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Javier E

Opinion | Grifters Gone Wild - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...grifters-gone-wild.html

skepticism nihilism con game fraud psychology credulity

shared by Javier E on 27 May 18 - No Cached
  • Silicon Valley has always had “a flimflam element” and a “fake it ’til you make it” ethos, from the early ’80s, when it was selling vaporware (hardware or software that was more of a concept or work in progress than a workable reality).
  • “We’ve been lionizing and revering these young tech entrepreneurs, treating them not just like princes and princesses but like heroes and icons,” Carreyrou says. “Now that there’s a backlash to Silicon Valley, it will be interesting to see if we reconsider this view that just because you made a lot of money doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a role model for boys and girls.”
  • Jaron Lanier, the scientist and musician known as the father of virtual reality, has a new book out, “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.” He says that the business plans of Facebook and Google have served to “elevate the role of the con artist to be central in society.”
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  • “Anytime people want to contact each other or have an awareness of each other, it can only be when it’s financed by a third party who wants to manipulate us, to change us in some way or affect how we vote or what we buy,” he says. “In the old days, to be in that unusual situation, you had to be in a cult or a volunteer in an experiment in a psychology building or be in an abusive relationship or at a bogus real estate seminar.
  • “We don’t believe in government,” he says. “A lot of people are pissed at media. They don’t like education. People who used to think the F.B.I. was good now think it’s terrible. With all of these institutions the subject of ridicule, there’s nothing — except Skinner boxes and con artists.”
  • “But now you just need to sign onto Facebook to find yourself in a behavior modification loop, which is the con. And this may destroy our civilization and even our species.”
  • As Maria Konnikova wrote in her book, “The Confidence Game,” “The whirlwind advance of technology heralds a new golden age of the grift. Cons thrive in times of transition and fast change” when we are losing the old ways and open to the unexpected.
  • now narcissistic con artists are dominating the main stage, soaring to great heights and spectacularly exploding
sissij

Apple removed the New York Times app in China. Why now? - LA Times - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...pple-china-20170105-story.html

new york times language social media bias

shared by sissij on 06 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • California’s Internet companies may have once dreamed of liberating China through technology, but these days they seem more willing than ever to play the Communist Party's game
  • "This is a restoration of the Cultural Revolution or another historical retrogression," said another.
  • The Washington Post is one of many Western newspapers that carries a regular paid supplement by China Daily, another Communist Party mouthpiece.
  • sissij on 06 Jan 17
     
    The censorship in China has long been a controversial issue that's widely discussed. I think it's very natural that those internet companies play the government the rules to enter the Chinese market because most companies are profit-driven rather than being all idealistic. However, I found the tone of this article very uncomfortable. He used the word "liberating" as if China is in bad condition or great suffer that need American freedom to save. Also, looking back to American history, American heroism plays a big part in what the American government did. They "liberated" Canada, "liberated" Vietnam, "liberated" Pakistan, and now America tries to "liberate" China. However, they never fully understand the pros and cons of censorship and how China is a totally different country to America. One's medicine can toxic for another. --Sissi (1/6/2017)
Javier E

FaceApp helped a middle-aged man become a popular younger woman. His fan base has never... - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ker-faceapp-soya-azusagakuyuki

identity authenticity social media fake avatar Japan psychology

shared by Javier E on 12 May 21 - No Cached
  • Soya’s fame illustrated a simple truth: that social media is less a reflection of who we are, and more a performance of who we want to be.
  • It also seemed to herald a darker future where our fundamental senses of reality are under siege: The AI that allows anyone to fabricate a face can also be used to harass women with “deepfake” pornography, invent fraudulent LinkedIn personas and digitally impersonate political enemies.
  • As the photos began receiving hundreds of likes, Soya’s personality and style began to come through. She was relentlessly upbeat. She never sneered or bickered or trolled. She explored small towns, savored scenic vistas, celebrated roadside restaurants’ simple meals.
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  • She took pride in the basic things, like cleaning engine parts. And she only hinted at the truth: When one fan told her in October, “It’s great to be young,” Soya replied, “Youth does not mean a certain period of life, but how to hold your heart.”
  • She seemed, well, happy, and FaceApp had made her that way. Creating the lifelike impostor had taken only a few taps: He changed the “Gender” setting to “Female,” the “Age” setting to “Teen,” and the “Impression” setting — a mix of makeup filters — to a glamorous look the app calls “Hollywood.”
  • Users in the Internet’s early days rarely had any presumptions of authenticity, said Melanie C. Green, a University of Buffalo professor who studies technology and social trust. Most people assumed everyone else was playing a character clearly distinguished from their real life.
  • Nakajima grew his shimmering hair below his shoulders and raided his local convenience store for beauty supplies he thought would make the FaceApp images more convincing: blushes, eyeliners, concealers, shampoos.
  • “When I compare how I feel when I started to tweet as a woman and now, I do feel that I’m gradually gravitating toward this persona … this fantasy world that I created,” Nakajima said. “When I see photos of what I tweeted, I feel like, ‘Oh. That’s me.’ ”
  • The sensation Nakajima was feeling is so common that there’s a term for it: the Proteus effect, named for the shape-shifting Greek god. Stanford University researchers first coined it in 2007 to describe how people inhabiting the body of a digital avatar began to act the part
  • People made to appear taller in virtual-reality simulations acted more assertively, even after the experience ended. Prettier characters began to flirt.
  • What is it about online disguises? Why are they so good at bending people’s sense of self-perception?
  • they tap into this “very human impulse to play with identity and pretend to be someone you’re not.”
  • Soya pouted and scowled on rare occasions when Nakajima himself felt frustrated. But her baseline expression was an extra-wide smile, activated with a single tap.
  • “This identity play was considered one of the huge advantages of being online,” Green said. “You could switch your gender and try on all of these different personas. It was a playground for people to explore.”
  • But wasn’t this all just a big con? Nakajima had tricked people with a “cool girl” stereotype to boost his Twitter numbers. He hadn’t elevated the role of women in motorcycling; if anything, he’d supplanted them. And the character he’d created was paper thin: Soya had no internal complexity outside of what Nakajima had projected, just that eternally superimposed smile.
  • The Web’s big shift from text to visuals — the rise of photo-sharing apps, live streams and video calls — seemed at first to make that unspoken rule of real identities concrete. It seemed too difficult to fake one’s appearance when everyone’s face was on constant display.
  • Now, researchers argue, advances in image-editing artificial intelligence have done for the modern Internet what online pseudonyms did for the world’s first chat rooms. Facial filters have allowed anyone to mold themselves into the character they want to play.
  • researchers fear these augmented reality tools could end up distorting the beauty standards and expectations of actual reality.
  • Some political and tech theorists worry this new world of synthetic media threatens to detonate our concept of truth, eroding our shared experiences and infusing every online relationship with suspicion and self-doubt.
  • Deceptive political memes, conspiracy theories, anti-vaccine hoaxes and other scams have torn the fabric of our democracy, culture and public health.
  • But she also thinks about her kids, who assume “that everything online is fabricated,” and wonders whether the rules of online identity require a bit more nuance — and whether that generational shift is already underway.
  • “Bots pretending to be people, automated representations of humanity — that, they perceive as exploitative,” she said. “But if it’s just someone engaging in identity experimentation, they’re like: ‘Yeah, that’s what we’re all doing.'
  • To their generation, “authenticity is not about: ‘Does your profile picture match your real face?’ Authenticity is: ‘Is your voice your voice?’
  • “Their feeling is: ‘The ideas are mine. The voice is mine. The content is mine. I’m just looking for you to receive it without all the assumptions and baggage that comes with it.’ That’s the essence of a person’s identity. That’s who they really are.”
  • It wasn’t until the rise of giant social networks like Facebook — which used real identities to, among other things, supercharge targeted advertising — that this big game of pretend gained an air of duplicity. Spaces for playful performance shrank, and the biggest Internet watering holes began demanding proof of authenticity as a way to block out malicious intent.
  • Perhaps he should have accepted his irrelevance and faded into the digital sunset, sharing his life for few to see. But some of Soya’s followers have said they never felt deceived: It was Nakajima — his enthusiasm, his attitude about life — they’d been charmed by all along. “His personality,” as one Twitter follower said, “shined through.”
  • In Nakajima’s mind, he’d used the tools of a superficial medium to craft genuine connections. He had not felt real until he had become noticed for being fake.
  • Nakajima said he doesn’t know how long he’ll keep Soya alive. But he said he’s grateful for the way she helped him feel: carefree, adventurous, seen.
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