Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook should be broken up

[PokerPacker]

7 hours ago, China said:

CNN Poll: Three out of four adults think Facebook is making society worse

 

Roughly three-quarters of adults believe Facebook is making American society worse, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds, with about half saying they know somebody who was persuaded to believe in a conspiracy theory because of the site's content.

 

Americans say, 76% to 11%, that Facebook makes society worse, not better, according to the survey. Another 13% say it has no effect either way. That broadly negative appraisal holds across gender, age and racial lines. Even frequent Facebook users -- those who report using the site at least several times a week -- say 70% to 14% that the social network harms, rather than helps, US society. Although majorities across parties say Facebook is doing more harm than good, that feeling spikes among Republicans (82%).

Among the majority overall who think Facebook is worsening society, however, there's less of an overwhelming consensus on whether or not the platform itself is primarily to blame: 55% say that the way some people use Facebook is more at fault, with 45% saying it's more due to the way Facebook itself is run.

Overall, about one-third of the public -- including 44% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats -- say both that Facebook is making American society worse and that Facebook itself is more at fault than its users.

Roughly half of Americans, 49%, say they know someone who they think was persuaded to believe in a conspiracy theory because of content on Facebook. That number is higher among younger Americans: 61% of adults younger than 35 saying they know someone who adopted a conspiracy theory based on Facebook content, compared with just 35% of those age 65 or older.

 

Click on the link for the full article

And what percent of them use it, anyways?

[China]

India police to question Amazon executives in probe over marijuana smuggling

 

Police in India's Madhya Pradesh state have summoned Amazon.com Inc's local executives as it investigates a case where the e-commerce platform was allegedly used for smuggling marijuana, a police official said on Monday.

 

The police on Sunday arrested two men in the state with 20 kg of marijuana and found they were using Amazon's India shopping website to order and smuggle the substance further to various states.

 

Smugglers used the Amazon India platform to order and deliver the drug, which was listed under the guise of dry stevia leaves, a natural food sweetener. The Amazon platform was allegedly used for 1,000 kilograms of such marijuana sales so far, worth $148,000, police alleged in its statement.

 

On Monday, Manoj Singh, a senior police official in the district, said Amazon executives have been asked to explain how their platform could be used for the sale of banned substances.

 

"The international company has the power of artificial intelligence, so it's a big thing happening on their platform," Singh said. "There is involvement of Amazon at many levels in this marijuana delivery - from providing logistical support to delivery."

 

"The lawyers from Amazon will probably visit us tomorrow."

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

So do you order marijuana through Amazon Smile?

[The Evil Genius]

 

[China]

DA asks California judge to compel Facebook to release militia data

 

Second Judicial District Attorney Raúl Torrez asked a California judge on Monday to order Facebook to turn over information about a New Mexico militia group, alleging the social media giant has refused to produce documents subpoenaed for a lawsuit his office filed last year.

 

Torrez alleges that Facebook has either destroyed or withheld information related to a Facebook page created by leaders of the group, the New Mexico Civil Guard.

 

A Facebook spokesman responded Monday that the social media company cooperates with law enforcement requests as a matter of policy and remains in discussions with Torrez’s office.

“Facebook has resisted our attempts to secure this vital information, which will help us prove our case here in New Mexico,” Torrez, of the 2nd Judicial District, said Monday in a news conference.

 

The petition, filed in California Superior Court for the County of San Mateo, California, asks a judge to enforce a New Mexico subpoena that would “compel Facebook to produce the requested information and records.”

 

The New Mexico Civil Guard is a heavily armed self-described militia group that showed up last year at several protests around Albuquerque, including a June 2020 protest of the Juan de Oñate statue in Old Town. Shortly after that protest, Torrez filed a lawsuit against the Civil Guard trying to limit its activities.

 

The lawsuit alleges that civilian militias can be activated only by the state’s governor. The Civil Guard was acting like law enforcement with no legal authority to do so, according to the suit, which remains pending.

 

Torrez said Monday that Facebook took down the group’s Facebook page in August 2020 after the company determined that the Civil Guard had violated the company’s policy barring hate speech and dangerous organizations from the social media platform.

 

“Throughout this period, we worked with Facebook to try and get access to account information so that we could understand who opened these accounts, how they were used and who maintained control,” Torrez said. “Facebook has at the same time refused the attempts by this office to secure basic information.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Ohio attorney general files lawsuit claiming Facebook misled investors about safety measures

 

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, faces new charges from investors for allegedly violating federal securities laws by presenting inaccurate statements about the harm its products can cause.

 

The lawsuit from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost alleges Facebook misled the public on the negative effects its apps can have on kids’ wellbeing. Yost filed the case as a federal class action suit on behalf of an Ohio public pension fund and other Facebook investors.

 

The case follows disclosures from former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, who handed over a trove of documents containing internal research to journalists, Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The documents showed Facebook had conducted research assessing the mental health impact of its Instagram app on adolescents and found the photo-sharing service worsened body issues for one in three teenage girls.

 

Facebook countered by pointing to the positive impact its services can have on users and claimed some of the results from the study on mental health were misinterpreted. But many lawmakers and parents said Facebook should have done more to minimize harm and improve the experience for users.

 

A spokesperson for Meta called the suit “without merit” in a statement and said, “we will defend ourselves vigorously.”

 

The lawsuit alleges CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other company officials knowingly made false statements about the safety and security of its services. It says the declining value of Facebook’s stock since the documents were first released caused the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) and other investors to lose more than $100 billion.

 

Yost is seeking to recover the lost value and require Facebook to change its practices to ensure it doesn’t mislead the public in the future.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

We’re Making the Facebook Papers Public. Here’s Why and How

 

In one of Silicon Valley’s largest leaks, a former Facebook product manager slipped financial regulators stacks of documents containing thousands of confidential memos, chat logs, and a veritable library of hidden research. The leak was designed to convince the feds that the gravity and scope of Facebook’s design flaws and misdeeds vastly exceed anything its executives ever divulged to their investors.

 

The documents, captured by whistleblower Frances Haugen and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, were also handed to members of a Senate Commerce subcommittee chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat of Connecticut who last month called Instagram “a breeding ground for eating disorders and self harm.” And it’s from here that Gizmodo and some 300 other mostly Western journalists derived their access.

 

We believe there’s a strong public need in making as many of the documents public as possible, as quickly as possible. To that end, we’ve partnered with a small group of independent monitors, who are joining us to establish guidelines for an accountable review of the documents prior to publication. The mission is to minimize any costs to individuals’ privacy or the furtherance of other harms while ensuring the responsible disclosure of the greatest amount of information in the public interest.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

The Metaverse Is Facebook's Play for Complete Social Domination

 

Ever since Mark Zuckerberg started talking about the “metaverse,” and Facebook changed its name to Meta, the internet has struggled to explain what that means. We have an explainer on the metaverse, but even that’s based on vague promises from Facebook representatives. There’s no clear picture on what Meta wants to do, but I think I have an idea.

 

The metaverse is Facebook’s play at social and cultural hegemony—a scheme to mask one company establishing control over how its technology is used by most human beings.

 

Does that sound crazy? Well, look at Facebook. It’s a social media platform that billions of people use to stay in touch and get their “news,” while that same platform has been accused of society-manipulating schemes for years. Profiting off of misinformation about everything from cigarettes and elections to vaccines, enabling and promoting extremists, and (this stings as someone in this industry) sharing misleading numbers about its video traffic, which prompted many outlets to shift their own strategies and lay off staffers.

 

Is a family member risking their life by refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccination? They probably were told of “dangers” in a Facebook group. Is a friend repeating lies about the 2020 election being stolen? They were probably told about “fraud” on Facebook. Are you already angry at me and going to comment on this article about vaccinations and elections? When was the last time you were on Facebook?

 

A Facebook You Can't Escape
Okay, so Facebook has (allegedly) done some sketchy things. What does that have to do with the metaverse? Well, whether it’s called Facebook or Meta, it’s the same company working on the concept, and it's stated very clearly that it wants to be the “next evolution of social connection.” It will use virtual reality, augmented reality, smart displays, and other technologies to bring people together under a single overarching platform run by the company.

 

Facebook’s already huge, and it’s already available on everything from computers to phones to the company’s own Oculus VR headsets and Portal smart displays. But it’s still just a social media service, a feed of posts combined with direct messaging, marketplace, and (fudged numbers or not) video features. Facebook’s the thing you go to to check on people you know, any news that might pop up, and maybe if someone’s selling an old Game Boy nearby. And it’s just that: A single service you can walk away from.

 

The metaverse wants to combine that service with VR headsets, AR displays, smart glasses, and a wider variety of experiences to turn Facebook into something bigger and more socially fundamental. Mark Zuckerberg’s hour-long introduction (above) of the metaverse outlines that pretty clearly, showing how VR and AR will let you connect even more with your loved ones  And that’s where it starts looking as sinister as it does silly.

 

Remember, Facebook is a service you can look away from. It’s on a screen, but when you click on something else, it’s gone. The metaverse is a plan to break down those boundaries and turn Facebook into something you can’t really leave, because it’s always around you.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[ixcuincle]

 

[ixcuincle]

 

[Renegade7]

I'm so sick of these Facebook commercials where they trot out employees begging the government to tell them how to regulate their own platform.  

[China]

Amazon Tells Driver To Stay In Her Van During Tornado Or Lose Her Job

 

Many, if not all of us have had bad days at work. It’s making a living, not making margaritas, right? Maybe your boss has wanted something unreasonable done, or a client has suddenly and unexpectedly really needed your deliverable by EoD. Most of us, however, haven’t had a work day as bad as one Amazon driver: Forced to, potentially, choose between her living and her life.

 

On December 10th, a tornado demolished an Amazon fulfillment center in Edwardsville, IL. One driver, out making deliveries in the tornado’s path, heard warnings on the radio and relayed them to her dispatcher. Then she heard the sirens. Then she heard that returning to the distribution center would cost her her job. Bloomberg obtained, and verified, a series of texts between the driver and dispatcher:

 

Quote

7:08 pm

Driver: Radios been going off.
Dispatch: OK. Just keep driving. We can’t just call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to do so.
Driver: Just relaying in case y’all didn’t hear it over there.

7:40 pm

Driver: Tornado alarms are going off over here.
Dispatch: Just keep delivering for now. We have to wait for word from Amazon. If we need to bring people back, the decision will ultimately be up to them. I will let you know if the situation changes at all. I’m talking with them now about it.
Driver: How about for my own personal safety, I’m going to head back. Having alarms going off next to me and nothing but locked building around me isn’t sheltering in place. That’s wanting to turn this van into a casket. Hour left of delivery time. And if you look at the radar, the worst of the storm is going to be right on top of me in 30 minutes.
Driver: It was actual sirens.

Dispatch: “If you decided to come back, that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won’t be viewed as for your own safety. The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages, it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job come tomorrow morning. The sirens are just a warning.
Driver: I’m literally stuck in this damn van without a safe place to go with a tornado on the ground.
Dispatch: Amazon is saying shelter in place.
Dispatch: I will know when they say anything else to me.
Dispatch: [Driver name] you need to shelter in place. The wind just came through the warehouse and ripped the rts door and broke it so even if you got back here, you can’t get in the building. You need to stop and shelter in place.
Driver: Okay.

 

[Fergasun]

Is it possible for Congress to just start regulating companies with X employees, Y annual profit, Z CEO::minimum wage ratio to break these companies up?  

 

Seems like Amazon breaks labor laws.  

 

Unfortunatly I can't find much on FLSA enforcement action and it seems like FLSA is in need of some reforms on the extreme end. 

[Larry]

2 hours ago, Fergasun said:

Is it possible for Congress to just start regulating companies with X employees, Y annual profit, Z CEO::minimum wage ratio to break these companies up?  

 

Seems like Amazon breaks labor laws.  

 

Unfortunatly I can't find much on FLSA enforcement action and it seems like FLSA is in need of some reforms on the extreme end. 

I've had thoughts of a "too big to fail" tax. Kind of a "corporate AMT". 
 

I'm thinking along the lines of "Any company with total gross revenues above $X (a billion?) per year must pay at least (4%?) of their gross revenue as corporate income tax. No matter how many deductions they have."

[China]

A Kentucky Amazon employee couldn't drive to work after a deadly tornado. She says HR refused to excuse her absence — until she tweeted at a top exec

 

Leslie Campbell said she used to chase tornadoes as a teenager — but the storm last Friday was different.

 

"It became pitch white from the rain," she told Insider. "It had a weird feeling to it."

 

The tornadoes that ripped through the Midwest and parts of the South on Friday night were some of the deadliest on record, killing more than 70 people in Kentucky alone. One tornado landed just two miles away from Campbell's home in Taylor County, about 90 miles south of Louisville, she said.

 

After sheltering with her mother through the night, 33-year-old Campbell left at 4:45 a.m. for her Saturday shift at the Amazon warehouse in Campbellsville, Kentucky. She took the job as a picker in September because the early hours gave her flexibility to help her sister, a single mother.

 

En route, Campbell was turned back by police searching for survivors near a sheep farm destroyed by the storm, she told Insider. She stopped in a church — the only place where she could find cell service — and called Amazon's HR team known as the Employee Resource Center (ERC).

 

Campbell said she explained she was physically unable to make it to her shift due to tornado damage. On the other end of the line, an ERC representative told her it had no record of the twisters, she said. For Campbell, missing work put her attendance record in "negative UPT," according to screenshots viewed by Insider, a status that she said could threaten her job.

 

Amazon gives workers a certain amount of paid time off and unpaid time off, or UPT. Dipping into negative UPT, or taking more than the allotted UPT, can be grounds for dismissal, Campbell said. This is consistent with what Amazon employees have previously told Insider about negative UPT.

 

After attempting to drive to work two more times with no luck, Campbell tried reaching a company executive on Twitter.

 

 

Campbell's tweet generated hundreds of responses, and among the wave of replies was one from Clark.

 

"Sorry Leslie I shared with the team we will get it fixed for you all," he wrote.

 

After Clark replied, Campbell said she received a call back from the ERC, which once again told her there was no record of tornadoes in the area and advised her to bring the matter up at her next shift.

 

Then, she got another call.

 

"The person seemed very, very excited," Campbell said. An HR rep told her Amazon would excuse her Saturday shift and pay her for the 11 hours she missed.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

 

 

[China]

Facebook reportedly tried to run a real-life manipulation campaign on Congress

 

If you didn’t know by now, manipulation is the modus operandi for Facebook and its parent company, Meta. 

 

That manipulation isn’t confined to the web, it seems; it apparently extends into the real world.

 

After whistleblower Frances Haugen alleged that Facebook manipulates its users and knowingly disregards its negative impact on children, Facebook sent lobbyists and other staffers to convince both Democrats and Republicans that taking action against the platform would serve the opposing party, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

 

In other words, Facebook employees were reportedly running a real-life political manipulation effort that mirrored the kind of political feuds the company stokes for profit online.

Here’s how the Wall Street Journal described Facebook’s scheme: 

 

Quote

To lawmakers and advocacy groups on the right, according to people familiar with the conversations, their message was that Ms. Haugen was trying to help Democrats. Within hours, several conservative news outlets published stories alleging Ms. Haugen was a Democratic activist.

 

Later, Facebook lobbyists warned Democratic staffers that Republicans were focused on the company’s decision to ban expressions of support for Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people during unrest in Kenosha, Wis., and who was later acquitted of homicide and other charges.

 

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook aimed to “muddy the waters” and “divide lawmakers along partisan lines and forestall a cross-party alliance that was emerging to enact tougher rules on social-media companies in general and Facebook in particular.” 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Renegade7]

Looks like Facebook is up first...

 

 

[China]

How to Download Everything Amazon Knows About You (It's a Lot)

 

Here’s a fun thought experiment; picture the amount of personal data you think tech companies keep on you. Now, realize it’s actually way more than that (hmm, maybe this isn’t that fun). Even as privacy and security become more talked about in consumer tech, the companies behind our favorite products are collecting more and more of our data. How much? Well, if you want to know the information, say, Amazon has on you, there is a way to find out. And it’s a lot.

 

To be clear, data collection is far from an Amazon-specific problem; it’s pretty much par for the course when it comes to tech companies. Even Apple, a company vocal about user privacy, has faced criticism in the past for recording Siri interactions and sharing them with third-party contractors.

 

The issue with Amazon, however, is the extent to which they collect and archive your data. Just about everything you do on, with, and around an Amazon product or service is logged and recorded. Sure, you might not be surprised to learn that when you visit Amazon’s website, the company logs your browsing history and shopping data. But it goes far beyond that. Since Amazon owns Whole Foods, it also saves your shopping history there. When you watch video content through its platforms, it records all of that information, too.

 

Things get even creepier with other Amazon products. If you read books on a Kindle, Amazon records your reading activity, including the speed of your page turns (I wonder if Bezos prefers a slow or fast page flip); if you peered into your Amazon data, you might find something similar to what a Reuter’s reporter found: On Aug. 8 2020, someone on that account read The Mitchell Sisters: A Complete Romance Series from 4:52 p.m. through 7:36 p.m., completing 428 pages. (Nice sprint.)

 

If you have one of Amazon’s smart speakers, you’re on the record with everything you’ve ever uttered to the device: When you ask Alexa a question or give it a command, Amazon saves the audio files for the entire interaction. If you know how to access you data, you can listen to every one of those audio files, and relive moments you may or may not have realized were recorded.

 

How to download all of your Amazon data

 

To start, , or go to Amazon’s Help page. You’ll find the link under Security and Privacy > More in Security & Privacy > Privacy > How Do I Request My Data? Once there, click the “Request My Data” link.

 

From the dropdown menu, choose the data you want from Amazon. If you want everything, choose “Request All Your Data.” Hit “Submit Request,” then click the validation link in your email. That’s it. 

 

Click on the link for more

[China]

 

[Renegade7]

@China jus made the data request for Amazon, said it could take a month, gonna compare to the data request I got from Facebook before I closed it, see which is worse, thanks for that article

Edited January 29, 2022 by Renegade7

[China]

Mark Zuckerberg is in danger of losing his top 10 billionaire ranking

 

The historic collapse in Meta's shares this week has wiped $31 billion off Mark Zuckerberg's personal wealth, taking him down three places on Bloomberg's list of the world's richest people.

 

He now stands in 10th place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, behind Oracle (ORCL) co-founder Larry Ellison and just a few hundred million dollars above India's energy-to-tech entrepreneur, Mukesh Ambani. Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk tops the list by a wide margin.

Meta Platforms, the company formerly known as Facebook (FB), had its worst day ever on the stock market Thursday, after reporting a rare profit decline and stagnant user numbers, and delivering a vague assessment of the company's prospects as it invests heavily in augmented and virtual reality.

"This fully realized vision is still a ways off," Zuckerberg said on a call with analysts. "And although the direction is clear, our path ahead is not yet perfectly defined."

The company's shares closed down more than 26%, shaving nearly $240 billion from its market value.

Zuckerberg, 37, owns more than 398 million Meta shares, or 14.2% of the company, according to an SEC filing from February 2021, the most recent filing available.

Following the crash, the CEO and co-founder is now worth $89.6 billion, just $400 million more than Ambani, who controls Reliance Industries and is Asia's richest man, according to the Bloomberg ranking.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Renegade7]

 

https://time.com/6146178/meta-facebook-eu-withdraw-data/

 

I'm so glad EU took the lead on digital privacy rights, the framework they have been building on can totally be pointed to on what to do here. Thank you, GDPR.

 

https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/

[China]

So Facebook lets all kinds of dangerous misinformation go unchecked, but post some Comanche and you're suspended:

 

 

[China]

META BAND WITH TWO CAMERAS MAKES VIDEO CHATS AND VLOGGING THE CENTER OF YOUR METAVERSE EXPERIENCE

 

Meta’s first stake in the Metaverse might not be a VR headset (even though the company killed the Oculus brand and promptly named it Meta) but a smar****ch that could make you lose more time in video chats, vlogging, and, of course, VR.

 

Even before Zucerberg’s Facebook rebranded itself to proclaim its new obsession, the social media giant was already rumored to have its eyes on the wearables market. Its focus on the Metaverse might have sounded like it would be ditching those plans, but, on the contrary, its vision for a smar****ch would fit in perfectly with this. Meta was recently granted a patent that shows its vision for such a wearable, and, to no one’s surprise, it’s going to be more about keeping in touch than keeping time.

 

 

Having a front-facing camera is quite on par for a company best known for capitalizing on any opportunity to be social. Back when it was still Facebook, it launched its first smart display product line, and Portal was clearly designed for video chats via Messenger. In addition to plain posts on social media, Meta has been doubling down on real-time communication channels, especially during the past years, where video chats have become critical to keeping human civilization from collapsing.

 

Thus Meta or Facebook-branded smar****ch with that core functionality wouldn’t be so far-fetched, but that might just be the tip of the iceberg. Rather than straining people’s arms when making video calls, it seems that Meta has envisioned a way to make such chats fun again. And it all starts with another camera on the watch.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Seems like a scarlet letter to me.  If you see somebody wearing one of those, cross to the other side of the street and keep your distance.

[China]

Seems like Meta wants to move towards this:

 

 

[Bang]

I go to facebook for one reason anymore, and it's because I am an admin of a page devoted to the F-18 program office. Every morning I post one time, "today's cool photo", and a picture of an F/A-18 Hornet, Super Hornet, or an EA-18G Growler. 
They have been flagging my posts as spam.

the admin of a page posting one picture each day of the very thing the page is about.. is spam.

 

 

~Bang