In the EU or UK? Opt out of Meta using data to train AI

Facebook form for opting out of data being used to train Meta AI

I heard Meta were planning to change their EULA/Terms of use and planned to opt out in anyway possible. But I was nicely surprised to see not only the EU but UK can opt out using the short form above. Although I think it is cheeky to require a reason…

I assumed the EU would be covered but the UK would be left out. Thank goodness for GDPR

You can learn a lot more by reading this how to guide or watching this video.

Update just 55mins later

I got this email from Facebook/Meda

Hi Ian,

We’ve reviewed your request and will honor your objection. This means your request will be applied going forward.

If you want to learn more about generative AI, and our privacy work in this new space, please review the information we have in Privacy Center.

facebook.com/privacy/genai

This inbox cannot accept incoming messages. If you send us a reply, it won’t be received.
Thanks,
Privacy Operations

Facebook removed iCal feeds quietly

Facebook Dislike

The other day a good friend mentioned a birthday invite to me. I was confused, I knew it was their birthday but it wasn’t clear what they were talking about as I asked what they were going to do in UK lockdown number 3.

I looked into what happened and realised the new Facebook redesign removed ical feeds. This was further backed up by google support and  Reddit. Worst still the facebook help page doesn’t actually exist any more.

The key seems to be getting access to the old facebook page, which I have tried and tried to get access to, but can not get anymore.

This means all my friends who invited me to events and all my volleyball events will no longer appear on my calendar, unless I see it then export it as a ical. I always thought of Facebook as a massive walled garden but this is getting stupid.

The reasons to be on Facebook just got a lot closer to zero!

Facebook cafe with free drinks and privacy check-ups?

https://twitter.com/wearesorryfor/status/1162346869017763853

When I saw Jasmine’s reply to Claires tweet. I thought exactly the same thing. Its the ethical dilemma cafe, only 5 years out too late.

Facebook is looking to take the initiative in the social media privacy debate by opening a network of pop-up cafes around the UK. Each will offer patrons free drinks and a privacy checkup, to help assuage consumer concerns about their privacy online.

Facebook Café will run from 28 August to 5 September in a bid to encourage Britons to get on top of their digital footprint, helped along by free-flowing caffeine.

One of these will be located within The Attendant on Great Eastern Street, London, in response to surveys indicating that 27% of Londoners have no idea how to personalise their social media privacy parameters.

Free coffee (what kind) and teas in exchange for? Privacy advice from Facebook, Wifi snooping like most, a honeypot, or maybe a bit of social engineering from FB staff (Scientology style)?

Is it worth it? I very much doubt it but it would be fun to mess with the FB cafe staff and systems. Don’t you think?

Waking up to the fire, Zucked…

Its been interesting to hear and read about Roger McNamee and his new book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe.

I’ve listened to a few podcasts with him talking away and I find it insightful.

I took him talking with a massive bucket of salt being a investor in Facebook in the past and even now. To be fair I heard about Roger before in previous articles such as An Apology for the Internet — From the Architects Who Built It, The Ugly Unethical Underside of Silicon Valley and Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist who benefited from hugely profitable investments in Google and Facebook, has grown disenchanted with both companies, arguing that their early missions have been distorted by the fortunes they have been able to earn through advertising.

He identifies the advent of the smartphone as a turning point, raising the stakes in an arms race for people’s attention. “Facebook and Google assert with merit that they are giving users what they want,” McNamee says. “The same can be said about tobacco companies and drug dealers.”

That would be a remarkable assertion for any early investor in Silicon Valley’s most profitable behemoths. But McNamee, 61, is more than an arms-length money man. Once an adviser to Mark Zuckerberg, 10 years ago McNamee introduced the Facebook CEO to his friend, Sheryl Sandberg, then a Google executive who had overseen the company’s advertising efforts. Sandberg, of course, became chief operating officer at Facebook, transforming the social network into another advertising heavyweight.

McNamee chooses his words carefully. “The people who run Facebook and Google are good people, whose well-intentioned strategies have led to horrific unintended consequences,” he says. “The problem is that there is nothing the companies can do to address the harm unless they abandon their current advertising models.”

Thanks to Herb who recommended links to me.

Updated….

I knew I heard him 3 times in recent times and thanks to Eastmad for reminding me he was on Team Human too. I actually recommended him to Herb.

https://twitter.com/cubicgarden/status/1108643229833015302

As Twitter falls a part is it time to double down on Mastodon?

Dead twitter

Twitter is seriously getting up to no good.

Its super clear the openness of twitter is being stopped, told to stand against a wall with hands up and then shot in the head. Its not good and frankly, I don’t know about you but its starting to pee me off. I recently posted something to my facebook timeline about Facebook’s decision to stop automated posting under a persons account. Another frustrating thing as I was practising the POSSE method from the IndieWeb movement..

Facebook is no longer allowing automatically post to peoples profile. Meaning this timeline is going to get very quiet!
If you want to catch up with things check out www.cubicgarden.com and www.twitter.com/cubicgarden

Because of this my facebook interactions are mainly going to be checking my events including Volleyball training.

All this makes me think its time to double down on Mastodon? Of course I’m not the only one thinking this, cue Adrian and Naomia‘s mastodon 101 podcast.

The more I look at the more I think close my twitter account and just use Mastodon. Although the crossposter was helping till Twitter API changes broke that too.

It will be a shame to say goodbye but the more I see what twitter is about and see what Mastodon users are doing like listing the abuses/hate/rule breaks in different Mastodon instances into Github. I think this is the place to be and the whole setup/framework/infrastructure is what makes it all this possible. Heck with a bunch of the new W3C specs like WebmentionsFragmention and Micropub; I can see companies which enable/power their users really making amazing sustainable humane services.

Lessons from Starfish & the Spider, lets make a better internet together!

I wonder about the effect of Instagram on our minds

I have been having a discussion with Tim about Instagram recently. Interestingly its also the launch of Ingrid Goes West.

From tmdb

Ingrid becomes obsessed with a social network star named Taylor Sloane who seemingly has a perfect life. But when Ingrid decides to drop everything and move west to be Taylor’s friend, her behaviour turns unsettling and dangerous.

It doesn’t sound great, something like Friend Request and Unfriended.

Anyway…

I don’t use it because I have issues with the whole setup of instagram. Without going into too much detail, here’s the main points.

  1. I don’t agree with Instagram’s end user licence, which includes using your photos in almost anyway they like.
  2. I don’t like the creation of instagrams is all within the same app (for example I use a Plume on Android and Corebird on Ubuntu) to access Twiter and I create, edit and post to twitter not within twitter (it a important distinction)
  3. I don’t like the fact Instagram isn’t really public, indexable or accessible unless you are on instagram.
  4. I have a problem with filtered views of real life. Its bad enough that every photo you see has been doctored/photoshopped/filtered/algorithmicilly messed. But I don’t want to see them everyday.

Photoshopping

And the last point is a key one, as its clear there are serious problems with seeing this level of fakeness everywhere. Like it or not, it becomes normalised.

I hear some of you say this is no more than what Twitter or Facebook do/enable? and I would somewhat agree… but I have built ways to deal with this partly due to being able to use other apps or types of behaviours which run against the way it was engineered.

For example I don’t really look at the Facebook timeline, as I know its trying to lock me into a filter bubble, somewhat of my own making. Yes I could do a Robert Scoble and manage it into a better bubble, but I just don’t think its worthy of attention; plus Facebook doesn’t share this data in their data portability exports meaning all that work isn’t transferable at all. I know being without Facebook makes things very tricky but I can manage my activity within it right now, this might change of course as FB gets more greedy

Its easy to blame Instagram for all types of ills but its not solely them. Its a combination of Instagram and its share holders, the silicon valley push for winner takes all adoption of everything (dare I say anything about Uber in London) but most of all; ourselves for being suckers to peer pressure, advertising and patterns which are so established others are telling us exactly how they work!

We blindly follow suit without thinking about the long term effects. Mark Manson suggests the smartphone is going to be this generations cigarettes. When thinking about most peoples experience of the smartphone with Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp preloaded, I can’t help but think actually he’s got a good point. Its the perfect Black Mirror episode, total fantasy as Rachel said!

Black MIrror s3ep1

We seem to be playing with fire without a true understanding of the consequences. Even if we do, how do you make this clear to others who are suckered in? How do you make this clear in the face of peer & social pressure? How do we make this clear to the next generation, the ones born with visions of a unattainable perfection all around them?

I’m not a sucker and won’t be joining to be a poster or lurker just so I can scroll through my friends fake reality pictures.

Graceful degradation of apps via permissions under android 6.0

Android 6.0 Marshmallow has a very nice feature, something I have been wanting to see more across all services and applications. Granular permissions, which can be applied and revoked by the user at anytime.

It was obvious that iOS had it right as far as transparent, granular app permissions were concerned, and Android Marshmallow admits as much, because it now has a very similar system. Permissions are asked for as and when they’re needed, rather than all at once during installation.

That gives you a better idea of what’s going on and also let’s you, for example, give Facebook access to your camera but not your contacts. If you want to check which apps have what permissions (and edit them), go to Settings: tap Apps then the cog icon, then choose App permissions.

Android 6.0 permission system
Why does BBC iPlayer Radio need access to my phone?

Since android 6.0 marshmallow, i’ve wanted to try out the app permission tweaker. I’m interested to see what happens when I block certain apps from key permissions. Will they explode will they gracefully handle it and still operate without it?
For example could I run facebook app and deny access to the internet, or local storage? OK that might be a little too far but what about facebook without access to the mic and camera? Surely that would work right?

So I tried it with the Amazon kindle app, which I always thought had too many permissions anyway. I mean why does the kindle app need access to my contacts and my telephone?!

Android 6.0 permission system

Haven turned them off, I thought I’d better see if the app still actually worked?

Android 6.0 permission system

It did! So I started revoking permissions from apps which I felt didn’t need the permissions. For example Fitbit, which I refused to upgrade in the past due to the permissions.

Android 6.0 permission system

Why does Fitbit need so many permissions anyway!

Android 6.0 permission system

Andorid warms me the app may break as its not written for Android 6.0. But it still works as I want it to., so this has to be a case of them over reaching with the data they want to consume?
Say hello to your new permissions Fitbit, and it works fine when syncing data from the Fitbit.

Android 6.0 permission system

Fitbit better get use to the sandbox I put it in, and they are not the only one!

Android 6.0 permission system
Android 6.0 permission system

This for me is a key part of the VRM infrastructure as Adriana said

If you cannot reject them, if you cannot actually say well, I’m fine with that but not with that, what’s the point?

Great to see it working as expected, graceful degradation of applications based on permissions. I might be able to install Facebook again.

Update

I installed Facebook messenger again with the permissions I felt comfortable with.

Then decided actually I want to break FB messenger as its meant to be written for Android 6.0, so denied it access to my location too.

Installing Facebook messenger under Android 6.0

I can say everything  works, and I haven’t seen any problems so far with my permissions. I did notice you can start to mess with the data usage too, which maybe a way to restrict network usage.?

Share a minute, vulnerability, humanity with a stranger

iOrgins

Frank told me about this great thing he’s involved in tomorrow (Sunday 4th October). If you ever wanted to get over your fear of rejection this would be ideal…

Let’s share a minutes eye contact with strangers in public to rebuild our sense of shared humanity in Sheffield! This is part of The World’s Biggest Eye Contact Experiment – http://on.fb.me/1NnGcQ0, coordinated by The Liberators International in cities all over the world and your participation will help create a global video message for peace and human connection for years to come.

The idea is simple

  1. We will have clear signs that say “Where has the human connection gone? Share 1 minute of eye contact to find out…”

  2. Then we sit down on picnic rugs with 2x pillows each and invite members of the public to come and share a moment of eye contact with us.

Interested? Meet on Sunday 4th of October. At Barker’s Pool outside the city hall between 12pm-3pm. What you need?
For setting up your eye contact space please bring a picnic rug and 2x pillows/cushions to be comfortable.

If its not raining I think I may pop over on the scooter and check it out. It reminds me very much of Marina Abramović at the international festival which I had the joy of going to, but less intense.

I also said to Frank, it reminded me of iOrgins in a roundabout way… This also speaks volumes with some of the things I talked about at BarCamp last weekend and generally talk about regarding lost of our humanity. But I’m always fascinated by strangers and the connection which can happen.

Anybody interested in joining me in Sheffield? (Facebook link)

Facebook is the village campfire?

M. Night Shyamalan's Village
M. Night Shyamalan may have lost his movie mojo but the village is a apt example.

Got to love Oli… He wrote about his return to Facebook and yes I did reply to his thoughts in a blog. To which he replied to in a new blog, stipulating Facebook is the campfire

Imagine living in a village, in your own cottage, doing your own thing. You wave to your neighbors, see them at the odd social event and maybe gossip when you meet. Nice huh? One night somebody builds a fire and a few people drift out and sit round the fire, singing songs, telling tales, toasting marshmallows, all the stuff you’ve seen in American summer camps that probably never actually happens.

Over time, more people join in the evenings, and the quality of the chat drops off a bit, and a few people are a bit arsey, but it’s nice, warm and social. You don’t have to do much if you don’t want, but you’ll get the odd beer or marshmallow and hear the little bits of news, a pregnancy, a holiday, who’s been snogging who etc etc. There are claps on the back when you crack a joke. Everybody faces into the fire.

Not going out to that fire is tough. It’s not that people forgot about you, or don’t want to see you or hear your news, but they do forgot that they haven’t seen you, or told you their news. They shared it round the campfire after all. You might still have people round to tea occasionally, or pick up the phone to speak to them but that easy comradery is missing. That warm glow doesn’t reach far either, in fact it’s very much a walled garden.

When I think of the campfire, I think little village and nice for a while but then its time to get out. Time to leave, explore and move forward. Maybe thats what bugs me a lot about using Facebook. Its all people I know and its too comfortable. I can talk about the filter bubble and data ethics and facebook messing with the news feed. But its all too comfortable. Theres nothing challenging your views, nothing making you explore (except the occasional event).

I would go as far as to say Facebook is making you a boring old sod. Remember, when I wrote how to be interesting ages ago. I wrote…

Talk to someone new at least every week

Good luck doing that on Facebook…  Even with a massive number of friends on Facebook, Facebook will filter out most of them. Yes welcome to the village campfire.

As I said above, M. Night Shyamalan may have lost his movie mojo but the village is a perfect example.

The population of a small, isolated countryside village believe that their alliance with the mysterious creatures that inhabit the forest around them is coming to an end.

If you not seen the film, you are not missing anything and I’m going to kind of spoil it for you right now for you. The mysterious creatures are other people and they exist in the outside world of the internet. That campfire keeps pulling you back but sometimes you just need to get out discover the milestones of freedom by getting out of the village and that super comfortable campfire.

Its nice to visit every once in a while, catchup, get warm and decide to leave. Do you want to hangout there and be known as the one who never leaves?

I thought not… Moderation Oli, limit your time at the Facebook campfire!

 

 

On returning to facebook…

Twitter makes me like people I’ve never met and Facebook makes me hate people I know in real life
Twitter makes me like people I’ve never met and Facebook makes me hate people I know in real life – agreed!

Interesting to see my friend Oli returning to Facebook after his decision to erase himself from it. It almost sounds like he’s returning home?

Nearly 4 months later, I’m returning, in fact there’s a good chance you’re seeing this on Facebook. This is however not without careful thought.

Oli then outlines some good points including…

The feelings of being disconnected and isolated, are well founded, but its also very easy to get sucked into the timeline and up yourself. Its something I have avoided as I can just imagine how much time gets lost there. I wonder if the  Timeline is the new and even more destructive farmville?

As I said previously I removed Facebook from my mobile devices and only look at it every 2-3 days mainly for booking my place on Volleyball sessions (Yes so popular volleyabll is in Manchester that you can’t just turn up on the door). I also found the ical option useful for keeping me a breast of event/calendar invites. They show up on my calendar but then I have to go to Facebook to actually accept, decline or find out more.

I prefer to subvert Facebook than ignore it, which means I still don’t post photos or write new stuff there. Its certainly a dumping ground for things available else where online.

Oli isn’t wrong but there is a pragmatic way which involves having a account and using it in a smart way understanding the issues which come with it. Something like a drunk uncle at a family party, the one which nobody wants to be left alone with after dark I joke of course but if you ask me if facebook is equivalent to a creepy uncle? I would say that’s only the start of the comparisons. In years to come, (15 years I say) it will seem much like a crazy period of time where we didn’t think about what we trust so much?

It wasn’t so surprising to see him back… Although I still (currently) prefer Twitter (even with all the nonsense they have done to support their revenue growth).