How to fix Big Tech and Social Media

[Josquius]

A guy I know has just made a lot of money, I suspect several thousand, from the pump and dump of stocks in trumps social media thingy.
Nice to see the trumpy wealth being milked my normal people a bit.
Just wish I'd been paying attention

So it's commendable to defraud Trump supporters. 

Trump was the one defrauding them.
He just took some of trumps crumbs.

[grumbler]

What happened?

A Trump-aligned social media platform just merged with a SPAC and went public via the back door. The stock (DWAC) shot up from ~$10 to ~$130, then slumped down to ~$90, all in the course of about three days.

Not exactly a traditional pump and dump, but there's plenty of reason for skepticism. This ain't the pink sheets, though.

It's an interesting move because the Trump-oriented company that is going to be part of the merger doesn't even exist yet.  When it will be created and what it will be is unknown, as is the ownership stakes.  This is a complete pig in a poke.  MAGAts and their money are soon parted.

[Admiral Yi]

Trump was the one defrauding them.
He just took some of trumps crumbs.

I misunderstood.  I thought your buddy was the one pumping.

[Josquius]

Trump was the one defrauding them.
He just took some of trumps crumbs.

I misunderstood.  I thought your buddy was the one pumping.

'
Well yeah, technically he was, along with everyone else jumping in to buy it. Though I don't think he's that rich to substantially impact stock prices much on his own.
The blame ultimately lies on the big money folks who are actively encouraging people to buy in and pump up the price on the expectation they can jump out at the top and leave the suckers holding it- those who see this happening and slice off something for themselves without actively encouraging others to buy themselves I see no issue with.

[Admiral Yi]

Well yeah, technically he was, along with everyone else jumping in to buy it. Though I don't think he's that rich to substantially impact stock prices much on his own.
The blame ultimately lies on the big money folks who are actively encouraging people to buy in and pump up the price on the expectation they can jump out at the top and leave the suckers holding it- those who see this happening and slice off something for themselves without actively encouraging others to buy themselves I see no issue with.

My understanding of a pump and dump is 1) you buy cheap 2) you talk it up then 3) you sell it.  If your friend just bought cheap then sold high it wouldn't fit my understanding of pump and dump.

By the same token anyone can talk up a stock.  You don't have to be big money folks.

On a completely different note, I learned what synthetic CDOs are the other day.  They're securities that entitle you to a payment stream from credit default swap premiums.

[Jacob]

How much substance is there to the Google anti-trust case?

Court docs: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903/gov.uscourts.nysd.564903.152.0_1.pdf

Twitter take that says it's a big deal, but hey it's social media so I don't know: https://twitter.com/fasterthanlime/status/1452053938195341314

[Sheilbh]

Running list of Facebook Files/Facebook Papers stories:
https://www.protocol.com/facebook-papers

I think separate to big tech and social media there is now a big question of what to do about Facebook.

[Jacob]

Running list of Facebook Files/Facebook Papers stories:
https://www.protocol.com/facebook-papers

I think separate to big tech and social media there is now a big question of what to do about Facebook.

Yeah... you know, I'd never even thought about how FB impacts places like India or Ethiopia or Myanmar.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah... you know, I'd never even thought about how FB impacts places like India or Ethiopia or Myanmar.

It's huge and in some countries - it is the internet.

It's like AOL used to be. You get (basic) data for free if you sign up for Facebook, but you access the internet through Facebook. Its power is really extraordinary - it is infrastructure in large parts of the world.

I'd read about Myanmar and Rohingya a while ago - I think on Buzzfeed - and as well as the general Facebook issues there just weren't enough people with language skills to moderate the content being flagged. In that case it's almost like they own the airwaves for transmission and, say, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines.

Edit: And, frankly, I think the stuff that's gone wrong in the US is a fraction of the problems Facebook has caused in other countries such as India.

[Jacob]

Yeah... I'm thinking there's a real risk we'll see a Rwanda style genocide driven by Facebook if they don't get their shit under control. And I don't think they will, unless they're made to.

[Admiral Yi]

If we're going to demand that Facebook shut down incitement, don't we have to do the same for telephone, email and snailmail?

[Jacob]

If we're going to demand that Facebook shut down incitement, don't we have to do the same for telephone, email and snailmail?

If we want to dismiss false equivalencies, don't we also have to do the same for all comparisons?

[Sheilbh]

If we're going to demand that Facebook shut down incitement, don't we have to do the same for telephone, email and snailmail?

That's a fair point in relation to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, which are problematic. I don't think it really applies to the rest of Facebook.

[Admiral Yi]

That's a fair point in relation to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, which are problematic. I don't think it really applies to the rest of Facebook.

I think it does.  In both cases they are conduits, not creators of incitement.

[grumbler]

I think that it is reasonable to ask that companies not monetize incitement by amplifying it, but I have yet to see any suggestion by critics of, say, Facebook that actually proposes a solution to the problem of assholes having access to the internet.  What, precisely, are such critics proposing be done?