When a “soft-core pedophile ring” was exposed last February YouTube disabled comments on most videos featuring kids, but only because big advertisers walked.
More recently, in spite of concerns over breeches of child privacy, brands have stayed steady and YouTube has done nothing to change.
Offered to select Facebook partners, the data includes not just technical information about Facebook members’ devices and use of Wi-Fi and cellular networks, but also their past locations, interests, and even their social groups. This data is sourced not just from the company’s main iOS and Android apps, but from Instagram and Messenger as well. The data has been used by Facebook partners to assess their standing against competitors, including customers lost to and won from them, but also for more controversial uses like racially targeted ads.
Facebook owns Instagram, so it should come as no surprise that the private phone numbers and email addresses of millions of celebrities and influencers were scraped by a partner company.
Then there is Google, which dumps location data from millions of devices, not just Android, into a database called Sensorvault and makes it available for search to law enforcement, among others. On May 7 Google claimed it had found privacy religion, but on CNBC reported that Gmail tracks and saves every digital receipt, not just things, but services and, of course Amazon. Enterprise G Suite customers don’t fare much better. Their user passwords were kept un-encrypted on an internal server for years. Not hacked, but still…
The European Union is far ahead of the US in terms of privacy, anticompetitive actions, etc., but US consumers are finally waking up. So-called Big Tech is no longer popular politically and the Justice Department is opening an antitrust investigation of Google (Europe already fined it nearly 3 billion in 2017 for anticompetitive actions).
There was a time that having influence meant something.
Maybe it still does in certain circles, but for much of the world it means you have millions, or at least hundreds of thousands, of followers on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter (Facebook seems to be passé).
They are called ‘influencers’ and their followers treat their words, actions, recommendations, and opinions as gospel.
In spite of the fact that many of them are paid to promote [whatever].
Of course, famous people have been paid to endorse products for decades.
The difference is that many influencers are famous only because they are expert manipulators of social media — or they pay experts to build their brand.
[Yovana Mendoza] The 28-year-old influencer, also known as Rawvana, has amassed more than 3 million followers across YouTube and Instagram by extolling the life-changing properties of a raw vegan diet. (…) a couple of weeks ago, Mendoza was recorded eating seafood (…) Realising she was being filmed, she tried to hide the fish, but the jig was up.
Mendoza admitted she had stopped eating vegan for health reasons.
But she kept preaching the lifestyle.
There are dozens of similar stories and hundreds of influencers whose only true skill is self-promotion.
They talk about health; about money; about “living your best life.”
They talk to the millions of fools who follow them.
I’ve used stuff from Frits Ahlefeldt many times over the years; he does amazing cartoons, illustrations and art.
Better than anything I could say are Frits’ own words.
Drawing and wondering about how the need for personal online branding on places like Facebook and Twitter more and more influence the experiences and challenges people choose, because they are all part of a personal media / branding strategy.
Anyone who reads me knows my answer to the social question—I’m not.
I don’t wear branded clothes or those with images advertising whatever, either, because if I’m going to be someone’s billboard I want to be paid, not to pay for the privilege. While that is more a quirk, I have a much larger problem online with the loss of privacy and the attitude of social companies that they have the right to use my data and that of my connections any way they choose for their profit whether I like it or not.
When it comes to social I have to admit that I’ve seen some fun (I’m partial to stupid cats) and educational stuff on YouTube. In fact, my company’s newly launched product is on YouTube, so I thought it was very cool that there are a number of people earning serious money there.
I’m not sure if texting is considered social, but the dark side to it is getting darker, with the darkest being death. Now, along with those who kill while texting and driving—cars, trains, subways—you can add lifeguards.
And what would a post about social be without Twitter (no, I don’t tweet). Actually, I have three links that you may find interesting.
Today is the last Leadership’s Future post in 2009, but the feature will continue every Thursday at MAPping Company Success (to avoid missing it subscribe via RSS or EMAIL). Please click to read today’s Leadership’s Future.
‘Twas the day before Christmas I sat down to write,
but nothing came—writer’s block was my plight.
A video was the answer I thought with a sigh
and clicked over to YouTube to give it a try.
I found what I wanted as you will see,
plus you can follow tonight by using this key!
As most of you know I write a series on Thursday called Leadership’s Future that looks at education, parenting, kids, Millennials, etc. In the course of my reading I see a articles that would be of interest, but I can’t fit them all in, so I thought that today I’d offer up some of the good ones that I haven’t had time to feature.
Assuming you live on this planet you’re aware that there’s a recession going on, so what’s happening in the world of youth and parents?
Do you tweet? Some college professors are finding uses for Twitter in their teaching, although enhancing spelling isn’t one of them; speaking of education, some schools are delivering sex ed via cell phone.
Multiple studies by professors at a variety of universities show that having interracial roommates reduces prejudice. Not that surprising, it’s hard to hate a real individual vs. a hypothetical stereotype.
Finally, there’s a new texting champion (control your enthusiasm) who practiced by sending 14,000 texts a month. Isn’t that thrilling?
Reputations are fragile things and company reputations are no different, but in the brave new world of YouTube, Twitter and blogs their fragility has skyrocketed.
Pity Domino’s Pizza whose Conover NC franchise employed two of the stupidest thirty-somethings available. They posted a prank video on YouTube (it’s been removed) that burned through the social media world faster than any recorded wildfire and was just as damaging.
In a 2007 post I quoted Chris Gidez, head of U.S. crisis management for the public-relations firm Hill & Knowlton, “Once it’s on the Web, it’s like taking the rods out of a reactor. Companies have to work harder to determine, ‘Do we need to worry about this?’ “Overreacting can call more attention to a rumor than it gets on its own, I’ve had clients who wanted to respond to a problem with guns blazing, and I say, ‘Hold on a second. You might be telling a larger universe of people about a problem they didn’t know existed.”
I think that Gidez may be giving different advice these days, since it’s doubtful that any rumor, prank or sin will die a natural death.
“If you think it’s not going to spread [in social media], that’s when it gets bigger,” said Scott Hoffman, the chief marketing officer of the social-media marketing firm Lotame. “We realized that when many of the comments and questions in Twitter were, ‘What is Domino’s doing about it’ ” Domino’s spokesman, Tim McIntyre said. “Well, we were doing and saying things, but they weren’t being covered in Twitter.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Domino’s had created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to address the comments, and it had presented its chief executive in a video on YouTube by evening.”
The real problem today isn’t the speed and transparency with which information moves, but rather it’s that the stupidity factor is just as bad, if not worse, than it ever was.
Dr. Jay Geidd, NIH: “The part of the brain that fills in last is the part involved in decision-making and controlling our impulses.”
The articles on teen brain research all indicate that the brain matures around age 25 or later, but it seems the availability of instant fame, no matter how fleeting, has pushed brain maturity way past that mark increasing the level of stupidity that people find so amusing—think YouTube and AFHV.
This weekend talk to your kids. Show them the article; tell them about the legal charges filed and the civil suite in the works. And ask them what business in it’s right mind would ever hire people whose judgment is this bad?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Assuming you live on this planet you’re aware that there’s a recession going on, so what’s happening in the world of youth and parents?
Reputations are fragile things and company reputations are no different, but in the 
