What are we meant to do about the big data problem bros? The future is looking very bleak, the most utilised web applications all have shady TOS which allow them to sell data to third parties, or worse share it with governments and LE (facebook, instagram, twitter, FBI, gmail, etc). Right now this may only be used to sell you personalised ads, but there are already precedents of it being used filter job applications and determine access to social services like in the UK. And let's not forget China, not wanting to fall for any western propaganda, the social credit system is very real and I personally would not want to live under anything like it.
Another facet of this issue is that all these companies are profiting out of the content we create for them. In a very Debordian sense, even when any of us advocates for socialism or communism on twitter,FBI or youtube we are performing an essential role for the capitalist machine, and providing these platforms with yet more content to be consumed and not with an actual threat to the existing structure
What is the solution? Personally I think its a mixture of individualism, whereas we move over to decentralized alternatives to the current market holders, and try our best to educate the people we know on the importance of their privacy.
The main problem is we cannot reach the masses on these applications because the masses currently reside in the centralized ecosystems of google,facebook,FBI etc.
What do you think about this? Personally, I don't think we can achieve any meaningful change while the masses reside in the confines of the facebooks and twitter and are not in control of their data, but I also don't think much can be achieved by fringe communities in decentralized applications
I'm not in support of it, but it's scale is vastly overestimated. There also isn't one social system. It's mostly a thing government and few companies placed in certain cities, and from what I know the plan is for the government to take over it to monitor whenever companies play by the rules.
Grayson Parker
Also I haven't got a clue what should be done. There certainly are difficulties with getting people on our side when they use shit like Facebook, but that doesn't it's impossible. There has to be a reason for people to leave those sites, and most simply cannot because of job reasons.
Mason Lopez
The amounts of energy wasted on socially useless services on the internet is beyond retarded.
The moment energy prices go up, those services become unprofitable and most likely unsustainable.
On another note, harvesting 'Big Data' in bulk and storing it is one thing, aggregating and analyzing it is something completely different. As of now, automated thorough analysis of all the big data accumulated is not possible.
This will require some singularity-type of event transhumanists and other silicon valley reactionary twats will spew about. Consequently, energy demand will skyrocket even more.
Of course all this data lets porky have wettest dreams of tools to keep on top.
Jaxson Murphy
Yeah, it's nothing to worry about. There are lots of dire predictions from STEMlords, but there's no sense in doing anything about it until those predictions come true. I'll stop using Facebook just as soon as the government announces it possesses a singularity-tier AI.
Grayson Sanchez
Yes, I see this as a massive problem. Most people don't really seem to care about it at this point because as you said its only really used to sell them stuff. Although the scary thing is what else can be done with this data. For example some crazily right wing authoritarian government comes to power in the US and wants to round up all the commies, it would be so easy, Google has a pretty good idea if you are a commie from your searches, plus they probably know where you live (google maps) and loads of other shit. Also big data is necessary to train complex AI systems, so this collection of data could also lead to large tech companies being way ahead of everyone else in terms of AI, which is quite scary to think about.
Unfortunate as it is we still need to use these platforms to engage the masses. I think the correct way to go about this is to use these platforms as marketing tool, perhaps simultaneously posting content on more decentralized applications and then encouraging users to use the better platform by making them aware of these issues.
Jose Taylor
Facecuck users are the proles. They're politically inert, don't have a political project, and are just worthless junkies really. They can't be educated. An elite vanguard of chad STEMlords will need to lead them out by example.
Easton Murphy
If you want to get people to switch to decentralised social media, you have to shill for it in meat-space. And use the bring a friend function. You can actually learn from googs and faceberg. At the beginning googmail would only let people join if they got a code from a friend in meatspace. For Faceberg it was even more limited, because only students from Zuck's university were allowed.
As a variation of this you could convince somebody of socialism in meat space and then give them the code for entering.
Luke Morris
use it for communism you fucking idiot. we seize the means of communication as well.
Luke Sanders
This tbh. If you're going to undermine porky/gov with popular support, you're not going to do it in secret. If you can get enough support to make an alternative platform successful, you'll have enough support to riot in the streets, which I'd argue is far more effective. This is akin to the linux shills that clamor about how internet privacy is top praxis. I'll support these sorts of attempts, certainly won't argue against using them on a personal level, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to say this is a necessity. Certainly these sorts of tools would be useful at the start of revolution, but it's not the thing that's going to get us to the start.
Owen King
No, you are just too much of a brainlet to use it. red lib tier argument.
Camden Sanchez
Same shit I’ve always heard. Never said don’t use Linux. What exactly are you calling a “redlib” argument, because you didn’t even address mine kid. In before you straw man what little I’ve said.
Asher Wilson
I'm personally trying to find unorthodox ways of using these big tech platforms. Some way that fucks with the algorithms and breaks someone out of the default social circles they like to pigeonhole you in. There have been many attempts over the years to just create an alternative and wait for people to flock there in droves - which is downright lazy at best, and utopian at worst. There has to be some possible form of sabotage and subversion within the platforms that push people to use those alternatives.
This sounds like a good idea, but I doubt that this type of meatspace recruitment can be done by word-of-mouth alone. Zuccbook probably had some investors from the start
Jason Young
Nothing that they aren't doing to themselves. Google is shit, twitter is shit, reddit is shit, and getting shitter literally by the day. Every algorithm tweak, every redesign, just when you can't believe it can get any shittier, it does.
Ryder Diaz
There is no private property. Our expression is common property
Brayden Reyes
What if we remove jobs, social services and these governments then?
common property expressed in private centralised platforms, directly funnelling money into the pockets of those who have the most to lose from a socialist revolution
Wyatt Gonzalez
fakecel
William Thomas
These shitty algo tweaks and redesigns alone aren't visibly doing damage to those platforms, i.e. making people jump ship and go with alternatives. Such decisions are ultimately still under control, and none of them too broken to make the average user reconsider. It takes a third-party to raise all sorts of hell and make waves. Otherwise, the platforms' administrations can fall back on themselves or some useful idiot suggesting an easy tweak to personally revert layout changes or letting time suffocate a criticism of a certain unpopular aspect of their changed algorithm.
Owen King
you sound spooked
Noah James
You’re not spooked, just illiterate.
Ryan Robinson
I don't think alternatives will ever break thought. I used to believe that, but now I think it's more like TV. How often does an entirely new independent TV channel become established these days? Pretty much never in any country. Geeks thought the internet was like the internet, but for most people its actually more like fancy TV. Facebook/Instagram will launch a fresh brand to shake off the stink of privacy scandals, and the next generation will just use that. It will be less internet-like and even more TV-like.
Michael Parker
I would go into more detail, but doing so would compromise my identity which goes against the essence of imageboards. Just know that there are socialists who want to combat this ever-growing monopolization of cyberspace, and that part of their praxis is to make full use of the big platforms to promote their websites. My earlier emphasises on "find[ing] unorthodox ways" and "sabotage and subversion" is something I'm talking with other socialists and working out with them.
Gavin Wright
Oh, and by sabotage I don't mean using DDOS attacks or similar methods that make the target website inaccessible. Just needed to get that out of the way.
Nathaniel Harris
And you think socialist nerds are numerous enough to make a difference? I haven't seen a reason to believe that.
Jose Mitchell
You are free to be skeptical, user. The goal on my end would be more about letting socialists know and navigate the broader World Wide Web. Hopefully, make some new solid online communities while we are at it. IMO, we can't know if we don't try.
Adam Davis
What if the problem is as much with the users as with the platforms? Or rather the users and the platforms, embedded in capitalism. That would make it as intractable as every other systemic problem we face.
Let's say social media is junk food, and the problem is that it's created these obese consumers (substitute mental for physical health as applicable). The answer isn't to open a healthy restaurant next door. Or even to build a public free outdoor gym. Or any number of attempts to educate individuals. Then you look at their children and SHIIIIT they're also starting to get fat, so clearly this is a problem that's able to socially reproduce itself.
Kudos for working on alternatives. I've contributed to decentralized tech in the past, and its demoralizing to see so little progress after all this time.
Problem with decentralisation in IT is, to some degree at least, that doing so negates scale effects, thus is counter intuitive.
actually, any (successful) digital platform is a prime example for capitalism's monopolisation - winner takes all.
regarding socialist approaches: digital infrastructure as a whole is owned by capital. only problem as of now is encryption which makes analyzing traffic nigh impossible.
that's why they are pushing for official backdoors (like there ain't tons of zero days hoarded bei feds all over the place alrdy), making encryption officially pointless and enables them to discriminate based on internet traffic.
unless there is a socialised backbone, any socialist platform is doomed just as much as if you went ahead and started a commune in Central park or whatever.
the "internet", that what commonly is referred to as it, is basically capitalism on roids
Xavier Powell
riot.im instead of disco rd
leftypol chat there is dead while the disco rd one is alive, lets change that
