weibo (313 million users): Chinese micro-blog
Notes: Facebook has bought more than 50 startups. VK is huge in Russia, but not on the list.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-8-russian-social-networks-makes-great/
- Investor focus on MAUs as value: umber of unique active users in a 30 day period. Encourages tech companies to host sock puppets and bots... http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monthly-active-user-mau.asp
- Facebook: Logged in
- Twitter: Users who sign in and follow at least 30 accounts and are followed back by at least one-third of those accounts
- Google+: An account that uses a Google service
- Networking is more than building connections to others. Engaging includes:
- Community chat
- Comments
- Content:
- Blog: Coined by Jorn Barger in 1997 from “web-log”. Transformed into published medium (heh) and supports edits
- Mini-blog limits size of post and is intended to be real-time stream of consciousness. (Tweet storms are generally frowned upon.)
- Images, gifs, and video
- Vlog: Video blog
- Aspects:
- Real-time vs published
- Account required to access content and level of information exposed
- Real name vs pseudonyms: Facebook backlash from the LGBTQ community https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/15/10215936/facebook-real-name-policy-changes-appeal-process
- User configurable protected vs. public
- Swamp vs Moderated channels
- Some problems...
- “Free speech” and censorship vs curated content. YouTube is regularly criticized for removing or not removing offensive media, but many researchers and historians use the platform specifically to document and maintain evidence of crimes as they occur in our lifetime http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-criticised-after-middle-east-video-taken-down-over-extremist-content-1244893230
- “Fake News” and Russia hacking the election led to recent congressional hearings: http://www.npr.org/2017/09/22/552726960/the-next-big-focus-in-the-russia-investigations-social-media
Zuckerberg’s regret https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/27/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-2016-election-fake-news
Twitter being lame https://www.recode.net/2017/9/28/16378104/twitter-senate-house-russia-investigation-facebook-presidential-election-fake-news
Sen Mark Warner’s dissappointment https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/09/28/twitters-actions-on-russia-linked-accounts-deeply-disappointing-senator-says/
Google is next https://www.axios.com/report-russians-bought-ads-on-google-too-2494733117.html?utm_medium=linkshare&utm_campaign=organic - Social Media hasn’t been regulated like traditional media because it defies boundaries
- What parents worry about (pretty much nothing new under the sun):
- Say the wrong thing, impacts job/college app
- Do something dangerous to fit in like Kylie lip challenge https://globalnews.ca/news/1959039/doctors-warn-teens-of-dangers-from-trying-kylie-jenner-lip-challenge/
- Do something dangerous to go viral like YouTube shooting http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/29/us/fatal-youtube-stunt/index.html
- Get or be involved in cyberbullying or slut shaming → arrested &/or suicide
- Meeting the wrong people: impostors, pedophiles, etc.
- But there are new risks due to anonymity and not knowing who is listening:
- General desensitization
- Social media replaces physical social contact and eye contact
- Addictive: encourages multi-tasking and no downtime for creativity and sleep deprivation. Actually rewires the brain. https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/the-case-for-boredom/
- Fake news and amplification
- IB4 attitude: knee-jerk impulsive responses
- Trolling for lulz, doxing, stalking, and swatting (especially #gamergate)
- Blue whale suicides and Slender man homicides
- “If it’s free you’re the product” much more than Ads: Big data collection and mining including facial recognition and used to feed the AIs.
Kids are kids. They’re immortal and smarter than adults.
- Don’t take time to check privacy settings let alone set-up 2FA.
- Chat code: abbreviations, memes, and emojis
- Delete and Snapchat, but The Internet never forgets.
It’s The Wild, Wild West
- Legal system is not capable of handling Internet crimes and rapid change in technology
- We are in the middle of a grand 10 yr experiment, 1st generation that is fully plugged-in
- No one know the answers
Recommendations:
- Be realistic: it’s socially important to be online and there’s a lot of good
- Look at your own behavior
- Look for the signs of sleep deprivation or lack of focus - and talk!
- Engage in social media so you have a touch point
- Teach balance, time management, focus, and cynical critique.
No comments:
Post a Comment