Facebook

A loss of face

Until recently I thought that social media was a force for good. As someone who sometimes finds social situations fairly exhausting, social media seemed more of a solution than a problem. There is no doubt that it has revolutionised the way we interact with others. Social media can incite change and spread messages across the globe. Just take the Arab Spring as an example. Nonetheless, the ability for billions of people to connect and exchange views is a field ripe for exploitation from political groups and individuals. For that reason we must be wary.

The Facebook – Cambridge Analytica data scandal which occurred earlier this year publicly called into question the reputation of the social media giant and personally made us question the concept of social media as a whole. Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm, collected data from millions of Facebook profiles without consent and used their information for political purposes in the 2016 American Presidential Election.

Data breaches generally occur when cybercriminals illicitly and successfully infiltrate a data source and extract sensitive information. This can either be done by physically accessing a computer or by using a network to leak files bypassing security. Needless to say, the breach questioned our trust in the largest social media platform in the world, which has an estimated 2.23 billion monthly active members. Facebook lost not only face, but also money, with a stock price plummet of about 20 percent and a whopping market cap loss of $120 billion.

Never before has a generation diligently recorded themselves so much accomplishing so little.

This breach may have helped us to take a step back and think twice about our usage of these platforms, since in some way, perhaps through no fault of our own, we too have lost our true faces and identities. Never before has a generation diligently recorded themselves so much accomplishing so little.

Social media connectivity is an inevitable part of our generation’s lives, but, in most cases, we tend to feel less connected and lack the ability to form deeper and more committed relationships with those around us. A survey conducted by the Royal Society of Public Health on 1,500 students determined that higher levels of inadequacy, depression, self-loathing and anxiety were experienced by individuals who used social media more often.

Mark Zuckerberg once said that “by giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent”. To Zuck, I say that what we really want is the power to make social media more transparent. Nobody is going to stop using social media – I certainly won’t – but it is for this exact reason that we must know what is going on. For the sake of our privacy, our health and our politics, we must ensure that we are the ones who use technology, and that technology does not use us.

Meme of the Month: Don’t Look Back in Anger

In 2017, the internet was rocked by the Distracted Boyfriend meme. One man, his arm around a supposed girlfriend, staring at the backside of another girl while the first woman looks on, furious at this supposed betrayal. But let’s start from the beginning.

The original image was part of a stock photo series, taken on 2nd November 2015 (that’s right, I did the research). It’s entitled ‘Disloyal man with his girlfriend looking at another girl’. Perhaps not the most concise title, but it certainly does the job. And for two odd years, this weirdly comical, literally titled image lay in the metaphorical depths of the internet’s basement. Then, it was dragged into the meme-y limelight…by Phil Collins fans, no less.

On 30th January 2017, a Turkish Facebook page posted the photo that started the tsunami. The man is labelled Phil Collins, being distracted from ‘prog’ (progressive rock) and drawn to the genre of pop. I’ve had minimal interaction with Collins’ music, but after a quick consultation with my dad, he assured me that this was indeed, funny.

Somehow, this joke made by a generation that is, presumably, not entirely familiar with memes, spread like wildfire. It fits the same format a lot of memes take – choosing something ‘inferior’ or ‘unhealthy’ over something else. Basically, it’s funny when someone does the unexpected, like choosing the obviously wrong option. Netflix binging instead of sleeping, fruit instead of curly fries, and, apparently, pop instead of prog (I still don’t fully understand).

There have been many, many, many, many, many reworkings of this meme. So, so many. I really can’t stress how many. And one of them is the reason I’m able to talk about this seemingly ancient meme with some modicum of relevance. I’m talking, of course, about the distracted wedding photo.

I’ve had minimal interaction with Collins’ music, but after a quick consultation with my dad, he assured me that this was indeed, funny.

On 29th September 2018, a Redditor posted a photo of a newlywed couple, the groom distracted by a shirtless man in the water. Happy 20gayteen, folks. It is this image, above all other reworkings, that has sparked a small resurgence of both the original and reworked format – and why wouldn’t it? Throughout this year, the LGBTQ+ community has finally gotten a few wins – at least, in the pop culture sphere. Janelle Monáe came out; Rosa Diaz, Petra Solano and Valencia Perez (from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend respectively) were revealed to be bisexual, and the gay rom-com blockbuster, Love, Simon was released. And why wouldn’t the community get excited about another form of representation, even if it is in meme format?

Some may claim that this meme is recycled or unoriginal due to this repeated format, but it’s essentially the same as the majority of memes out there. The John Mulaney ‘yes/no’, the cartoon man in the desert crawling in one direction instead of the other – they all involve rejecting the expected for the unexpected. And to me, that’s what’s just so appealing. We should strive to enact healthy behaviours; eating right, looking after ourselves, and being kind to others. That urge to act in an unhealthy manner can be satiated with these, for lack of a better term, gallows humour. Joking about how you should be studying instead of spending time on social media means awareness of what you, in fact, should be doing, and that’s a start.

On top of that, these memes can get meta. Like, incredibly meta. This is an article rather than a listicle, so I’m not going to attach all the examples I can find (you’re welcome, editors), but trust me. Spend five minutes googling the distracted boyfriend meme and you’ll find people labelling the man as themselves, the annoyed girlfriend as ‘new and interesting memes’, and the unassuming other woman as ‘the distracted boyfriend meme’ – so on and so forth. Now go, my friends, and meme on.

CIRCLES: The Prince and You – navigating the legacy of social media

Prince Ea looks up from his phone. He stands before the ocean. The orange of the late summer sky seems all too perfect; he’s clearly chosen his moment. As he sits, he thinks (or he looks like he thinks). What is Prince Ea thinking about? What’s brought him here? The water hits the rocks but we can’t hear it. Just an ambient tone. He turns to us now, eyebrows raised, adjusting his shoulders to steady the impact of what he’s about to say. Prince Ea looks up from his phone and says: ‘Did you know the average person spends four years of his life looking down at his cell phone?’

The American poet Prince Ea – real name Richard Williams – uploaded his spoken word poem ‘Can We Auto-Correct Humanity?’ and the accompanying video to YouTube on September 29^th, 2014.

2014 was the year people started to hear the alarm bells. It wasn’t when the alarm bells had started ringing, but it was when people decided they wanted to listen. Prince Ea’s ‘anti-social network’ had tapped into a growing fear amongst parents and technophobes, the self-righteous and the misinformed. Social media was no longer trying to bring us together; it was trying to tear us apart.

Admittedly, the video was easy to mock at the time. It’s not difficult to laugh when the poet recalls an attempt to meet his friend ‘face-to-face’ only to be hit with the devastating: ‘what time you wanna Skype?’ We all figured he sort of had a point, but who was really interested in what the prince had to say?

Now, as we read reports of a Russian infiltration of Facebook steering the attention of voters, social media’s function has people more divided than ever. Critics say the quantity of information is too large to be properly (and safely) managed, while blind optimists shake it off with little else to offer the discussion. We can say with absolute certainty, however, that the potential social media now evidently has is scary precisely because it’s unprecedented.

‘it’s common knowledge that employers use social media to screen candidates.’

This doesn’t justify the scare-mongering (although it definitely feeds it), but it indicates the necessity to re-evaluate the relationship we have with our online selves.

I’m a final-year student which means these scare-articles aren’t the only horror stories I read, hear, and experience on a day-to-day basis. Stories of applicants being rejected for a misplaced comma or failing to meet the expectations of the robot short-lister are some of my favourites to kick me into action. But the fact is, what is most likely to cost me a job is myself apparently. Specifically, myself as I appear online.

It’s common knowledge that employers use social media to screen candidates. A CareerBuilder study last year revealed that 70% of employers do this, while 54% have decided against hiring based on what they must have found. (Among the reasons for these decisions included that a candidate posted too frequently, which seems overly harsh). But you can’t just delete your online self. According to this same study, employers are 57% less likely to interview someone if they can’t find them online. Your online self needs to be pristine, which is a scary thing to think about considering most 20 year olds activated their social media accounts in their early teens.

The solution is simple: delete anything you don’t want to be seen by an employer. Some apps can inadvertently help you out with this – I’d like to thank TimeHop for reminding me to delete all the awkward photos from my GCSE graduation day. Presumably because there’s always a gap in the market when it comes to lazy students, there are dedicated free and paid services to do this so you don’t have to – Scrubber.social and Rep’nUp for example.

‘70% of employers use social media to screen candidates.’

See, my social media presence is generally clean, but I thought I’d try some of these apps out anyway for the sake of getting hands on. BrandYourself seemed to offer the most interesting services, advertising itself as a personal-branding tool. So, I entered my name – James Hacker – and online details into its free reputation scorer. I thought at its worst it would bring up a photo I’d forgotten to set to private (one of those pesky GCSE photos which apparently haunt me). Disaster struck when it offered an analysis of the Wikipedia entry for ‘Yes, Minister’ character Jim Hacker (no relation). I suppose that might be my own fault for getting frustrated and quitting before it could finish, or maybe because I share a name with someone else. If your last name is Smith or Jones, then I’m afraid this service really isn’t for you. It also suggested I pay a yearly fee of $99.98 for the full service. I think I’ll manage my own Googling.

The very fact we must clean up our social media accounts speaks numbers. The idea of age restricted services (which once formed the basis for many copy-paste hoaxes) has become a very high-profile discussion amongst UK politicians as of late. Matt Hancock is pushing for these limitations on social media platforms, suggesting that the companies have failed in their duty of care. Facebook’s Messenger Kids platform which launched recently has fallen under fire for promoting use of social media to a highly vulnerable audience, despite it being marketed as a safe app to be used within families.

Is this the root of the problem then? Has social media left too significant an imprint on us? According to a 2018 study conducted by The Pew Research Center, 51% of 18-24 year olds in the US admitted that they would find it difficult to give up social media. 14% suggested it would be ‘very hard’. The data is revealing; social media has made its mark. Can we loosen its grip?

If we search ‘social media detox’ on Google Trends, we can see that the popularity of the phrase picked up in 2014 and has only increased since. The exact same is the case for the enquiry: ‘how to detox from social media?’ – 2014 was the year people chose to hear the alarm bells.

‘the key, presumably, is a nice, healthy balance.’

At their core, these detox plans promote self-care. They’re genuine. Articles tout the benefits of taking a month away from your Twitter feed, claiming it improves well-being dramatically. (These claims may or may not be true, but I would presume it works on a case by case basis). One term that raises its head in these kinds of articles is the ‘Comparison Cycle’: that social media encourages a detrimental self-reflection as we sit idly by, observing the cherry-picked moments of our friends’ lives. I can only imagine the people most affected by this cycle are school leavers or graduates.

The cycle is supposedly a tremendous force – it takes a lot of strength and confidence to break free of it – but removing yourself from the online social scene hardly seems like the best attack plan, considering the value an online presence can have. While it might work for some people (and if it does, congratulations, you’ve happily broken the cycle), it’s easy to see people caving in and reinstalling their apps well before their detox month ends. The key, presumably, is a nice, healthy balance.

Except, there’s so much to balance. So much to balance at once, in fact, that it’s more like a juggling act. We have to think about how often we use social media; how we cultivate an online image; how to manage a personal history published online; what people say about social media and how we choose to feel about that. Our data is out there and that will never change. We’re scared into an attempt to manage information which has been out of our hands for a very long time. We’re scared because we don’t know where the data is stored – even if it is safe we can never see where it is because it’s not really anywhere. We’re scared because we’re told that that data could direct or destroy our livelihoods. We’re scared because our online presence is requested to succeed not only in any given social sphere, but now in the job market too. And as for the job market? Well that might just be the scariest thing of all.

Your online presence is hard to manage, and there’s no prerequisite for this kind of scenario. You’re a juggler with no act to follow: you can’t know if, when, or where you’ve dropped the ball.

Mental Health and Social Media: do we spend too much time staring at screens?

The panic around social media use today is like the panic around Grand Theft Auto in the noughties, video-nasties in the eighties and the development of the printing press back before people knew what penicillin was. Stupid and petty, silly and unfounded, peddled by the kind of people who can’t handle change. It would all be fine, I thought. We just needed to sit back with a box of chocolate biscuits, watch Netflix (The Good Place, obviously) and wait for this whole thing to blow over. Headlines like The Mail’s ‘social-media obsessed teens are so scared of real life some wont even answer the door’ would stop appearing, everyone would be fine and we could all go back to our phones in peace.
But then I started researching.

Social media might make you anxious. There’s probably a reason, after all, that 51% of the people who grew up with social media are embarrassed by mental health. There has to be a reason suicide rates are higher today than they have been for a decade. The mental health crisis didn’t develop in a vacuum. The housing crisis and austerity, soaring tuition fees and Nigel Farage looking like Kermit the Frog’s miserable middle son haven’t helped, but nothing defines our generation like the rise of social media. One study a few years ago found that the more you use Facebook, the less happy you’re likely to be and another found that, scrolling through the hours on social media is likely to lead to an increased sense of social isolation.

51% of the people who grew up with social media are embarrassed by mental health

Especially when you consider how long we spend on the internet. One bigger and more recent study conducted on 2,658 teens found that teens spend 9 hours every day staring at screens. Not all of that is social media. It’s supposed to be a comprehensive study; those nine hours aren’t just spent arguing with strangers on Twitter – they’re spent playing video games, listening to music, watching Netflix or Hulu and reading articles. Everything your average 18-year-old might do on a computer that doesn’t involve studying. Social media wasn’t the biggest part of that count (that goes, pretty predictably, to TV, music and movies), and most of the subjects claimed they were more or less happy, but social media played a big role. Most teens spent over a quarter of their time on some sort of social media site. That’s a lot of time per day. And, though they reported being happy, that’s hard to reconcile with the majority of the data that’s already out there. Not just because it tells a different story, but because it doesn’t tell it very well. This survey sacrifices the depth of its cuts for the breadth of its sociological strokes; the questions here are unhelpfully shallow. Rather than conduct a comprehensive study of students’ mental health, it asked them questions about their mental wellbeing. How happy they were at school, what they thought their relationship with their parents was like, and if they felt like they had enough friends. Not exactly deep. With that in mind, it’s hard not to face the truth, to recognise that social media has its dangers.

it’s hard not to face the truth, to recognise that social media has its dangers

And that feels strange, because I believe in social media. It’s big and corporate and demonstrably toxic in many ways, but there’s just so much promise here: I think social media has power. If you’ve ever followed an activist of colour, a trans spokesperson, or a feminist and felt like it’s expanded your worldview, then social media has done you good. More than anything else, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whatever else the kids are into these days are monumental platforms for subaltern voices. They’re powerful mediums through which the people most in need of an audience can look for ways to create one. It’s good for literacy, too. The kids of the last ten years have snapchatted and Instagrammed and WhatsApped their time away, and they’re more than likely smarter for it. Kids who might never have written a word under their own power have sat and crafted millions of text messages, snap chats and tweets for their own sake. One 2010 study found that kids send 3,339 texts a month. And, seven years later, that number is only going to have increased. That’s an awful lot of time and an awful lot of energy dedicated to thinking about language, to using words and language and making themselves heard. Whatever you think about phones, that’s a powerful thing.

powerful mediums through which the people most in need of an audience can looking for ways to create one

In the end, then, maybe the answer’s simple. Like with curly fries, studying and being punched in the head for fun, maybe moderation is key. People need to know how social media is affecting them and what they can do to stop it. They need to be able to balance the good with the bad. The reality is, of course, that working out exactly what’s good and exactly what’s bad is a tangled mess of corporate interest and politics and money and research that hasn’t been done. But maybe it’s worth it.

Fake News

We’ve all seen classic knock off products, perhaps you’ve been tempted to buy them? You wouldn’t be alone. 40% of people in a UK survey admitted to buying pirated films and music or purchasing counterfeit clothing and accessories. This is despite the fact that 90% of respondents in the same survey agreed that it was “morally wrong”. Counterfeiting is a large and varied operation, but there are ways of protecting against it. So, what are some of the most widely counterfeited products and how can we be sure what we’re buying is genuine?

40%… admitted to buying pirated films and music, or purchasing counterfeit clothing and accessories

Alcohol

Alcohol is a big business and its not surprising that a large market of counterfeit alcohols has appeared. 18% of people admit to having bought counterfeit alcohol at some point, making it the third most popular counterfeit item. But this could be potentially dangerous, faked spirits may be contaminated with methanol, which much more toxic than ethanol (the normal ingredient responsible for alcohols effects). So how to tell the real from the fakes? Remember the four Ps, Product (look out for commonly faked products like Vodka), Price (if it looks too good to be true it probably is), Packaging (beware of shoddy packaging) and Place (only buy from reputable establishments)

Medicine

Perhaps the most troubling area of counterfeiting is the area of counterfeited medicines. In 2015 Interpol’s operation Pangaea seized $81 million worth of fake drugs and shut down 2410 websites selling fake medicines. However, new techniques are being developed to tell if medicines are genuine. This revolutionary new technology uses atomic nanoparticles which are tagged and positioned with extreme accuracy to create a uncloneable security tag. A flash from a customer’s smartphone can make these particles luminesce and the pattern can be captured and decoded to prove the medicine is genuine. To replicate these counterfeiters would need to discover the exact position of tagged micro particles from the scatter pattern and then arrange their own nano-particles to match the manufacturers with pinpoint precision. These tags are perfectly edible and non-toxic so there are few safety concerns, and while current iterations only use black and white patterns, but newer techniques may introduce colour to increase the number of available barcodes.

Cash

We have a serious problem with forged currency. In the first half of 2017 £4.9 million worth of fake bank notes were removed from circulation – about 0.1% of all the banknotes out there. Coinage can be even more of a problem, with about 2.6% 0f pound coins circulating in 2015 being fakes. However, the release of the new 12-sided pound coin and new polymer 5 and 10 pound notes should mean a decrease in the amount of counterfeiting due to the increased difficulty. For example, the new £1 coin has images that change depending on the angle it is viewed from. It remains to be seen how effective these methods are, but officials seem hopeful.

Bots are an unfortunate part of many social media sites

Fake Media

Have a look at any Facebook post from a news organisation and check the comments, chances are up to 10% of these are faked. These come from “cash for likes schemes” firms offering to sell people likes it delivers via bots. Cons like this increase the perceived popularity of the original poster and can be programmed to espouse certain points of view, making it seem to the casual observer that the views are being held by the general public. This process is called astroturfing and doesn’t just affect Facebook. Bots are an unfortunate part of many social media sites, however many sites have developed systems for reporting these, as well as running their own checks. If you think you have spotted a fake account on Facebook, you can go to the profile, click on the ellipsis symbol in their cover photo and click “report”.

Monopolies in the Internet Age

The monopoly is as old as capitalism itself. It is logical that a system built on the premise of private profit makes having complete control over supply or trade of a commodity attractive; this way you would maximise profits by simply being the sole recipient of all revenue. Despite this, monopolies have been warned against, viewed with suspicion and seen as eradicators of the competition the free market is supposed to thrive on. Today the Internet is home to some of the largest and most complete monopolies in capitalism’s history, – think Google, Facebook and Amazon – behemoths dominating their respective markets, yet convenience seems to have overpowered caution in consumers’ eyes.

Today the Internet is home to some of the largest and most complete monopolies in capitalism’s history

According to the New York Times, Google rules the market of search advertising with an 88 percent share; this isn’t unusual, since all the monopoly giants like Facebook, Amazon, or Alibaba often command 60-90 percent of their respective markets. The strategy for making it big is no longer direct competition with incumbent companies; rather it is being able to find a niche market, then raise capital by taking advantage of existing Internet and mobile infrastructure, and spread across the globe like Uber has. Another approach companies use once they have capital is buying up the competition – think Facebook with Instagram and Whatsapp.

Monopolies are not explicitly illegal

Monopolies are not explicitly illegal, and those who don’t use dishonest practices to become monopolies are viewed as innocent or natural monopolies. Something about the Internet seems to tend towards the emergence of natural monopolies, the most textbook example being Google. Google had first comer’s advantage – by providing a slightly superior product at a time when Internet membership grew exponentially, it gained a foothold it has not lost since then. Its search services these days are not objectively much more superior than those of Bing. Yet, despite the cash Microsoft has invested in the engine, the underdog has failed to catch up, even becoming a running joke.

Once the foot is in, the Network Effect of the Internet causes exponential growth. In real life if your friend buys a fancy car, you don’t need to buy the same brand of fancy car to get most of the same coolness properties. On the net however, if all your friends are on Facebook, you don’t want to be all alone on MySpace; therefore services who have more users attract more users. This way these services also have the means to become better. Google now has the massive advantage of troves of information it has already gathered from users; the same goes for Amazon and Facebook, allowing them to keep their algorithms intelligent. Thus when they have become so large and efficient, the complacency of the user sets in, making most people unwilling to click over to a competitor when the main provider does the job free and easy.

Some, like Paypal’s cofounder Peter Thiel, hold the opinion that some monopolies are good. They claim that when a company is the best at providing a service, competition is nothing but disruptive. Monopolies may be both more secure in their power and have more capital to innovate, than smaller companies locked in competition with others. This has been partially true of Amazon whose investors have taken its constant growth as a good sign; as such, the company has focused on reinvesting profits in innovation and further growth rather than profit returns for shareholders. In some areas monopolies make sense because the service provided benefits from consistency. Such areas are mostly public utilities like the telephone, water, power and rail. However, it is crucial to note that, whilst these are monopolies, they are also regulated where Internet monopolies are not.

when a company is the best at providing a service, competition is nothing but disruptive

While it is always good to give dissenting opinions, we shouldn’t lose sight of why monopolies are so feared in the first place. With control over the market comes great power. By killing off the competition, monopolies often engage in price-fixing where they raise prices for the commodity, also leading to higher inflation. Less competition means less drive to innovate but also fewer incentives to provide high quality products – because at the end of the day, where are people going to go?

Becoming an Internet monopoly may be natural; keeping your monopoly often requires shifty practices and causes damage to consumers and small competitors. Whilst some users don’t realize the cost they pay with their personal information, even those that do, have no choice since there are no major Internet services that do not save, store, and analyze your data. They suffocate small content creators by gobbling up advertising dollars. As a result, ad-dependent creators must negotiate with them to stay alive, often paying extortionate prices for ads. Another indirect network effect allows these companies to charge producers whatever they like for use of their platform since theirs is the most widespread amongst the audience the producers are trying to reach.

Google has notoriously been in trouble for promoting its own services at the top of its search results. Through its “Featured Snippets” it scraps info from other sources (sometimes without crediting them), and features them on the search results page, taking clicks and thus revenue from other providers. Some claim that since it is Google’s search engine, they may do what they please. Others worry that the giant, which is spreading into other areas like health care and self-driving cars, may become the supreme digital monopoly to the detriment of the consumer, the competitor, and democracy itself. This may sound dramatic but the recent 2016 election “fake news” fiasco Facebook was involved in by allowing and promoting false stories, shows the power that information monopolies hold has over our collective consciousness. Not to mention the lobbying power they have amassed due to sheer size.

it may seem like nothing can be done but history proves this wrong

It may seem like nothing can be done but history proves this wrong. AT&T, the telecommunications monopoly in America is allowed to exist but has its rates and percentage of profits spent on research and development regulated. An argument could be made that Google is a public utility and needs to be regulated in a similar manner. We could go the traditional route and force monopolies to sell their smaller companies – like the decision to break up Standard Oil in the early 1900s – but this wouldn’t be a long-term solution.

We could require Google to license out patents for its algorithms and innovations so competitors can survive, whilst perhaps preventing already giant conglomerates from acquiring more companies. Another slow-down tactic that doubles as a content-control measure would be changing “safe harbor” laws that currently allow companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter not to assume responsibility for controversial content produced by others (that is simultaneously earning them money by being on their platform); this could encompass graphic content as well as “fake news”. Users could be given ownership over their “social graph” which is all their connections to other users, and allowed to move these graphs over to competing platform; at the moment if you are a Facebook user, your connections belong to Facebook. There are possibly dozens of other options to rein these colossal companies in and give them some responsibility; what we shouldn’t do is nothing.

Using Facebook to find voters

With Facebook omnipresent in modern life, most of us are aware that we see adverts, and that they are often tailored to us individually. There is now also new evidence that the amount of personalisation can be used to change your opinion on political questions. A study from the University of Bath tested the effectiveness of psychographic targeting, the use of psychological profiles, built from information available online, to target adverts at specific audiences.

Facebook even has a dedicated website advertising itself to political campaigns, explaining how to create an effective ad campaign and using the headline “Find your voters on Facebook”. And while an ad might not change your views in the long term, even a small change in turnout can be crucial.

Psychographic targeting means using psychological profiles to target ads at specific users. Artificial intelligence sorts through users’ data such as interests, age, location, gender, etc., and creates psychological profiles based on it. It means that the people making adverts can show you the ones that someone with your personality is more likely to respond to.

Silhouettes and Facebook. Source: flickr.com

Psychographic targeting is used frequently in marketing – if a company knows who they are advertising to, it’s much easier for them to know how to sell something to their users. For example, children’s products are marketed differently to different types of parent. While demographics are concerned solely with the basic information of users (age, location, and so on), psychographics explores their interests and the reasons why they purchase – or vote – the way that they do. They make it possible to use interests, beliefs, and attitudes, as well as demographics to target adverts as precisely as possible.

In Dr. Joanna Bryson’s study at the University of Bath, researchers first had a group take a test that determined whether they had authoritarian views or not. Then, researchers created profiles based on indicators such as gender and interests to guess a user’s views. They then showed adverts tailored to these tendencies to users. It is hardly surprising that users on both sides of the spectrum found the adverts tailored to their views effective and persuasive.

This shows that just by using data readily available on Facebook – not party alignment or political views – it is possible to guess how you would vote, and most importantly, why.

Psychographic targeting has been used heavily in previous elections, so you will probably have seen ads aimed specifically at your personality type, trying to change how you will vote. For instance, during the EU referendum, Vote Leave’s campaign spent over a third of its budget on a small Canadian IT company, AggregateIQ. Similarly, in the 2015 UK general election, the Conservative party spent £1.2 million on Facebook campaigns and the Labour party £16,000.

using personal data might invade privacy – and thus break the law.

Cambridge Analytica, which specialises in using data mining and data analysis for political purposes, was involved with the Leave campaign, Ted Cruz’s campaign, and was later accused by a Time report of spreading Russian propaganda during the US presidential election. Even more recently, The Left in Germany shared an article criticising the far-right AfD – but only on the feeds of Saarland inhabitants who liked the AfD or Pegida on Facebook.

Even though social media, and Facebook in particular, are known to be influential, the Electoral Commission receives very little information on how parties use psychographic targeting. The Information Commissioner launched an investigation into campaigns using data analytics in May as using personal data might invade privacy – and thus break the law. Fines could go up to £500,000. An example of clarity in their use of “dark ads”, the Green Party in Germany has made all of its ads available on its website, explaining that since it is normal practice in in advertising that not all users can see the same adverts, they are making an effort to be more transparent.

It isn’t clear yet if adverts will change people’s views in the long term. However, the researchers say that their effect might simply be of discouraging people from voting. “We know it’s really easy to convince people not to go to the polls,” Dr. Joanna Bryson, the artificial intelligence expert leading the research, told the New Scientist. “Prime at the right time and you can have a big effect. It’s not necessarily about changing opinions.”

Know what I mean?

ALTHOUGH a basic skill in the sense that it is necessary to our very survival, communication is the most nuanced and elegant tool available to humanity. It shapes and enhances every aspect of our highly-collaborative modern lives with verbal and hand-written forms looked over in favour of more technologically advanced options.

It’s been a very long time since keyboards reduced the volume of pens and pencils in our lives – well, our parents’ lives, really – but hardware that requires manual operation is hardly at the cutting edge of word processing any more. Speech recognition software like Dragon NaturallySpeaking is becoming more widely available and, more importantly, used. Its practical use has been recognised by the DSA, which funds Dragon for students who struggle to operate keyboards due to chronic pain or fatigue. Every now and then, you might receive an email signed o with a disclaimer explaining that the message was composed through voice recognition software and therefore is liable to the occasional oddities of transcription programs, and this is going to start happening more regularly – people are adding new technologies to their communication arsenal all the time, a major success for enablement and accessibility movements.

Modern technology has even helped to give voices back to those who have lost the ability to speak and move through paralysing accidents and diseases; Stephen Hawking’s computer-based communication system is perhaps the most famous and advanced public example of this. A brilliant combination of Intel’s open source program ACAT, SwiftKey’s word prediction algorithm and a speech synthesizer constructed by Speech Plus allows the renowned scientist to continue writing books and giving lectures, only needing to twitch his cheek at the right moment to operate all of this technology.

“technology has even helped to give voices back to those who have lost the ability to speak”

Communicative technology should allow everyone to make personal advancements and a ord us all a vast freedom of choice. Free language learning platform Duolingo is a brilliant example of this concept in action; with around 120 million registered users all over the globe, the website and app offer 66 courses spreading over 23 languages, and it isn’t di cult to see why it’s proved so popular. With bright, attractive graphics, straightforward but challenging tasks, a high quality and wide ranging photo database and a completely user-friendly interface, Duolingo boasts that it can help you learn an entirely new language entirely on your own in just ten minutes per day. Foreign languages lose their intimidating mystique when faced hand in wing with Duolingo’s peppy green owl mascot. Best of all, they become totally free to anyone with WiFi access.

Of course, we can’t totally avoid the obvious and suggest that social media is a base technological advancement in communication, lacking the finesse of computer-based communication systems and the ethical compassion of free language learning platforms. Its sheer volume more than compensates for its comparative technical simplicity and profit-driven, advertisement-foccused monitoring of its users’ interests; it is everywhere, and it is totally, radically changing the way human beings communicate. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat et al thrive on the intrinsic voyeurism of the human race, dependent on our desire to see and be seen. It used to be enough that we could post the entire contents on our lives retrospectively, choosing who could and couldn’t see it and picking out our emoji and hashtag-laden captions with the delicate precision of a neurosurgeon five minutes or five days after we took that expertly altered photo of our breakfast. Now, with Facebook’s new Live feature, that’s not enough. Our thoughts, feelings, activities, meals, location – even your toilet habits if you wish – can be shared in real time, sending out a push notification to all of our friends to watch, watch, watch. Communication becomes increasingly about the self and its experiences, guided by strengthened concepts of competitiveness and the notion of being continually observed.

“Communication becomes increasingly about the self and its experiences”

Communication, like technology, is neither base nor elite. Its quality is determined by the social and academic education of its users, and what they then decide to make of it. When the two spheres overlap, the result can be offensively crude, but it can also encourage more cultured discussions and breed informed minds. Facebook’s search tool has a word prediction algorithm just as essential to its navigation as the same technology is to Stephen Hawking’s computer-based communication system; neither is intrinsically more culturally advanced than the other. That choice is entirely down to us. Let’s make it wisely.

Mass murder or mass hysteria?

Want to hear a joke? Okay, here goes: there’s an escaped convict roaming the streets you probably live on or near, and he’s knifed six people tonight. One of the kids in our year died. I watched it from my window. Better lock your doors.

I couldn’t believe the tweets, comments, Snapchats and statuses before my eyes

I don’t know about you, but personally, I’ve never found making people believe they were in actual jeopardy that amusing. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I thought there was a difference between warning people that something dangerous and ambiguous is going on and giving an in-detail report of a completely faux mass murder, just, you know, for kicks.

https://pixabay.com/en/smartphone-twitter-mobile-phone-586944/google labell

When local social media blew up at 11PM on Saturday after the violent domestic incident on Leighton Road, I couldn’t believe the tweets, comments, Snapchats and statuses before my eyes. It’s the sort of situation where you hope that it’s all one big, sick joke, and then you’re furious when it is. Someone’s life genuinely hung in the balance and all some people saw was an opportunity for retweets.

Thornton Hill. Well Street. Springfield Road. Howell Road. Danes Road. As the road names trickled through my Facebook feed, all I could do was picture the faces of friends who live on these streets; friends who might’ve picked the wrong moment to walk home and paid for it with their lives. “A second year has died.” Another image: someone my age, maybe even someone I knew, bled out on the pavement; I felt physically sick.

Desperately hoping that this was all fiction, a hyped-up version of a Corrie plot, I wrote my own status. “If you are in Exeter tonight PLEASE stay indoors and keep your doors locked. If you’re out of your house, find somewhere secure to stay. Reports of stabbings in a densely populated student area. Stay safe.” I felt stupid even as I poked at me screen to post the message, wondering if I was just contributing to this wildly out of hand, but my reasoning was this: if this is really happening, letting people know might just save a life.

SOME OF THE PEOPLE THESE TOXIC STATEMENTS REACHED WERE TRULY VULNERABLE AND WORDS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO GENUINELY DISTURB INDIVIDUALS

But tweeting and snapping “live updates” that are – pardon my French – complete and utter bullshit is completely inexcusable. It’s fortunate that this hysteria didn’t seriously disturb the police operation to apprehend the dangerous individual at the route of this myth, or our community could have been under an actual, greater threat. Practical danger aside, those responsible for circling these falsehoods have been obscenely petty and cruel. Some of the people these toxic statements reached were truly vulnerable and words have the potential to genuinely disturb individuals. Leave terrifying people with made up stories to the likes of Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock; there is no room for such thoughtless, spiteful and irresponsible behaviour in the real world.

Top 5 Games and Technology CreepyPasta

Foreword: this list by no means contains the best, the scariest, or the most realistic creepypasta the internet has to offer, it is simply my list of the five most memorable games- and tech-based stories.

The Lavender Town Tone (DannoW)

Do you remember the original pokemon games? Do you remember the unbelievably scary location that was Lavender Town? This area of the world was the designated cemetary for all dead pokemon, with a multi-story graveyard, and occasional ghost sightings. The sense of dread was ramped up to maximum with the simple, slow tune that played in the background. The source of this creepypasta was that tone – the binaural sound that created an apparent auditory illusion for the children playing the game. According to the story, this sound caused over 200 children to commit suicide, as well as various detectives working on the case.

according to the story, this sound caused over 200 children to commit suicide

Annie 96 Is Typing… (Pascal Chatterjee)

This story takes place entirely through a messaging service (most likely WhatsApp), and is far shorter than many other creepypastas. Since it only takes 5-10 to read (and on the original website the design is fantastically unique), I am unwilling to spoil the way the story develops. It involves two young people talking online, when one discovers someone, or something, is outside their house. While the concept itself is hardly groundbreaking, the author nails a sense of authenticity, and though some may say the ending is underwhelming, I believe it does its job in creating a continued sense of uncertainty. Give it a read!

Ben Drowned (Jadusable)

Oh boy. This is the great granddaddy of all ‘haunted game’ creepypasta, and by far one of the most popular. The story follows a young man who bought a Zelda game cartridge from a car boot sale, and as he played it he noticed more and more discrepancies, until a malevolent being took over his life. As a warning, this story is incredibly long, and filled with asides, so if you plan to read it, you may want to set aside a large chunk of time. The author put full effort into it, including videos, screenshots, and other small proof that corresponded with his claims in the story. The first time reading this will certainly creep many people out, as long as you stick with it!

Candle Cove (Kris Straub)

Another well known story, this one didn’t affect me much on first reading. Stylised as a conversation on a message board, Candle Cove is the story of a group of individuals reminiscing about a TV show they watched as children, which seemed to give them nightmares. On first read, I skimmed through the text, looking for the usual imagery and big, scary monsters. The author is far more subtle about creating his world, with each ‘poster’ on the message board having small quirks in their writing that makes each one feel unique – and real. In fact, the US TV channel SyFy greenlit and aired a TV series called ‘Channel Zero’ – the first season of which is an adaptation of the Candle Cove creepypasta. Trailers have been released and it looks like a fun watch!

the us tv channel syfy greenlit and aired a tv series [based on this]

My Dead Girlfriend Keeps Messaging Me on Facebook (NateSW)

The most harrowing of the stories in the list, this one was a smash hit two years ago on the NoSleep Sub-Reddit. A short story that focuses mostly on images of facebook chat logs, it details a guy who is messaged by someone on the account of his girlfriend, who had died in a car accident. This story not only has the fear-factor, provided by certain phrases and pictures posted, but it has an incredibly touching heart, with the reader unable to do anything but have sympathy for the writer, whose tragic loss seems so real and so heartbreaking.