Redes sociales (Continuación)

Turkish protesters shout anti-government slogans during a demonstration in Istanbul in 2013. (Georgi Licovski/European Pressphoto Agency)

Europa,

On Tuesday, Twitter erupted with tweets using the hashtag #tamam. The Turkish word, in this case meaning “enough is enough,” quickly became the rallying cry of those opposed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his increasingly authoritarian control over politics and society.

Nearly 1.5 million tweets in less than 12 hours made #tamam the top worldwide trending topic, deftly beating out competition from Trump’s #IranDeal announcement. Much of the shared content displayed the witty spirit of resistance seen in Turkey’s 2013 Gezi Park protests, in which hashtags like #OccupyGezi tagged clever memes and catchy pop culture references, simultaneously making fun of the government and attracting supporters to the cause.…  Seguir leyendo »

NEW YORK - JULY 12: Secret Service agents await U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre following a special performance of the Broadway musical "Hamilton" on July 12, 2016 in New York City. Clinton hosted a fundraiser at the special performance, with supporters paying from $2,700 to up to $100,000 for the chance to attend. (Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

ReflexionesDemocracia,

It was a momentous day for the peasants of the Januschau, a remote part of Eastern Prussia. For the first time in their, or their fathers’, or their fathers’ fathers’ lives, they were called upon to vote. For centuries, they had been subjects—virtually possessions—of the Oldenburg family, with no voice and very few rights. Now, they were to partake in the incomprehensibly noble act of ruling themselves.

As they gathered around the local inn, which had hurriedly been converted into a polling station for the occasion, they saw that the new world retained quite a few elements of the old. The land inspector of the Oldenburg family was handing out sealed envelopes.…  Seguir leyendo »

Facebook Released Its Content Moderation Rules. Now What?

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías

Tuesday was a huge day for online speech. Facebook finally released the internal rules that its moderators use to decide what kinds of user content to remove from the site, including once-mysterious details on what counts as “graphic violence,” “hate speech” or “child exploitation.” It also announced the introduction of an appeals process for users who want to challenge the removal of their posts.

These developments represent a big step toward due process, which is essential on a site where so much of our speech now takes place. But an entity with such enormous power over online expression should do even more to listen to its users about what kinds of expression are allowed, and its users should be ready to be heard.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública, ,

Are you addicted to social media? Ask yourself these six simple questions:

  • Do you spend a lot of time, when you’re not online, thinking about social media or planning to use social media?
  • Do you feel urges to use social media more and more over time?
  • Do you use social media to forget about personal problems?
  • Do you often try to reduce your use of social media, without success?
  • Do you become restless or troubled if you are unable to use social media?
  • Do you use social media so much that it has had a negative impact on your job, relationship or studies?
…  Seguir leyendo »
A Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Credit Cathal Mcnaughton/Reuters

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

I try not to overthink it, because there are probably 101 better things to do with my time, but I spend a lot of time scrolling through, liking, laughing at, getting angry about and sharing things I see on social media. Facebook tells me I have 3,549 friends when in real life I probably have around 30.

It might have something to do with my work. For the past eight years, I’ve been supporting humanitarian aid work, far from where I grew up, in Alsager, England. My family and friends are all far away, so I see most of them only on Facebook.…  Seguir leyendo »

I Can’t Jump Ship From Facebook Yet

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

In 2009, a study found that the mothers of children with autism experienced a level of chronic stress similar to that of combat soldiers. Two and a half years after I read about that study, I was told that my son had autism. He was about to turn 2.

A few months after his diagnosis, he started doing something I didn’t understand. He was looking out of the corner of his eyes and flapping his hands in front of them. It was self-stimulatory behavior, or stimming, common in kids on the autism spectrum, and he did it intensely.

Putting him in his crib at nap time during this stage was hard.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Chris Hughes, cofundador de Facebook, recientemente observó que el escrutinio público de Facebook "debió haberse producido hace mucho tiempo", y dijo "me resulta sorprendente que no hayan tenido que responder más de estas preguntas antes". Los líderes del sector de la tecnología de la información, especialmente en Europa, han venido advirtiendo sobre los abusos cometidos por Facebook (y otros portales) desde hace años. Sus percepciones y recomendaciones prácticas son especialmente urgentes hoy.

El testimonio del CEO de Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, ante el Senado de Estados Unidos sirvió de poco para apuntalar la confianza pública en una empresa que trafica datos personales de sus usuarios.…  Seguir leyendo »

Mark Zuckerberg testifies on Capitol Hill. Photo: Getty Images.

MundoAmérica, ,

Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional hearing is painful to watch. Not because Mark himself is more comfortable in his natural habitat on Hacker Square than in the US capital. But because most of the senators’ questions revealed all-too publicly how little they frame their lives according to the barometer of a digital age.

This isn’t to say that they needed a more technical background, of course. Even after spending eight years at Facebook as a public spokeswoman for the company, I couldn’t even begin to understand the code that my colleagues on the engineering team would write, revise and push. But it is to say that the vast majority of senators in the room lacked a user’s perspective: the perspective of the vast majority of Facebook’s two billion active users who are just that – active on the platform.…  Seguir leyendo »

Illustration by Jeffrey Henson Scales, photograph by Iain Masterton/Canopy, via Getty Images

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

Facebook is in a pickle. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who is scheduled to testify before Congress this week regarding the privacy of users’ personal data, is on a mea culpa tour. In media interviews, he has said that he is even open to some regulation. Here, then, is one idea that could fix a lot of the emerging problems with Facebook and other internet mega-platforms as they find themselves in congressional cross hairs.

Many of Facebook’s current problems began when the company realized that people really do care about news, and not just sports, dating and entertainment. The company moved away from its origins as a way for users to connect toward becoming a media organization, carrying feeds that ranked and distributed news content.…  Seguir leyendo »

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Credit Jeff Roberson/Associated Press

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

This week, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is scheduled to testify before two congressional committees amid the growing outcry over the company’s data collection practices. Because I have been analyzing the potential negative effects of Facebook on politics for a long time, I am fielding a lot of inquiries about what legislators should ask Mr. Zuckerberg.

Here’s my answer: Nothing. We already know most everything we need for legislators to pass laws that would protect us from what Facebook has unleashed.

The sight of lawmakers yelling at Mr. Zuckerberg might feel cathartic, but the danger of a public spectacle is that it will look like progress but amount to nothing: a few apologies from Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a joint hearing of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees on Capitol Hill on April 10 in Washington. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías, , ,

A word of advice for Congress as it ponders new schemes for Internet regulation after the “perp walk” this week of Facebook tycoon Mark Zuckerberg: Don’t do it.

Zuckerberg is a tempting target. His serial apologies show how Facebook became so entangled in its corporate mission to “bring the world closer together” that it stopped putting the customer first.

Facebook is paying for its mistakes in loss of customer trust — its main asset — and this market punishment has only just begun. It’s obvious to users now that Facebook’s business model isn’t about making the world better, but about obtaining information about its customers and profiting from it.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías

El ser humano es demasiado previsible, pensaría el replicante Roy Batty, de la serie Nexus6 en Blade Runner. Hace décadas que asistimos al deseo de construir realidades paralelas generando modas demoscópicas para diseñar así el futuro y cambiar la realidad.

Transformar la democracia en sondeocracia, un nuevo modelo construido a golpe de encuesta donde los ciudadanos desinformados se suman automáticamente a la moda por temor a no formar parte de la mayoría o simplemente, quienes no acaban de compartirla, se esconden rendidos y abatidos en la espiral del silencio.

Facebook, Twitter o Google, así como las compañías de su propiedad WhatsApp o YouTube, han dejado en evidencia que la concentración de grandes plataformas tecnológicas no solo ha buscado nuevas oportunidades de negocio.…  Seguir leyendo »

Mark Zuckerberg Can Still Fix This Mess

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

The news about Facebook is not getting better. The company has sharply increased the number of users whose data was improperly shared with an outside company connected to President Trump’s campaign, to possibly 87 million. Amid an outcry, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, is expected to testify before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.

There is a dog-eared playbook for industry titans called before lawmakers: Apologize repeatedly, be humble, keep it boring. Mr. Zuckerberg can and should toss that playbook. He’s got $60 billion to his name, 99 percent of which he has said he will donate to charity. And he controls Facebook — is Facebook — in an unusual way: He controls 60 percent of its shareholder votes.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

No siempre es fácil ver por qué deberíamos proteger nuestra privacidad. El escándalo de Cambridge Analytica, en el que se usaron datos personales para manipular elecciones, es un ejemplo de cómo perder nuestra privacidad puede tener consecuencias alarmantes: Christopher Wylie, exdirector de investigación de la empresa, asegura que sin su injerencia en el voto del brexit, los resultados habrían podido ser distintos. Este caso ilustra por qué proteger nuestra privacidad tiene que ser un esfuerzo colectivo.

La privacidad es colectiva porque exponer datos sobre nosotros mismos también expone a otros. Las 270.000 personas que aceptaron llenar la encuesta de Aleksandr Kogan, investigador de la Universidad de Cambridge, y utilizar la aplicación de Cambridge Analytica no solo permitieron la cosecha de datos de sus más de 50 millones de amigos, sino que también ayudaron con la fabricación de herramientas que pueden construir el perfil político y psicológico de cualquier persona en el mundo.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia, ,

Alors qu’en France les autorités veulent régler le problème des « fake news » par une loi dont le projet a été publié le 21 mars, un groupe d’experts de haut niveau mis en place par la Commission européenne préconise de ne pas légiférer, selon le rapport sur les « fausses informations et la désinformation » qu’il a remis le 12 mars à la commissaire européenne chargée du numérique, ­Mariya Gabriel.

Qui a raison, qui a tort ? Interroger notre cerveau primaire sur notre attirance pour les « fake news », leur lecture et leur diffusion, aiderait à répondre à la question.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Está solo frente a la pantalla de su ordenador. Accede a internet, teclea algo. Cree que está solo, en la intimidad. En último extremo, puede imaginar que está interactuando con un interlocutor de su elección. En realidad, debe imaginar que está usted expuesto en un lugar público, que todo lo que escriba y mire será sabido y oído por todos, y que la huella de sus palabras permanecerá inalterable, casi imborrable, para siempre. Sabemos todo esto, pero lo olvidamos enseguida. De hecho, es muy difícil entender que, desde el momento en que llamamos desde un dispositivo móvil o nos conectamos a internet, ya no tenemos una auténtica vida privada.…  Seguir leyendo »

Can Europe Lead on Privacy?

EuropaReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

We have a responsibility to protect your information,” Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, declared recently in a full-page newspaper advertisement. “If we can’t, we don’t deserve it.”

It is nice to see Facebook taking some responsibility for the exploitation of the personal information of 50 million of its users in the service of a political campaign. But Mr. Zuckerberg’s comments suggest he still doesn’t get it: What matters is not whether internet companies “deserve” our private information but why we as consumers do not have meaningful ways to protect that data from being siphoned for sale in the first place.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesDemocracia, ,

Las últimas revelaciones sobre la manera en que Cambridge Analytica tuvo acceso a través de Facebook a los datos personales de más de 50 millones de personas son inquietantes. Pero lo más inquietante es que esta información se haya utilizado para modificar el comportamiento de los ciudadanos y para influir en su voto y, en resumidas cuentas, en el funcionamiento de nuestra democracia. Si bien aún tenemos que entender qué es lo que ha sucedido, lo que ya está claro es que algo ha funcionado rematadamente mal. Lo más alarmante es que, aunque solo unas 270.000 personas dieron su consentimiento y descargaron la controvertida aplicación, según la prensa se recogieron los datos de 50 millones de usuarios sin su consentimiento.…  Seguir leyendo »

Facebook Isn’t Just Violating Our Privacy

ReflexionesSocial,

Even as it issues full-page apologies in print newspapers promising ritualistically “to do better,” Facebook and its allies have minimized the importance of the seismic revelation that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked on behalf of the Trump campaign in 2016, had gained access to the private information of about 50 million Facebook users.

Some executives have pointed out that the mechanism that until a few years ago allowed a researcher with 270,000 app downloads to have access to 50 million profiles wasn’t exactly a secret, and, besides, Facebook users nominally agreed to the sharing of these profiles so that apps would perform better.…  Seguir leyendo »

Don’t Delete Facebook. Do Something About It.

ReflexionesSocial

On March 16, as the buzzer sounded in perhaps the worst upset in N.C.A.A. tournament history, and my beloved University of Virginia went down to the 16th-seeded University of Maryland, Baltimore County, I had one thought: I need to deactivate my Facebook account. I did not want to endure the taunts and trash talk of my friends who cheer for Duke.

I do this often. When I need to focus on a project or relax a bit, I turn off the noise that comes from Facebook — the constant stream of disturbing faces, angry comments and shallow pulls on my precious attention.…  Seguir leyendo »