Vadim Lavrusik, the "Journalist Program Manager" or community manager at Facebook blocked me on Facebook today because I questioned Facebook's practice of data-scraping political commentary of their users, and asked whether Obama critics could find themselves banned.
I guess the answer is "yes" at least from being able to view the "thought leader" threads by these smarmy little myrmidons who are supposed to "curate the conversation".
What's especially awful about nerds like Vadim is that they are using the term "journalist" to describe their job. Indeed, Lavrusik has a position as an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School (!); he also has worked at Mashable and the New York Times; and he imagines that his cheery chat on Facebook about Facebook's many wonderful exploits is somehow related, perhaps by marriage, to what we used to call "journalism".
It's not.
Especially when you block from viewing your posts people who are legitimate critics and legitimately ask why you are data-scraping the political posts.
Because of course, well, that's exactly what they are doing when they tell you a "fun fact" like the fact that they had 71 million plus comments about the elections. That means they are sweeping through with key words and slurping up data.
And where are they keeping that data? And what will they do with it?
Oh, I get that it's disaggregated. And truly, it doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me if NSA does it, either, in search for key words on terrorists.
What I do mind is how this information might be manipulated by either government or private social media platform or both, and I'm right to be worried. It's not privacy-busting that bothers me -- it's doing Nate Silver "math and science" using this cornucopia of data -- which then is bruited about strategically to sound "inevitable" and essentially disenfranchise people.
Of course, Zuckerberg is in the tank with Obama and Facebook doesn't really pretend to be bi-partisan. They might put up a generic "vote" reminder, but of course, the community managers and thought leaders with high follower numbers are subtly or not-so-subtly setting the tone to push people toward the "progressive" agenda.
I saw this with the Fast Company community manager on Facebook last summer -- a story I've been meaning to tell when I get a chance -- as she pushed the anti-SOPA line, pretended she was just having a discussion and not taking a position when in fact she had just posted a link to a blog mocking Congress for not being technical enough. When I called her on it, she then blocked me.
I had a problem with Vadim in the past. Obviously, he's Russian. I don't know his story. But one day he posted something about Facebooks achievements that was somehow related to its investors. So I asked pointedly whether the Russian investors in Facebook have access to our data or the data of all their citizens who use Facebook to protest with -- there are tons of them -- and whether they would turn it over to the Kremlin or block accounts.
I got a swift boot for that -- but in fact, not from viewing the lovely Vadim -- if he blocked me, he'd lose one of his follower numbers, of course (you'd be amazed at how many people, over vanity about even a single follower number, won't block you).
But what he did was block from view my ability to see his thread and anything else said on it. Others told me they could still see the thread there, but he deep-sixed my ability to view and respond to any other comments on it, and it rapidly disappeared as threads do on FB. Nobody else said anything. They seldom do. Threads on Facebook run by community m angers are for happy people eating noddle salads. Most people hate debating on them and having any friction -- they want to be with cuddly like-minded folks like themselves and not be jarred from any set beliefs. They don't mind incitement of hate and criticism -- as long as they are the ones doing it about conservatives whom they ridicule and loathe.
And the job of Vadim is to keep the noodle salad flowing.
So it would be interesting for anyone to go see if they can follow Vadim Lavrusik and see if that thread itself is deleted -- naturally each person can control his wall in this way.
Meanwhile, I plan to protest this near and far, high and low. And that's because it's wrong. If you are community manager of Facebook, you should not be deleting or blocking people who question your policies or question your data scraping and its consequences. I didn't swear or use any personal attacks or anyting "non PC". Yes, I was firm, as you need to be when a powerful entity tells you it knows there are 71 million of something related to you that they are free to data-mine and use at will -- including to shake the political process.
Please don't lecture me about how corporations don't have to enforce the First Amendment. I get all that and have written extensively on these issues and the related legal matters. That's not the point. The point is that these entities now serve as a virtualized public commons, yet they don't have the public responsibility or due process to go with it.
Recent Comments