Facebook has been scraping the pages of Australians since 2007

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Facebook has been scraping the pages of Australians since 2007

12 September 2024

Jake Evans, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

Facebook has admitted that it scrapes the public photos, posts and other data of Australian adult users to train its AI models and provides no opt-out option, even though it allows people in the European Union to refuse consent.

For sure, Facebook operates a little differently in Australia. According to information provided by Melinda Claybaugh, Meta’s global privacy director, who was speaking at an Australian parliamentary inquiry into AI adoption, the social network has been collecting user data since 2007.

Only Facebook members who set their profiles to private, were spared. Australians, unlike residents of the European Union who are protected by strong privacy laws, also do not have the option to opt-out of having their data collected, if they elect to make their Facebook page publicly visible.

One can only wonder what sense Meta’s AI technologies made of the content posted by Australians to their Facebook pages, and what conclusions they drew about us.

Brazilians flock to Bluesky after authorities block X

2 September 2024

Brazilians are turning to Bluesky — the microblogging platform founded by then Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey — in droves, following a ban on X in the South American country. The surge in signups however has prompted warnings from Bluesky that the service may experience outages, as a result.

But that seems like a good sort of problem for Bluesky. Things, meanwhile, seem to go from bad to worse for the X platform, now owned by Elon Musk. Late week, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge ordered local ISPs to block the platform, after the company refused to appoint a new legal representative there. Under Brazilian law, major social networks are required to have a legal representative based in the country.

It’s a sad state of affairs for the platform once known as Twitter. I joined in 2007, and made a number of acquaintances there, both in Australia, and elsewhere. Some people are predicting X will not see out the next two years. I’m not so sure of that, but there’s no doubting that the microblogging service is but a shadow of its former self.

Facebook operates a little differently in Australia

28 August 2024

David Swan, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald:

Rampant celebrity cryptocurrency scam ads are as Australian as Tim Tams, koalas or the Great Barrier Reef, according to American Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who says the tech giant’s lack of focus on Australia has let scams run wild on its platform compared with other markets.

It’s always nice to be treated differently, particularly by the world’s largest social network.

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The asterism: the proposed new symbol for the fediverse. So say we

26 August 2024

The asterism, ⁂, a typographic symbol made up three stars, is being proposed as the new symbol for the fediverse. If the fediverse needs a symbol, it’s not half bad. Does the web have a symbol? I’m not even sure. But for those who came in late, the fediverse can be defined thusly:

The fediverse (commonly abbreviated to fedi) is a collection of social networking services that can communicate with each other (formally known as federation) using a common protocol. Users of different websites can send and receive status updates, multimedia files and other data across the network. The term fediverse is a portmanteau of “federation” and “universe”.

If you have either a Masterdon account, a Threads page, or maybe a WordPress blog, then you’re part of the fediverse. Or, as Manton Reece prefers: the social web. To me though, the fediverse is really just a specific part of the web you can choose to go.

An asterism, as you can see in the first sentence, is actually three asterisks. In astronomy, asterisms are groupings of stars. Asterisms should not be confused with constellations though. Not a half bad representation of the fediverse then:

We suggest that it’s a very fitting symbol for the fediverse, a galaxy of interconnected spaces which is decentralised and has an astronomically-themed name. It represents several stars coming together, connecting but each their own, without a centre.

The asterism is not the first symbol for the fediverse though. That was a rainbow coloured pentagram, designed in 2018. An asterism, being a typographic symbol, is certainly easier to make use of. And if you are a Threads member, you may have seen Meta’s fediverse symbol. It is made up of a small inner circle, with a broken outer circle and two dots, placed opposite each other. When seen with a Threads post, it denotes that the same post has been shared to the fediverse.

But Meta’s use of this symbol has raised the ire of the fediverse.info crew:

This other icon was created by Meta in 2024 to represent the fediverse within their product Threads. It incorrectly depicts a centralised network, with a big planet in the middle and the rest around it. We also don’t believe that a large corporation that is joining in as late should be the one defining the iconography for the fediverse.

I’m not a fan of big corporates such as Meta attempting to impose their will upon the rest of us. But I also wonder whether these fediverse.info people — or “we”— as they often refer to themselves, are likewise placed to do the same. The about page at fediverse.info offers next to no information as to who they are, certainly nothing in-depth, and really only states their objective.

Their fediverse symbol proposal seems to have been, from what I can see, well received though.

New Threads micro-blogging features, badge number Easter egg

19 August 2024

Coming soon to Threads on the website: the facility to save post drafts, and schedule posts. Post insights, similar I imagine, to those on Instagram, are also on the way, according to a recent thread by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Scheduling posts and saving drafts — at least if using Threads through the website — is going to be a bonus, especially for those who prefer to use the micro-blogging platform as their main web presence. I found the option useful when I used to be more active on X/Twitter.

And for those who like such things, there’s also a fun Easter-egg feature to check out, on the app, which I’ve seen a few people writing about. Tap on the name of a Threads member on their bio, and a popup will appear at the bottom of the screen.

This shows the member’s join date, and Threads badge number. Tap again near the bottom of that, and a full screen animation will appear, displaying the same information.

Who needs LinkedIn when you can network at music festivals?

7 August 2024

Networking tips for music festivals, by Harry Carr:

Don’t make the mistake that most people make and switch off as soon as you reach Paddington. Maximise your train journey by reaching out to your extended network, to see if they are going to Glastonbury Music Festival. If there’s a speaker or business guru you admire on the conference circuit, there’s a good chance he’s being dragged along by his girlfriend, who is half his age. Drop him an email and ask him if he wants to meet up for coffee. You should aim to send between 100-150 emails on the train.

Via Things Magazine.

AND… also seen at Things, London Flipped, said to be the first full-size map of London drawn upside-down. It might seem weird, but there’s nothing strange about it at all: this is what London looks like from Australia, don’t you know…

LinkedIn, a professional network, or a blogging platform?

19 July 2024

Back in 2008, I had a brief tweet exchange with another Twitter member, about the merits of LinkedIn*. At that point, I was a member, but really didn’t like the platform. I thought having a personal website, showcasing your abilities, was a better idea. #IndieWeb me was thinking — all of sixteen years ago — before the #IndieWeb we know today, was a thing, personal websites were the way to go. I also didn’t like the idea of absorbing my identity into some Borg-like collective.

“But, being on LinkedIn makes networking with likeminded people easier,” replied the Twitter member (in words to that effect). He may have been right. If there were enough likeminded people there, perhaps someone could generate a few leads. But, I don’t know. LinkedIn is LinkedIn. It’s not for everyone. But then again, LinkedIn could almost be considered a blogging platform. All you need do is figure out LinkedIn-speak, which includes talking yourself up, way up, and you’re set.

And it seems you’re quite welcome to go overboard, quite overboard, as Thomas Mitchell, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, notes:

This obsessive focus on accomplishments has transformed LinkedIn from a platform for managing your professional identity into a platform for managing your professional lies.

Earlier this year, US-based salesman Bryan Shankman went viral after using his recent engagement to talk about sales strategy in a LinkedIn post.

“I proposed to my girlfriend this weekend,” Shankman wrote in the caption before segueing into his business strategy. “Here’s what it taught me about B2B sales!”

Actually, there’s a heck of a lot of blog posts written in the same fashion. So, is LinkedIn a blogging platform? It could be, but you’re unlikely to ever see me reactivating my account, and writing there…

* I downloaded an archive of my then Twitter account a few years ago, before a mass delete and reboot, on the platform. It’s great to sometimes go and look at the long past conversations I had there.

Threads first birthday gift to users: advertising?

5 July 2024

Break out the coffee and the cake: a celebration is on the cards. Tomorrow, Threads, Meta’s answer — and much needed foil — to X/Twitter, notches up its first birthday. I was there as the platform began rolling out, and managed to score (just) a relatively low (five-figure) badge number. 98,522 for the record. These membership number badges were, for a time, displayed on a member’s corresponding Instagram (IG) page. Mark Zuckerberg’s IG page boasted the surely desirable number one badge.

But the badges have long since vanished, and Threads, after a few fits and starts, has taken its place — albeit if engagement is on the lower side — with the other micro-blogging style social media platforms, including Mastodon and Bluesky. And with one-hundred-and-seventy-five million active monthly users, it’s probably been a good first year for Threads.

In contrast, X/Twitter didn’t reach the same number of active monthly users until well into 2012, some six years after launching. But making these sorts of comparisons between Threads versus what was then Twitter, isn’t all that helpful. Twitter had to start from scratch. It was, just about, the first of its kind. I still recall some the discussions around X/Twitter, following its debut. A lot of people weren’t sure exactly what the platform was about, or what it was meant to achieve.

X/Twitter’s relatively slow uptake could be partly attributed to this bafflement that enveloped the platform. By the time Threads arrived though, we were all seasoned social media platform users. On top of that, it was a simple matter of clicking a button on your IG page, to become a Threads member. The boost IG and — to a lesser extent — Facebook, gave Threads, cannot be understated.

Aside though from posting what I call an online journal entry daily, I don’t really do much on Threads, or any of the social media platforms, for that matter. But I do get drawn into some of the conversations that appear, courtesy of the Threads algorithm, in my main feed. These posts are an intriguing combination of day to day happenings and situations. There are retellings of encounters with people nice, and not so nice. Of dating disasters, and weird goings-on at work.

In a sense, these posts from people I don’t follow, or even know of, are akin to the “suggested for you” content that litters many an IG feed. Somehow though, these Threads posts don’t seem quite as annoying, or intrusive, as the — and I won’t mince my words here — shit that features on IG. My big hope for Threads is that it doesn’t go the way of IG, which now borders on the unbearable. But Threads may become a little more IG-like in another way: the presence of ads.

While the prospect is apparently being considered, it may still be a year before ads begin making an appearance on the platform. To my mind, this is not so much a question of what happens, but rather, the way it happens. Threads needs to turn a profit. We, the users, cannot have this online playground to frolic on, without there being someway for Meta to pick up the tab.

Ads of some sort seem reasonable to me. As I say, it comes down to the way, rather than the what. Perhaps then there will be a measured approach to advertising. Or, worst case, perhaps not. The devil is very much going to be in the details here.

The personal website returns: the good, the bad, and the ugly of it

6 May 2024

Kyle Chayka, writing for the New Yorker, in an article heralding the demise of the platform era:

Now digital-distribution infrastructure is crumbling, having become both ineffective for publishers and alienating for users. Social networks, already lackluster sources for news, are overwhelmed by misinformation and content generated by artificial intelligence. A.I.-driven search threatens to upend how articles get traffic from Google. Text-based media have given way to short-form videos of talking heads hosted on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. If that’s not how you prefer to take in information, you’re out of luck. Surrounded by dreck, the digital citizen is discovering that the best way to find what she used to get from social platforms is to type a URL into a browser bar and visit an individual site.

Platform refers to walled garden environments such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. Places you can check out of, but never leave. I may not be a one-hundred percent fan of some of them, but I don’t necessarily welcome their total demise either. Social networks are part of the internet’s evolution, and fabric. They play a role. But when you find yourself trapped within their confines twenty-four/seven, something’s not right.

Needless to say, I welcome the homecoming of the homepage, personal or otherwise. Not that some ever really went away. Some websites, as Chayka notes, were determined to remain outside the walled gardens. Tech news site The Verge is one, even going so far as to incorporate a social-media feed/stream like feature, when they revamped their website about two years ago. If you can’t beat them, join them. Sort of.

But another line in Chayka’s article sent a shiver down my spine:

One could argue that its [The Verge] makeover, which has now become a subject of admiring chatter among media executives and the editors who work for them, heralds the revenge of the home page.

It’s great The Verge has shown us what a post-platform internet could look like. Not so good, perhaps, is the news that “media executives” are seemingly salivating in delight at the prospect. Out goes one money-making model: the platforms, back comes another: the homepage. But we’ve been there before. And depending how many websites you continue using, still are.

When blogs — perhaps the first descendent of the personal website — began to really take off, about twenty years ago, the first influencers were not far behind. The monetisation strategies quickly followed. This wasn’t all bad. That a writer could make a living, independently, from their craft, was an ambition many aspired to. But as time went on, things began to get out of hand.

And I’m not referring to the plethora of blogs-about-blogging, the content farms, and who knows what else. Reading many blogs had become a trying experience. I lost count of the number of times I’d made my way to a blog — often through a search engine query — to look up something, only to be immediately greeted by a popup box, obscuring the content. They’re called “entry popups”.

“Would you like to subscribe to this publication by email?” read the annoying message. Well, I might, but I’m in no position to decide, as I’ve not been able to read a single word of what’s written here, so have no idea if subscribing is worth my while. Give me ten minutes, I might have a better idea.

Equally irritating were the so-called “exit popups”. Move your mouse pointer towards the top of the page, and, on the assumption you were leaving the blog, one would appear. Their purpose was to entice you to stay, perhaps by offering a discount on an e-book (which you had no interest in), and/or making another attempt to garner an email address.

The early years of the social networks were positively refreshing in contrast. Here was an online experience devoid of popup boxes, ads, and content of questionable quality. Short wonder so many people sought refuge on the platforms. Of course the respite would be short-lived. Now people, “digital citizens”, are returning to websites. But my question: how long before the money hungry marketers make the same transition?

You can still peruse The Verge without being blocked-out by those annoyingly ubiquitous popup boxes. They still carry adverts, but they’re relatively unobtrusive. Of course, The Verge is not a personal website, and the primary goal of personal sites is generally not to turn a profit. But there’s nothing wrong, I think, with a publisher of a personal website, or blog, deriving some income from their website, especially where they are creating content others find useful or enjoyable.

But does that make it ok? To therefore monetise personal websites? Those unkempt public parks, as Mike Grindle eloquently describes them?

I think it’s vital that we still have web spaces where rampant monetization and marketing are frowned upon or outright disallowed – spaces like the Fediverse, personal blogs, and the indie web. They are like the unkempt public parks of the internet’s town square-turned-metropolis. They are places where we should be careful to not let the billboards outgrow the trees.

The billboards had outgrown the trees, particularly towards the end of the first homepage era. And then they eventually swamped the platform era apps. Can anyone else see the trend here? I’m sure the aforementioned media executives can, as they eagerly anticipate the return of the homepage. But they’re not interested in collateral damage.

I can’t imagine though, too many Indie Web/Small Web personal websites sacrificing screen real estate for a great many billboards. There are other means of monetising, some so low key they’re almost invisible. While hardly the best examples of personal websites, even if they are published (mostly) by individuals, Daring Fireball and Kottke nonetheless make for noteworthy role models.

Enduring also, both have been online for decades. Daring Fireball, whose revenue model I’ve written about previously, features a single, small, advert in its left hand column. And it doesn’t look half bad either. Kottke meanwhile, draws income from a voluntary membership system. There’s barely a billboard to be seen, but I’m guessing both publishers are doing well.

If that’s not proof less is more, what is?

Meanwhile plenty of personal website readers are happy to make “buy a cup of coffee” type donations to content creators whose work they like, or buy their products. There’s also going to be other ways to go about this, without a return to those homepage destroying, oversize, billboards.

There’s also something else that may help prevent a repeat of the overgrown billboard homepage apocalypse. Something that was not present twenty-years ago, at least not entirely in the form it is today, and that’s the Indie Web/Small Web community. A community determined to see independent publishers thrive. Massive billboards may one day again overwhelm, and wipe out, resurgent homepages, but not in all quarters of the internet.

Aaron Sorkin penning a sequel to The Social Network in response to January 6

3 May 2024

I squeezed in two screenings of The Social Network — the 2010 film by David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin, dramatizing the founding of Facebook — on the day it was released in Australia. I went up to the local cinema the morning it opened, so I could write about it here, then returned to the same cinema for an evening viewing.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m no fan of Facebook itself, but various trailers, and the pre-opening hype, had me excited. Facebook was once a start-up, a small business, and the dramatization of the early days promised to be a doozy. The movie sits in my home library now, and I still look forward to rolling it out once or twice a year.

Even today, I still wait in anticipation for the night-club scene, where Justin Timberlake’s character Sean Parker, utters the line this is our time. The track playing during the scene, Sound Of Violence, by Dennis De Laat, is still on my Spotify favourites playlist.

There’s no two ways: I’m a fan of The Social Network.

And news the other day that the film’s co-screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, was penning a sequel, saw me getting euphoric all over again. But I suspect the sequel, of “some kind”, will strike a far more sombre tone than the original. This because Sorkin believes Facebook played some part in the 2021, January 6 insurrection, in the United States:

Sorkin would not answer why he blamed Facebook for Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol, but he teased: “You’re going to need to buy a movie ticket.” “I’m trying [to write a movie about it],” Sorkin elaborated. “Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible.”

I wonder if the original cast, Jesse Eisenberg (as Mark Zuckerberg), and Andrew Garfield (as Eduardo Saverin), among them, would reprise their earlier roles? It’d make for a great opportunity to catch up with some of the key players, and see what they’re up to nowadays. It might also add a lighter touch to what could otherwise be sullen proceedings.

As such, I see a role for the Winklevoss twins here. They’ve been busy since The Social Network days. In addition to rowing in the 2008 Olympics, they founded a cryptocurrency exchange, and a venture capital company. But that’s not all. They also formed a band, Mars Junction, which they describe as “a hard-hitting rock band”.

Check out this short clip of them performing at a gig about two years ago. Perhaps, in the proposed sequel, it could be imagined the Winklevoss’ had bought a house next door to Zuckerberg’s, and both parties find themselves in conflict again. This time though, over loud Mars Junction band practice sessions that annoy the hell out of Zuckerberg.

Of course, I can’t see that happening, but I can dream. Whatever, I’ll be looking out for the sequel once it is released.

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