thewayne | Entries tagged with social media

That stock price just keeps sliding and is now trading at just above $30 a share, less than half its peak in the middle of April.

And here's the killer, which makes me wonder if anyone who has bought this stock has ever looked at its P&L statement, it lost over $300 mill with revenue of less than $1 mill!

Now, most people would see those numbers and say 'This is not a viable company, no matter how you look at it' and steer clear of it. But I guess when you're so deeply immersed in distorting reality, it doesn't really matter.

One of their problems is that they no longer have an exclusive on the utterances of a certain Felonious Candidate for High Office. He used to be under a contract that he had to post to Truth Social before any other platform, that contract has lapsed. He's now rejoined Twitter and is spewing forth there first.

Naturally the management of Truth Social is blaming "naked short-sellers", a practice of buying stock for short-selling without putting up the purchase price first, i.e. no money is involved in the transaction. They have sent letters to the boards of trade complaining of this, there has been no evidence unearthed proving this claim. Sort of like some other law suits that came forth not quite four years ago, eh?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/06/18/djt-trump-media-stock-price-falling/74141641007/

This is a really ugly article, ugly in a way that it paints our culture and what's to become of it if we don't make changes.

Four suggestions are made, and I can agree with them all:
No smartphones before high school
No social media before 16
No phones in school (also to stop helicopter parents)
More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world

I read a truly horrible article last week that one year olds today are exposed to one thousand fewer spoken words at home today because of other people being addicted to their tablets! That's just... SMH, words fail me.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-terrible-costs-of-a-phone-based-childhood/ar-BB1jONI0

https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/03/16/2238228/social-psychologist-urges-end-the-phone-based-childhood-now

Plex is interesting stuff. Disclaimer: I don't own it or have it running in my house, so my comments might be slightly inaccurate. It is a personal media server where you can rip your media - music and movies - and stream it to your TV and other devices across the internet. You can also share your server with friends. This assumes that you probably have A LOT of storage space on your PC in the form of a network-attached storage system (NAS or SAN).

Pretty cool, right?

Until last week.

Last week, Plex sent out an email to your friend's list showing what you've been watching! After all, your friends might have similar viewing interests. Like what kind of porn floats your boat. From the 404 Media article: “I can see that one of my friends is apparently watching a ton of cheesy, soft porn stuff (think classic ‘skinemax’ fare) from some server (it’s not mine) or Plex channel, and I am 100 percent sure they would be mortified to know that I know this,” one user wrote on the Plex Forums. “Now replace this friend, who’s just enjoying their downtime with some cheeky T&A, with a teenager who may be having difficulty figuring out feelings about their sexuality and are just trying to explore by watching LBGT dramas to see if anything there resonates or can help them figure things out. Suddenly, one of their intolerant friends or parents gets a detailed email report with a cheery title listing every little thing they’re watching…This is a dystopian nightmare of a feature and I honestly can’t believe it’s been rolled out as opt-out like this. SHAME ON YOU, PLEX!”

“I wonder how many people just had their week’s porn selections emailed to their Plex friends,” another user posted. “I just got an email about a friend’s watching habits which he definitely didn’t want to share. He insists he’s never opted into any data sharing, but…it went out anyway.”

And these emails are OPT-OUT, not OPT-IN!

This is a good example why whenever some program asks for access to my contact/address book, my reply is not just 'no, but hell no!'

Plex is taking a lot of flack over this in their forums, and probably throughout the universe of social media. I expect it will become opt-in with lots of filters on what you're willing to share.

https://www.404media.co/plex-users-fear-discover-together-week-in-review-feature-will-leak-porn-habits-to-their-friends-and-family/

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/11/27/1836216/plex-users-fear-new-feature-will-leak-porn-habits-to-their-friends-and-family

Parler sprang into being not long after trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook and was later de-platformed by Amazon for not moderating their content. They shortly found hosting and came back pretty popular with the conservative crowd.

At least for a while.

Now there's lots of conservative social media, including trump's "Truth" Social and now Twitter, which has reinstated trump, though he hasn't posted anything there probably has an exclusive deal with Truth Social for now.

Parler, at one point, was going to sell a big chunk of itself to Kanye 'Ye' West, but then he went on a Nazi tirade and Parler cancelled the deal.

Times got hard, layoffs happened and only a small core remains. And that has been sold, for an undisclosed amount, to an outfit called (from the article) "Starboard, formerly called Olympic Media, owns conservative news sites American Wire News and BizPac Review."

And Starboard has shut down Parler pending a review of the business. They claim that Parler will be integrated with the rest of their holdings, we shall see how that works out.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/parler-shuts-down-as-new-owner-says-conservative-platform-needs-big-revamp/

What a story! The factory wants to expand production of ammo for Ukraine as they are consuming massive amounts of it. Except there's one problem. TikTok is building data centers around the world so countries can have their data hosted within their border.

Data centers require HUGE amounts of energy.

And there's none left for the factory to expand and increase production. Energy in Norway is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and TikTok got allocated before the factory did. And it will take some time for more energy to become available.

You just can't make shit like this up.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/28/energy-hungry-tiktok-data-centre-ukraine-ammunition-production-nammo-norway

Unbelievable. He wasn't speeding and was using cruise control when he was pulled over. Cop lets him go with a verbal warning. Turns out the cop was live-streaming on Tik Tok and showed the guy's drivers license. A little later he receives a message on Facebook that tracked him from the Tik Tok feed.

The guy filed a complaint with the Dallas County Sheriff's Department, the investigation resulted in the officer being suspended for two days without pay. Now the guy is suing for emotional distress, invasion of privacy, etc.

A two day suspension? That's a firing offense IMO, to violate someone's privacy like that. Either management didn't think it was worth firing over, or the union blocked it.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/man-claims-cop-pulled-him-over-just-to-stream-a-traffic-stop-on-tiktok/

They've laid off 75% of their staff and reportedly have about 20 people working their now. Kinda sounds like they're circling the Drain of Doom.

The axe came down soon after the purported purchase by Kanye was kiboshed. Sounds like that sale was a last-ditch effort to save the company, and with that money not coming in, they're in deep trouble unless a last minute bailout appears.

[cue world's smallest orchestra playing Nearer My God To Thee while the sinking of the Titanic is projected behind them]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/parler-reportedly-axed-most-of-its-staff-after-ending-deal-to-sell-to-kanye-west/

Mister "Free Speech Absolutist" sure likes banning people.

There's some interesting history here. Twitter - not the Muskbrat - posted a policy saying that you can't dox people, nor post real-time location information about third-parties. If you want to post real-time location information about yourself, feel free and go wild. The location information is in response to a Florida university student by the name of Sweeney who ran a Twitter account called (at)ElonJet which posted real-time information whenever Elon's private jet was in the air.

Now, Sweeney wasn't spying on Elon. He was using publicly-available transponder information that was available on the web. He wrote a bot that scraped the transponder information and posted it on Twitter whenever it changed. He does the same for Bill Gates, Air Force One, and a few other prominent individuals. He also posts it to Instagram and other social media sites. He also uses similar tech to post the locations of business mogul' super yachts.

This infuriates Elon. "IT'S A THREAT TO MY PERSONAL SECURITY!" This reached a head earlier this week in LA when some loon jumped on the hood of the car transporting his child, X-13 Rocket Plane, or whatever its name is, and he blames Sweeney. Next day the Twitter ban goes through and ALL of Sweeney's tracking accounts go dead. AND Sweeney's personal accounts also go dead. And the Muskbrat says he's going to sue Sweeney. For taking publicly-available information and rebroadcasting it? That should go well.

Too much caffeine, Space Karen?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/musk-bans-live-location-sharing-says-hell-sue-creator-of-plane-tracking-bot/

Last night, some news reporters saw their Twitter accounts go dead. They were from the Washington Post, CNN, and the New York Times. No warning or notice, apparently Elon thinks that posting a link to a different social media platform's ElonJet tracker to Twitter is doxxing him.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/musk-suspends-nyt-and-wapo-reporters-from-twitter-claims-they-doxxed-him/

If someone wants to take Elon out and is serious about it, ElonJet is probably not going to be a major tool that they would use.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and email addresses.

If that's not bad enough, here's the lovely bit:
The LAPD's social media user guide encourages officers to monitor social media but imposes few restrictions on the practice, Dwyer wrote. The guide encourages officers to use "fictitious online personas" to conduct investigations and says that using these fake personas "does not constitute online undercover activity."

"Few limitations offset this broad authority: officers need not document the searches they conduct, their purpose, or the justification," she wrote. "They are not required to seek supervisory approval, and the guide offers no standards for the types of cases that warrant social media surveillance. While officers are instructed not to conduct social media surveillance for personal, illicit, or illegal purposes, they seem otherwise to have complete discretion over whom to surveil, how broadly to track their online activity, and how long to monitor them."

Hottie in the red Camaro convertible? Could be linked to some gang bangers a couple of blocks over! REALLY! It's not stalking, it's an investigative lead! Honest!

You don't have to give an officer this social media information, just like you don't have to consent to an officer searching your car without a warrant. If they tell you to stay and they're going to produce one, tell them you're going to call for an attorney and do so while you're waiting. If you're arrested with probable cause, bit of a different matter.

It's possible several other law enforcement orgs are trying to collect social media info. In the case of LAPD, it's being fed into a massive surveillance database called Palantir. Palantir is a somewhat shadowy company created by the co-founder of Paypal, Peter Thiel, and has an interesting and complex Wikipedia page.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/lapd-officers-collect-social-media-account-info-from-people-they-detain/