Facebook News: Gina Carano Angered When Her Photo Is Censored
One of the biggest if not the biggest player in all this social media news uproar is Facebook.
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According to statista.com, as of January 2019, worldwide social media users stood at 45% with close to 2.85 billion users. Those numbers are expected to increase dramatically in the next few years. One of the biggest if not the biggest player in all this social media news uproar is Facebook. While it is not the first to hit the social media market, it certainly is one of the biggest, if not the biggest.
Many of you may know the recent history of Facebook with all the news on privacy, selling personal information, the political agenda and other annoying aspects of the social media giant. You may also think you know more about its history if you have seen the movie The Social Network which told the story of how Facebook came to be. But like many things Hollywood, stories change for the sake of drama and coin. So, let us help with everything Facebook.
FACEBOOK OWNED INSTAGRAM UNDER FIRE FOR CENSORING NUDITY – July 5, 2020
MMA fighter turned Mandalorian star Gina Carano is lashing out at Facebook owned social media platform Instagram over the company’s decision to censor one of her photos. The image posted by Carano featured her nude, but it’s shot in such a way that you can’t really make out a lot of details. The photo contains just a little too much detail for us to post, so for some people Instagram’s decision might make sense.
You can easily Google for the photo if you want to see it, but here’s Carano on the decision…
What Instagram allows and doesn’t allow can be confusing and somewhat contradictory. This photo of Carano for instance, is totally fine…
And so is this…
But if a woman shows even the suggestion of a nipple, Instagram tends to immediately remove the photo.
ZUCKERBERG AND OTHERS TO TESTIFY AT ANTITRUST HEARINGS – July 3, 2020
The heads of Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple are going before Congress to testify for an antitrust hearing in late-July according to this tweet from reporter Kara Swisher…
Jack Dorsey, the head of Twitter, is noticeably absent despite the government’s focus on his company’s perceived anti-free speech practices. Because of that there has been a renewed focus on trying to regulate the nation’s big tech companies. So far though, those efforts have not been successful.
EXPOSE VIDEO CLAIMS TO EXPOSE BIAS – June 23, 2020
The undercover journalists at Project Veritas claim they’ve uncovered definitive evidence to back up the frequent accusations that Facebook censors conservative users. The video contains an interview with a former Facebook employee who not only delivers a firsthand account of what he believes to be anti-conservative bias in the company, but shares videos he secretly took with his cell phone. Here’s the video…
Perhaps even more compelling than the interview, are the undercover videos of Facebook Content Managers openly admitting to engaging in biased censorship. But it’s worth noting that in almost every case, these employees make it clear they are going against Facebook guidelines.
If there’s a problem at Facebook it’s not something the company is doing intentionally. The video only proves that employees are simply ignoring Facebook’s guidelines and going rogue to censor content on their own. That’s a problem and maybe it’s one Facebook should solve, but it’s probably not intentional on the part of Mark Zuckerberg.
USERS CAN NOW TURN OFF POLITICAL ADS – June 17, 2020
While Twitter has banned political advertising (though they do allow political posts to trend) Facebook and every other social media company allows it. Now though, Facebook has given users the power to decide whether they see them.
In an article written by Mark Zuckerberg for USA Today he says: “For those of you who’ve already made up your minds and just want the election to be over, we hear you — so we’re also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads. We’ll still remind you to vote.”
No details yet on how users will be able to manage this function, but it sounds like no matter what you do you won’t be able to stop more generic reminders to vote. That in itself is a political ad, since studies have proven the way in which you ask users to vote can sway them in who to vote for. For instance, if you run your “Vote!” message with an American flag, users are more likely to vote Republican.
Still, it’ll be nice to have the option to disable at least some of the manipulative advertising put out by political parties.
FACEBOOK EMPLOYEES LOBBY FOR MORE CENSORSHIP
Last week Twitter decided to start censoring and fact checking the Tweets of President Trump. Thus far, Facebook has declined to do the same with the President’s posts on their platform. In particular when Twitter censored this Presidential tweet…
…claiming it incited violence, Facebook left the same post alone. Explaining why, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “I know many people are upset that we’ve left the President’s posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies… People can agree or disagree on where we should draw the line, but I hope they understand our overall philosophy is that it is better to have this discussion out in the open, especially when the stakes are so high.”
Addressing the specific post that Twitter chose to censor while Facebook did not, Zuckerberg said, “Although the post had a troubling historical reference, we decided to leave it up because the National Guard references meant we read it as a warning about state action, and we think people need to know if the government is planning to deploy force… “Our policy around incitement of violence allows discussion around state use of force, although I think today’s situation raises important questions about what potential limits of that discussion should be.”
In response, Facebook employees are in open revolt and using Twitter to publicly complain about their own company. Here’s what these employees are saying…
THE EARLY DAYS OF ZUCKERBERG
Before Mark Zuckerberg became a household name, he was just a name around the house. He started his social media career as a way to help his dentist father, Edward, who ran a dentistry from home. Edward was looking for a way the receptionist could contact him without having to shout throughout the house. Mark came up with what he called ZuckNet.
ZuckNet was a simple program he wrote that allowed the computers within the house (the work computers and family computers) to talk to each other. Zuckerberg explained this program in a podcast with Reid Hoffman, an early Facebook investor: “Growing up, one of the neat things was that [my dad’s] dental office was actually connected to our home. The dentists and hygienists needed to share data on the patients. So I built a system where he could communicate with folks across rooms, and also communicate with me and my sisters upstairs— and I called it ZuckNet.”
His invention didn’t last long in the household as something new and more powerful came along to wipe out his invention: AOL Messenger. Per Zuckerberg, “It was basically our little network, inside the Zuckerberg home, and it was fun,” he added. “Basically, that was the predecessor to probably a bunch of different social software ideas that I explored over time, but very early on, very early on. And then, of course, AOL Instant Messenger came, and then everyone just used that.”
Zuckerberg eventually took his skills to Phillips Exeter Academy where he caught the eye of AOL and Microsoft. Not biting on what they were selling, Zuckerberg moved on to Harvard, where the birth of Facebook began.
FACEMASH IN THE NEWS
Credited as the first social media website, Six Degrees ushered in what had become to many as a bane to their existence. Though it didn’t last long, it was the first website that allowed users to sign up with their email address, create profiles and add friends to their network. Friendster was next, which led to Myspace, LinkedIn, and eventually Mark Zuckerberg and FaceMash.
Zuckerberg created Facemash as a way to allow Harvard students to judge the attractiveness of fellow students. Think of the early site Hot or Not. Facemash would allow the user to put two female student pictures side by side so they could be rated.
The problem with his creation was that he violated university policy. He never obtained permission from any of the students which not only upset the university but the students too. Even though he pulled in nearly 450 users, who had viewed over 22 thousand photos, the site was shut down after a couple of days.
Zuckerberg was then hauled in to meet with the Harvard Administration Board. They were tempted to kick him out but relented after he gave a public apology. Facemash may have been history but Zuckerberg was just getting started.
THEFACEBOOK
Zuckerberg quickly put the FaceMash fiasco behind him to focus on his next idea. On February 4, 2004, TheFacebook launched. He used this name as it was the name of the directories handed out to university students as a way to learn about each other.
Six days after TheFacebook’s launch, trouble came knocking on his door again. He was accused of stealing ideas for his website by Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra. They claimed it was their idea and later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg. This matter was eventually settled out of court.
Zuckerberg continued to grow the website but needed help. He enlisted fellow Harvard students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes to help. TheFacebook was on its way as it was becoming so popular Zuckerberg began to offer it to other colleges.
It truly started gaining attraction when, in September 2004, it introduced the Wall to its site. This feature allowed user’s friends the ability to post information on their wall. By the end of the year, the website had over a million users, still lagging far behind social network leader MySpace.
FACEBOOK BEGINS
By all accounts, 2005 was the year that changed things for Facebook. Zuckerberg renamed his baby simply to Facebook. This was also the year that Facebook introduced “tagging”, where users could identify themselves or friends on pictures posted on Facebook. They also gave users the ability to post an unlimited number of pictures to the site. The site also opened itself up to high school students and students in universities outside of the United States and by the end of the year, Facebook had over 6 million monthly active users.
Cashing in on the growing numbers, 2006 saw Facebook open up its membership to anyone over the age of 13. Zuckerberg was right when he predicted that a new form of relationship could be created between advertisers and their customers. Direct consumer engagement had never been seen on such a large scale that Facebook offered. More companies began reaching out to Zuckerberg and his advertising and marketing machine.
The ups were just rolling in. Membership continued to grow. Facebook introduced Marketplace. Businesses were now using Facebook as their platform to speak to customers. Facebook chat came online, adding to the site’s growth.
Zuckerberg had an unstoppable train and was rolling it anywhere and everywhere. Zuckerberg’s initial and somewhat grounded idea of students using their email address and photos to connect with fellow students had blown up big time.
He told Freakonomics Radio, “Yeah, well, I never started this to build a company. Ten years ago, you know, I was just trying to help connect people at colleges and a few schools. That was a basic need, where I looked around at the Internet and there were services for a lot of things that you wanted.” Zuckerberg added, “You could find music; you could find news; you could find information, but you couldn’t find and connect with the people that you cared about, which as people is actually the most important thing. So that seemed like a pretty big hole that needed to get filled.”
FACEBOOK PRIVACY CONCERNS IN THE NEWS
As more and more people began to make Facebook their social media home (Zuckerberg dethroned Myspace in 2008 as the most-visited social media website) little issues suddenly became bigger issues. Just as it is today, privacy became a big issue. Early on it came when Facebook introduced News Feed. Its first venture on Facebook showed every change that a user’s friend would make. Outcry helped as Facebook then introduced its privacy controls, allowing users to control what they saw on their News Feed.
Privacy continued to haunt Zuckerberg and Facebook. It has been plagued with data sharing scandal as the New York Times reported that Facebook gave tech giants Microsoft, Spotify, and Netflix access to user’s data without anyone else knowing about it. Also revealed was that the social media king was considering selling user data after saying it would not and a virus had infected over 6.8 million people which gave third-party apps permission to access their photos. Of course, Facebook is denying the allegations but where there is so much smoke, there’s gotta be some fire.
FACEBOOK NEWS OF THE FUTURE
What does the future hold for Facebook? That’s a good question for Zuckerberg. In 2019 he seemed to discuss this, along with various other topics, in his ginormous blog he posted on Facebook. One of the many things he touches on, privacy, he came to the conclusion, “frankly we don’t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy-protective services.”
With the recent issues of data breaches, propaganda, fake news, privacy issues, and terrible ad-tracking practices, Facebook is slowly turning into a website no one is wanting to be a part of anymore. Growth is already stalling and users may be bailing by the millions. But how does Zuckerberg combat this?
It looks as if Mark Zuckerberg sees the future of Facebook as more of a messenger service revolving around apps such as Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook could be leaning away from News Feed, Friends list and likes. He would like to refocus around encrypted services, small group messaging and ephemeral communications.
What he describes is a new platform, one that feels personal, one that takes privacy seriously. Zuckerberg wrote he sees a platform “where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever. This is the future I hope we will help bring about.”
When Zuckerberg hit Harvard, he majored in Psychology. Why not computers? If you think about it and how Facebook initially drew people in, how addictive it was (and still is for many) with the likes and pokes and comments, the psychology becomes a bit clearer. Knowing how a person reacts and having the ability to design something that allows for what most people crave, interaction, takes a bit of mind-knowing. So who’s to say Zuckerberg’s new outlook on Facebook’s future won’t be just as big of a hit? Time will tell.
