Leaving Facebook Part 1 - Facebook is a Psychological Attack Vector
"I'm leaving Facebook for good" I said yesterday night.
Why?
I don't know for you but I'm getting increasingly uneasy with the power that Facebook has. Both now and in the future. Do you feel completely at ease with Facebook?
Recent events regarding Cambridge Analytica, made me pause and look deeper into what are the dangers associated with using Facebook, AI and optimization algorithms...and now the Cambridge Analytica debacle is the least of my worries...there is something wrong with where this train is going.
If you still have a Facebook account and you agree with the content of this series, PLEASE share it with your friends or groups that you belong to.
Can Facebook Alter Our Perception Of Reality?
In short...absolutely.
It's only a matter of time before it will completely master the craft. This tweet thread done by Francois Chollet, a deep learning AI specialist at Google, truly captures how true and dangerous our use of Facebook is becoming.
Facebook has proven that it can alter our moods as far back as 4 years ago. Mind you, that was 4 years ago, they've been optimizing since then.
Let me break down how it works...
Facebook Algorithms Control The Information You Consume
If Facebook gets to decide, over the span of many years, which news you will see (real or fake), whose political status updates you’ll see, and who will see yours, then Facebook is in effect in control of your political beliefs and your worldview.
Facebook has the power to, over time, change your "diet" of information in a way that can literally change your worldview. Politics, economics, social justice and even religious beliefs...they can all be influenced by a series of "touch points" and a steady diet of just the right information.
Add to that psycho-graphic profiling on the Big 5 Traits personality scale and you have a way to quantify the effect as well as knowing what kind of information will influence you the most.
As Francois Chollet states:
A loop in which you observe the current state of your targets and keep tuning what information you feed them, until you start observing the opinions and behaviors you wanted to see.
The diet as well as the profiling can then be infinitely optimized to get the desired result via artificial intelligence...and voila, you've got the greatest mass mind control mechanism available to man.
Facebook AI Controls Social Cues
We form our personality by interacting with other people and ideas. What if Facebook, through it's algorithm decides for you who will give you your social cues?
Let's say that you share a post about a "controversial" topic on Facebook. What if Facebook tilts the conversation by showing your shared post to people who would negatively react to your article?
Overtime, you would come to either silence yourself both online and offline about such topic or even consider changing your opinion altogether. This seems to especially affect women since they tend to rate much higher on the "Agreeableness" dimension of the big 5 traits. People who are high in agreeableness tend to prefer social cohesion than creating conflict by standing their grounds on political or religious issues.
Conclusion of Part 1
If that doesn't send a chill down your spine, I don't know what would. People who design those algorithms have biases that they, consciously or unconsciously, embed within the algorithms that curate your Facebook Newsfeed.
Stay tuned for the second part where I will outline more information on how and why I'm leaving Facebook for good.
PS: In the meanwhile, consider joining busy.org...voting with your attention and time is part of the solution.
I stop using facebook when i joined steemit. Facebook is crap and now it is dangerous too... it swing our mood as you mentioned above. Thanks for article article waiting for part 2.
Actually what I think is that we people have made our connections to people on Facebook and they are on Facebook not on steemit. I think it's because of those people we don't want to leave Facebook, but honestly I have forgotten Facebook to at least some extent.
Facebook has created a mental grip on our minds so we feel the need to use it. But trust me a time will come people will understand that Facebook has nothing to offer and they will all look out for something productive and beneficial and what better a platform than steemit.
It's hard to leave that...especially with all the updates on your friend's life, events, birthday notifications, etc. This series is there to explore that.
Yeah, that's a problem I'm facing. I have relatives that only contact me through Facebook. My golden handcuffs.
Cambridge analytical reveals how Facebook is used as an influential tool to change the ideology of millions of people. Personally I rarely use Facebook due to lack of privicy option. Moreover Facebook is not rewarding any one for his time and creativity. It is a right time to say goodbye Facebook
Facebook does suck. I didn't know it does all that. We need to leave Facebook for good now.
We're wasting our time as well as compromising with our privacy
Truer words have never been spoken
I have also been using facebook less and less this past few months.
Besides, reading news like this one https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-artificial-intelligence-ai-chatbot-new-language-research-openai-google-a7869706.html
and watching alexa like this is kind of creepy
My confidence is getting smaller by the day when it comes to all these giants
You think thats weird and disturbing?
Then watch this:
That's f'd up! That is what kids are using to learn and do their homework etc.
@dedicatedguy and @laserade These links you shared are both pitiful and shocking, especially yours @laserade.
I see Facebook as a vulture hovering on our lives, eager to consume our information throuroughly and use if for whatever clandestine purpose she has. Also, the way it is suited, it is to control our lives through the infromation that is being pushed to our faces
If you are using FB, you can essentially consider yourself THE PRODUCT. Facebook is a data-gathering apparatus for the intelligence agencies posing as a social media platform. Let's not even get into the whole "fake news" policing business.
I hope their stock craters!
they've been exposed, it's always been there, they keep it for themselves who knows what they do with it?
We the people need decentralized control over our data. No company should make a profit on our information. We provide Facebook, Google, etc with all of the content to make them rich and then they do such immoral acts which hurt us all. Also FICO scores needs to end so ridiculous that the credit rating agencies have all of our information and no liability when their poor security leaks 150 million + American Records.
I have minimal information on Facebook and only use Facebook messenger to communicate with friends. Hoping we can switch the group chat to slack or some other non-invasive platform.
your messenger app keeps record of every sms done with your cellphone (even the one done outside of messenger). See @themarkymark comment link for more info: https://twitter.com/dylanmckaynz/status/976368845635035138
Good to know. Thanks for the warning.
Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner's mum https://t.co/CIRUguf4vD
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Everyone is leaving facebook and I think that is going to leave a mark on the company.
its not facebook it fakebook. People nowadays are addictive to these social applications. this is spreading like a virus. A distraction of our new generation. we just sit and waste our whole day on facebook and do nothing. we can put all time in some use. like steemit it might not give you what you want but at least its not giving false hope and giving you a reality check. critic