Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

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Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Belligerent Savant » Sat Jan 08, 2022 1:48 pm

.

Another thread that can potentially slide in elsewhere, but haven't seen anything specifically focused on 'Big Tech'.



The purpose of big tech social media is to shape your thinking and modify your behavior.

Period. End of sentence.

I learned this on my local Reddit group long before r/thedonald got silenced. You really have to be into some weirdo territory to get some relief and even then the troll farms won't completely leave you alone.

I've been waiting to see who emerges as the big tech replacements and one piece of that puzzle seems to have fallen into place now that Rogan is on Gettr. Instead of trying to get through to suicide cult members it might be worth your while to share your opinions and experiences with sympathetic people who you wouldn't necessarily agree with on other issues. Breaking the false left/right divite et impera paradigm might be a much better use of your computer hours.

Then again there's always real life.

...

I'm in total agreement with you on the purpose of social media, and I'd add an additional observation that it's meant to index people, their thoughts, and their interests for the purposes of data science and contextualizing that data in ways that can inform how best to manage populations.

I saw it come into being over the 2006-2014 period and really kick into action after that. I was actually heading down a lucrative PMC path within that industry before becoming disgusted with the whole thing.

The breaking point for me was discovering, in no uncertain terms, that the only goal of these platforms - not discourse, not discovery, not sharing ideas or meeting new people or any of the things I was in it for - is to 'establish spheres of interest' to keep people within and utilize algorithms to serve 'content relevant to those interests and drive engagement' - to sell both ads and user data and collect on both ends of the bargain. How do users leverage the platform to discover new ideas or interests? Those things are served to them, of course! That was in early 2013 when I exited that path and returned to the path I've known was mine since I was a kid.

I've watched it get demonstrably worse since. I'm pretty sure I can pinpoint the moment someone decided it was more valuable to cause people to fight rather than bring them together/provide a service for collaboration and conversation. I know how some of the people designing these systems think. It is not about ad revenue anymore. Fun little aside to chew on: it's only a matter of a short time indeed until social media profiles, posts, all media, user history profiles and data-use profiles are tokenized and tradable :) Already beginning on certain platforms, and people will welcome it, I'm sure. "Why not? Get paid to post anime boobs and talk sh*t about people? I'm down!"

Your statement about behavior modification is very on point, and if my experiences in that scene are still relevant, I'd imagine that is considered a good thing by many of them. Keep people behaving orderly, protect society, organize and contain and direct, make people 'happy' and enable a brighter future, etc. etc. It's quite likely their monster has turned on them, is acting on them, and has engaged a recursive Define Bad Person -> Fix or Contain Bad Person process.

I actually suspect that the 'permissible' discussion of the weaponization of social media (in the context of Other Team Uses Social Media Bad!) which both 'sides' of the false left/right division that you mention whine about in their particular ways is a method by which to manage and focus the latent skin-crawling sensation that people have about the modification happening (which most people can sense but not understand). Direct it away from blaming the generalized technology and onto that old workhorse of The Other Team.

I use these platforms critically, take careful caution and keep my guard up as best as I've been able to throughout my life - I know it's not perfect, but something also keeps me going back into the belly of the beast to do my best to pop those bubbles. Something about just letting them rot doesn't sit right with me.

Who knows, perhaps that's how the algorithm has been able to keep me engaged? I'm not so arrogant as to believe it won't or hasn't found a way to shape me too, especially as I'm quite aware of the depth and breadth of data it's collected and indexed on my specific user class and yes, me specifically. I'm nobody important, but that really doesn't matter with the technology we're talking about.

It is entirely technically possible and almost certain, for example, that reddit has a bead on the certain type of questions and topics which elicit a reply from me and sorts them into my view (regardless of upvotes or downvotes), so that I spend the time to write a reply - which often gets more engagement as people respond vigorously, one way or the other.

This may be the cause of my current observation of particular viciousness, but having done this for a while, I'm picking up something different and strange.


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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Grizzly » Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:02 pm

Meanwhile...

Image
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby MacCruiskeen » Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:25 pm



Dozens of Guardian columnists have been selling their farts at a profit for years.

Sources say the bottom will soon will soon fall out of the fart market.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby DrEvil » Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:14 pm

I'd rather have a thriving fart economy than a thriving NFT economy. They both stink, but at least farts are honest about it.
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Grizzly » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:05 pm

excellent post and blog, btw BS. I haven't seen a board like that in years, I had thought they just fell away from the untamed interwebs in the 90's/oughts... maybe that's y I keep coming back here. Who am I kidding, full on internet addiction, right here, - me. :x


https://gizmodo.com/fbi-will-neither-confirm-nor-deny-the-existence-of-thes-1848234939
ACLU Sues FBI Over Secret Stingray Agreements With Police

Image

Just a taste. I recommend reading the whole article.
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sat Jan 08, 2022 11:28 pm

DrEvil » 09 Jan 2022 09:14 wrote:I'd rather have a thriving fart economy than a thriving NFT economy. They both stink, but at least farts are honest about it.



It worked for Bartertown.
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sun Jan 09, 2022 12:02 am

Grizzly » 09 Jan 2022 12:05 wrote:excellent post and blog, btw BS. I haven't seen a board like that in years, I had thought they just fell away from the untamed interwebs in the 90's/oughts... maybe that's y I keep coming back here. Who am I kidding, full on internet addiction, right here, - me. :x


https://gizmodo.com/fbi-will-neither-confirm-nor-deny-the-existence-of-thes-1848234939
ACLU Sues FBI Over Secret Stingray Agreements With Police

Image

Just a taste. I recommend reading the whole article.


There are plenty of ways around stingrays, however if you're doing stuff you don't want a record of then leave your phone at home.

Or buy cheap burners.
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Grizzly » Sun Jan 09, 2022 12:06 am

There are plenty of ways around stingrays, however if you're doing stuff you don't want a record of then leave your phone at home.

Or buy cheap burners.


Duh! ...that's not the fucking point, and you know it!
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Mon Jan 10, 2022 7:35 am

Grizzly » 09 Jan 2022 14:06 wrote:
There are plenty of ways around stingrays, however if you're doing stuff you don't want a record of then leave your phone at home.

Or buy cheap burners.


Duh! ...that's not the fucking point, and you know it!


You have to stop thinking about this IT stuff like its benign and realise it all exists to screw you over in one way or another. Then plan on living in a way that you get around it.
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Belligerent Savant » Mon Jan 17, 2022 1:47 pm

.

Well-understood by now, but placing it here anyway to memorialize it.


...compare the search results you get for something like “vaccine heart attack” in google vs duckduckgo. Your results may vary, but when I did the search in google, almost every article downplayed the risk of heart attacks from vaccines (all but one), whereas in duckduckgo, 7 out of 10 of the articles were either more balanced, or were warnings from cardiologists about the vaccines.

Image

Maybe it’s cause Google is also a pharmaceutical company:
https://thefedupdemocrat.home.blog/2019 ... l-company/

By the way, if you ever search for anything controversial about COVID, you’ll probably get shown a barrage of “fact check” articles. How comforting, to know that fact checkers are protecting us from Fake News and “misinformation.”


Excerpted from:
https://joomi.substack.com/p/i-was-dece ... id-vaccine
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Belligerent Savant » Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:14 pm

.


Per one of the links in the quoted excerpt above, from 2019:


Big Tech has Merged with Big Pharma

July 7, 2019 — Gary Null & Richard Gale have documented that Google now has a pharmaceutical division headed by GlaxosSmithKline’s former chairman of its global vaccine business. Null & Gale write:

Google today is not only a weapon for promoting the pharmaceutical agenda but now also a drug company itself. During the past six years, Google’s parent company Alphabet has launched two pharmaceutical companies. In 2013, it founded Calico, run by Genentech’s former CEO Arthur Levinson. Calico operates an R&D facility in the San Francisco Bay Area for the discovery of treatments associated with age-related diseases. Two years later, Alphabet founded Verily Life Sciences (previously Google Life Sciences). Both pharma companies are partnering with other drug corporations. Recently, Verily has partnered with the European pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to form a new drug company, Galvani Bioelectronics for the development of “bioelectronic medicines.” The collaboration is costing the companies $715 million, and the new firm is being chaired by Glaxo’s former chairman of its global vaccines business. (emphasis added) http://prn.fm/gary-null-show-wikipedia- ... -07-01-19/

In addition, Google’s president of Customer Solutions Mary Ellen Coe now sits on Merck’s Board of Directors. Merck is one of the world’s “Big Four” vaccine manufacturers. Pharmaceutical companies have realized the need to co-opt social media platforms as well as the world’s most powerful search engine – Google.

This strategy, laid out 6 years ago, has picked up steam whereby now companies such as Google and Facebook have been absorbed into the pharmaceutical machinery. The dire results from this marriage already being felt as Wikipedia and other virtual social media have become just another mouthpiece for Big Pharma.
http://prn.fm/gary-null-show-wikipedia- ... -07-01-19/

Google has earned over $1 billion from illegal online pharmacies, and may be fined up to $500 million by the US Department of Justice. https://www.stopoxy.com/google-fine-pre ... ien-7-6-11

While Google profits from Big Pharma, it is erasing Dr. Joseph Mercola from it’s search engine results. Dr. Mercola is a medical doctor dedicated to natural health and remedies. He is the exact opposite of everything Google is profiting from with their marriage with Big Pharma. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/arti ... rcola.aspx

Another Tech-Giant that is making money with Big Pharma is Amazon, a company that has been purging Vaccine Risk Awareness books and movies (including the documentary VAXXED) from their website. TheStreet.com reports:

… Amazon acquired for $1 billion PillPack, a business that presorts medications, then ships them directly to customers’ homes in 49 states.

TheStreet.com report goes on to detail how Amazon is working with a drug firm to identify patients who will be eligible for experimental cancer drugs by scanning and researching patient records.

This is why Google, Amazon, Facebook and others are trying to erase and discredit all Vaccine Risk Awareness books, posts, websites, information, pages, etc… – because Big Tech has merged with Big Pharma. They are one-in-the-same and have the same agenda.

*** Find more evidence Google is now a Pharmaceutical Company at these links:

Google sister-company Verily is teaming with big pharma on clinical trials https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/20/alphabe ... fizer.html

We see Verily’s technology as a way for us to reach patients and get them interested,” said Badhri Srinivasan, head of global development operations at Novartis. In an interview, Srinivasan shared an example of engaging people who are already searching on Google for relief from asthma symptoms. At that point, Verily could surface an ad to suggest they enroll in its clinical trial patient registry, dubbed Baseline, and sign up for relevant asthma-related clinical trials if they chose to do so. (emphasis added)

Did Google’s Manipulation Sway Vaccine Legislation? (Highwire) https://thehighwire.com/did-googles-man ... gislation/

Google Secretly Collecting Patient Medical Records in 21 States (Highwire) https://thehighwire.com/breaking-google ... -21-state/

Google Caught Burying Vaccine Safety Info (Highwire) https://thehighwire.com/breaking-google ... fety-info/

Google is Ramping Up Pharma Activity https://www.cbinsights.com/research/goo ... vestments/

Pharma is the New Google https://lucidworks.com/post/pharma-is-the-new-google/

Will Tech Giants like Amazon and Google Change the Pharma Sector Forever? https://pharma.nridigital.com/pharma_de ... or_forever

Apple And Google: The Next Big Pharma https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnnosta/ ... a543b11754


https://thefedupdemocrat.home.blog/2019 ... l-company/
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby stickdog99 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:44 pm

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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Harvey » Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:25 am

^ A video suggested in the PDF. From 4:41:



James Giordano lays out the goals very clearly:

[NeuroS/T] has put...the brain at our fingertips..to be able to study, access and affect human thought, emotions and behaviours.


Dressed in a vague language of self improvement and performance enhancement (even a brief hand wave to potential ethical consideration) this man is excitedly explaining the military imperative to fuck with all our minds as soon as possible.The likely end use of any technology is right there up front:

...perhaps even entire populations.


Most of those working toward such goals probably don't even realise what their efforts are being 'harnessed' or 'driven' toward. This is the shadow of the transhumanist dream and where all official research into consciousness (biological or artificial) is really directed. But how do you entice otherwise thoughtful, ethical, intelligent people to work on such horrors? Simple. Dangle a carrot similar to religion in front of them - eternal (or extended) life. The system 'harnessing' our most basic 'drive' against us.

This is the moral and intellectual void at the core of the system, illuminating the dark reality of the transhumanist dream - to make machines out of men.
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Harvey » Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:48 am

Belligerent Savant » Mon Jan 17, 2022 6:47 pm wrote:.

Well-understood by now, but placing it here anyway to memorialize it.


...compare the search results you get for something like “vaccine heart attack” in google vs duckduckgo. Your results may vary, but when I did the search in google, almost every article downplayed the risk of heart attacks from vaccines (all but one), whereas in duckduckgo, 7 out of 10 of the articles were either more balanced, or were warnings from cardiologists about the vaccines.

Image

Maybe it’s cause Google is also a pharmaceutical company:
https://thefedupdemocrat.home.blog/2019 ... l-company/

By the way, if you ever search for anything controversial about COVID, you’ll probably get shown a barrage of “fact check” articles. How comforting, to know that fact checkers are protecting us from Fake News and “misinformation.”


Excerpted from:
https://joomi.substack.com/p/i-was-dece ... id-vaccine


Once more then, Dudckduckgo is still just Bing. It's still Microsoft. It's still Gates.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
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And be loved
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Re: Big Tech is Seriously Dangerous

Postby Belligerent Savant » Fri Jun 02, 2023 7:29 pm

.
A couple links to bump this thread:


Research Article
Published: 03 May 2023
Data, Big Tech, and the New Concept of Sovereignty

Hongfei Gu
Journal of Chinese Political Science (2023)Cite this article

Abstract
Despite the massive amount of data and sophisticated computing capacity, Big Tech has evolved into the new data sovereigns that governments must accept in the data era. Data mining and application determine the true value of data; in this regard, Big Tech is tough to replace. The so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution” is reshaping the emerging global order, and at its core are Big Tech firms. They not only express their concerns and spread their values and ideologies but also make their strong presence felt in international affairs, as Big Tech appears to be transforming into a new type of Leviathan. With access to significant amounts of data, the rise of Big Tech poses a challenge to sovereignty’s exclusivity and superiority, assuming the position of de facto data sovereign. The article holds that the Big Tech firms, by virtue of their technical advantages, have not only deconstructed the traditional concept of sovereignty, but also formed a complex symbiotic relationship.

Introduction
The Internet’s comprehensive penetration into human lives and the widespread use of digital devices have led to the emergence of big data and updated analytical techniques, which are transforming trade and upending global politics [1]. Even more than other elements of the global economy, data are intertwined with power [2]. The empowerment of numbers intensifies the structural impact and subversive challenge of the modern technological revolution on traditional society, economy, and politics. This new form of digital power has substantially rearranged the conventional power structure. On the one hand, the government relies increasingly on data to manage the state and society, and digital authoritarianism and technical autocracy are maturing as a trend. On the other hand, Big Tech firms have formed a “digital empire” that is relatively independent of political authority by controlling data and monopolizing technology.

The digital era necessitates long-term technological accumulation, massive amounts of financial investment, and an exceptional talent pool, prerequisites that can only be met by a handful of incredibly powerful large technology organizations. In the current period of booming growth, the profit-driven orientation of capital and the reliance of technology on capital have resulted in a substantial increase in capital investment in artificial intelligence by established technology firms. The rapid growth of unicorn companies is also closely related to the massive capital investment [3]. With extensive personnel and financial resources, these large technological companies, Big Tech, developed a technical monopoly and progressively dominated the science and technology market, thereby establishing a pervasive and powerful impact. On this premise, Big Tech actively sought cooperation with public power and eventually infiltrated the government system through the provision of technical support, public services, and public products, influencing the operation of public power. Consequently, a superpower that existed outside the old system rose fast.

...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 23-09855-1

And:

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marke ... -big-tech/
How the FTC’s new technology office will regulate Big Tech

...we are looking at a large swath of different developing technologies, including artificial intelligence. We’re looking at AI in terms of fraud, deepfakes and other AI-based synthetic media that are becoming easier to create and disseminate, which poses major risks, especially around fraud. The rise of sophisticated chatbots carries similar risks, even though they made hold promise. And the FTC has documented and already seen a staggering rise in fraud on social media — a rise that is attributed in part to the use of sophisticated algorithms designed to target us with ads. In terms of deceptive design patterns, we’re seeing firms deploy different types of A/B testing, keystroke tracking and mouse tracking and other techniques to develop patterns designed to manipulate consumers. We’re also looking at discriminatory outcomes. Algorithmic decision making can be useful in mitigating human bias. But we have serious concerns that it can instead potentially replicate and entrench this bias. As we note in a previous report on representative datasets, faulty classifications and flawed design can lead to discriminatory outcomes. These outcomes can have grave consequences for consumers, like being denied health care or housing or employment.


https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marke ... -big-tech/
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