Social Media Platforms Need To Be Regulated! NYU Prof Sees "Dangerous Issues For Society"

Authored by Vasant Dhar, NYU Sterm Professor, op-ed via CNBC,

Unregulated social media platforms pose significant societal risks. That"s what we found out after the 2016 election, when it became clear that social media had been used for political mass manipulation in the world"s oldest democracy.

We should not be surprised. Despite a large scale scientific study conducted by Facebook in 2012 demonstrating that users" moods could be manipulated via messages fed to them, it continued to maintain a position of "algorithmic neutrality" on content. Given what we"ve witnessed, this won"t do going forward.

The Facebook study of 2012 had sparked outrage and concern around the use of data for social experimentation without consent of human subjects. It was worrisome that data usage policies of virtually all digital platforms had become increasingly rapacious over the years, allowing them to do what they please with the data they collect assiduously. Facebook"s social experiment wouldn"t have been approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) for university research involving human subjects.

But the outrage has resulted in little thus far. There was no regulatory body and there still isn"t one that addresses unethical or harmful uses of platform data even though the implications are arguably as serious as those involving national security. The very real possibility that a party with meager resources can potentially influence a democratic election represents an incalculable "externality" imposed on us through a trust vulnerability in our social media ecosystem.

Because trust is so important when it comes to our money, we have historically held banks and financial firms to much higher standards of compliance and control than other businesses. Financial institutions are required to follow well-defined processes with oversight and failsafe plans aimed at minimizing risk and maximizing public trust.

The terror attacks of 2001 ushered in stringent Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations requiring such institutions know their customers in great detail. The 2008-2009 crisis resulted in further regulation aimed at mitigating economic instability and curbing the use of funds for financing terrorism and other illicit activity.

In contrast, the news industry is expected to largely regulate itself. We pride ourselves on our freedom of the press, and the freedom of expression. Indeed, one of the wonders of the Internet era is the empowerment of individuals as publishers on digital platforms.

However, unlike news organizations whose reputations ultimately depend on careful verification, we have allowed digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter to function without much regard to the risks of propaganda and bias they create. They are now promising us they will do better in the future by employing more people for fact checking. Would we have trusted the bankers with such a promise after the financial crisis and left them alone to regulate themselves?

An important lesson learned from the rise of digital platforms is that they disrupt industries by blurring the boundaries between them. Which industry does Amazon belong to? What about Google? Facebook? Apple? The answers are increasingly vague. And yet regulation continues to be siloed largely by industry, like finance, retail, and telecommunication despite their increasing irrelevance in classifying some of our largest and most powerful businesses.

KYC is critical to finance because every industry uses financial services. Since digital platforms are becoming similarly ubiquitous to virtually every industry, KYC requirements should be considered for them, similar to those for financial institutions.

Advertisements on mass media are plain for everyone to see, and political ads require disclosing who paid for them. Yet in the narrowcasting world of digital targeting it is possible for parties to target individuals with customized hate speech ads completely under the radar without the public or regulators ever noticing, or even without the platform designers being aware of their algorithms being used in ways they had never envisioned or intended!

Requiring KYC requirements on digital platforms is not new. Airbnb already does an automated KYC in real time through verification of government issued IDs. Social media platforms could be required to do something similar but with the added restriction of requiring foreign publishers to obtain legitimate U.S. issued IDs to advertise in the U.S. This would pre-empt the use of legitimate identities issued by governments who may be sponsors of illicit activity or harmful propaganda.

Secondly, we need better guidelines around the ethical use of data, especially around profiling and social manipulation. Business should follow IRB policies around the use of human subjects for social experimentation similar to university researchers, regardless of their stated data usage policies which most individuals don"t even read let alone understand.

For too long, regulators have turned a blind eye to the use of data, emboldening digital platforms to do as they please with no oversight. We need something more proactive approach, where social platforms disclose broadly their data mining goals and policies and demonstrate that they are not violating the implicit intentions of users who entrusted them with their data. These points are not intended to be critical of Facebook and Twitter, but a warning that social media platforms in general pose risks that need to be considered seriously by regulators in free societies.

There are no easy answers, but turning a blind eye to this new Internet phenomenon will continue to expose us to considerable peril in the future. The U.S. government and our regulators need to understand how digital platforms can be weaponized and misused against its citizens, and equally importantly, against democracy itself.

*  *  *

Scared yet... you should be... you"ll be begging for governemnt to regulate the freedom of speech out of social media soon enough... because it"s for your own security... or democracy itself is at stake - right? </sarc..>

Facebook Handing Over More Info To US Government: "This Is What Facebook Was Designed To Do"

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Every year, Facebook gets tens of thousands of requests for data from governments worldwide, including search warrants, subpoenas, or calls to restrict certain kinds of content. And, according to a new report, those requests are increasing at an alarming rate.

According to QZ.com, in the United States, the requests rose by 26% from the last six months of 2016 to the first six months of 2017, while globally, requests increased by about 21%. Since 2013, when the company first started providing data on government requests, the US number has been steadily rising - it has roughly tripled in a period of four years.

This is alarming many and causing a concern about privacy.  Joe Joseph, from the Daily Sheeple, isn’t sugarcoating the reality of Facebook either.  “Duh. This is exactly what Facebook was designed to do,” says Joseph.

“You have to remember that Zuckerberg had “seed money” and that seed money came from CIA front companies that put a lot of resources into this and…basically think about it as like, sowing seeds; if you will. They knew that Facebook was gonna bear fruit.

 

I don’t think they realized just how big it would become. But I can tell you that they get so much information and intel from social media:  I don’t think that it would go away even if we wanted it to.”

The government keeps requesting the information, and Facebook continues to comply with the government’s demands. 

In the first six months of 2013, it granted the government - which includes the police - 79% of requests (“some data was produced” in these cases, the company says); in the first six months of 2017, that share rose to 85%. “We continue to carefully scrutinize each request we receive for account data — whether from an authority in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere — to make sure it is legally sufficient,” Chris Sonderby, the company’s general counsel, wrote in a post. “If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back, and will fight in court, if necessary.”

But Joseph thinks Facebook is just trying to pacify the easily manipulated sheeple of society.

“This is pretty troubling when you think about what you put out there, what they collect, and Facebook only being one of the many avenues that they have,” Joseph says.

 

“The United States is collecting your data. Whether you like it or not. They are scooping up everything. And they’re taking it and they’re storing it in their facility at Bluffdale, Utah which has the capacity at this time to store every communication on the face of this earth for the next one hundred years.”

 

“It’s unbelievable,” Joseph continues.  “This is stuff that is unacceptable to me, but I’m sure, to a lot of you. And these companies have really gone too far…they can reconstruct your life and make anyone they want a patsy.”

Facebook Founder Warns "God Only Knows What It"s Doing To Kids" Brains"

38-year-old founding president of Facebook, Sean Parker, was uncharacteristically frank about his creation in an interview with Axios. So much so in fact that he concluded, Mark Zuckerberg will probably block his account after reading this.

Confirming every "big brother" conspiracy there is about the social media giant, Parker explained how social networks purposely hook users and potentially hurt our brains...

"When Facebook was getting going, I had these people who would come up to me and they would say, "I"m not on social media." And I would say, "OK. You know, you will be." And then they would say, "No, no, no. I value my real-life interactions. I value the moment. I value presence. I value intimacy." And I would say, ... "We"ll get you eventually.""

 

"I don"t know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because [of] the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and ... it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other ... It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it"s doing to our children"s brains."

 

"The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, ... was all about: "How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?""

 

"And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that"s going to get you to contribute more content, and that"s going to get you ... more likes and comments."

 

"It"s a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you"re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology."

 

"The inventors, creators — it"s me, it"s Mark [Zuckerberg], it"s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it"s all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."

In this "confessional", it appears Parker has become "something of a conscientious objector" on social media.

Howeever , as Axios notes, Parker ends with just enough crazy to make you wonder...

"Because I"m a billionaire, I"m going to have access to better health care so ... I"m going to be like 160 and I"m going to be part of this, like, class of immortal overlords. [Laughter]

 

Because, you know the [Warren Buffett] expression about compound interest. ... [G]ive us billionaires an extra hundred years and you"ll know what ... wealth disparity looks like."

Facebook, Instagram Experiencing "Extreme" Outages As Complaints Pile Up

Facebook and Instagram are down for thousands of users across the world this morning, with websites like Outage Report recording “extreme” outages in the US Hungary, Kosovo, Germany, Poland and other countries. The sites went down shortly after 11 a.m.

This is the second widespread outage for both social networks (Instagram is owned by Facebook) in less than two months. Facebook blamed the most recent outage, which occurred on Aug. 26, on unspecified “technical issues.”

Most complaints are reporting a total blackout with many others complaining that users are unable to log in. Many other sites are showing up as having "extreme" outages, according to NBC 4.

The outage doesn’t appear to be affecting all users, and the cause for issues aren’t immediately clear.  Facebook has yet to issue a statement.

The website outage report said almost 2,000 users had complained that they couldn’t reach the site in the last 20 minutes, while downdetector.com said it had seen a spike in reported problems including a total blackout for some users, difficulty logging in and problems with the apps. Facebook users took to Twitter to complain that the site was down, according to the FT.

Oh, Facebook is down. pic.twitter.com/eykcDkizxq

— Kazuhiro Sera (@seratch) October 11, 2017

As the outage continues into its second hour, social media managers everywhere are probably starting to panic....

Every social media manager right now.IS THIS THE END?#facebookdown #nobodypanic #nowweactuallyhavetotalktoeachother #everyoneturnstotwitter pic.twitter.com/Ot9sxtZMh7

— Jade Beard Film (@Jadebeard) October 11, 2017

To Increase America&#039;s Productivity, Ban This...

Aside from short-lived booms in the 1990s and 2000s, US productivity growth has averaged just 1.2% from 1975 up to today after peaking above 3% in 1972.

As we detailed previously, adjusting for the WWII anomaly (which tells us that GDP is not a good measure of a country’s prosperity) US productivity growth peaked in 1972 – incidentally the year after Nixon took the US off gold.

The productivity decline witnessed ever since is unprecedented. Despite the short lived boom of the 1990s US productivity growth only average 1.2 per cent from 1975 up to today.

If we isolate the last 15 years US productivity growth is on par with what an agrarian slave economy was able to achieve 200 years ago.

As we reported last year, users spent 51% of their total internet time on mobile devices, for a total of 5.6 hours per day snapchatting, face-booking, insta-graming and taking selfies.

It"s an everyday sight - people using their phones while sitting on the train, waiting for a bus, or even having a meal with their partner.

What exactly are they doing the whole time though?

When it comes to social networks, Verto Analytics may have the answer. The most time spent in the U.S. on a "mainstream" app is the 899 minutes per month of the average Facebook user.

The social network whose users invest the most time though is a networking app for gay, bi, and curious men - Grindr. WIth a huge 1,040 minutes on average, that"s over 17 hours every month.

In third place, Growlr is also a networking/dating app for homosexual men. The average user here spends 665 minutes per month.

In eighth, Twitter"s struggles are again highlighted, with only 176 minutes in Q3 2017.

Figures refer to usage across all platforms, not just mobile.

You will find more statistics at Statista

So, maybe in their next wide-ranging study, economists could include a test group of workers who leave their phones in a locker at the beginning of the work day, and try to measure how much their “productivity” improves. So, while every effort can be made by Ivory Tower academics to solve the problem of American worker productivity, perhaps it can be summed up simply as "Put The Smart-Phone Down!"

One Simple Chart Proves That Facebook Thinks You&#039;re A Moron

Last week we jokingly wrote about a Facebook press release that was apparently an honest effort by the social media giant intended to summarize Russian efforts to undermine the 2016 election using their social media platform. That said, at least to us, it seemed as though Facebook unwittingly proved what a farce the entire "Russian collusion" narrative had become as, after digging through advertising data for the better part of full year, Facebook reported that they found a "staggering" $50,000 worth of ad buys that "MAY" have been purchased by Russian-linked accounts to run "potentially politically related" ads.

Not surprisingly, after being attacked by the mainstream media and even Hillary for "assisting" the Russians, Zuckerberg is once again in the press today fanning the flames of the "Russian collusion" narrative by saying that Facebook will release to Congress the details of the 3,000 ads that "MAY" have been purchased by Russian-linked accounts.

And while it seems obvious, please allow us to once again demonstrate why this entire process is so utterly bizarre... 

The chart below demonstrates how the $50,000 worth of ad buys that "MAY" have been purchased by Russian-linked accounts to run "potentially politically related" ads compares to the $26.8 billion in ad revenue that Facebook generated in the U.S. over the same time period between 3Q 2015 and 2Q 2017....If $50,000 can swing an entire presidential election can you imagine what $26.8 billion can do?

Of course, not all of that $26.8 billion was spent on political advertising so we took a shot at breaking it down further.  While Facebook doesn"t disclose political spending as a percent of their overall advertising revenue, we did a little digging and found that political advertising represented ~5% of the overall ad market in the U.S. in 2016.  We further assumed that political share of the overall ad market is roughly half of that amount in non-election years, or 2.5%. 

Using that data, we figure that Facebook may get ~3.5% of their annual revenue from political advertising in an average year, or nearly $1 billion per year...give or take a few million.  Unfortunately, as the chart below once again demonstrates, this still does little to support Zuckerberg"s thesis that the $50,000 he keeps talking about is in any way relevant to the 2016 election.

Of course, the pursuit of this ridiculous narrative proves that Zuckerberg has no interest in spreading the truth about how his company impacted (and by "impacted," we mean "had no impact at all") the 2016 election, but rather is only interested in shoving his political agenda down the throats of an American public that he presumes is too stupid to question his propaganda. 

That said, if Zuckerberg is really just on a mission for truth, as he says he is, perhaps he can stop patronizing the American public and disclose the full facts surrounding political advertising on Facebook.  We suspect a simple financial disclosure detailing how much political advertising was sold on Facebook from 3Q 2015 - 2Q 2017, broken down by political affiliation, would go a long way toward proving just how meaningless $50,000 is in the grand scheme of things. 

That said, somehow we suspect "truth" is not really Zuckerberg"s end goal, now is it?

The FBI Confirms "Retweets Are Endorsements"

Authored by Kate Knibbs via Gizmodo.com,

Remember when people put that “RTs ≠ endorsements” disclaimer in their Twitter bios, like that would offer some form of protection from the being associated with what they retweeted?

Well, a retweet can be seen as an endorsement. It can also apparently be used as evidence that you’re trying to join ISIS.

22-year-old Queens resident Ali Saleh was arrested this week following an FBI investigation into his attempts to join ISIS.

According to the complaint against him, Saleh began tweeting his plans in 2013. Saleh’s retweets came up repeatedly in the complaint as cause for arrest. Many of the specific examples given are time Saleh retweeted others from his various Twitter accounts:

On August 25, 2014, a few days before the reservation was made, Twitter Account A re-posted (or “retweeted”) the following message originally posted by another user: “I’m ready to die for the Caliphate, prison is nothing.”

On June 17, 2015, Twitter Account B retweeted the following message: “IS is winning battle of hearts and minds. People have started to realize that war is a necessity.

On August 5, 2015 Twitter Account D retweeted an audio message entitled “Come and join the Caliphate.”

The FBI has been using retweets as evidence against Twitter-happy ISIS wannabes in other cases, as well.

This summer a 17-year-old Virginia resident was arrested after regularly retweeting fawning statements about ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. So this is a tactic.

Plenty of people retweet pro-ISIS tweets for other reasons; to draw attention to how prevalent they are, for instance, or to ridicule them.

People retweet horrible shit all the time and it’s not cause for arrests: Lots of people started retweeting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after they found his Twitter account after the Boston bombing, but these were more “Look! I found this guy!” gestures than a sudden surge of simpatico intentions.

The police can’t arrest someone for retweeting ISIS unless they have evidence that the intent behind the tweets signified someone acting with criminal intent. But if that’s the case, they seem to have no trouble making the assumption that a retweet is an unambiguous endorsement.

In other words, maybe cool it on ironic retweets of state enemies.

How Sex Traffickers Are Fighting for Your Rights

Via The Daily Bell

If you support free speech, you support sex trafficking. At least that’s what politicians hope the public will think.

Clever politicians seem to be learning. If they want to censor the web and destroy free speech, they need to pick the right targets for their legislation. Of course, in reality, the legislation will end up affecting all of us.

Their efforts really amount to holding websites accountable for what their users post. They are shining a light on Backpage, a website much like Craigslist where users post ads. The website lets users post based on location for things like buying and selling items, job listings, and community events.

The legal issues come from Backpage failing to stop the use of its website for sex trafficking. Ads appear in adult and dating sections which facilitate prostitution.

But why should a website be held accountable for what users post? Is Facebook held accountable for drug deals arranged through its messenger? Should Twitter be held responsible when a riot is organized with the platform?

But politicians aren’t talking about the potential for their legislation to affect sectors other than sex trafficking. They use emotional pleas. And this could mean more Americans are willing to stomach legislation that would seriously threaten any website that allows users to post. Hosts would be liable for user content.

That means anyone who has a website would be at serious risk of legal trouble if any piece of their business lets users post. Websites like Facebook who can hire countless employees to police the content might not care. But what about small websites? What about message boards, and comments sections?

Trade groups representing Google, Facebook and other Internet giants warn of a “devastating impact” on the tech industry if the 1996 Communications Decency Act is tinkered with in the way lawmakers envision to hold Backpage and others liable for criminal material on their pages.

They project “mass removals of legitimate content” by social media and other firms scrambling to shield themselves from a deluge of lawsuits from trial lawyers and prosecutors. The ACLU joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups in warning lawmakers that if they pass the law, every one of the millions of social media postings placed online daily becomes a potential liability for the company hosting it.

But in true politician fashion, the response highlights only the “good” the legislation will do, ignoring the potential to curb free speech online.

“The Communications Decency Act is a well-intentioned law, but it was never intended to protect sex traffickers,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)…

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said the site would have been shut down long ago if not for the immunity. “We would have been able to stop the abuse and in some cases the death of some of these young people who got caught up in these sex trafficking rings,” Becerra said.

Prostitution might be the world’s oldest profession. But politicians think they can finally stamp it out if only they had the power to censor shut down websites!

A quarter of the members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. Maybe they have the best intentions.

Or maybe they simply want more power to censor websites and the free speech of their users.

User created content will suffer if this bill passes. That puts things like communication, organization, and protest at risk.

Free speech is becoming a problem for the government, and they are taking the incremental approach to limiting it. That is why they talk so much about curbing hate speech and fake news. They want Americans to be onboard to limit neo-Nazis and ads for prostitution. But like most laws, it will only limit freedom.

Facebook Engagement-For-Hire Economy Has Generated More Than 100 Million Fake Likes

After Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week confirmed allegations that the company had sold at least $100,000 of ads to a Russia-backed troll farm – igniting a firestorm of liberal sanctimony as pundits like Rachel Maddow proclaimed that they had finally found the “smoking gun” proving that Russians had swayed the election in President Trump’s favor – researchers at the University of Iowa have pulled back the curtain on the seedy underbelly of Facebook"s illicit influence-peddling economy.

In a study reported by USA Today, the researchers described a thriving ecosystem of websites that allow users to generate millions of fake "likes" and comments. Working with a computer scientist at Facebook and one in Lahore, Pakistan, the team discovered a thriving community of 50 sites offering free, fake "likes" for users" posts in exchange for access to their accounts, which were used to falsely "like" other sites in turn.

The results have been staggeringly effective:

“The scientists found that these “collusion networks” run by spammers have managed to harness the power of one million Facebook accounts, producing as many as 100 million fake "likes" on the systems between 2015 and 2016.”

Why is this a problem? The answer is simple economics. As USA Today explains, Facebook’s algorithm is designed to favor posts that garner a lot of likes, amplifying their visibility and possibly driving legitimate engagement. Many social media “influencers” rely on their followings to justify marketing partnerships with brands and other lucrative deals.

And in what the researchers described as a recent development, the scammers have found a way to “turbocharge” the process by automatically looping in third-party applications like Spotify. Previously, this process had to be done manually in resulted in far fewer likes.

After joining the community, users who are in good standing can essentially generate likes and engagement on demand.

“When you become part of this network, you can say ‘Give me likes on this post and as soon as you request it, you get thousands of likes on a specific post,” said Zubair Shafiq, a professor of computer science at the University of Iowa in Iowa City who documented the automated networks.”

“Users think it’s relatively benign, but actually they’re handing over full control of their Facebook account,” said Shafiq.

“They can also access all the information that’s available on your profile, see your posts, get your friends list, even read your private messages. We can"t tell if this information is being collected and sold to others,” he said.

In another example of the company’s penchant for dissembling, Facebook told USA Today it had stamped out the type of activity described in the research. The company added that it is investigating smaller-volume techniques that could be used for a similar purpose, and said it would take every action necessary to ensure that all activity on its platform, which the company claims has more than 2 billion monthly active users.

But an independent investigation by USA Today promptly confirmed that Facebook’s claim was bulls---.

“However at least some similar techniques still function as USA TODAY was able to join one of the networks and get 50 likes on a post to a newly-created Facebook page within one minute.

The services operate outside of the United States but hide their locations. They also disguise the fact that people who use them are engaged in activity prohibited by Facebook.”

Compounding the ridiculousness of Facebook’s denial, USA Today also found that the sites operate relatively openly.

“The sites operate openly, and researchers found them by entering a Google search for phrases such as "Page Liker." Among the 50 so-called collusion networks listed researchers listed was djliker.com, which described itself as "a social marketing system that will increase likes, comments and increase visits to pages.”

The sites rely on a “freemium” business model, profiting off of ads posted on their sites, but also from subscription fees from power users.

“Their business model is basic: They make their money by posting ads on their sites and also selling "premium" services that allow users to get even more "likes" than they allow their regular users. Some also allow users to create fake comments that can be added to the post of their choice.”

The research will be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery Internet Measurement Conference in London in November. Nektarios Leontiadis, one of the study’s authors, is a threat research scientist at Facebook.
 

Visualizing The Diversity Of The Tech Industry

With the recent leak of the “Google Manifesto” and the maelstrom of media backlash that followed, Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins notes that it seems that concerns around diversity in the technology industry have finally reached a boiling point.

Today’s infographic from Information is Beautiful breaks down the demographics of 23 major tech companies, based on statistics from 2016. It also provides comparisons to the composition of the U.S. population in general, the top 50 U.S. companies, Congress, and Fortune 500 CEOs.

WHICH COMPANIES EMPLOY THE MOST WOMEN?

With just a focus on the major companies on this list, here is a breakdown that shows which companies employ the most women:

The above list already illustrates why diversity is such a concern for many observers of the industry: even the companies with the most women on their rosters have proportions lower than U.S. population average of 50%.

In contrast, here are the companies on the list that employ the fewest women, as a proportion of their workforce:

Google, which is at the center of debate right now, did not make the list of the companies with the fewest women – but it’s not far off with a workforce comprised of 31% women.

WHAT’S CHANGED IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS?

According to Information is Beautiful, here is what has changed in the last 12 months as of their last update (April 2017):

• Facebook, Apple, eBay, and Microsoft all had their ratio of women increase by 1%.


• LinkedIn had their ratio of women increase by 3%.


• Google’s gender ratio stayed the same.


• Microsoft increased the ratio of non-white employees by 3%, and Facebook by 2%.


• Google, Apple, and eBay increased ratio of non-white employees by 1%.


• LinkedIn lost 3% of its non-white employees.


• Asian staff accounted for the majority of increases in ethnic diversity, while the ratio of Hispanic employees remained static.

To get an even better sense of the data, we recommend visiting the interactive version of Information is Beautiful’s graphic, which shows numbers for 2014 and 2015 as well.

Guerrilla Street Art Appears In Support Of Fired Google Engineer James Damore

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

In response to Google firing engineer James Damore (who just got on Twitter as @Fired4Truth) for his politically incorrect #GoogleMemo, a series of guerrilla street art installations have cropped up in Venice and Santa Monica, CA in protest of the Silicon Valley search bohemoth.

Spotted outside Google"s Venice Beach offices. pic.twitter.com/0SL2idZv0C

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) August 11, 2017

Conservative pundit and founder of the Proud Boys “pro-Western fraternal organization” says the individual responsible for the street art is a member of his organization.

For the record, this street artist is a #ProudBoy. For all the allegations of racist violence, this is what we actually do. @unsavoryagents https://t.co/3Pdj1vB0FN

— Gavin McInnes (@Gavin_McInnes) August 11, 2017

March on Google

In response to being fired, James Damore conservatives Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich have organized “March on Google” set for Saturday, August 19th anywhere google has offices.

“We are going to raise awareness about Google’s one-sided bias and campaign against dissenting opinions and voices,” Posobiec said, adding “Google’s firing of James Damore is the flashpoint here. An engineer fired for simply expressing an opinion that ran counter to Google’s politically-charged atmosphere of an “Ideological Echo Chamber” (Also the title of Damore’s memo).

Hundreds of people have reportedly signed up for the marches since Wednesday’s announcement.

ANNOUNCING:

Nationwide Marches on Google Offices

Big Google is Watchinghttps://t.co/NgMWiwl2Lz

— Jack Posobiec ???????? (@JackPosobiec) August 9, 2017

UPDATE! 4 More #MarchOnGoogle Cities Announced!

Los Angeles
Seattle
Pittsburgh
Atlanta!https://t.co/fkTqB8bvxY pic.twitter.com/2oOhpW3szU

— Jack Posobiec ???????? (@JackPosobiec) August 11, 2017

How do you make the world a better place while battling the Diversity Industrial Complex? @fired4truth

photo by @peterdukephoto pic.twitter.com/BKySxGiYIT

— Mike Cernovich ???????? (@Cernovich) August 10, 2017

Support for Damore

In addition to a huge swell of internal agreement with the controversial memo among Google employees, there has been an outpouring of conservatives offering everything from kind words to jobs in support of Damore from the likes of Wikileaks and Twitter alternative Gab.ai.

1/ Censorship is for losers. @WikiLeaks is offering a job to fired Google engineer James Damore. https://t.co/tmrflE72p3

— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) August 8, 2017

We want to hire the Google employee who wrote this beautiful work of art. pic.twitter.com/oOIFwDTyzP

— Gab (@getongab) August 5, 2017

Gab CEO Andrew Torba elaborated on his job offer in an interview with Breitbart Tech.

“Gab supports the free and open expression of all ideas. What this document and the reaction to it prove is that Silicon Valley exists in a bubble world where Wrong Think is not permitted,” Torba claimed. “They preach tolerance and yet are intolerant of any conservatives ideas. They praise diversity and yet shun conservatives out of their workplace. They applaud the bravery of folks who speak out when it aligns with their own far-left agenda, but scorn a conservative who dares to stand up for what they believe in.” via Breitbart

Shockingly, the NYT and Chicago Tribune have both published articles coming out against Damore"s firing - with the NYT op-ed suggesting Google CEO Sunday Pichai resign!

Conservatism is truly the new counterculture…

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Hot Mic Hilarity Ensues When $SNAP CEO Evan Spiegel Gives Snarky Answer During Earnings Call

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

While Snap, Inc. ($SNAP) shares bleed out following a huge miss - currently down over 11 percent, a hilarious hot-mic moment happened during their earnings call.

When pressed by Wall St. analyst Rich Greenfield of BTIG for more details on their push notification policy, CEO Evan Spiegel gave a convoluted and snarky answer - dodging the question and then telling the analyst to "go for a google" resulting in BTIG"s Brandon Ross exclaiming (loudly) "I didn"t even understand his response!"

 

Full exchange here: 

Listen to $SNAP co-founder Evan Spiegel answer our question on whether @Snapchat is "growth hacking" from Q2 call https://t.co/v0dTsunCGW

— Rich Greenfield (@RichBTIG) August 11, 2017

Reactions: 

 

Agree with Mr. Wonderful $SNAP CEO is a jack-ass! Cocky lil punk and and he"s the last person on earth who needs to be cocky right now

— traderstewie (@traderstewie) August 11, 2017

Definitely the best thing for CEOs to do when shares are falling 17% is to sound annoyed that people don"t "understand" his company. https://t.co/N9yS2VkFey

— Shira Ovide (@ShiraOvide) August 10, 2017

Same arrogant approach to IR out of $SNAP as last Q. No commentary in the letter, and prob no media calls either. https://t.co/aVqJ0ZBarn

— Jim Prosser ???? (@jimprosser) August 10, 2017

Transcript of the exchange:

Rich Greenfield, analyst at BTIG:

"I"ve got two questions for Evan. Evan, on your first investor call and actually Imran [Khan, Snap chief strategy officer] just mentioned it earlier as well, you have both spoken about how others use growth hacking to inflate [daily active users] and how it really hurts .... the platform"s relationship with users. Yet we definitely, over the past quarter, begun to see push notifications from Snapchat, essentially alerting us to: "One of our friends or one of our connections has published a story, would you like to go see it?"

Wondering despite Imran"s comment earlier, has your philosophy on growth begun to change? And then two, time spent on Snapchat and Instagram based on the recent comments from Instagram seems like it"s fairly similar. But there"s a very — my sense is there"s very little direct messaging that happens on Instagram, implying that most of their time spent is actually content consumption. When you think about Snapchat"s 30 minutes of usage per day, how much of that is actually Stories, including Discover, versus basically communications? Thanks.

Spiegel:

Yeah. So on the first question; we"ve been sending notifications like that for Stories for friends since 2014, so I"m not sure why you"re just seeing that now. On the "time spent" stuff, I think time spent is definitely interesting metric because unlike daily active[users], time spent is zero sum.

So for us, in Q2, we saw over 40 minutes spent per day for users under 25, and over 20 minutes per day for users over 25. So I think that"s some strong growth for us on the time spent side.

We don"t break out Stories versus communication, but I think the important thing is we"ve done a very good job innovating around monetizing communication. I think historically, that"s been challenging for folks. So, you know, we"re really excited about the way we"ve monetized communication with our creative tools.

Greenfield:

So maybe just to be clear: What exactly is the "growth hacking" that others do? If you sending push notifications is not "growth hacking," what are others doing that you consider to be growth hacking and not real DAU growth?

Spiegel:

Yeah, so I think there are plenty of examples online [laughs] if you want to go for a Google. But I think the most important thing for us is that when we"re telling you about content on a service that is really highly relevant to you and from your very close friends. And I think people, as they become more aligned on push notifications to sort of relax the standards there, and I think it"s important for our business.

Greenfield:

Thank you.

Operator:

Our next question is from Mark Mahaney with RBC ...

Brandon Ross, BTIG analyst (loudly on hot mic):

I didn"t even understand his response!"

More vague answers

The hot-mic exchange was just one part of an overall frustrating call for analysts and investors looking for answers.

Via CNBC:

While the exchange was certainly one of the more heated during the quarterly call, there were several instances where analysts asked for more guidance on new products like Snap Maps or advertising tools, only to be met with vague responses that it was still "early days."

The disconnect between Snap and Wall Street made it into Friday"s analyst coverage.

"Snap"s unwillingness to provide Street guidance will continue to be a disservice to shareholders as estimates continue to fluctuate wildly and it introduces unneeded uncertainty into results," Jefferies analyst Brian Fitzgerald wrote in a note.

The disjunction between Snap and Wall Street comes in spite of Snap"s so-called secret weapon, Khan, a former star analyst and investment banker. The finance veteran helped lead Alibaba"s massive IPO — subject to its own skepticism from investors at the time— and was one of the first analysts to become an authoritative commentator on internet media businesses like Facebook.

Snap, like many competitive tech start-ups, has been secretive about its products and operations. But some commentators perceived Spiegel"s response as arrogant.

Spiegel, if he has any game, was certainly not on it during the call.

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Joe Scarborough Thinks Your Children Should Want to Die in Wars Rather Than Playing Games

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

Joe grew up in Florida and never bothered to join the military. I suppose he was busy playing shuffleboard or whatever the hell they do down in Pensacola. Ever since Joe entered the political scene, he"s been part of the neocon gang. You know, rubbing elbows with the likes of Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz or his wife"s late father Zbigniew Brzezinski -- chicken hawks who clamor for the blood of young Americans in a perverse, ritualistic manner.

Now, obviously feeling his oats for being a hardcore Never Trumper, making all sorts of new friends in the liberal media, Scarborough tweeted out a criticism to today"s youth, upset over their lack of enthusiasm for military service, opting to instead stay at home playing video games.

Young men in the 1940s liberated Europe from Nazism and the Pacific from the Japanese Empire. Today, too many stay home playing video games. https://t.co/e7FTe0O20P

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 7, 2017

Being an avid collector of old newspapers, and regular peruser of old articles on Google"s News Archive, I can tell that before and during WW2, there were countless older men penning articles critical of the youth of that time, who went on to become "the greatest generation." They called them soft and bitter, accustomed to American decadence, unable to go toe to toe with the hardened Hitler youth.

Wrong.

Here"s a letter from a fallen serviceman at Midway, discussing this very topic.

The subsequent result of Joe"s tweet was acrimonious attacks on an industrial scale.

No one wants war. Even the Greatest Generation would have preferred not to go. Uncle Sam had other ideas. https://t.co/K8NzO3NS8A

— Emily Zanotti (@emzanotti) August 7, 2017

It is ironic you say this on Purple Heart Day. My Marine Corps Company had 48 Purple Hearts, almost all were millennials. #purpleheartday https://t.co/6i7BL0USzm

— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) August 7, 2017

Where do the thousands of millennials who went to Iraq under false pretenses fall into the equation here? https://t.co/LU15sDM1y4

— Greg Krieg (@GregJKrieg) August 7, 2017

Alternate take: If we had had video games in the 1940s, maybe there wouldn’t have been a horrific World War! https://t.co/x1GIgOwDeJ

— Jeff Cannata (@jeffcannata) August 7, 2017

Yeah damn I mean where is a World War when you need one to free Millennials from their couches. https://t.co/fYzj0RmtLb

— Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) August 7, 2017

I"m sorry, Joe. I will do better. I promise to go die in a war.

— Branson Reese (@bransonreese) August 7, 2017

Joe Scarborough officially BTFO.

How Social Media Stifles Free Speech

Authored by Jeff Trag via The Gatestone Institute,

• Even more problematic is that those platforms are free to delete the pages and posts of users they deem to have violated whatever they decide are "community standards." This includes judging content supportive of, for example, restricting migration in Europe.


• Facebook, for example, also often permits real hate speech while banning websites that expose this hate speech.


• Ultimately, the only way to keep the United States safe is by protecting its citizens" ability to discuss ideas that without fear. If we lose our freedom of expression on the internet, we lose our democracy.

One of the greatest contemporary battles for individual liberty and freedom of the press is being conducted in cyber space.

Today, political, journalistic and corporate elites are in the process of trying to control, and even rewrite, "story lines" of history and current events with which they might disagree, and that they see slipping through their fingers.

It is a form of censorship akin to banning the printing press or preventing open debate in the literal and proverbial public square.

Facebook, for example, also often permits real hate speech while banning websites that expose this hate speech.

There are, however, constitutional and legal measures that can and should be taken to protect Americans from having their right to express themselves as they wish – without causing harm to public safety or engaging in illegal activity -- violated every time they log in to their social media accounts.

New laws need to be codified to prevent what have become virtual utilities such as Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube from steering debate in a particular ideological direction.

One argument against holding these social media giants accountable is that they are private companies, and that consumers can simply stop using them.

This claim is disingenuous, however: these companies have an effective monopoly on expression in the international public sphere. Although people are ostensibly free not to use Facebook or Twitter, there are no other comparable alternative platforms at their disposal.

Even more problematic is that those platforms are free to delete the pages and posts of users they deem to have violated whatever they decide are "community standards." This includes judging content supportive of, for example, restricting migration in Europe.

No one should own the public square, least of all social media, which is merely the vehicle for transporting members of that public to that square. Any attempt by social media companies to curtail the people"s right to access lawful information should be penalized.

Congress, therefore, might pass legislation specifically adapted to this new arena.

Ultimately, the only way to keep the United States safe is by protecting its citizens" ability to discuss ideas without fear. If we lose our freedom of expression on the internet, we lose our democracy.

As U.S. founding father Thomas Jefferson said of the First Amendment: "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."

If You Want To Get A New Job, Don&#039;t Do This On Social Media

What you say and do on social media has consequences: just ask Donald Trump. It will also determine if you get that new job you"ve had your eye on.

According to a new survey released by Challenger Gray, as increasingly more social media platforms become popular, job seekers continue to expand their online footprints, creating and building multiple profiles. And, as a result, the overwhelming majority of job recruiters are turning to the internet as a means of ensuring that potential job candidates are a good fit for their companies.

In the survey, conducted in April and May among 300 recruiters in a variety of industries nationwide, nearly 80 percent of recruiters indicated that they use some type of internet or social media search as a means to vet or learn more about candidates, and 76 percent check these sites before they initially contact the candidate.

Specifically, 96 percent of respondents reported that they check LinkedIn before contacting a candidate, while 40 percent check Facebook. Sixteen percent search Twitter, and 14 percent see what appears on a Google search. “It is more important than ever that job seekers are up to speed when it comes to using social media. Job seekers should Google themselves to see what appears and make any changes that may reflect poorly on them,” said Andrew Challenger, vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

The Challenger survey found that the most problematic content for recruiters was pictures or language depicting drug use, followed by evidence of unprofessional behavior. Recruiters also reported that any public records on lawsuits or felonies was very problematic, as was any evidence that contradicted what appeared on the resume.

Ironically, while having unprofessional social media can hurt candidates, having no online presence can be just as concerning to employers. When the Challenger survey asked whether or not having no social media hurts a candidate, 43 percent of those surveyed replied that it did. While 45 percent of employers reported that it neither helped nor hurt to have social media profiles, many recruiters reported that having no online presence gave them pause, citing concerns over the tech-savviness of the candidate or ability to learn new technologies.

“Employers want to hire workers who can adapt to the changing technologies used in business. If they cannot find anything about you online, it could indicate that you are clueless about these emerging technologies or tentative to learn them."

“There are ways to use social media advantageously during a job search. The first step is to delete any tasteless or controversial posts, and then to leave or create ones that show passions, hobbies, or professional accomplishments,” said Challenger. “Candidates who are less comfortable with recruiters checking in on their social media should make sure that they have checked their privacy settings, and that they understand how these settings work. On Facebook, for example, profile pictures are always public, even to people who are not connected, which means that it is important that this picture is appropriate,” he added.

While most social networks have privacy settings, it is important to realize that friends can share posts on their personal social accounts which may not be subject to the same privacy restrictions. “The most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to social media is that every post gives recruiters a better picture of a candidate, and you want to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward,” said Challenger.

Finally, for the list of biggest possible social media offenses, Challenger provides the following breakdown of which content recruiters and employers find most problematic when vetting a candidate. In other words, if you want to get that new job, avoid any of the activities listed below.

Facebook Spies on You to Manipulate Your Emotions

Via The Daily Bell

Learning through observation is an important trait for humans, and can account for many aspects of why we are a highly advanced species. Just as peers’ behavior influences our own, it should come as no surprise that we are also influenced by the emotions of those around us.

Those who inject themselves into our lives also influence our emotions. It is no longer just face to face contact that humans deal with on a daily basis, but also a barrage of information from the news media and social media.

A Facebook study performed in 2014 has implications far beyond the social network. The study found that when a user was shown fewer positive posts, they were more likely to write negative posts themselves, and vice versa. So simply by having some negativity injected into them, a person is more likely to go and express negativity. And what will those further infected with negativity do? The same thing, spreading the sadness that Facebook primed.

And though Facebook always takes things further, they are still relatively new to the emotional manipulation scene. News media have been doing this for years. During the 90’s, violent crimes rates were dropping, and the news was showing more stories about murder. By the end of the 90’s people were clamoring for the government to do something about the out of control murder rate that seemed to be skyrocketing. But the world was actually safer than a decade earlier; the only difference was that people were hearing about more negative things in the media.

Just consider how easy that is for social and mainstream media to manipulate people on a broad scale. It is less about inserting a particular belief, and more about influencing the overall feelings.

They could even induce certain emotions for certain reasons. For instance, if a re-election is coming up, Facebook could inundate people with negative posts, even having nothing to do with the election. But feeling negative overall, if that person goes to the polls they would be more likely to vote for change since something is causing them to be so sad all the time.

Or maybe when Facebook needs to sell you something, they will spread positive posts all over your feed, putting you in a good receptive mood where you are more likely to say yes, because you just nodded yes in agreement to posts about how cute puppies are, that women are being empowered, and that chocolate isn’t so bad for you after all.

As Usual, Facebook Pushes the Privacy Boundaries

But Facebook wants to take it even further. Facebook wants real-time updates on how happy or sad they are making people.

They have submitted a patent to spy on users through their phones’ camera in order to analyze their facial emotions in real time. They want to see every wrinkle and grimace, smile and chortle. With this information, their big data empire will grow to untold heights. Never has a company before had such immense power to analyze that type of data on such a large scale.

Facebook says it could use the technology to deliver more content that people like, without them having to “like” it. But another possibility is that they could deliver content to change the emotions of the viewer. In a perfect world, they would see the content making someone sad, and instead, deliver happy content until that frown turns upside down. But in the real world… it is possible Facebook would do the opposite.

Of course, this is super creepy. As a private company, Facebook should be able to do what it wishes. But every step it takes seems to make the social networking site less palatable. Will they go too far? Or is there “baby steps” approach to data domination effectively curtailing any exodus?

The other question is, just how much of this information will be made available to employers, schools, governments, and other organizations who want to scoop up specific users’ data in order to vet them for a job or admittance into their group?

Recently a group of students who were accepted to Harvard had their offers revoked after it was discovered that they were participating in a meme sharing Facebook group. The students posted and joked about offensive memes. When Harvard found out, it revoked the acceptance offers for some of the students.

Harvard is not to blame for this; you could debate whether or not they went too far, but it is entirely within their rights as a private organization to refuse admittance to those they deem immature or a liability to their reputation. But a just a few years ago, this was clearly not an issue. Whatever offensive opinions a person held in their minds were not given a public avenue that could damage their reputation.

Now, it is currently pretty easy to avoid this type of public shame: just don’t post and react to offensive material. But with the new facial emotion analysis technology that Facebook is exploring, will you even be able to hide your true opinion?

Could you imagine a dystopian future where everyone walks around with a dead-pan blank expression to keep their “thought crimes” from companies and governments?

Unfortunately, Facebook could be pioneering this type of situation. Beliefs that you never expressed publicly could come to light by seeing how your face reacts to information, memes, and articles.

Think of all the eye rolls they will be recording every time an article about the social justice warriors’ newest shenanigans is released. Is scoffing a micro-aggression?

Visualizing How The Big 5 Tech Giants Make Their Billions

Hitting record high after record high, tech companies have displaced traditional blue chip companies like Exxon Mobil and Walmart as the most valuable companies in the world.

Here are the latest market valuations for those same five companies:

Together, they are worth $2.9 trillion in market capitalization – and they combined in FY2016 for revenues of $555 billion with a $94 billion bottom line.

BRINGING HOME THE BACON?

Despite all being at the top of the stock market food chain, Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins points out that the companies are at very different stages.

In 2016, Apple experienced its first annual revenue decline since 2001, but the company brought home a profit equal to that of all other four companies combined.

On the other hand, Amazon is becoming a revenue machine with very little margin, while Facebook generates 5x more profit despite far smaller top line numbers.

HOW THEY MAKE THEIR BILLIONS

Each of these companies is pretty unique in how they generate revenue, though there is some overlap:

• Facebook and Alphabet each make the vast majority of their revenues from advertising (97% and 88%, respectively)


• Apple makes 63% of their revenue from the iPhone, and another 21% coming from the iPad and Mac lines


• Amazon makes 90% from its “Product” and “Media” categories, and 9% from AWS


• Microsoft is diverse: Office (28%), servers (22%), Xbox (11%), Windows (9%), ads (7%), Surface (5%), and other (18%)

What does that look like?

Lastly, for fun, what if we added all these companies’ revenues together, and categorized them by source?

Note: this isn’t perfect. As an example, Amazon’s fast-growing advertising business gets lumped into their “Other” category.

Hardware, e-commerce, and and advertising make up 76% of all revenues.

Meanwhile, software isn’t the cash cow it used to be, but it does help serve as a means to an end for some companies. For example, Android doesn’t generate any revenue directly, but it does allow more users to buy apps in the Play Store and to search Google via their mobile devices. Likewise, Apple bundles in operating systems with each hardware purchase.

Social Media: Stick A Fork In It

Authored by Mark St.Cyr,

Let me make one thing clear before I start: It’s not that I’m saying “social media” is going away, as in no longer will be around or, will not have any use or value going forward. What I am stating is this: Everything that you’ve been told, as well as sold, about social media as it is currently argued and used, along with why the companies or platforms that supply it (i.e., the Snapchat™, Facebook™ Twitter™ et al) should be valued not just mere $Billions, but rather $10’s and $100’s of Billions is over. The signs are there for anyone paying attention...

The only ones (in my opinion) that have yet to grasp this are: the “experts”, fund managers, and analysts still telling, and selling its “So worth it!” drivel. Because, as I implied above: the signs are everywhere for those willing to look for themselves rather, than waiting for some “news flash” appearing in their “social feed” or “groundbreaking development” via the main stream business/financial media.

Hint: Remember when all the media went crazy touting why everyone needed to be on, and read their “expert” commentary on LinkedIn™? You know, right before its stock value suddenly plummeted facilitating the need or rescue via Microsoft™ for its very survival? It’s a point worth remembering for context.

Over the last few years I have not only taken the opposite view of what was once considered “gospel” in “The Valley” such as “the eyeballs for ads” model being the be-all, end-all metric for $Billion dollar valuations. But rather, in openly declaring such, I’ve been marked via that same congregation as a heretic for doing so. And that’s being kind.

Over the years their defence against such allegations were, of course, such things as IPO’s, stock valuations, and more. These “touchstones” at the time were touted to show why I was wrong – and they were right. Again, at the time, it all appeared or seemed irrefutable. After all, how could I question anything about what these “miracles” of tech provided, along with the near insatiable demand for their stock. For even an agnostic must surely agree, “tech” was proving and laying bare even the most skeptics’ arguments beyond the shadow of any and all doubt. However, that was when the manna-of-QE flowed freely.

Then – QE ended. And guess what else ended with it? Hint: “It’s different this time” went from holier-than-thou rhetoric to, “WTF is happening!” agnosticism. And it’s getting worse – much worse. Regardless of how many gnashing-of-teeth induced stupor one displays to the contrary.

Back in March I penned the article “Silicon Valley: From Rarified Air To Exhaust Fumes” which presented the following chart. To wit:

The reason why the above did as Rod Stewart famously stated “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?” Is because of just that. As I stated in that article as to why one needed to pay attention was the following. Again, to wit:

“The issue here is that process has one key attribute: It’s the same pattern we’ve seen before, but now it’s represented in days. From IPO to today. What had once taken well over a year has morphed from months to now days.”

What truly puts the stamp of reality on what it says today, is the fact, that even as the “markets” have since (once again) risen to never before seen in history all time highs since that post some 3 months ago. The above have done nothing but either vacillate right where they stood, or worse, have lost even more value. (See “IPO to save the IPO world” Twilio’s current value for further clues.) And two of the three were supposed to be the “proof” that proved all the naysayers such as yours truly wrong. In retrospect, it seems they have done just the opposite.

But making or implying such a blasphemous statement as “social media is dead” and not arguing the same for one of this “religion’s” most cherished houses of worship without addressing it squarely would be insincere. Of course that would be the “idol” commonly known as Facebook™(FB.) And yes, I still believe (and have continually argued) FB along with social media in general – is the AOL™ equivalent of the dot-com era. Here’s why…

Remember all the fanfare they released just prior to the latest earnings report? For those having a hard time it was a statement declaring they had reached “5 million” small business advertisers. Here’s what I stated in a subsequent article. To wit:

“As of today all the estimates are that they’ll handily beat and some analysts are raising their targets. It’s very well they could, especially in today’s world of earnings reporting alchemy. However, one thing which caught my attention was the sudden touting a few weeks back that they had hit “5 Million advertisers.” Small businesses noted as the “key driver.”

“Sound great!” many are saying, and, in-truth, it is a worthy milestone. However, I see the timing as possibly a little suspect, here’s why… (I make this point for it has become near laughable how nearly all upcoming “tech” earnings reports now suddenly coincide with an ever-growing list of preceding announcements of grandiose ideas that are alluded to be right around the corner (like next week!) of flying cars, self driving trucks, rocket rides to space, virtual reality, just to name a few.)

Facebook as of late has been in the news with nothing but negative reports with a slew of horrendous acts being broadcast via their platform. e.g., Rape, kidnapping, beatings, and others. One of the concerns over all this (apart from the issue itself) was a possible backlash from potential advertisers. And who could blame them, and there lies the possible rub…

As I implied with the sudden “5 million” hoopla, what I’m asking is this: Is the addition of these stated 1 million plus new small business advertisers a replacing (therefore a diversion as to squash attention) for the potential of 1 or 2 (or more) large buyers who may have pulled ads?

In other words, if they’ve added so many “new” small business users – shouldn’t the ad revenue explode this report with all things being equal? I believe this is the metric to watch for.”

As per FB CFO Wehner: He once again reaffirmed ad growth will come down “meaningfully.”

Is that a “Wait…what?” moment, “Oh…oh?”, or combination of the two? For it just seems a little confusing on how such a statement could even be expressed (via the CFO no less) when you’re told both the “buyers” (see above “5 million” reference) of those ads, along with the users (see the only metric that’s supposed to matter e.g. 1.94 billion MAU) to view them have both increased.

But not too worry. Because in what seems to be the now “playbook” (See Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for clues) for all that is “tech”, there’s a reason why one should not pay attention to such things and focus on others. To wit:

Facebook now has a plan to eat another $350 Billion IT market.

Or said differently (as in my opinion) – Zuck and crew found another narrative they believe they can spend money on and keep all the “happy” talk perpetually happy. After all – spending $Billions on companies that seem to never produce a nickel in net profit warranting that spending is what FB has come to do almost better than anyone else. See WhatsApp™, Instagram™, and more for clues. Or, if you want to think of this way: Snapchat is supposedly the Instagram killer – and how’s that business model working out? Sorry, too soon?

Isn’t it funny when it comes to anything involving “The Valley” it always seems it’s about the next big “buy” that’ll be the reason why some insane P/E or valuation will be, “So worth it!” Never the core product that is/was supposedly its raison d’être. And it’s always just around the corner, or as close as the shareholders checkbook. Funny how that works. Or shall I say, “did?”

But then again it does seem so old-fashioned to worry about things like net profits when all one needs to do is use or follow the example below as a guide for growth in the #1 metric touted via “The Valley.” To wit:

“A Russian Went Inside A Chinese Click-Farm: This Is What He Found”

Makes you wonder how much further “value” all that “Asia” growth means to advertisers going forward. But then again…

It’s different this time, no?  Especially if advertisers themselves are beginning to see the light. See P&G™ for clues.