Google, Facebook may have to reveal deepest secrets

BuzzJour ^ | Oct 01, 2017 | Lisa

[ptsal]

The investigations into Russia’s role in the 2016 election are threatening to pry the lid off tech companies’ most prized possessions: the secret inner workings of their online platforms.

As the probes unfold into social media’s role in spreading misinformation, U.S. lawmakers are beginning to show an interest in the mechanics of everything from how Facebook weights news items to how Google ranks search results. The questions, which echo European regulators’ interventionist approach to technology, are a stark change for Silicon Valley companies accustomed to deference from U.S. officials on how they run their operations.

[ptsal]

The money quote:

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, warned Sept. 24 about “the use of Facebook’s algorithms and the way it tends to potentially reinforce people’s informational bias.” He added, “This is a far broader issue than Russia, but one that we really need to know more about.”

[cgbg]

“Russia, Russia, Russia” is blowing up in their faces.

Schiff—if the deep state wanted you to know how they worked they would have briefed you already!

[Gay State Conservative]

"This is a far broader issue than Russia, but one that we really need to know more about.”

Well,assuming that Google and Facebook resist these demands we'll just have to see what the Federal courts think about this "need".

First Amendment,pure and simple.

[AppyPappy]

FB, Google: Russia, Russia, Russia. We need investigations
Feds: OK we’ll start with you
FB, Google: Stop the investigations.

[RayChuang88]

In short, that dinner meeting President Obama (and his most trusted adviser, Valerie Jarrett) hosted in San Francisco on February 17, 2011 where there CEO's of the following companies were present:

Apple
Cisco Systems
Facebook
Google
Netflix
Oracle Systems
Twitter
Yahoo!

Now looms REALLY large. People will immediately ask did Obama and Jarrett "bless" a gentlemen's agreement to censor the political Right by these eight companies, all of which have huge influence over the Internet even as I type this? That would make them all culpable in a possible First Amendment lawsuit since that censorship was done with governmental blessing.

[Steely Tom]

Pretty funny, since those companies are all run by lefties and most of their programmers are lefties.

I’ve no doubts that there are all kinds of nasty little devious secrets they’re hiding about how they tip the balance toward the goal of promoting their ideology whenever there’s an opportunity.

I expect Mueller will be taken aside at some point by the Democrat Powers That Be and told that he needs to look elsewhere for gratification.

[ptsal]

Post #5- This meeting and the agenda needs further examination, IMHO.

THANKS.

[LambSlave]

1. Trolls often post to attack political foes.
2. Trolls post from every country on earth, to attack political foes in every country on earth.
3. Trolls sometimes use proxies, sometimes actual country of origin, as well as from fake “throw-away” accounts— ultimately unclear where they are really posting from. The more sophisticated ones may post from hacked servers, including government servers.
4. NATIONAL cyber warfare agents use very sophisticated means to disguise their origin— very difficult to find where they are actually posting from.

Question: Given this context, what is the evidence that the Russian government has an actual sanctioned operation to influence US elections?

[equaviator]

What’s good for Facebook is not necessarily good for America and that’s not an “America First” way to do business here. Down with the self-proclaimed “Leader of Facebook” and his fake nation.

[KC_Conspirator]

No kidding. For example, if one searches for something like “redpill” on Goolag, the first hits one gets are articles bashing redpillers; even though they have had sites and blogs for years.

[grania]

It would be responsible of FB to use that right hand column as a responsible source of real news, much like any real news source. I was on FB for awhile before I realized that column is mostly paid by advertisers.

Steve Zuckerburg in his personal views might be a totally maniacal liberal. But as far as running a responsible, objective news service? I suspect that he's smart enough to do it. JMHO

[RayChuang88]

Correct. And it may eventually become the as infamous as the Wannsee Conference in 1942 because that dinner meeting effectively gave government blessing to those eight companies to use available technologies to censor the political Right over the Internet.

[Katya]

the dirty little secret in the world of social media promoted posts/ad buys is how narrowly one can focus any ad if one understands ad sets.
In the real world this would be called ultimate profiling, where I can choose to pay for content that will only be promoted to a choice few group of people, I can narrow it down to such a degree based on the information they have liked or list on their profiles.

[ptsal]

This narrow profile might by a worthy topic for Duck Duck Go to tackle.

Got any suggestions for further reading?
      I am interested in learning more.

[Katya]

literally grab some books on social media ad buy how to’s. I can target an ad at someone who for example likes a certain musical group, and further define it by income, zipcode and industry group.
John Doe
lives in zip code 12345 or name a city/state
likes Denver Broncos, Donald Trump, Aerosmith
works in the energy sector
earns between 75,000 and $120,000

Think of the “like” button as further defining who you are. Then couple it with the data we fill out on fb or any other media. Remember, it’s not like you see the individual persons proile, it still remains private... youre just putting your ad in front of them.