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No social media trial


KILZ FILLZ

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But there's the problem with these things- you might be able to minimize risk, but you can't eliminate it. Once you put out any type of info you can't take that back, and all that info gets used, mainly in ways you would not want it to be used. Part of the danger in doing this is that a lot of people believe hey, what can they take from me or use against me if I limit my info? Trouble is, that info is used for algorithms that comes up with shit about human behavior that we would never think of or even consider, and that is then used to influence you. There are marketers out there who have written about some of the industry tricks, and they have written that with full awareness of all of the tricks of the trade, you get bombarded with so much that even they find themselves getting taken in by their own techniques at least some of the time!

 

IDK, was commenting to a friend the other day that with no social media accounts I feel like I have missed a lot and at the same time, nothing at all.

 

This is the truth... Its mind blowing how quickly they can connect dots based off the most random and asinine bit of info.

 

Here is a sample that barely scratches the surface:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

 

I took this quiz, which is a very simple questionnaire about what words you use to describe random, every day type words. They 100% exactly nailed not only what state I grew up in, but got it down to the actual county. Keep in mind this is some dumb quiz on the NY Times site used for shits and giggles and imagine what sort of tools and algorithms employed by surveillance and government agencies. Honestly it blew my mind how specific they pin pointed where I'm from using harmless questions that never raised a flag for me (and I'm fairly weary and aware when it comes to this type of thing). Now imagine how easy it is to build a bot that crawls the internet looking for comments, let alone all the detail found on Social Media and think about how effortlessly they can build a profile of you with the type of shit they use, when the NY Times can pinpoint where you're from using a simple questionnaire of harmless and not at all intrusive questions.

 

And yeah, I keep talking about giving up on social as well. Though I do feel it'll further distance me from people (already geographically isolated for the most part) and also how I can consider doing this, when I feel its also a part of my professional life / job.

 

No putting that genie back in the bottle, but I do believe we'd be better off as a society if it never existed.

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Oh yeah, I have all the social platforms myself and for 12oz, though I havent used FB in years and hardly ever used Twitter at all. Used to be the fucking man on Friendster though with my unreasonably deep buddy list and then got bummed when everyone flocked to MySpace (crazy how most people on social arent even old enough to remember MySpace). Main platform has been Instagram.

 

Ironically I used to hate when people posted what they ate. Seemed so retarded and self centered. Now with all the political rants and stupid memes, I wish people would go back to posting what they ate.

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This is the truth... Its mind blowing how quickly they can connect dots based off the most random and asinine bit of info.

 

Here is a sample that barely scratches the surface:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

 

I took this quiz, which is a very simple questionnaire about what words you use to describe random, every day type words. They 100% exactly nailed not only what state I grew up in, but got it down to the actual county. Keep in mind this is some dumb quiz on the NY Times site used for shits and giggles and imagine what sort of tools and algorithms employed by surveillance and government agencies. Honestly it blew my mind how specific they pin pointed where I'm from using harmless questions that never raised a flag for me (and I'm fairly weary and aware when it comes to this type of thing). Now imagine how easy it is to build a bot that crawls the internet looking for comments, let alone all the detail found on Social Media and think about how effortlessly they can build a profile of you with the type of shit they use, when the NY Times can pinpoint where you're from using a simple questionnaire of harmless and not at all intrusive questions.

 

And yeah, I keep talking about giving up on social as well. Though I do feel it'll further distance me from people (already geographically isolated for the most part) and also how I can consider doing this, when I feel its also a part of my professional life / job.

 

No putting that genie back in the bottle, but I do believe we'd be better off as a society if it never existed.

 

I posted in another thread about Cambridge Analytica. They are the market leaders at the moment in terms of collecting disparate data and bringing it together to create psychological profile - they boast that they have approximately 5000 data points for each American. They worked for Cruz until he lost in the primaries and then switched to Trump. Have a read, they are the leading edge of this game right now, aside from what is done inside NSA, GCHQ, etc.

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Absolutely it does.

 

Your IP address is all over it as well.

 

Not sure if you're responding to me or not, but in regards to that online quiz... the area is quoted me as being from was a place I moved from in the late 1990s when the internet was fairly young and most people had no idea what an IP was, let alone were collecting and leveraging IPs.

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This is the truth... Its mind blowing how quickly they can connect dots based off the most random and asinine bit of info.

 

Here is a sample that barely scratches the surface:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

 

I took this quiz, which is a very simple questionnaire about what words you use to describe random, every day type words. They 100% exactly nailed not only what state I grew up in, but got it down to the actual county. Keep in mind this is some dumb quiz on the NY Times site used for shits and giggles and imagine what sort of tools and algorithms employed by surveillance and government agencies. Honestly it blew my mind how specific they pin pointed where I'm from using harmless questions that never raised a flag for me (and I'm fairly weary and aware when it comes to this type of thing). Now imagine how easy it is to build a bot that crawls the internet looking for comments, let alone all the detail found on Social Media and think about how effortlessly they can build a profile of you with the type of shit they use, when the NY Times can pinpoint where you're from using a simple questionnaire of harmless and not at all intrusive questions.

 

And yeah, I keep talking about giving up on social as well. Though I do feel it'll further distance me from people (already geographically isolated for the most part) and also how I can consider doing this, when I feel its also a part of my professional life / job.

 

No putting that genie back in the bottle, but I do believe we'd be better off as a society if it never existed.

 

 

Barely scratches because you can tell a lot by people's language and how they use it, and most of that is readily observable info if you pay attention to it (remember way back when 12oz learned what a 'jawn' was?). Even if you can't tell by listening you can look a lot of that up. What is happening with people's info goes far, far deeper because the more points of data collected on you the more mathematical equations that can be done with that info to figure shit out about individual and group behaviors, taking us far off what most of us can or could figure out on our own. People are also being sculpted using their emotions as well as behaviors based off info obtained.

 

Of course, this info can be used for good, such as medical research that helps determine how different people are affected by diseases or their treatment. But unfortunately far more of your data goes toward getting you to do things that are not to your advantage or that you ordinarily might not do. Take an overly simplified example- the supermarket figures out that a lot of men who buy shaving cream also happen to buy cranberry juice, so the supermarket puts the cranberry juice on the end of the shaving cream aisle not to make it more convenient for men, but because it increases the probability of selling those 2 items together instead of selling either one separately. And regardless of the reason that men happen to buy those 2 products together, simple fact is they will, and simple fact is that some men will go to that aisle looking just for shaving cream, and some will leave with both products even though that was not their intention. BTW, if you're reading this thinking that's bullshit, I ask you to look at how many people you know with that little plastic supermarket tag on their key rings, the one they scan at every purchase for electronic coupons- what do you think that's for? They say it saves paper coupons, but then why doesn't the store simply put the item on sale? Why do you have to sign up to receive coupons that in all prior history were just there, available to all? Data collection. I mean how else is the store going to know that men who buy product A are also buying totally unrelated product B? It's not enough for stores to say we sell a shit ton of tomato sauce, stock more. They want to know who bought that sauce so they can market more to them, and they want to know what they bought with the sauce to market that to them too.

 

There are a lot of psychological properties at play here... too much to discuss at once. If you ever walked through the whole Ikea store you got played. If you ever went to a store like Ikea or anywhere else with the set intention to get something and leave, and you leave with more than what you set out for, you probably got played. Your emotional reactions are also used to sell you shit, your behavioral reactions are used against you if you don't understand them... that's part of what that Facebook story above is about. People have become blindly trained to their phones like Pavlov training a dog. They've taken man's need for social connection and exploited it, made people believe they need to be a part of their artificially created social world, very, very sad. When people talk about wanting to quit social media I ask that you examine what is it providing you that e-mail doesn't? With social media it seems like people want to collect their shit in one spot, show it off, compare. But, they also are attracted to likes, comments, views..., receiving a message that someone liked/commented/viewed you... basic psychology, like getting someone to play the slot machine again and again, or getting a pigeon to peck a bar.

 

I hope people will continue to discuss and explore these concepts, important shit. You can also get a good beginning understanding off any intro to social psychology type book.

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  • 2 weeks later...
This is the truth... Its mind blowing how quickly they can connect dots based off the most random and asinine bit of info.

 

Here is a sample that barely scratches the surface:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

 

I tried this and it guessed that I was from Wichita, KS, Springfield, or Lexington. Way off :P. I answered truthfully on all of them, I guess they can't tell I'm a redneck who's lived in Texas my whole life.

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  • 1 month later...

Did a sober December and made it until my goal of new years eve. Did not increase level of physical activity or change diet. Only variable was not drinking

Lost two notches on the belt by the end of the month.

 

 

 

Trying no porn in January. These personal goals really break up the monotony lol

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Sober December is good man, glad to hear. I've been on "supervision" for the past year. Today is actually my last day and this time I didn't try to pull a fast one on the PO by chiefing all the time and drinking even though it's part of my conditions not to. I honestly feel fine and don't think I'll go back. The money I've not spent on it alone is worth it to me, I've bought a lot more shit for my cars than I probably would have otherwise.

 

The no porn thing, that's a tough one I guess. If you go without porn and decide that you're going to try to meet someone I'd suggest giving yourself a little TJ before hand so you don't come off as too eager. Girls can smell desperate guys pretty well and getting a steady woman in your life can make the porn thing a non issue because you can just go rail on her whenever the need arises.

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"the money not spent" adds up so fucking quickly IF you put it aside, if it just ends up being spent on some other dumb shit it doesn't do much good.

 

Trying to work heavily on this myself. I was really good about not buying frivolous crap for almost 3 months, but in the last week I've spent a couple hundred on old spray paint/ephemera without any real justification.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Aiming for a year of sobriety as I reflect on a decades worth of inebriation. The universe really out here trying to tempt your boy and it hasn't even been a month yet, lost my bike courier gig ( a blessing in disguise, that job encourages being an alcoholic..didnt even lose it because I was a drunkard, just got tired of waking up super early for work to only really start two hours after im already out and about...precious time I could be sleeping. Also, I had become a robot....how funny, the thing I once viewed as my saving grace and made me free amongst the suits had found a way to imprison me ) and have a lot of free time and got invited to a natty-bo sponsored event(free booze everyfuckingwhere )yesterday,which I turned down. I guess subconsciously and consciously im ready to really try sobriety out. A year ago I'd be down to be there and try to drink all the alcohol i could and maybe hoard a couple cans for obligatory alley drinking that would surely ensue. I'm still suprised I didn't go. High five to me i guess , will report back here around this time next year. (Hopefully ,we're still here ha..haaa..ha.........ehhh? Im still trying to figure out when we entered a scenario where life is playing out like one really long episode of South Park) EDIT: yo, I went on a super long tangent and forgot about the social media thing, deleted face book three months ago? Never needed it and it holds true now three months later, or I just never really had that many friends or associates to make having it necessary, hah *tear emoji*

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Facebook is trash. Did not delete, but I completely stopped using it over a year ago. I’ve checked in twice since. Addicted to the gram. Extremely useful tool for youre average to advanced artist type. Can’t count the amount of opportunities or sales I’ve made with that platform. Frankly, if you’re an artist trying to get busy then you fuckin slippin without a gram acct. Less of course you’re a run of the mill writer or civilian whoever who could give a rats ass about posting a photo for some likes. (Hard shrug)

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For Sept I deleted Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

 

I kept reddit installed. Seems more like a forum than social media? It's anonymous for the most part. All the other apps I know people IRL who I interact with.

 

The only one I missed was Instagram and that was only because when I took a picture of some thing I wanted to have a venue to share it. I flooded my group texts with pics I would normally post on IG.

 

Reinstalled apps this Monday.

Didn't feel like anything was added to my life.

Five days into the month and I deleted them again.

 

Kept FB alive so the Gf can tag me in pics and family can see what's going on. Will probably install Instagram when I have a good photo dump waiting, post photo dump, and uninstall again.

 

I found I filled my breaks at work reading again. And my time at home in front of TV more. Will try to correct that and leave the house.

For Sept I deleted Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

 

I stopped being addicted to FB since I started having a life. I mean, I started focusing on work, decluttering and get rid of negative emotions. I still keep my FB though, just to keep me updated with what's going on.

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Yeah, I've got a few questions, if I may?

 

1 - When apps and other similar services say that claim they anonymise your data before on-selling, how trustworthy is that and can that data be easily un-anonymised?

 

2 - Are there algorithms that can take data sets for known individuals /entities and pair them with anonymised data sets to reliably identify and de-anonymise data?

 

3 - Privacy statements of apps that are data collectors (such as household budget apps, spending account reconciliation apps, etc) have a strangely worded area regarding your personal data and what happens to it when the company is sold and your data goes with it. Can you talk about what happens to your data, whether it is anonymised before it is handed on when a company is sold and if not, do the privacy responsibilities that you've accepted when signing up to Company A then become those same responsibilities of Company B when it buys Company A or is the privacy section of the original contract with Company A voided by the sale of Company A?

 

4 - In the work that you do, do you utulise modern psychometrics to personalise that data and if so, what level of credibility do you give to those taxonomies?

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Yeah, great questions.

 

1. It really depends on the company. The company I work for goes through great lengths to both be compliant with international law, and make sure that people are incapable of matching non-anonymized data with anonymized identifiers. Put one way, let's say you have a singular person ID of XXXXX which is considered identifiable with both your account, and your behaviors. That ID will be anonymized and the various behavioral data silo'd by department, use, and user. As a contractor, I have to pass through many layers of requests to even get anonymized data in most cases.

 

2. The only way this would work is if there was a non anonymized set of data that was standardized against the available data in the anonymized set, and then used to train a machine learning method that could find both enough differences in the non-anonymized set with enough reliability to predict a person's identity in a validation set, and then pushed against the anonymized data. This is really just a couple steps in an otherwise broad. Ultimately, this isn't incredibly likely. There are means that one could imagine. You could train a network to create profiles of diction for a given set of people, and then feed it quotes with no person attached to see how accurately it predicts the owner of the quote.

 

3. Case by case basis. Really depends on the contractual agreement in the terms of service, what the terms of the acquisition or merger are between companies A and B, and then what happens after that. Presumably a good faith agreement would exclude the idea of changing the ToS without notice. That said, new international laws are forcing companies to be able to reply for requests for data deletion upon consumer request, and to set up processes that can accomplish this within x period of time after the request. There's a lot of internal instability and unsuredness around those laws, however, mostly due to questions of implementation, and what level of aggregation can we keep data past. E.g. is it within the bounds of law that says you can't keep user behavior data after 60 days to aggregate it to daily values rather than individual user values, etc? Ultimately, these are questions and cases of law not having caught up with technology.

 

4. I think, ultimately, the notion of psychometrics is somewhat wishy washy. If you were to ask me whether the use of cognitive science is part of certain procedures? Sure. Why wouldn't it be? Are these all nefarious attempts at mind control through suggestive presentation? No.

 

Data's use can be split into a couple means of thinking:

 

I. Reporting

II. Optimization

III. Prediction

 

What you are questioning is both II and III.

 

To wit, most of what you are thinking about is what's referred to in marketing and sales as customer segmentation. In the technical sense, it's the application of unsupervised clustering algorithms along a number of dimensions to create behavioral profiles. Not of singular people, but rather of broader concepts of people writ large. Generally all these techniques have specific application but their base structures are agnostic to semantic content of the data but rather just difference in data itself. The end result is something interpreted in machine form, but based in the semantic value of a human interloper. Here's an example with Facebook: Based on my language, the complexity of sentence structure, the general topic of things I post about on facebook etc, not to mentioned self proffered data such as educational institutions I've graduated from, and countless other dimensions and conceived metrics, Facebook can make a highly probably guess that I'm:

 

- Well educated

- Politically liberal (their terminology, but lacks depth)

- Highly Social

- High value user

- Long time user

- Amenable to suggested posts

- etc.

 

These general reference points are useful in terms of "selling advertising" but whether those advertising dollars are well spent would rely on how much I give a shit to click on some served up ad next to me news feed. The better the model at understanding the broad strokes of my behavioral patterns the better ad serving will be in showing me something that is actually relevant to my life. Whether or not this is something that should be done at all is more a philosophical argument about the underpinnings of american democracy and where the boundary between it and economic philosophy begin and end. That said, facebook is a product, google is a product, etc. We engage in an active participation of a three party transaction where our eyes and behavior represent our respective payment for these products. Personally, I don't mind targeted advertising. I don't really believe in privacy so much as security, and I think American views on privacy are as much tied to puritanical notions in religion as they are oppression.

 

For those that are concerned about manipulation of experience and information, the same concept that has always governed interactions with institutions still applies: critical thought. In the question of whether or not there's some cabal of technocratic string pullers attempting to nudge people one way or another with the levers at their disposal, the answer is unequivocally no. Conspiratorial thought fails in perpetuity against the sheer size of people in the companies with enough reach and information to attempt to do so. That said, everyone's experience of the internet is literally different. Big companies such as mine, facebook, microsoft ,apple, etc. all invest in large scale experimentation platforms. All of this in better attempts to refine both user experience and internal metrics for growth. Is that nefarious? Really just depends on your perspective.

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