Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, there are records of Yasuke, a man of African origin who did indeed serve as a Samurai. Seems he came over with Jesuits.

There is a difference between "one guy we have one historical reference on and know was real" and "many people for hundreds of years" including photographs of them from before photography existed. I know who Yasuke was and the description I gave would not have included him.

True that.

Sadly, self described “truth seekers” are typically more accurately described as “those seeking to massage their ego with some confirmation bias, no matter how loopy their claim”

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Out of all the "billionaires" he's probably the one that you should be LEAST concerned about.

Dude appears to be publicly trying to buy himself a president by bribing voters - you'll excuse me if I think that's a big problem.

Presidents cannot be anymore bribed than they already are.

It's the electorate he's trying to bribe, not the apparently increasingly-senile candidate.

Laughing Man wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As I think I’ve said before? My concern isn’t so much AI, as those developing it.

Imagine if Musk decided he was going to buy out an AI developer.

musk was part of the founders when those from chatGPT were still non profit and has on multiple occaisions called for a slowing down of AI adoption. Out of all the "billionaires" he's probably the one that you should be LEAST concerned about. Meanwhile Amazon and google are far worse especially in the context of market dominance in their respective fields and have also a worse trackrecord in regards to worker treatment / custommer treatment too boot.

Musk literally had to pay out millions in OSHA violations because his factory doesn't use safety striping (he hates the color yellow and refuses to use it anywhere), and has repeatedly lost lawsuits because it treats black employees like slaves, with a company culture of racism that segregates those employees to a part of the factory they call "the Plantation" and features frequent slurs and depictions of black employees as monkeys. His LLM regurgitates conspiracy theories alleging that the hurricane in North Carolina was used to cover up child sex trafficking, he personally produces and shares deep fakes of celebrities and politicians, and he is currently violating federal election law via directly bribing voters and running an illegal lottery.

I never said he was a nice guy, i said he is the one that you from an abuse of power perspective and positioning have to consider as the least problematic in regards to AI:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Laughing Man wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As I think I’ve said before? My concern isn’t so much AI, as those developing it.

Imagine if Musk decided he was going to buy out an AI developer.

musk was part of the founders when those from chatGPT were still non profit and has on multiple occaisions called for a slowing down of AI adoption. Out of all the "billionaires" he's probably the one that you should be LEAST concerned about. Meanwhile Amazon and google are far worse especially in the context of market dominance in their respective fields and have also a worse trackrecord in regards to worker treatment / custommer treatment too boot.

Musk literally had to pay out millions in OSHA violations because his factory doesn't use safety striping (he hates the color yellow and refuses to use it anywhere), and has repeatedly lost lawsuits because it treats black employees like slaves, with a company culture of racism that segregates those employees to a part of the factory they call "the Plantation" and features frequent slurs and depictions of black employees as monkeys. His LLM regurgitates conspiracy theories alleging that the hurricane in North Carolina was used to cover up child sex trafficking, he personally produces and shares deep fakes of celebrities and politicians, and he is currently violating federal election law via directly bribing voters and running an illegal lottery.

I never said he was a nice guy, i said he is the one that you from an abuse of power perspective and positioning have to consider as the least problematic in regards to AI:

The guy who extorts his employees into having sex with him is the least problematic from an abuse of power perspective, you say.

I know I'm going to get an infraction for wording it this way, but...





HEY, NERDS!!!


Politics you agree with is still politics, and banned from this forum. Don't get the thread shut down because you can't bang your drums elsewhere.



Sweet Emperor's teeth...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, there are records of Yasuke, a man of African origin who did indeed serve as a Samurai. Seems he came over with Jesuits.

Yasuke was never a samurai, though. He was a retainer, but was thought of by Nobunaga as something of a "pet".

 Just Tony wrote:

Yasuke was never a samurai, though. He was a retainer, but was thought of by Nobunaga as something of a "pet".

He was a retainer with the rank of samurai, according to historians.

But that's also not the topic of the thread...

Now when I scroll down a Facebook thread, the page randomly and suddenly leaps down to a section of FB groups with a big “Members also join” sign, and I have to scroll back up past a bunch of notifications for those groups to find what I was reading.


Is anyone experiencing this?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Now when I scroll down a Facebook thread, the page randomly and suddenly leaps down to a section of FB groups with a big “Members also join” sign, and I have to scroll back up past a bunch of notifications for those groups to find what I was reading.


Is anyone experiencing this?

massive leaps, yes. Massive leaps to a specific section reading "members also join", I can't say I've seen that.

4-post leaps have been a thing for a couple of years or more.
I haven't paid attention to where they leapt to.

I’m getting fed up with Bots and their spam on FB.

To the point I may delete my account.

You going to abandon your loot group?

 insaniak wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

Yasuke was never a samurai, though. He was a retainer, but was thought of by Nobunaga as something of a "pet".

He was a retainer with the rank of samurai, according to historians.

But that's also not the topic of the thread...

ackshually that was a confirmed edit, he never held a samurai title.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

Yasuke was never a samurai, though. He was a retainer, but was thought of by Nobunaga as something of a "pet".

He was a retainer with the rank of samurai, according to historians.

But that's also not the topic of the thread...

ackshually that was a confirmed edit, he never held a samurai title.

If folks wish to continue discussing, here is a dedicated thread:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/814883.page#11704480

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
You going to abandon your loot group?

More leave it in the hands of my Admin, who frankly do all the work anyways.

I’ll still be on Messenger, as that’s where I get most of my value from, and will remain part of the group’s admin team. If I can.

 Overread wrote:
Oh its not had its day; many of us griping are still using it. However I think its clear that its not what was originally drew us to them and there ARE avenues for both the SM systems collapsing due to mismanagement and also for competition to rise up.

Are we still using it properly though? It may be a small sample size, but most of my 'friends' only really lurk now, with some posting the occasional thing like a life event, whereas years ago there was a lot more traffic.

I scroll it a lot, because it's a pretty low effort way to kill time, but I'm rarely engaging with anything and certainly haven't clicked an ad for years. I think the only part I actively use now is marketplace.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Skinnereal wrote:
It's the inaccuracies and intentional spelling mistakes in the AI-generated articles that wind me up. They must be put in to get more hits and comments, as people point them out and correct them., only adding to the Comments counter.

The same with Tiktok videos.

One of the easiest ways to generate interaction is to post something wrong. I see a lot of terribly DIY advice videos that are full of replies like "this is dangerous", but the algorithm can't distinguish between good reactions and bad reactions so they get views and money.

Another one seems to be to post partial stories/videos, because then users will go to your profile to find the rest of it, or comment on the post or whatever. It's gotten so bad that some people will check the comments first or skip anything in multiple parts. I tend to search for the underlying reddit post it's scraped from to read it there and see there's a new trend of fake reddit stories on facebook/TikTok - they are set up to look like reddit but always incomplete and clearly AI generated since there's often logical mistakes. I assume the idea is to drive engagement from people who want to know how the story ends.

Both providing nothing but frustration.

I wouldn't be surprised if some AI generated mistakes are deliberate but it's most likely just that the creators don't care enough to check or fix it. The aim for most is to spew out as much content as possible for as little effort.

I'm honestly surprised that Meta hasn't monetised Marketplace yet, as it surely has to be the only part of the platform that's still generating any real traffic. Adding a fee for listing seems like it has to happen sooner or later.

 insaniak wrote:
I'm honestly surprised that Meta hasn't monetised Marketplace yet, as it surely has to be the only part of the platform that's still generating any real traffic. Adding a fee for listing seems like it has to happen sooner or later.

Recently Ebay started removing fees for private listings because so many people were moving to the Marketplace features of FB. As you say its a very active area and meta don't need to monetize it to profit from their platform. If anything they just want the traffic and attention it brings to monetize through existing advertising channels.


So Ebay has tried going back on fees just to get people using their platform as I'm sure they've seen the shift within the private sector. Even in a niche like wargaming I've seen a LOT of stuff just not appearing on Ebay in any volume and yet if you glance over at the FB trading groups for those games/markets there's a lot lot more activity and trading going on.



The other thing is how can FB monetize their market system when a lot of it doesn't even need to use the marketplace itself. Many trade groups are purely just posting messages with pictures; a price and "message me" comments. FB doesn't process any of the payments - that's all done with Paypal (most often) or in person meetups. I think if they tried to bring in fees they'd see people leave in droves for the next free site (either back to ebay or probably into reddit); or just have the Marketplace crash and everyone would just be using comments in private groups.




It would take some big changes to FB and how it works to make it something they could directly monetize.

Actually thinking on it the best way for Meta to monetize it is to create their own equivalent to Paypal and then build it into FB to make it super easy to use. They could even design it with the same "goods and services" protections that Paypal offers and then make that the only way to pay (ergo no straight cash exchanges). Because right now Paypal is likely the one profiting the most, if FB/Meta could get into that same sector then that woudl be the best way to monetize their marketplace without doing anything to stop what makes it actually work right now.

Yeah, a dedicated payment gateway, and some level of buyer protection to build trust in buying remotely (as the current system was really built around the idea that people were paying and picking up in person) would be essential for Marketplace to grow beyond what it already is.

Honestly they might even get away just adding Paypal functionality to the Marketplace and then adding on a tiny % fee for the convenience of use. Just enough to profit from mass sales; not enough to be a "fee" that scares people away whilst giving them a safe fast and easy function on the site to use. A 1% or less fee would take it to a 4% total (paypal takes 3%).

And that way they don't have to invest a fortune into building their own banking and payment processing site.

I think they have a payment mechanism, because I've been forced to use it to sponsor some friends. I've always added a card, paid and then deleted the card again because I don't trust Meta more than I have to.

 insaniak wrote:
I'm honestly surprised that Meta hasn't monetised Marketplace yet, as it surely has to be the only part of the platform that's still generating any real traffic. Adding a fee for listing seems like it has to happen sooner or later.

It's trying, there are all sorts of fees to boost listings and improve reach. Maybe they'll eventually expand charges to everything.

 insaniak wrote:
Yeah, a dedicated payment gateway, and some level of buyer protection to build trust in buying remotely (as the current system was really built around the idea that people were paying and picking up in person) would be essential for Marketplace to grow beyond what it already is.

Personally the thing I live most about marketplace is that it's virtually all local stuff with an associated profile. So it's easier (but not impossible) to identify the scam and stolen items.

For mini's and stuff, I've certainly found it much easier to meet in person to hand over armies than to try and make stuff postage safe.

FB Marketplace doesn't have a payment system in the UK, as far as I can tell. We've sold a bunch of stuff there recently and it's an absolute cesspit of scammers for the most part because of this. Every single item we post has a bunch of people trying to buy it, then attempting some weird scam clearly designed to get the item for free in one way or another. We have eventually sold everything we wanted, but FB could make life a lot easier if they wanted to.

I see a lot of Marketplace related scams at work.

What may not be apparent to the untrained eye? Scammers are doing Middle Man Scams.

Let’s say I want to sell my car, and I put it up on Marketplace, and agree a sale. All above board, V5C and all.

Except, the Scammer, unbeknownst to me, uses a comprised bank account to pay me, either directly, or funding their account with fraudulent funds and punting it on to me.

At that point I can find myself in all means of stooky. Not necessarily lose out on the funds if I can reasonably demonstrate “clean hands”. But it is a possibility.

Trying to sell a saddle on FB marketplace currently and inundated with attempted scams. The place is lousy for them.

Its very good for collection only secondhand stuff like furniture in a circular economy way, but quickly becomes a quagmire otherwise.

I've found anything with 'machine' in the title is ripe for the "I'll take it but need to send my cousin, here's a fake paypal link" scams. But at least they are pretty formulaic.

Most things I've otherwise sold have been fine, except for a mountain bike, that was a nightmare of time wasters and chancers. It definitely varies wildly based on the item.

If Facebook directly monetised it, they would be liable in ways they aren't currently. Better to indirectly make money from the traffic.

My main concern, which I think I’ve shared before, is how little social media does to adhere to advertising standards and financial regulations.

Hence I see a lot of scam complaints where someone got roped into Crypto, Contract for Difference and other high risk, unregulated investments.

Some are straight up scams, where they just take your money and head for the hills. Others, the more difficult ones, are where people are persuaded to make genuine high risk investments and then lose every single penny. Or worse, as with Contract for Difference, you can end up owing substantial sums.

Marriages are destroyed, homes and pensions are lost. People are made bankrupt.

All because social media reckons it’s not actually an advertising platform therefore the rules don’t apply.

What's the simple description for "Contract for Difference", Doc? Not one I've heard of before.

It’s basically betting on Exchange Rates.

I don’t deal with investment complaints, so my knowledge is limited. But it involves two parties. One betting a currency will rise, the other betting it will fall, with the loser paying the winner the difference between the value of the asset the beginning and the end of the contract.

Now, if you know what you’re doing, including the staggering risks involved? You can make decent profits.

But hey, there’s a reason they’re not to be promoted to anyone apart from already experienced investors.

Alongside that Crypto is also used as a means to have more favourable exchange rates when moving money around between countries. So underlaying the investor side of it which is pure pyramid scheme style gambling; there's also an underlaying use of it for moving money around.

From legitimate use (apparently its used a decent amount by overseas workers sending money home quickly and without bankfees - where variations in value don't matter because its being bought and sold quickly); to, of course ,money laundering and so forth.

I can't see it being cheaper to buy and sell bitcoin than just transferring money between accounts, but I'm assuming the bitcoin exchanges are at least skimming something from the transaction too.



On social media, I'd seen a post by someone who actually recorded their feed and discovered that about 80% of the first 100 or so items on their feed was from friends of followed groups, the rest was suggested or adverts.

After seeing that I've become a lot more aware of how much crap I've been subconsciously scrolling past, and on TikTok/Facebook it certainly fits that I'm skipping at least 4 in 5 things.

I dunno, transaction fees and/or exchange rates from banks/ATM providers are absolutely downextortionate.
Some online broker skimming even as much as 10% off the top is likely still cheaper than that.

I think it also varies a lot by country. My impression is that places like the USA have a lot more fees attached to things like banking than places like the UK.

That's purely a rough impression I get from seeing people talk about things ;but it could also just be a bias that I've seen more people from the USA talking about money exchanges and bank fees than those from the UK.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s basically betting on Exchange Rates.

I don’t deal with investment complaints, so my knowledge is limited. But it involves two parties. One betting a currency will rise, the other betting it will fall, with the loser paying the winner the difference between the value of the asset the beginning and the end of the contract.

Now, if you know what you’re doing, including the staggering risks involved? You can make decent profits.

But hey, there’s a reason they’re not to be promoted to anyone apart from already experienced investors.

So basically short selling but via handing currency back and forth.

I guess 🤣🤣

In other “death of the appeal of social media” news?

The insipid rise of Instagram posts where you’ve stolen someone else’s content, and “remixed it” to include your gormless face reacting.

If you’re sharing it, I’m already gonna assume you found it funny. I do not need nor want you reaction to tell me it was funny.

I am not a sitcom audience. Your digital canned laughter is powerless here.

Also, idiot “trends”. Like rawdogging a flight. It’s not impressive, you’re just a tosser. And on a related note, if you need to repeatedly tell others you’re an “alpha male”. Chances are high you are, once again, just a tosser.

Yeah, I think we discussed reaction videos earlier... There are some that are actually useful and interesting, like the opera singer who analyses popular music, or the chef who critiques amateur cooking videos... But for the most part, I don't see the point.

And don't get me started on the fact that Gogglebox is an actual TV show made by actual TV networks using actual money.

Oh professional reaction stuff on YouTube can indeed be informative.

But these are just some vacuum of charisma “reacting” to a reel or similar. With their face interposed.

Yeah, but put a cat or dog reacting over it, and it's gold..... right..... RIGHT!

Soft as I am for both species?

Not even then.

Was back on Facebook again for a moment and learned that Spartans were actually African and that the Moors were the original rulers of Japan in the past. I'm not sure why I get these but my guess is having all tracking items blocked and probably the first time one popped up I looked at the comments because of "lolwat".

 Ahtman wrote:
Was back on Facebook again for a moment and learned that Spartans were actually African and that the Moors were the original rulers of Japan in the past. I'm not sure why I get these but my guess is having all tracking items blocked and probably the first time one popped up I looked at the comments because of "lolwat".

Someday someone should just make a historical fiction series where all wacky pseudohistory fantasies are true and have every episode start with 'based on a true story. trust me bro.'

That’s…that’s Graham Hancock. Isn’t it ?

I've just made the jump from Twitter to Bluesky and ... wow, it's so much better.

 insaniak wrote:
I've just made the jump from Twitter to Bluesky and ... wow, it's so much better.

Don't forget to make copious use of the block tool! It works very differently than other social media platforms, and using it makes your feed and others a much better place.

Yeah, block hasn't been necessary yet, but it's good that it's there.

The more positive tone in general is nice, and not having comment threads filled with bots is a very welcome point of difference, as is the lack of giant, repetitive ads every three posts.

 insaniak wrote:
I've just made the jump from Twitter to Bluesky and ... wow, it's so much better.

It is!

Won’t be joining myself, but I’m in favour of Twitter continuing to implode and lose Musk even more money.

Instagram announced that they will stop allowing you to follow hashtags.

As a user, I am struggling to understand what the point of the platform will be.

As a business person, it is clear they want to dictate to us what the user sees even more. And what you will see will be ads and paid content.

I think I am going to drop it and Facebook and stop most of my Social Media efforts going forward. They are no longer useful to reach my target audience.

You can't follow hashtags? Isn't that the whole point of hashtags?

 Overread wrote:
You can't follow hashtags? Isn't that the whole point of hashtags?

That's kind of what I thought too. Presumably the hashtags were too effective at helping people find the content they wanted, rather than the content Instagram would like to push at you, so they had to go.

 Overread wrote:
You can't follow hashtags? Isn't that the whole point of hashtags?

I thought they were to search for, to be honest with you, not too follow.

 Overread wrote:
You can't follow hashtags? Isn't that the whole point of hashtags?

They were until every post was a small essay of hashtags, though I see it's been limited to 30. That's 27 too many.

Pranks.

Or should I say “pranks”.

Where it’s so painfully, obviously, carefully orchestrated.

All that effort, and it’s not even entertaining.

Also anything captioned with variations on 'I laughed so hard!' is unlikely to to funny, and if you, Hypothetical Content Creator, need to tell me to 'watch to the end!' you probably need to learn how to make more engaging video.

Oh, and if YouTube video channels like WhatCulture could recruit narrators that speak with something approaching a natural cadence, that’d be fab.

Content creators that split content into parts 1 & 2 either trying to get you to subscribe for when part 2 shows up, or to follow them on a different platform for part 2.

There is a special place in hell for the people who make animal "rescue" videos after torturing the animal to need rescue in the first place.

 Baragash wrote:
Content creators that split content into parts 1 & 2 either trying to get you to subscribe for when part 2 shows up, or to follow them on a different platform for part 2.

Like when Arbiter Ian did a whole series on original Necromunda and said he would talk about the newest Necromunda later and it has been years and nothing. Now we're all sad and angry and there is nothing we can do about it.

I'm ok with split videos if the first part is breaking 45+ minutes... but then I like video essays.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Oh, and if YouTube video channels like WhatCulture could recruit narrators that speak with something approaching a natural cadence, that’d be fab.

You can change the playback speed on YouTube. So much content is a lot better at 1.5x.

I signed up for Blue Sky, but it's more of an improved Twitter rather than an improved Facebook.

And I hate Twitter.

https://bsky.app/profile/kidkyoto.bsky.social

I am strongly considering ditching all Social Media except message board and my own personal blog.

The rest have gotten so useless and full of stuff I am not interested in seeing or reading.

Plus, I am no longer convinced they are useful for marketing and community building anymore.

I made my social media circle much smaller by making it strictly family and the very closest of friends. Even drastically reduced the amount of hobby pages I follow. Made it much more tolerable, though it feels like FB is on wobbly legs.

With that said, recently got verified on Twitter and that's been a blast. Mostly just to follow current events and on the ground reporting that's nowhere to be found on any major news website of either political leaning.

One FB pet peeve that I have is when a page changes its modus operandi. Like for example, when I joined FB, I had moved into a place with a pretty nice kitchen, so I wanted to cook a lot. Followed a bunch of recipe pages and so many of them go from showcasing great food to "self help", buzzfeed-esque reporting and "lifehack" articles.

 nels1031 wrote:
With that said, recently got verified on Twitter and that's been a blast. Mostly just to follow current events and on the ground reporting that's nowhere to be found on any major news website of either political leaning.

Even before Elon trashed the place, I can't imagine ever getting enough value out of Twitter to warrant paying for it...

One FB pet peeve that I have is when a page changes its modus operandi. Like for example, when I joined FB, I had moved into a place with a pretty nice kitchen, so I wanted to cook a lot. Followed a bunch of recipe pages and so many of them go from showcasing great food to "self help", buzzfeed-esque reporting and "lifehack" articles.

I suspect that's less 'changing their modus operandi' and more that their modus operandi is to pretend to be a cooking page showcasing recipes to trick people into following their clickbait lifestyle blog.

But yes, it's annoying, and one of the reasons I don't tend to follow lifestyle pages.



Also, having seen two different ads in the last two days for scammers pretending to be well-known Aussie game stores selling boardgames at 85% discounts, I am once again furious at Facebook's complete lack of vetting on their advertisers. The reporting process takes too long - one of the ads already had dozens of people sharing it around or claiming to have made a purchase when I saw it, and it typically takes up to a week for it to actually be reviewed. This should be caught before the ad even goes live... in this case, it's as simple as the link in the ad going to a completely different website to who they are claiming to be. Even if they lack the manpower to have an actual person checking and approving each ad, this feels like the sort of thing that a company with the resources of Meta should have no problem catching with modern technology.

Also happened with german store names, advertising black friday sales aimed at people not knowing the stores or non-native speakers not able to spot it is fake

And I guess meta doesn't care as long as someone paid it.

 insaniak wrote:
Even before Elon trashed the place, I can't imagine ever getting enough value out of Twitter to warrant paying for it...

I’d wager we’re on opposites sides of a [rightfully banned topic] spectrum, as I feel its greatly improved since Elon’s purchase. Its less the price of most streaming services and the concept of monetization is intriguing, though I think that ship has sailed for me.

I get value out of it because a lot of the topics that I enjoy are all within reach on that app, and if I can get ads out of the way, I’ll gladly pay that.

The fragmentation of social media is pretty disheartening, but thats the way the real world has been going for some time.

This is the closest I am to social media right now... too much nonsense.

 nels1031 wrote:

I’d wager we’re on opposites sides of a [rightfully banned topic] spectrum, as I feel its greatly improved since Elon’s purchase.

And while you may well be right about our personal politics, that's not the biggest problem with Twitter right now. Despite Elon's supposed efforts to remove all the bots, they're far worse now than they ever were before, and it's amplified by verified users being pushed to the top of the replies, because so many of the bots are verified, which is exactly what the revised verification process was supposed to prevent (and everyone said from the start wouldn't work)

The blatant sharing of misinformation while Elon censors anything he personally disagrees with is annoying, but ultimately less so than having any meaningful discussion just drowned under the weight of all that AI nonsense.

Social Media beyond Forums is mostly bots talking to other bots.

 Easy E wrote:
Social Media beyond Forums is mostly bots talking to other bots.

This is why we need more AdMech in our lives... down with A.I.

I've never had a Twitter/X account and I don't understand why anyone would.
Everything I've seen from that site has been trash. It doesn't matter what politics or opinions it might appeal to, it's all been trash to the point where I can't take people that interact with it seriously.

At least something like Facebook was remotely justifiable at one point because it about interacting with your friends. The second social media crossed the threshold from people you know (or people that know people you know) it went absolutely mad.

trexmeyer wrote:
I've never had a Twitter/X account and I don't understand why anyone would.
Everything I've seen from that site has been trash. It doesn't matter what politics or opinions it might appeal to, it's all been trash to the point where I can't take people that interact with it seriously.

At least something like Facebook was remotely justifiable at one point because it about interacting with your friends. The second social media crossed the threshold from people you know (or people that know people you know) it went absolutely mad.

You need to invite 30 more friends to reach the next level of Farmville.

I do have a Twiiter/X but I'm doing it wrong it seems. I follow people I like but it seems the way to do it is follow people you don't like and then hose them when they say the slightest thing you can rant at.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
I do have a Twiiter/X but I'm doing it wrong it seems. I follow people I like but it seems the way to do it is follow people you don't like and then hose them when they say the slightest thing you can rant at.

Or repost crap to Reddit for Karma.

Facebook and Instagram said they're adding AI accounts with AI generated photos and profiles, which is something that everyone has been asking for.

 Ahtman wrote:
Facebook and Instagram said they're adding AI accounts with AI generated photos and profiles, which is something that everyone has been asking for.

The people I know in real life who are enthusiastic users of AI writing and art are the people I would least want to follow on social media.

 Ahtman wrote:
Facebook and Instagram said they're adding AI accounts with AI generated photos and profiles, which is something that everyone has been asking for.

Reinforce your sense of loneliness, isolation and lack of meaningful human contact by chatting all day with one of the AI bots.

Which will either people down a line of madness and self reinforcement of bad habits or even more erode away their self confidence and self worth by driving home that the only people who talk to them are AI robots

Well, I think that might about the line for me.

I don’t like dealing with real, genuine, morons. I don’t want to deal with fictional morons.

Plus, the first post on my FB feed is increasingly an ad, for a service or news article I don’t care about.

I think my big question is, where are folks going next?

It looks like Bluesky is gaining traction.

I predict the FB AI will either turn out to be nothing at all or it will be pushed back on hard and they'll roll back on it.

In the end FB's strength is "everyone is there" and its very hard to emulate that

At least they will be flagged as AI?

Not a huge fan of AI in general. I don’t see how having bots included in social media spaces will add value. Make it seem less lonely? I get using them like a search engine, but you should need to go ask them directly. If I’m posting on my feed asking if anyone knows a good plumber, I don’t want a google hit. I want to know if people I know have an opinion or recommendation. If I’m posting on someone else’s threads, I’d like to know who’s real and who’s not.

That said, I keep my facebook pretty locked down. I only post visible to friends. And if you want to be on my friend’s list you need to meet 2 criteria: I must have shaken your hand, and would not mind if you showed up to one of my potluck cookouts. If AI bots start posting on my timeline and I can’t find the option to make them stop, then I’ll start to worry.

Great, first Robocalls, next Robochats?

All my joking and playing with the ChatGPT toy was fun, but I can't see anyone trying to have a conversation with it.

Unless you want your own personal pscyhofant to tell you how awesome you are. (I tried to feed it one of my storles I wrote, and all it did was tell me how great my writing was.

It was like asking my Mom for a critical response.)

I'm glad I avoid 99% of social media.

To be fair to the robots, they do have a place. From an end-user POV if I need to call a company and get some information, I’m OK with a chatbot hooked up to their database pulling the info for me, instead of waiting on hold for half an hour. Sometimes I still need to hold for a representative, but the bot can field the easy questions. At least one company I need to deal with has Hugo the chatbot doing the same thing via their webpage. Saves time, frees up the reps to answer questions that actually need help, etc. Chatbots making life legitimately better.

But I don’t need roBob, the AI friend, liking my posts and adding useless “looks good!” replies to my posts. I’ve got my extended family for that.

 Easy E wrote:
I think my big question is, where are folks going next?

It looks like Bluesky is gaining traction.

Me? Probably nowhere. I’ll keep messenger for family stuff, and for friends to contact me on.

Right now I think there is a lot of big tech companies in need to justify the Billions upon Billions spent on this Ai.

They also need more data, So getting people to freely act and interact with the Ai is a good way to get it.
There also is company looking to sell Dateing chat bots, that will chat with your matches to get you a date then pass it over to you.
Men do you need help! This is highly targeted at men, and this is going to backfire I feel.

I moved away from Facebook and Twitter for good reasons. Bluesky has been great, they trying hard to keep it not sucking. But you already need a blocklist or two just to handle bots.

I feel like there’s a tremendous disconnect between the customers and the tech people who keep adding AI (now enhanced with AI!) to products that don’t really benefit from AI. Just scrolling on forums with ads, AI has to be the most common buzzword, which I find baffling l.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I feel like there’s a tremendous disconnect between the customers and the tech people who keep adding AI (now enhanced with AI!) to products that don’t really benefit from AI. Just scrolling on forums with ads, AI has to be the most common buzzword, which I find baffling l.

It's round 3 of the tech buzzword pump and dump, just with even more resources wasted.

First it was crypto and adding 'blockchain' to everything. Then it was NFTs and now it's AI.

Much like the slump in the movie business maybe these companies should just make things that people want.

 Nevelon wrote:
To be fair to the robots, they do have a place. From an end-user POV if I need to call a company and get some information, I’m OK with a chatbot hooked up to their database pulling the info for me, instead of waiting on hold for half an hour. Sometimes I still need to hold for a representative, but the bot can field the easy questions. At least one company I need to deal with has Hugo the chatbot doing the same thing via their webpage. Saves time, frees up the reps to answer questions that actually need help, etc. Chatbots making life legitimately better.

The one time I didn't just 'nope' off the page when confronted with a customer service chatbot to deal with a basic request, it wasted ten minutes of my time before telling me that I needed to call customer service the next day. Which pretty much reinforced my complete lack of interest in dealing with customer service chatbots.

 Easy E wrote:
I think my big question is, where are folks going next?

It looks like Bluesky is gaining traction.

Bluesky is by far the best alternative for twitter. There really isn't an alternative out there for Facebook. Which sucks, given that Facebook no longer functions and management seems determined to keep making it worse.

I work in Contact Centers for mega-corps (Boo hiss! Keep it down in back) and have gotten a pretty close look at a lot of what is called AI right now. Frankly it is not even ChatGPT level. It is the same old Natural Language Processing, text to script, and picking out keywords from a queue we have had for decades now, given a new marketing spin on the name.

The real play is that many of the providers are demanding that you provide your corporate data for their actual AI to learn from. At least, that is the rational. They really just want to data mine any Corporation that signs up with them. That is where the real money is. It isn't enough to data-mine individual users, there is bigger potential profit grabbing from these larger data-sets that Companies all ready have access to.

A lot of the big companies are wise to this and are pushing back or refusing to give access to their data, but not all. I mean, they want to gain the profits from data-mining their own customer base, why give it away to someone else?

Social media can have a purpose. It's a tool... though people do like trying to use a wrench to hammer in nails.

I'm on FB for the connections to friends with most of my action happening in DMs. The page has increasingly become a handful of friends posts or groups-that-I-follow posts then reams of adds and 'suggested'. I still connect with a lot of family through FB, and what's left of my DJ network.

I signed up to Twitter (now X) for gaming purposes but it has become so full of trash that I might visit once a month now.

I have an IG for sharing photos of minis, gaming stuff and I collect vintage menswear so there's a big community on IG to hook up with.

I am a late adopter, generally, only hoping onto a platform once I have determined that the time and energy it'll need will pay off in some form of benefit (and not just cat memes and happy brain chemicals).

The AI thing... Meta/IG will stuff with "AI Profiles" which can interact in order to increase interaction, make the place look busier and more populated. The old joke about "the internet will soon just be bots talking to bots..." is kind of leading in that direction.

I work middle management in the Customer Service/Call Center industry among medium and larger companies... and chat with a lot of others in the business.
We are watching the frantic "application of AI for ALL things!" as they try to turn it into a tool that will do absolutely everything so that we can cut actual agent numbers down to a tiny handful at best and remove middle management entirely. Lately I am mostly working with AI in a very obvious attempt to replace my self and wow, it takes a hammering to wedge it into any kind of useful shape. Like anything else AI is a tool... but everyone is looking for the golden eggs and making huge promises so they're trying to turn it into an everything-burger...
I predict it's gonna cost a lot of jobs before imploding horribly.

Yeah I've seen AI try to be used for customer service and even on a really limited data set its a nightmare. It will make things up; get the wrong idea; give totally missleading or false information. You basically need to have a user to monitor and filter all of its responses to make it work.

It has uses, but managers have to realise its a glorified copy-paste machine rather than and actual thinking AI system that can interpret, comprehend and deduct answers from core information.

Honestly I think its best use is as an aid for already skilled workers to speed up work progress rather than to replace them.

thevintagegm wrote:

I work middle management in the Customer Service/Call Center industry among medium and larger companies... and chat with a lot of others in the business.

Brother!

Right now, "Generative" AIs best use case is probably as an internal facing tool to help prompt agents on Policy and Procedure. Everything else it is far too rickety for.

However, like all technology it will only improve because the potential for big savings is too huge to NOT invest a ton of money and time into. We are all stuck in a Prisoner's Dilemma and getting the world no one really wants.

 Overread wrote:
It has uses, but managers have to realise its a glorified copy-paste machine rather than and actual thinking AI system that can interpret, comprehend and deduct answers from core information.

As if genuine human stupidity isn't bad enough, the suits want people to use Artificial Stupidity as well...

Glorified copy-paste thinking is exactly what the suits love! I should know! I am one!

The Spambots on my blog posts are getting so much better than they use to be.

Check out this spam that was on my review of Stargrave:

It’s awesome that you’ve got your hands on Stargrave! The excitement around it seems well-deserved, especially with Joseph McCullough’s reputation for creating engaging, tactical skirmish games like Frostgrave. It’s always a bit of a delay when waiting for physical copies, but there’s something special about holding a hard copy book, especially for a game that has so much anticipation behind it.

Given the success of the Frostgrave line, I can imagine Stargrave builds on those familiar mechanics while offering new layers of space-faring excitement. The blend of sci-fi with skirmish combat seems like it could provide hours of engaging gameplay.

If you’re enjoying strategy and tactical thinking in games like Stargrave, you might like <Removed as the Spam part> . It’s a mobile strategy game that’s perfect for quick tactical sessions and gives you the chance to hone your decision-making skills while you await your next big gaming session!

I mean..... that post almost seemed relevant to the initial post. You can tell it took what I wrote, and spit out a response based on it, and then tucked that last paragraph in. They big give-away (other than that last paragraph) is that Stargrave is not a new game system at all! It is a few years past the post at this point with several expansions behind it now too.

Still, so much better than spam use to be. Sometimes, I have to read a comment more than once before I spam block it.

I'm just waiting for the dark times, when people start producing "bot trolls."

We've already got AI bots and AI anti-bots hashing it out.

The next fun one is someone getting AI to generate a fancy email based on a summary, and the reciever getting AI to turn the fancy email into a summary, with neither party seeing the actual email that gets sent, consuming huge resources to make everything worse. Great stuff!

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I'm just waiting for the dark times, when people start producing "bot trolls."

Already out there, fiddling in politics with outright lies for the overly credulous.

And now it's going to get much, much worse....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly74mpy8klo

We’re doomed.

As a species, we’re doomed.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We’re doomed.

As a species, we’re doomed.

Oh, we were doomed way before that.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/16/openai-quietly-removes-ban-on-military-use-of-its-ai-tools.html

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We’re doomed.

As a species, we’re doomed.

This is a bit of a good news, bad news situation. The bad news is, yes we are. Good news, thanks to the heat death of the universe literally everything is doomed, so we don't have to feel especially stupid.

 Geifer wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We’re doomed.

As a species, we’re doomed.

This is a bit of a good news, bad news situation. The bad news is, yes we are. Good news, thanks to the heat death of the universe literally everything is doomed, so we don't have to feel especially stupid.

The problem is the heat-death of the universe is only a theory that we had - it could be totally wrong.

 Overread wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We’re doomed.

As a species, we’re doomed.

This is a bit of a good news, bad news situation. The bad news is, yes we are. Good news, thanks to the heat death of the universe literally everything is doomed, so we don't have to feel especially stupid.

The problem is the heat-death of the universe is only a theory that we had - it could be totally wrong.

This is a bit of a good news, bad news situation. The bad news is, we might be totally wrong about it. Good news, since we're doomed as a species we won't be around to feel stupid about it.

The post truth world sucks.

Were governments honest before now? Not really, no. But outrageous liars didn’t tend to prosper. And I’m not naive enough to believe some secrets are there to be kept, and some are proper dirty “you did what to your own populace” secrets which should be exposed.

But now? It’s whichever cretin can shout their rubbish loudest, and in keeping with the Gish Gallop, as frequently and in as much variety as possible.

Take vaccines. There have been dodgy ones, that’s true. And at least historically vaccine injuries aren’t entirely make believe. But the recent round, lead by discredited quack Mr* Andrew Wakefield is all bunkum. And those who cleave to Mr* Wakefield’s study are so dumb, they don’t realise he concluded that one, very specific vaccine (the combined MMR) had a link to autism (it didn’t). And instead recommended separate jabs for that. Jabs which, as it ‘appens, Mr* Wakefield had recently patented. Of course that wasn’t disclosed in his “study”.

So even if his report was solid (and for clarity, it wasn’t, at all. Such as tiny study group of 12 children, all of whom just happened to be clients of the lawyer who paid Mr* Wakefield to produce the report), IT DIDN’T CONCLUDE WHAT YOU CLAIM IT CONCLUDED YOU DOLTS.

*Not a Doctor anymore, thankfully. Struck off due to this fraud.

The problem is it gained a cult following. It's much like how that one book about "alpha wolves" also got a cult following even though the same scientist disproved his own theory later.

It's very hard to get people to change their minds and there's enough people who distrust any form of organised government. Sadly the Pandemic also revealed to many that there's a lot of very rich people with either daft ideas or vested interest in promoting anti-vax approaches.


Heck look at Flat Earth Theory - one huge chunk of it is basically founded on the idea that "scientists and the government and THEM" Want to control us "because of reasons" and thus invented the globular earth theory. Because by doing that they can raise US taxes under the guise of NASA....

Because logically a multi-national conspiracy the world over is the only way for the US Government to raise its taxes ...

 Overread wrote:
Heck look at Flat Earth Theory - one huge chunk of it is basically founded on the idea that "scientists and the government and THEM" Want to control us "because of reasons" and thus invented the globular earth theory. Because by doing that they can raise our taxes under the guise of NASA....

I'm still amused by the idea that, at one point, the Flat Earth Society website is meant to have claimed it had members all over the globe...

 Overread wrote:
The problem is it gained a cult following. It's much like how that one book about "alpha wolves" also got a cult following even though the same scientist disproved his own theory later.

In this case, it's because people - for reasons I've never been made clear on - decided to trust the Singled Out Girl instead of actual fething doctors.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MarkNorfolk wrote:
And now it's going to get much, much worse....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly74mpy8klo

...even worse: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/07/tech/meta-hateful-conduct-policy-update-fact-check/index.html

Zuck basically declared 'open season' on me, so I'm pretty much out, now.

 BorderCountess wrote:
[

...even worse: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/07/tech/meta-hateful-conduct-policy-update-fact-check/index.html

Zuck basically declared 'open season' on me, so I'm pretty much out, now.

That really sucks. I'm sorry that they're doing this to you.

Hopefully, people will vote with their wallets and move elsewhere.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:
[

...even worse: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/07/tech/meta-hateful-conduct-policy-update-fact-check/index.html

Zuck basically declared 'open season' on me, so I'm pretty much out, now.

That really sucks. I'm sorry that they're doing this to you.

Hopefully, people will vote with their wallets and move elsewhere.

Ironically, 'voting with their wallets' is apparently what got us into this mess.

 BorderCountess wrote:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/07/tech/meta-hateful-conduct-policy-update-fact-check/index.html

The systems will now be focused only on extreme violations such as child sexual exploitation and terrorism.

Sounds good to me.

 nels1031 wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/07/tech/meta-hateful-conduct-policy-update-fact-check/index.html

The systems will now be focused only on extreme violations such as child sexual exploitation and terrorism.

Sounds good to me.

That doesn't read to me as "We need to and are putting more efforts towards very serious matters."
That reads to me as "We don't care about people being terrible unless it literally gets us into legal trouble, so we're cutting corners and ignorign things that should be addressed."

Reads to me like Zuckerburg is a coward.

 Dysartes wrote:
Reads to me like Zuckerburg is a coward.

That too, yeah.

It's utterly bizarre to me (though sadly not much of a shock) that facts are apparently political now. Like, I get that there are grey areas and you can manipulate and massage how you present certain data to make your point appear stronger, but at the end of the day the idea that someone simply checking whether a thing that was said is correct can be political just shows how idiotic the modern world has become. Flat earth was mentioned earlier, for example. That's not a "two sides" kind of thing. Flerfers are just wrong - demonstrably and obviously wrong. Telling them that isn't pandering to "the establishment" and it's not a political statement. The idea that facts can change to suit your political or religious leanings is moronic.

The cowardice on display from the tech companies is staggering. The change to the hate speech policy is also likely to accelerate the already rapid decline of FB, as is currently happening on Twitter, so I guess that's a good thing. Pretty gakky way of achieving it though.

Slipspace wrote:
It's utterly bizarre to me (though sadly not much of a shock) that facts are apparently political now. Like, I get that there are grey areas and you can manipulate and massage how you present certain data to make your point appear stronger, but at the end of the day the idea that someone simply checking whether a thing that was said is correct can be political just shows how idiotic the modern world has become. Flat earth was mentioned earlier, for example. That's not a "two sides" kind of thing. Flerfers are just wrong - demonstrably and obviously wrong. Telling them that isn't pandering to "the establishment" and it's not a political statement. The idea that facts can change to suit your political or religious leanings is moronic.

The cowardice on display from the tech companies is staggering. The change to the hate speech policy is also likely to accelerate the already rapid decline of FB, as is currently happening on Twitter, so I guess that's a good thing. Pretty gakky way of achieving it though.

because the honest truth is, Fact has a certain well, Bias to them, alot of things are are true are what the left wing believes and expouses.
so if you make "Facts" political, suddenly things beceome up to interpretation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
anf yeah.
Instagram has become mainly just Memes and softcore porn.

While Facebook is softcore and memes.
Most of the people i wanted to keep track of from high school or college stopped using it, or it actively makes me angrier reading it(HOW DARE THEY GET A BETTER LIFE)
so facebook lost its lustre to me
im thinking of coming back to forums

I have trouble believing Facebook ever had fact checking, tbh.


I have gotten a laugh out of the "Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, known pedophile and chronic masturbator dead at 63 of auo-erotic asphyxiation" type of posts popping up all over the internet.

 Ahtman wrote:
I have trouble believing Facebook ever had fact checking, tbh.

Are you questioning the professional censors on the veracity of "their truth"?!? Ban for you! This is a good change for facebook as long as they implement a way to simply self censor topics via the category of posts; I'd prefer not to have politics on my feed there at all and not just one side of the debate. For every person who isn't happy about this change, I suspect there others who were disgusted by the very biased moderation they implemented since 2016's mental break and excerbated by 2020's event of an unspecificed nature from an unknown origin.

It’s more general conspiracy theory guff.

5g Am Lasor Kill Grid. It are am cook yur kids in tehir bed!

Vaccine am evul

*Insert political target* am eat babby

Climate Change doesn’t do a reel\

Flat Erf

Moon am projekshun

Bill Gates am track yoo

Replacement Theory

And so on and so forth. And that’s before we get on to medical woo. Such as “stuff this crystal (only $999.99*) up yer bum and be cured of all cancer!” type rubbish. Like “Miracle Mineral Solution” which most definitely isn’t just bleach and definitely does cure autism, honest, only $299.99 per thrice daily enema dose!

*per week, paid ahead in easy monthly instalments.

 warboss wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I have trouble believing Facebook ever had fact checking, tbh.

Are you questioning the professional censors on the veracity of "their truth"?!? Ban for you! This is a good change for facebook as long as they implement a way to simply self censor topics via the category of posts; I'd prefer not to have politics on my feed there at all and not just one side of the debate. For every person who isn't happy about this change, I suspect there others who were disgusted by the very biased moderation they implemented since 2016's mental break and excerbated by 2020's event of an unspecificed nature from an unknown origin.

Given how well their "I don't want to see this, but I do want to see that" system worked before (hint, it definitely didn't) I wouldn't hold my breath

And, tbf, their "moderation" has been trash for at least 10+ years. I recall when I was still in college, perhaps even before I left the military, I was scrolling one evening, and saw a genuine, honest to god dog fighting ring being advertised in a post. So, I reported it, and made a note of the page. The next day, scrolling, and boom, there's the same thing. So I report it. 3rd day, I get notification "the thing you reported did not go against community standards", so I request a review. By the end of it, I had probably 10 days worth of fresh reports, plus all the automated responses and requests for review going. After 2 weeks, I finally got an obviously human reply, and they FINALLY took down not just offensive, but outright illegal stuff. Their systems have been pathetic from the get go.

Oh, and the shameless promotion of unregulated investments, which may very well just be a scam.

Does Facebook care such adverts and promotions are illegal in the UK?

No. No they do not. Yet those ads destroy lives, even when they’re not a scam.

Crime is Freedom of Speech.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Crime is Freedom of Speech.

While freedom of speech is a fundamental right in the U.S., it does not extend to criminal acts.

Crimes violate the rights of others and disrupt societal order, which is why they are subject to legal consequences.

Freedom of speech protects individuals' rights to express opinions and ideas, but it does not protect actions that harm others or break the law.

Therefore, equating crimes with freedom of speech is a misunderstanding of both concepts.

Is sarcasm a crime? 🤣

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Is sarcasm a crime? 🤣

Only in America.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We’re doomed.

As a species, we’re doomed.

People have been saying this since the dawn of time.

See my further comments on the unopposed march of conspiracy theory and woo peddling anti-science gibberish.

Where vulnerable people in desperate situations might eschew the very thing which may be able to help them, in favour of lining the pockets of snake oil salesmen and worse.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Is sarcasm a crime? 🤣

Only in America.

In Australia and a UK, not using sarcasm is a crime

 Baragash wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Is sarcasm a crime? 🤣

Only in America.

In Australia and a UK, not using sarcasm is a crime

A UK? Is there more than one?

Apparently there is an app that essentially is like Facebook or Instagram which uses AI to simulate you having hundreds of thousands to millions of followers so one can roleplay being an internet famous.

so there is another facebook?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
A UK? Is there more than one?

technically, there are several "united" kingdoms

Sarcasm was the first victim of the vaccine. /S


On Topic:
I spent a lot of time last year working on and developing my social media for work reasons. Now, I am thinking of dropping it all.

When I owned a physical small business a bit less than a decade ago, Social Media was a great way to market and reach your customers. Now, I am not convinced it has the power it used to have for small business. It is not nearly as localized as it used to be.

Plus, demographics and users are shifting. Facebook is for Gen X and older, Instagram for Millenials, and Tik Tok for younger. Plus, there are a scattering of other platforms that are more niche like Twitch, X, Nextdoor, LinkdIn, etc.

I am less sure about the breakdown by Gender and Geography than I am about age, but different Demos are reached via different platforms. Therefore, you really need to know you Target audience and go where they are. Otherwise, you can waste a lot of time working on the wrong platform.

I think the big aspect is what kind of business you're into and what the purpose of your social media site is for.

Eg if its just to communicate with your customers then a FB works well as even if younger generations "don't use it" you can bet they likely do have an account so they can reach out.

If you're marketing then it really depends on your product and market focus. Plus a bit of luck as to what turns out active. I've seen the same market, same product have super active FB accounts and super dead ones - sometimes its a case of seeing what sticks and what works for what you're doing and going with the flow.



I do think that if you end up not using a SM site then it is best to either close it outright or leave a "follow us here" link as the only visible content directing to the places you are active. Nothing looks deader than a firm running a FB account that suddenly stops updates

Well, that’s a new low.

Checking local news, and I see the usual drivel posts disguised as further news articles. Only this time? It’s encouraging gambling.

Now, I do the Lottery, and have been known to try my luck on the fruit machine - predominantly in my youth, only occasionally in the modern day. So I’m not exactly against having a flutter.

But to present betting advice as a news story just feels off to me. I’ve encountered persons with gambling habits/outright addiction, and have seen the havoc it can wreak. And so having encouragement to gamble masquerading as a factual news article really irks me.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, that’s a new low.

Checking local news, and I see the usual drivel posts disguised as further news articles. Only this time? It’s encouraging gambling.

Now, I do the Lottery, and have been known to try my luck on the fruit machine - predominantly in my youth, only occasionally in the modern day. So I’m not exactly against having a flutter.

But to present betting advice as a news story just feels off to me. I’ve encountered persons with gambling habits/outright addiction, and have seen the havoc it can wreak. And so having encouragement to gamble masquerading as a factual news article really irks me.

Wait until your next vacation to the States and sports-betting ads are fething everywhere. ESPN has whole pages and articles dedicated to it, now.

 BorderCountess wrote:

Wait until your next vacation to the States and sports-betting ads are fething everywhere. ESPN has whole pages and articles dedicated to it, now.

The rare occasion I watch an american sport, sports betting is built in to the fething pre-game show now. And we're seeing more and more sports books actively sponsoring segments so you're seeing their logos and URL's more and more during those segments.


Pretty soon, I wouldn't be surprised to see your local weather report brought to you by a sports betting website, where you too can bet on the over-under for whether it will rain tomorrow

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

Wait until your next vacation to the States and sports-betting ads are fething everywhere. ESPN has whole pages and articles dedicated to it, now.

The rare occasion I watch an american sport, sports betting is built in to the fething pre-game show now. And we're seeing more and more sports books actively sponsoring segments so you're seeing their logos and URL's more and more during those segments.


Pretty soon, I wouldn't be surprised to see your local weather report brought to you by a sports betting website, where you too can bet on the over-under for whether it will rain tomorrow

I live in New England, one of the WORST places to bet on the weather.

There’s a lot of sports gambling ads on Spotify too. I listen to Athletico Mince, a “football” podcast with Bob Mortimer. It’s usually all sorts of abject nonsense. But those ads irk me.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

Wait until your next vacation to the States and sports-betting ads are fething everywhere. ESPN has whole pages and articles dedicated to it, now.

The rare occasion I watch an american sport, sports betting is built in to the fething pre-game show now. And we're seeing more and more sports books actively sponsoring segments so you're seeing their logos and URL's more and more during those segments.


Pretty soon, I wouldn't be surprised to see your local weather report brought to you by a sports betting website, where you too can bet on the over-under for whether it will rain tomorrow

I live in New England, one of the WORST places to bet on the weather.

I'm relocating to the place where the weather shows up and erases your home.

The forecasters here all salivate like Pavlov's dogs when a tropical depression shows up in the Atlantic or Gulf.

24 hours of local weather coverage... ugh.

But I know people who bet on where the storms make landfall.

Gambling is just the latest "get-rich-quick" scheme that we sell to desperate folks with little hope. Others include real-estate speculation, gold bugs, ponzi schemes, MLMs, Crypto, and the proliferation of pig-butchering scams.

It is honestly a signal of declining upward mobility, wealth inequality, corruption, and distrust in the economic-political system. Their proliferation should be concerning.

However, it is the neo-Roarin' 20's, so party on Wayne! In that sense, the commercialization of the Internet and Social Media reminds of the Commercialization of Radio during that very timeframe.

Discovery and the Frontier which is awesome. Then, Industry starts to commercialize and monetize it and enshittify. Then, the final step is regulation from the Government and industry standardization. This leads to normalization until the next big communication discovery. Similar happened with undersea cables, printing press, radio, tv, movies, etc.

Right, I’m done. Completely done.

My Facebook feed this morning is just drivel posts. Even switching to “my feed” rather than the default “whatever we want you to see, even if a post is three weeks old”.

All this clickbait spam email crap “it are offishul, this celeb am dedded click to reed”.

It’s not even pretending anymore. And none of them are showing as promoted.

Here's one of the best ways to mess with Facebook:

https://www.johnoliverwantsyourraterotica.com/

 BorderCountess wrote:
Here's one of the best ways to mess with Facebook:

https://www.johnoliverwantsyourraterotica.com/

That's great!

In happier news from the doom scroll?

Insta has me down a delightful rabbit hole of Outsider Art.

As someone exposed to Eurotrash from, let’s face, far too young an age, this pleases me immensely.

Because it’s now always good. It’s not always original. But, in its own way? It’s always entertaining.

FB chat regularly fails to load these days.
During Lockdown, my gaming club went onto that, so there's a fair amount of organising, banter, etc there. But, if it won't load, that will fall apart.

[It isn't just the chat now. The whole site, videos, posts, the lot.]

As of the last couple of days, every 3rd or 4th post on my FB news feed is an add for a different band or artist who wants to give people free copies of their latest CD.

Which is an awesome idea as a marketing tool except that a) it's on Facebook, so I immediately doubt it's authenticity and b) the sheer volume of them in my feed all of a sudden suggests it's all just multiple accounts run by a bot.

Which is a shame, because I'm always up for new music... But there's no way I'd touch any of these.

Could be worse. I keep getting hit with dating apps, hookup apps, and sugar daddy aps. These started popping up almost immediately after I changed my relationship status from married to single.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Could be worse. I keep getting hit with dating apps, hookup apps, and sugar daddy aps. These started popping up almost immediately after I changed my relationship status from married to single.

As a frequenter of CrunchyRoll and Viz Manga's website, the internet seems to think I really want a body pillow with a PG-13 naked anime girl on it. I don't, and think the internet has a very dirty mind that it jumps to that conclusion!

 LordofHats wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Could be worse. I keep getting hit with dating apps, hookup apps, and sugar daddy aps. These started popping up almost immediately after I changed my relationship status from married to single.

As a frequenter of CrunchyRoll and Viz Manga's website, the internet seems to think I really want a body pillow with a PG-13 naked anime girl on it. I don't, and think the internet has a very dirty mind that it jumps to that conclusion!

Wow, your internet is a lot more exciting than mine, I keep getting ads for books... and more books... and an occasional medical ad where the internet believes I am 107 years old.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Could be worse. I keep getting hit with dating apps, hookup apps, and sugar daddy aps. These started popping up almost immediately after I changed my relationship status from married to single.

Yeah, any change of relationship status seems to trigger that. I had the same problem in reverse way back- FB started flooding me with dating app ads when I got married.

I just got an advert for an online store that is selling pretty much all of GW's catalogue at 80% off.

I realised it was fake when I noticed that nothing was out of stock.

Anyone else getting hit with adverts for AARP? I'm 43 dang it! Stop making me feel MORE old.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Anyone else getting hit with adverts for AARP? I'm 43 dang it! Stop making me feel MORE old.

Ooh, you're gonna get hearing aid ads and those companies that redo your bathroom so you don't have to step over the edge of the tub... and that phone that has closed captions on it.

Oh god, what did I buy to make the internet think I'm 75? I'm 44 dammit!

 cuda1179 wrote:
Anyone else getting hit with adverts for AARP? I'm 43 dang it! Stop making me feel MORE old.

I have been since my mid 20s. But, in my case, it is partially because my father and I have the "same" name. In reality, we have the same legal first name and same middle initial, but the middle names are different.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Anyone else getting hit with adverts for AARP? I'm 43 dang it! Stop making me feel MORE old.

I am. And for a while they were next to ads for baby formula and diapers. What kind of secret second life does Facebook think I have?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Anyone else getting hit with adverts for AARP? I'm 43 dang it! Stop making me feel MORE old.

I am. And for a while they were next to ads for baby formula and diapers. What kind of secret second life does Facebook think I have?

It’s not just you, but people that they think are your peers. However they decide that.

Broadly speaking, I do worry about those who grew up in the Social Media Age.

When I was young and dumb(er), it was the mid to late 90’s, and so there’s precious little surviving evidence of it.

And whilst it’s always been a streak in my personality to never really care what someone else thinks of me or how they say I should live my life? I wasn’t exposed to a great deal it as a yoof, let alone the wildly varied and often conflicting nonsense on the modern internet, or anywhere near as frequently.

I fear it’s just going to create people that have grown up in cult like atmospheres.

That's always been there in society. Our generations likely had more TV/film/spots cult followings over internet ones.

I think the greater aspect is going to be one of having internet "scrubbers" that aim to hide all the thousands of embarrassing things you've done and said on your various social media accounts so that you can actually land a job

then again we could easily end up in a crazy world where if you don't have a social media account full of stuff its considered, strange, odd and undesirable for a future employee.

I dunno.

I shan’t give any slap headed, chinless, fake accented interwebular moron the oxygen of publicity, but there are those who encourage a literal cult like following, and deliberately target teenagers. And indeed wives of multi-millionaire interwebular morons with crappy catchphrases they don’t embody, telling young girls and young women that “trad wife” is a great life, which it might be, when you and your spouse that lies for a living never really need to worry about money, because as well as making a pretty penny lying for a living, you both come from money anyway.

It’s the almost enforced lack of critical thinking. That’s what I worry about. It removes all subtlety of position, it removes introspection. It turns anyone not completely aligned with your outlook (which I will stress you’re entirely entitled to) The Enemy. As if disagreement is a direct attack on you and all you hold dear.

Oh my.

YouTube comment sections. Just watched a video on the post decommissioning cleanup of Dungeness Nuclear Power Station Reactor A, as it’s only a few miles down the road from me.

Video itself was quite breezy, and got the main issues across without being overly involved, or patronising. Well done that team.

But one of the video comments. Claiming the decommissioning of Dungeness Power Station was, and I more or less quote “net-zero bs”

Tell me you’re just furious, because you’ve been told you’re furious, about something you don’t understand and have no interest in understanding, because being furious is what you want.

Nuclear Energy Is Clean Energy. Not nasty niffs or emissions. No carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

Sure, you’ve got to take care when the fuel is spent because it’s flipping nasty stuff. But the process is, when done properly and without cutting corners and short of a natural disaster, pretty bloody safe by design.

And why was the venerable, commenced operation in 1965, Dungeness Nuclear Power Station decommissioned?

Is….is it because it was ancient as such things are reckoned? And more expensive to maintain in the long run than just replace?

Or, is it because “net zero bs” despite the fact that Nuclear Energy doesn’t produce carbon dioxide?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Oh my.

YouTube comment sections. Just watched a video on the post decommissioning cleanup of Dungeness Nuclear Power Station Reactor A, as it’s only a few miles down the road from me.

Video itself was quite breezy, and got the main issues across without being overly involved, or patronising. Well done that team.

But one of the video comments. Claiming the decommissioning of Dungeness Power Station was, and I more or less quote “net-zero bs”

Tell me you’re just furious, because you’ve been told you’re furious, about something you don’t understand and have no interest in understanding, because being furious is what you want.

Nuclear Energy Is Clean Energy. Not nasty niffs or emissions. No carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

Sure, you’ve got to take care when the fuel is spent because it’s flipping nasty stuff. But the process is, when done properly and without cutting corners and short of a natural disaster, pretty bloody safe by design.

And why was the venerable, commenced operation in 1965, Dungeness Nuclear Power Station decommissioned?

Is….is it because it was ancient as such things are reckoned? And more expensive to maintain in the long run than just replace?

Or, is it because “net zero bs” despite the fact that Nuclear Energy doesn’t produce carbon dioxide?

I think that's just comment sections in general these days.

I follow the local newspaper on Facebook and it's always attracting these kinds of inane comments.
There was a complete non-story a few weeks ago about how the local council isn't using Twitter as much anymore, still got a couple dozen comments, all variations on how this is "Part of the war on free speech" and "The council are frightened of the truth".
At least it made a change from the usual racism.

There was a comment on my local news citing phrenology.

Look at all the people who read a book about wolves and alpha behaviour and then instantly assumed that humans were the same. Then continued to believe it even when the same author published another book that entirely dismantled the "alpha" mentality as being false in the first place.

For some science is all about finding things that sound scientific and which prove a point that defends your already established world view; or one which you leverage to your advantage.

Even if its totally wrong and proven wrong/




I think you can also blame TV here. Growing up in the end 80s and 90s there were more than enough "serious enough" shows that would have things like mediums helping the police and other things that were either outright proven to be right in the show or "left to the audience imagination".
Whilst its all entertainment, when you get the same thing and the same information in multiple different shows it an settle in people's minds.

It doesn't help when you've got actual things like DNA presented right alongside, though often in grossly simplified form.

Some people can separate the two - others don't care to try and believe both or neither. Even if you can separate them if you were young at the time the seed might be planted from "first impressions" and thus takes even more proof to convince.

The same with GM Crops.

Presented as “Frankenstein foods”, when much of it is just rapid, guided evolution via more sophisticated selective breeding. Like we’ve done..since….well….before written history. As well as beating the snot out of each other, it’s something us smelly hoomans are really good at.

Some are more advanced, such as Golden Rice, which is a lab created hybrid to add nutrients not normally found in rice, making it a more useful staple crop, somewhat relieving world hunger and that.

Oprah. You guys are just describing Oprah’s impact on the world. She single-handedly did more for grifting than snake oil and sellable bridges combined.

Ahh I never watch those - but yeah they can be another fantastic source of missinformation/missleading/barmy stuff

Also? I feel a caveat is necessary here.

Not understanding, or having little to no knowledge Of A Thing is fine. We’re only human, and we tend to be best off specialising in a field to the best of our abilities. Even polymaths are rarely masters of multiple fields.

But when you’re wilfully ignorant? That’s when I’ll take umbrage.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also? I feel a caveat is necessary here.

Not understanding, or having little to no knowledge Of A Thing is fine. We’re only human, and we tend to be best off specialising in a field to the best of our abilities. Even polymaths are rarely masters of multiple fields.

But when you’re wilfully ignorant? That’s when I’ll take umbrage.

The difference between being ignorant (when you don't know something) and stupid (when you refuse to learn something).

Exactly that.

I consider myself a clever, if not necessarily learned person.

If I don’t know something? I’ll admit it. I might venture a Chinny Reckon based on whatever my understanding might be, but won’t pretend for a second it’s actually right.

And it’s oddly comforting when you accept that, in the world of science? I Don’t Know is a perfectly acceptable answer. As is We Don’t Know And Quite Likely Won’t Know In Anyone Currently Living’s Lifetime.

Embrace and accept your own ignorance. It’s fine. No one person will ever know everything ever. And if we did? Remember Galadriel’s Fate in The 4th Indiana Jones Movie? That seems likely if we tried. Not just the brain melting, but having to start opposite Shia The Beefs.

Cooperative effort. That’s how we do it.

Just….accept my or your ignorance isn’t a matter for the next person’s Actual Knowlesge.

For me, FB is this non-stop meme-machine for lack of a better description. It'll just show like literally 50 pages of what I guess are called "pages" showing memes content that it thinks I'll engage with. Plus now it has "reels" which I guess is their tiktok and of course has a lot of questionable content. Like can't even open my FB in public anymore.

Mine is endless chess puzzles, because I paused and clicked on a chess puzzle once.

Recently my mum forwarded me one of those videos of the gaming tables where you take the top off and have your play area underneath, and now apparently her feed is endless gaming tables.

One time it showed a missing persons notice that was actually in the town I live in so I shared it and now anytime I go there to see if there are any messages I have a deluge of missing people posts from around the globe.

No, I haven't seen a person missing in Brisbane, Australia while I am in Indiana, USA.

AI voiced YouTube video.

OK, to be fair, I accept not everyone has a voice, let alone face, for Radio. It could a non-standard accent, a speech impediment, nervousness or what have you. So I accept there are talented writers and researchers for whom an AI voice is the last piece of the puzzle in presenting their work effectively. Genuinely no problem there.

But so many are clearly just reading ChatGPT mince. With AI generated video.

If you think I’m liking and subscribing to that? You’re quite incredibly long.

*Dead Internet Theory intensifies*

Indeed.

I do however have that algorithm quite well trained. Lots of Professor Dave type stuff and counter apologetics, lots of history stuff and Time Team. Plus some junk tv type stuff.

So it’s fairly rare obvious AI muck turns up.

It would be nice if it could put 2 and 2 together sometimes. I follow and am active on the local GW’s store page, and a couple other local game stores. I do not care about what’s going on at game stores around the world.

 Nevelon wrote:
It would be nice if it could put 2 and 2 together sometimes.

This is my biggest problem. The algorithms are so dumb and so generic they lump a whole host of material into the same categories and then fire it at you constantly, presumably for about a year until it realises you haven't engaged with any of it, then it moves onto the next random connection it thinks it can justify. Also annoying with Facebook and YT is that the ads I get that are even somewhat relevant are invariably for products/channels/stores that I'm already aware of. Like, I'll go to Wayland's website and then for weeks afterwards I get bombarded on YT by an AI-generated Wayland ad (or at least painfully obviously not actually produced by them, complete with weirdly upbeat jingle and 1990s powerpoint style slides). I know about these places. I've visited them to trigger the damn ads. It's not even like these ads pop up to inform me of a special sale or offer. If the algorithm was halfway intelligent it would be able to figure out I'm in the UK and I'm looking at gaming stores, so maybe show adverts for stores I haven't visited??

Ya, I have some interest in some sports so for a while there I was bombarded with NFL meme pages even though I don't care about that league. I'm sure the algorithm says sports=NFL though. I just kept hiding them until they went away.

Slipspace wrote:
Like, I'll go to Wayland's website and then for weeks afterwards I get bombarded on YT by an AI-generated Wayland ad (or at least painfully obviously not actually produced by them, complete with weirdly upbeat jingle and 1990s powerpoint style slides).

Eh, it's Wayland - unless you've asked them about it and they've denied it, assume they're taking the worst possible path...