Facebook is running people off

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
The leftists have gained enough control they can now censure anything remotely resembling common sense. The USA is morphing into the SSA. Our nation is effectively gone. Barring another uprising of patriots as in 1776 we are doomed to be subjects of the socialist coup.
 
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skyraider

Veteran Expediter
US Navy
Old Joe will be gone imho in 24 months and KH will be the ring leader,,,its gonna be fun,,,,me-Im gonna ride my bicycle till the end comes and watch my great grandson get older, lol, he is 2 months old now....Im an old phart...lol
 

muttly

Veteran Expediter
Thanks Phil for that well said and presented explanation of Facebooks operations.

My only hope is that the Rah rah trumpeets here on EO can finally see the folly of the ways of this potus, but after seeing some posts, i fear they don't.
Folly being taking on the swamp? At least he had the guts to try.
 

Ragman

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
The leftists have gained enough control they can now censure anything remotely resembling common sense. The USA is morphing into the SSA. Our nation is effectively gone. Barring another uprising of patriots as in 1776 we are doomed to be subjects of the socialist coup.
And the nonsense continues....
 
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muttly

Veteran Expediter
Yes, because the left controls the media so there is no longer common sense, just nonsense. Eliminate the left, eliminate the nonsense.
There won't be any honest debate of ideas. They're not interested in that. Just absolute power.
 

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
Yes, because the left controls the media ...
EO is media. Does the left control it? Same question for the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, New York Post, Brietbart News, OANN, Newsmax, Washington Examiner, etc.? These entities are not without significant audiences. Are they controlled by the left?
 
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LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
EO is media. Does the left control it? Same question for the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, New York Post, Brietbart News, OANN, Newsmax, Washington Examiner, etc.? These entities are not without significant audiences. Are they controlled by the left?
The left would have next to no interest in EO. The others, varying levels. And they are experiencing various levels of leftist control. All mainstream news media faces leftist input of varying degrees, the majority of media sources being controlled and espousing leftism.
 
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muttly

Veteran Expediter
EO is media. Does the left control it? Same question for the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, New York Post, Brietbart News, OANN, Newsmax, Washington Examiner, etc.? These entities are not without significant audiences. Are they controlled by the left?
Some are already. Google has targeted Breitbart and has affected their business tremendously. I'm waiting and seeing when NewsMax and OANN and possibly Fox News get kicked off platforms like Pluto TV and Roku TV because they have non leftist voices on them. Will you be ok with that then?
 

muttly

Veteran Expediter
As a long-time user of paid Facebook ads used to advertise our business to Facebook users, I am accustomed to Facebook regulation and frequent rules changes. There are numerous things you cannot do on Facebook, even though it is commonly done elsewhere. An example is before-and-after photos showing fitness results. While anyone can post their own before and after photos, and while some companies do the same in Facebook ads, the rules prohibit advertisers from doing so. The ones you see in paid ads are the ones that slip through the cracks before they are later taken down.

At least until recently, first and foremost in Facebook's priorities is keeping users engaged on Facebook. The more time a user spends on Facebook the better. The greater number of people on Facebook the better. That gives Facebook an audience to sell to people like me who are willing to pay Facebook to advertise my products to certain users. You have no doubt seen this in action. Go on Facebook and ask your friends to tell you what the last good movie they saw was. Almost instantly, you will see ads for movies show up in your Facebook feed.

To make it attractive for me to spend my advertising money on Facebook, Facebook uses its algorithms to display my paid ads to particular users who are known to be particularly interested in my products and services; health and fitness in my case. If you live near our gym and go on Facebook and ask your friends for a restaurant or dentist recommendation, you will not see our gym ads. But if you tell your friends that 2021 is your year to lose weight, you will almost certainty see our gym ads. For an advertiser, this is a wonderful service. I know every dime I spend on Facebook ads is targeted to people who are most likely to be interested in my services.

Facebook accomplishes this targeting by monitoring your online behavior. Facebook has over 250,000 data points on you. That information is used to profile you for the purpose of ad targeting and promoting your increased Facebook use. They know what you write about. They know what kind of videos you click on. They know what videos you watch to completion. They know what ads you respond to. They know what posts by others you like and don't like. They know what time of day you are on Facebook and what your prime time is for clicking on certain links. And with the cooperation of advertisers who put certain code in their websites, Facebook often knows what you do elsewhere on the internet. Additionally, Facebook has partnerships with other marketing services. They enhance their profile on you by learning your voter file, neighborhood demographics, and even the product buying behavior of your Facebook friends, and your neighbors who may not even be on Facebook.

Facebook knows what you believe about God, politics, your brother-in-law and cars. There are cases told in marketing circles where Facebook or other entities that use this technology correctly know someone is pregnant even before the pregnant person knows. The story is about the father who and teen daughter who learned she was pregnant after they started receiving baby related ads in the family snail mail. It seems pregnant people exhibit certain behaviors online that non-pregnant people do not.

This same technology was touted by Qualcomm when Diane and I heard it at a trucking trade show. I don't know what came of it, if anything, but that Qualcomm sales rep told me they can monitor a driver's behavior well enough to predict what the driver will do next. They said this is very valuable to a motor carrier because the carrier can shut the driver down before he or she has the accident the software predicts is about to happen.

As an advertiser, I love this service. At any given time, a certain number of people within a 3 mile radius of our gym are thinking about joining a gym. Facebook gives me the ability to reach these people at the very moment they are searching for gyms online or are known to be thinking about their health and fitness. I am willing to give Facebook a fair amount of money each month to reach and build my target audience in this way.

So is Donald Trump and most other politicians. National candidates happily give Facebook hundreds of millions of dollars to buy access to the Facebook users they are most interested in reaching.

I'm glad the election season is over. Facebook sells its ad space by auction method. Because millions and millions of dollars were being spent by the politicians for Facebook ads, my price for space went up because that space was in higher demand. The price has declined to normal levels now that the politicians have stopped buying ads, and the Christmas-rush retail ad spending is also over.

To encourage continuing and expanding Facebook use, Facebook constantly changes its rules. If Facebook determines that before-and-after ads turn people off more than they turn people on, advertisers are prohibited from using them. If Facebook determines John and Jane Doe has interests similar to Bruno, Facebook will display content to both that makes it likely the two will connect; and because of that connection, they will likely spend more time on Facebook itself.

In that sense, we are all Facebook advertisers. Anytime we use the service, we are generating data Facebook uses to connect us with like-minded people.

It is not uncommon for paying advertisers to be put in Facebook jail. The rules change all the time based on what Facebook decides is beneficial or detrimental to overall platform use. You get out of jail by modifying your content to what is then allowed by Facebook. For Facebook advertisers, censorship is total. You are not free to express yourself. You are free only to say what Facebook allows.

With the ban of Trump and certain others by Facebook and other big-tech entities, we have clearly entered a new phase in how these private entities regulate their users. Those who decry these restrictions on free-speech grounds, would do well to remember that these are private entities. Just as you would not be allowed to stand in a McDonald's parking lot with a sign advertising your burger place down the street, you are not allowed to do what any privately owned social media platform says you are not allowed to do.

As a Facebook advertiser, I made that bargain long ago. If I wish to play in the Facebook sandbox, I have no choice but to play by their rules. The First Amendment does not apply to Facebook any more than it applies in a McDonald's parking lot.

So too with EO's rules. If you can't play by the EO rules, you can't play here. EO has created a valuable audience that is attractive to many people. But that does not obligate EO to grant unrestricted access to everyone on free-speech grounds. This forum is a private sandbox, like Facebook, like AWS, Google Play and Apple's App Store. Their sandbox. Their rules.
If I had a business I would probably use Facebook to advertise. Especially if I had a gym to run. Gyms need all the help they can get. I had a membership at a health club, but I had to let it go for now. No reason right now to go into a covid rich environment like that.
 

muttly

Veteran Expediter
Remember, some of these social media sites like Twitter became monopolies because they used the pretense of a public forum for exchanging ideas for all people . But now are targeting non leftists pretty much exclusively once they had the power to do so. That is a clear anti trust violation.
 

muttly

Veteran Expediter
The purge continues...
 

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ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
If I had a business I would probably use Facebook to advertise. Especially if I had a gym to run. Gyms need all the help they can get. I had a membership at a health club, but I had to let it go for now. No reason right now to go into a covid rich environment like that.
Going off topic a bit to respond to your comment, gyms are not the "covid rich" environment you suggest. Contact tracing data and other data worldwide now available show gyms are not high-risk environments. Bars are. Restaurants are that do not provide social distancing. Households seem to be the biggest hot-spots. Gyms are lower on the list such that governors like FL Desantis, NY Coumo, and MN Waltz are allowing gyms to fully open or open with certain restrictions. Industry wide, about 1/3 of gyms are expected to fail. Four gyms in our area have closed outright or been sold by owners that went bankrupt. We're in better shape. Just hired three new staff members and invested significant money in a new marketing campaign to further grow the gym. 2020 was a year of decline for us, revenue-wise, compared to 2019. 2021 is already showing itself to be a recovery year and one of new growth. The virus will be beat down in coming months by now-available vaccines. The gyms that survived the shutdowns and economic decline will be stronger than ever because their teams had what it took to adapt and overcome in 2020. In our area, the gyms that went broke were the ones whose owners managed their money poorly (spent it on fancy houses and cars) before covid, and built no loyalty among their staff by treating them like expenses on their spreadsheets instead of human beings that are assets to the business.
 
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dalscott

Expert Expediter
Remember, some of these social media sites like Twitter became monopolies because they used the pretense of a public forum for exchanging ideas for all people . But now are targeting non leftists pretty much exclusively once they had the power to do so. That is a clear anti trust violation.

Have you asked yourself why? All the hate speech and threats couldn’t have anything to do with it could it?
I don’t ever remember the left inciting riots because we lost a fair election. I don’t ever remember the left threatening to kidnap and kill a Republican Governor (or two).
Now we have Republican Congress people being followed and their lives threatened because they followed the constitution. Not to mention the Vice President being threatened.
I got called down on this site because I said that someone is drinking the koolaid..... Really threatening stuff isn’t it? No hate or threat involved. If I had tried to spread lies or hate speech or threats against anyone, I should be kicked off. That’s exactly what FB and Twitter and others are doing now. Has nothing to do with left or right.
Your side lost. Get over it!
Just imagine what you righties would be saying and doing if the roles were reversed? I’ll bet anything I own that you would be coming down far harder than we are.
Think about it.


Sent from my iPhone using EO Forums
 

muttly

Veteran Expediter
Have you asked yourself why? All the hate speech and threats couldn’t have anything to do with it could it?
I don’t ever remember the left inciting riots because we lost a fair election. I don’t ever remember the left threatening to kidnap and kill a Republican Governor (or two).
Now we have Republican Congress people being followed and their lives threatened because they followed the constitution. Not to mention the Vice President being threatened.
I got called down on this site because I said that someone is drinking the koolaid..... Really threatening stuff isn’t it? No hate or threat involved. If I had tried to spread lies or hate speech or threats against anyone, I should be kicked off. That’s exactly what FB and Twitter and others are doing now. Has nothing to do with left or right.
Your side lost. Get over it!
Just imagine what you righties would be saying and doing if the roles were reversed? I’ll bet anything I own that you would be coming down far harder than we are.
Think about it.


Sent from my iPhone using EO Forums
I would educate yourself. There are countless examples of that type of speech made by the Left.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
All the hate speech and threats couldn’t have anything to do with it could it?
Depends on what you define hate speech to be. The Left has increasingly defined hate speech to mean anything the the Left disagrees with. We see that in the countless examples of a liberal and a conservative saying something and only the conservative gets banned from Twitter or Facebook.
don’t ever remember the left inciting riots because we lost a fair election.
You're kidding, right?
Tens of Thousands Protest Trump Election Victory, 124 Arrested
I don’t ever remember the left threatening to kidnap and kill a Republican Governor (or two).
If you're referring to Michigan, those who were plotting that weren't on the right, either. They famously had anti Trump and anti government posts on their social media accounts.
got called down on this site because I said that someone is drinking the koolaid..... Really threatening stuff isn’t it?
Actually you got called down in private, not on this site. And it wasn't for saying someone was drinking Kool-aid, it was for going off topic to attack an individual thereby changing the topic of the thread. We can make that entire conversation thread public if you want.

More to the topic at hand, yes, everybody knows Facebook and Twitter are not constrained in any way by the First Amendment. Everybody also knows that social media has become the de facto Public Square. As such, social media has a social responsibility which they are purposely ignoring.

The idea of free speech, freedom of thought, is not an idea solely within the confines of limiting the government in abridging speech. It is an idea ingrained in every American, government not required. And it's not even restricted to Americans, as people the world over yearn to speak freely their thoughts and opinions. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," was written as an illustration of Voltaire's beliefs. Voltaire was a Frenchman. The quote is often attributed to him directly, and it's sure sounds like him, but he never actually said that. But his attitude in defending speech he disagreed with didn't involve the government. It involved individuals in society at large. Everyone has a natural expectation of being able to say out loud what they believe. That's the same responsibility that social media has, but it's failing utterly to engage.

I'm old enough to remember way back when the only exceptions to protected free speech was shouting fire in a crowded theater, or some other speech that would directly spark panic or rioting or some kind of violent or illegal behavior. Increasingly in the public square the exceptions to protected speech have been expanded to include questioning elections that Democrats won, even being critical of the Left is no longer protected within the public square of social media. Social media isn't even pretending to be a neutral platform anymore.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has famously several times testified in front of Congress that he would welcome congressional regulations over social media. But what he says in less brightly lit environments is the regulations he's talking about are the ones that social media are already doing, regulations that are in the best interest of social media but not in the best interest of society. An example of that is forcing platforms like Parler to adhere to the same standards and regulations as Twitter and the other social media platforms.

Twitter's Jack Dorsey (along with Vijaya Gadde, who manages Twitter policy) and journalist Tim Pool was on the Joe Rogan Podcast a little over a year ago. Tim was given free reign to ask Jack some hard questions, and the responses were stunning. Turns out, even when Twitter thinks it's trying to be neutral, they're not, because they intentionally craft terms of service and rules that explicitly favor the liberal mindset and disfavor the conservative mindset. Jack and Vijaya openly admitted this under questioning from Tim, saying that conservatives should should probably change their way of thinking.

Again, we all know these are private companies and the First Amendment doesn't apply to them, but the idea of freedom of thought and speech, and defending speech with which you disagree, applies to everybody, especially in the public square.
 
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