Facebook.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 3. Mar 18, 20:54

I invigilated an online test last week for first years
Just before the test started I had to go round telling lots of them to put their phones away and stop browsing facebook.

They were about to take a rather important test and they still couldn't put down facebook....

When I completed my circuit of the room I must admit I'd already put some of those students into the likely lower end of the final degree classification range.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Sat, 3. Mar 18, 21:01

mrbadger wrote:I invigilated an online test last week for first years
Just before the test started I had to go round telling lots of them to put their phones away and stop browsing facebook.

They were about to take a rather important test and they still couldn't put down facebook....

When I completed my circuit of the room I must admit I'd already put some of those students into the likely lower end of the final degree classification range.

WTF?

You can't make them turn their phones off while they're in class? Is this some sort of mandate or something that they can have their phones on or use them during instruction?

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 3. Mar 18, 22:13

We can, but it's damn hard to get them to put them away.

Post by **Santi** » Sat, 3. Mar 18, 23:52

Not very keen on it, but I must say that it has it advantages, while I do not participate in the whole sharing my life out to everybody, facebook groups is another matter, currently in my workplace, peer to peer shift and holiday swapping is done by a Facebook group.

Events is another useful feature of Facebook, we rely on it for our D&D sessions and tabletop gaming meetups.

apogee · Post by **apogee** » Sun, 4. Mar 18, 00:43

Well this thread has put a smile on my face

never been on facebook, don't want to either.

nice to see so many others not iterested in it either.

ps. dont do twitter, intagram, snapchat etc either.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sun, 4. Mar 18, 07:42

While what I might describe as the lower end of the student population seem obsessed with social media in all forms, the better students are less so.

they are increasingly in a range from not very interested, but feel they have to use it to socialise, to having no social media accounts at all.

I can tell the good students because I never once have to remind them they're not in my class to check facebook status updates....

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Sun, 4. Mar 18, 19:32

mrbadger wrote:We can, but it's damn hard to get them to put them away.

Note on the door:

"Please Turn your phones off before entering class. If you are observed actively using your phone for purposes not relating to an actual emergency, you will be ejected from the classroom.

If you have a legitimate reason for using your phone during class, such as being an intelligence officer currently working with MI6 and responding to a national security crisis which threatens the safety of the citizens of this great nation, please provide a note from your supervisor, the Ministry of Defense, or the Queen of England."

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sun, 4. Mar 18, 20:04

We do more than that, using a phone during a test is an automatic disqualification for cheating.

But teaching first years to detatch themselves from thier phones, especially disinterested ones who've obviously been allowed them in school is an uphill struggle.

In my final year classes I just flat out refuse to do my lectures if any student is staring at a phone.

muppetts · Post by **muppetts** » Mon, 5. Mar 18, 06:44

Wife and I started one, friended people from the past we really had no contact with anymore, spent a year watching the dribble that people post and both deleted our accounts.

I started a new one with a made up name but I just went around and followed pages for all my favorite writers, directors, singers, foodies, science sites, news sites etc etc.

So basically I now have a daily home page full of announcements for things I like and zero 'friends'.

BugMeister · Post by **BugMeister** » Wed, 21. Mar 18, 13:49

Marky Sparky under the spotlight..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7QRzI3nK_g

- chase the evil money-lenders from the temple..!!

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Wed, 21. Mar 18, 14:58

BugMeister wrote:Marky Sparky under the spotlight..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7QRzI3nK_g

- chase the evil money-lenders from the temple..!!

This isn't The Zuck's fault.

This is what Facebook is designed to do. That's an inherent part of its business model. The professor who gathered the information presented his request to FB as a scientific study, which it sort of was, considering he was kinda doing sciency stuff, maybe... (Have read his proposal.) He maintains, AFAIK, he did not know that his data would be used to strategically target voters. (I assume he received a grant from the firm to do this.)

Aaand, this sort of strategy has been used by every campaign. It's just that, in this case, the consulting firm is a bit seedier than is comfortable thinking about...

But, anyway, this is what Facebook does. It's what its users support by being members. It's the thing everyone who /Friend's someone actively and willingly participates in and it's to be expected whenever one fills out a "survey" that has flashy sparkly catchphrases and offers to give you some "interesting insights about your own personality" or tells you that "you could win a free iPhone."

I don't have a high opinion of The Zuck. I respect what he has helped to build and all that, obviously. But, he's got some serious snakes in his head when it comes down to his own ideas revolving around social media and its users.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Wed, 21. Mar 18, 16:13

It's been said before: if you're on Facebook, you're not the customer, you're the marketable goods. That's why you won't find me anywhere near the thing.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Wed, 21. Mar 18, 18:53

Facebook isn't, and never has been a free service. It's just the thing you pay with isn't cash.

That's what confuses most people. They just think it's free.

I used to have an account, when it was useful for me, but then it stopped being useful, so I got rid of it.

You can't delete your account, no-one can, you can only de-activate it. Mine has been de-activated for about three years now. Don't miss it at all.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Thu, 22. Mar 18, 20:56

I've never Facebooked or Twittered. I see absolutely no value in engaging either format. Zero. None.

For others, though, there may be some value there for them. Unfortunately, those are the people most likely to be unaware of how they're being used and how deeply it's particular rabbit-hole goes.

Personally, I'm waiting for Reddit to explode...

Reddit rises up against CEO for hiding Russian Trolls

While not exactly duplicitous activity, Redditors have a habit of jumping on the Outrage Bandwagon. I often wonder exactly how far down its own rabbit-hole Reddit goes when tracking its user-base.

philip_hughes · Post by **philip_hughes** » Fri, 23. Mar 18, 21:27

I use it from time to time. Typically to promote some soil research or other things to the masses. Personally i treat it with distrust and only put things on it under the assumption that my worst enemy will use it against me.

felter · Post by **felter** » Fri, 23. Mar 18, 22:18

UK's information commissioner have been granted a warrant and as Type this they are raiding the London headquarters of Cambridge Analytica.

BBC wrote:Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has said she was looking at whether personal data was acquired in "an unauthorised way", whether there was sufficient consent to share the data, what was done to safeguard it and whether Facebook acted robustly when it found out about the loss of the data.

I don't think they are going to be around for much longer but saying that, their suspended chief executive Alexander Nix is reportedly already started up a new company to carry on the work he was doing for Cambridge Analytica. Personally I think he should be going to jail and banned from doing any kind of intelligence work ever again, he should never be allowed to use an electronic device that can access the internet or be allowed to handle any kind of data ever again. But that's me.

muppetts · Post by **muppetts** » Sat, 24. Mar 18, 16:52

felter wrote:UK's information commissioner have been granted a warrant and as Type this they are raiding the London headquarters of Cambridge Analytica.

BBC wrote:Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has said she was looking at whether personal data was acquired in "an unauthorised way", whether there was sufficient consent to share the data, what was done to safeguard it and whether Facebook acted robustly when it found out about the loss of the data.
I don't think they are going to be around for much longer but saying that, their suspended chief executive Alexander Nix is reportedly already started up a new company to carry on the work he was doing for Cambridge Analytica. Personally I think he should be going to jail and banned from doing any kind of intelligence work ever again, he should never be allowed to use an electronic device that can access the internet or be allowed to handle any kind of data ever again. But that's me.

People in power want what he does, kinda makes him a touch slippery.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 24. Mar 18, 18:17

The only thing he did wrong was get caught. If you really think no-one knows this kind of thing isn't going on you are fooling yourself.

There is a multi billion dollor worldwide industry predicated on the sale of personal data.

He might have done something in slightly the wrong way, but nothing he's doing isn't something other companies aren't doing. It's just we've accepted those and stopped thinking about them as invading our privacy or selling our data.

Next year or the year after rules will change without anyone noticing and It's likely most of what his company did won't be wrong any more.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Sat, 24. Mar 18, 18:28

mrbadger wrote:...There is a multi billion dollor worldwide industry predicated on the sale of personal data.
...

In terms of impact, it's likely the most important driver of economy and innovation in technology right now.

Given how quickly and powerfully the "Information Age" has progressed in terms of the pursuit and use of personal data, there are very few systems put in place to ensure that it's exploited fairly and reasonably, without endangering people.

There are also related technologies to consider, as well. For instance, access to personal information, especially behaviors, give advantages to AI researchers. The ones with the most data, presumably, are the ones who are going to "win" the Race to AI. China has a large advantage, there.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sat, 24. Mar 18, 19:37

A year or so back China managed to route the entire traffic of the internet through their servers for a short while.

I don't pretend to know how. Hijacking the top level providers and redirecting it I guess.

During that time thay captured everything that got sent.
Nothing can be done about it, and the security implications are so frightening that no-one talks about it.

Against that, some people selling data from Facebook in a dodgy way is as inconsequential as the fact that by using store cards every purchase you make becomes data that is itself bought and sold.

And no-one cares about that. No-one would care about this either, except news people want to have something to talk about that isn't a serious problem.

If you offered a people free box to plug into TV that would show a new Hollywood Big Budget movie free every month in return for total access to all their personal data on Facebook, you wouldn't be able to make them fast enough to keep up with demand.

People are stupid.

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