Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, et.al. - Hey I'm talking to you!

Dear Twitter and Facebook – Dear Mark Zuckerberg – Dear Jack Dorsey -

Dear Instagram and all the social medias –


If I can see all the fake accounts, why can’t you?

On Facebook I constantly have men friend me: divorced, widowed, in the military – living far away. They have no friends and limited photos of themselves as middle-aged and smiling nice guys. Sometimes they’re wearing camo, sometimes they’re in business suits, or cargo shorts, sometimes there are pictures of roses or chocolates. Clearly they’re romantic. I suspect they want money from me so they can come visit. I report these guys for having fake accounts. It’s a 50/50 shot as to whether they will be taken down.

I see posts on FB. One recently saying that all the Russian Bots did was tell us the truth. I visited poster’s FB page. It listed, among other things, a personal webpage that linked to nothing and a series of the same kind of weird postings.

Facebook you need an option under the report button that says, “This is a suspected Bot or Troll,” and then you need to actually pay people to investigate these reports. It’s worth the money.

You also need a verification option – similar to the check for Twitter but for everyday folks. You should be able to apply for it. You need to figure out some pretty rigorous criteria to make it worthwhile.

On Twitter – YOU REALLY NEED THE “I THINK THIS IS A BOT OR TROLL” under the report this account!!! Really, really, really. I could see the bots and trolls posting about the Parkland shooting … I can see the bots swarming Trump’s account, et.al. Twitter you are literally drowning in bots and trolls. YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS OR YOU’RE GOING TO FAIL AS A COMPANY. Regularly send out notices to people for what constitutes suspicious activity. Just like in the subway, we need signs that say “See something, Say something.” We also need guidance as to what to look for – and yes it will be a nightmare for you to wade through it all. It’s going to cost real dollars. YOU HAVE TO DO THIS.

Dear all social media platforms – get your sh*t together. Stop counting your profits and protect your future earnings as well as the people you serve. Get some policies in place and set up teams to constantly watch your platforms for suspicious activities. This is a lot less big brother-y than letting faithless actors wreck public discourse and breed ill will. Be decent – give a crap about the world – DO SOMETHING.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

All good thoughts, all logical and sensible... as usual. Well-spoken.
If anything, I'd only add the critique that you're assuming these are honest businessemen
who have No Nefarious Hidden Agenda... or at least that by now, they haven't been
co-opted, neutered, and leashed by those type of people/nations/corporations.
Considering what we already KNOW has been done since The "Patriot" Act *eyeroll*
to power-players like AT&T and such, I find that assumption at best, charmingly optimistic,
and at worst, alarmingly naive.
These issues are likely still active issues because it's part of a multi-layered strategy for
disenfranchisement and moving political power out of the hands of the electorate.
Because the evidence for that happening dates back many decades, and is plain to see.
They won't help. It's all on us.
---Adam