How much do you know about Fac(ad)ebook?
Throughout the years, we’ve heard plenty. The platform has inspired, surprised, and betrayed us. A lot of us seem to have a love-hate relationship with Facebook, because while we recognize and resent their control over our personal information, we continue to condone their actions by being present on the site.
In this episode, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby analyze the true intentions of Facebook after reading an article on how researchers lost access to their accounts after digging up data against the platform.
Since its creation, the platform has had its fair share of ups and downs. While it remains one of the biggest social media sites in the world and its presence has helped people connect with their loved ones it’s also been the subject of controversy.
In 2014, Facebook was criticized for running psychological tests on 70,000 unconsenting participants in 2012. This test involved removing a certain list of words from their news feeds to see how it affected their reactions to posts.
Later, in 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal showed everyone just how compromised their Facebook accounts were. The data analytics firm improperly harvested data from millions of users for ad targeting during the 2016 election.
And in 2019, the FTC fined Facebook $5 billion over violations of user privacy.
There are plenty more scandals in the past decade to illustrate how the platform has consistently pushed the boundaries of user privacy and personal rights. And yet, people continue to use the platform—effectively giving Facebook the power to also continue commercializing their personal data.
Alexander McCaig clarifies that he doesn’t care about the platform. He explains that this is because Facebook is a commercialization engine, and has been clear about their intentions for their users.
It’s difficult to expect change from a super tech company that is set on its ambition to continue profiting from its users. A more realistic goal to work on would be to take away its biggest source of income, which is its massive user base.
Jason pointed out that if a huge momentum against Facebook occurred and a billion users collectively decided to just stop using the platform, it would have a tangible and more concrete impact on their actions. In contrast, writing articles would not be as effective.
The anger towards big tech corporations like Facebook is misplaced. With all the awareness around what it’s capable of doing and what it has already chosen to do before, people don’t need more content on how they’re being used as cash cows. They need a way to mobilize against the platform; an incentive to move away from using Facebook as their primary source of connection and entertainment.
The TARTLE platform is capable of giving people this renewed purpose on the internet. The marketplace is designed to fully respect the autonomy and privacy of each individual. Users are free to fill out all the data packets they want and earn from their hard work. Everybody who is on the TARTLE platform has the opportunity to become a data champion.
If you have the strong desire to stop an enormous commercialization system like Facebook from using people as cash cows, the first step towards achieving your goal is to find out what you have control over—yourself, and your participation in that very system.
Cutting off their access to your data may seem insignificant when you are just one person out of a billion users on the platform. However, change is never about one big miraculous step that suddenly and neatly solves all the problems. It’s a series of small steps that amount to a big change over time.
You could be the first step of the movement that takes down Facebook’s monopoly over other people’s data. All you need to do is stop using it—and if you want a renewed perspective on your power as an individual, make the switch to the TARTLE marketplace.
It’s time to find out: what’s your data worth?
Sign up for the TARTLE Marketplace through this link here.
Throughout the years, we’ve heard plenty. The platform has inspired, surprised, and betrayed us. A lot of us seem to have a love-hate relationship with Facebook, because while we recognize and resent their control over our personal information, we continue to condone their actions by being present on the site.
Alexander McCaig (00:00):
All right. I know you want to tee me up on something here, and I think we can offer a moderately enlightening perspective on this.
Jason Rigby (00:16):
I think a balanced approach.
Alexander McCaig (00:17):
Balanced.
Jason Rigby (00:18):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (00:18):
Oh, wow. Good for you.
Jason Rigby (00:20):
Because the clickbaity headline is this, Researchers Dig Up Embarrassing Data About Facebook — And Lose Access To Their Accounts. Here's a victim. Here's Mark Zuckerberg, once again, fucking people over. And these are researchers and they're trying to do a good thing.
Alexander McCaig (00:40):
You know what's hilarious. Mark Zuckerberg is not sitting behind the keyboard blocking you. He's not. He's not doing it. He's not... No, that's not what's going on.
Jason Rigby (00:50):
Yeah, I guarantee you, I would bet my life that Mark Zuckerberg is just trying to be a CEO and run a huge company. I've seen interviews with him, him and his wife and all that stuff, they're just billionaires that are chilling and he's trying to run a company. I honestly don't think he's sitting there, heh, heh, heh.
Alexander McCaig (01:11):
No, the guy goes to the Yellowstone Club to ski.
Jason Rigby (01:14):
Yes. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (01:16):
Whatever.
Jason Rigby (01:16):
He's a dude. I doubt that he's...
Alexander McCaig (01:19):
It doesn't matter how much money he has, he's a human being.
Jason Rigby (01:21):
We have to, and you talk to a lot of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and all of them, it's this thing of, I need more, I need more money, I need to be bigger. It's not a nefarious thing. There may be a few that are like skull and bones-
Alexander McCaig (01:39):
Yale.
Jason Rigby (01:40):
... doing some stuff behind the scenes, but I would think the narcissistic people will go into politics not have to sit and, you know, have to sit and run a huge company. It's a lot of freaking work to be a CEO, and if you have thousands of employees-
Alexander McCaig (01:57):
With two point whatever billion active users.
Jason Rigby (02:00):
... all over the world, that's a fucking huge responsibility.
Alexander McCaig (02:03):
It's a lot of meat.
Jason Rigby (02:04):
He doesn't have time to think about how Facebook...
Alexander McCaig (02:08):
No, I'll give it to him. That's a lot of meat. Listen, people are complaining here that they do some research and that their account gets shut off. All right, let's...
Jason Rigby (02:21):
They're checking on ads, seeing what people's ads are getting.
Alexander McCaig (02:24):
Guys! It's Facebook's servers. You're playing around in somebody else's house. If they want to kick you out, they'll kick you out. If you want to go use a system where you have freedom of speech, go use one, go host your own server that anyone on the internet can get to. You're complaining because you wanted to talk on a platform that's fundamentally not designed to respect your rights. If you want to be respected, if you don't want your account shut off, go somewhere else. Facebook engineered a system for commercial benefit of driving advertisements to people. It's a commercialization system. But if you're unhappy that you're doing research, that things are being censored. They'll censor whatever the shit they want.
Jason Rigby (03:11):
But people don't realize this, if 2.8 billion active users on Facebook and all of a sudden a billion of them, this huge momentum came about, Facebook's taking data and using it to resell and all this stuff, and people really grasp what they were doing with data. And then a billion users came off in seven days. What's going to happen to Facebook?
Alexander McCaig (03:33):
They're going to...
Jason Rigby (03:33):
The red lights are going to go on.
Alexander McCaig (03:35):
Something's wrong.
Jason Rigby (03:36):
What will they do as governments do to, they will respond to the people. But if you keep using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, all their programs...
Alexander McCaig (03:44):
You'll be writing articles like this all day long.
Jason Rigby (03:47):
What does an article do?
Alexander McCaig (03:48):
If you don't like it, use something different.
Jason Rigby (03:51):
If a billion people deleted their account right now-
Alexander McCaig (03:54):
Right now.
Jason Rigby (03:55):
... I guarantee you Facebook would respond.
Alexander McCaig (03:59):
I don't want to create any harm here, but if you sign up on TARTLE-
Jason Rigby (04:07):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (04:07):
... and you delete your Facebook account, I'll give all those people a thousand TARTLE coins. You can do it all day long.
Jason Rigby (04:15):
Oh Lord.
Alexander McCaig (04:17):
And it's not that I dislike Facebook, I really don't care about Facebook. Facebook is not out there saying, "I want to help the planet, I want to fix this issue." They're a commercialization engine. Recognize that. It's not social media. Wake up, stop writing these ridiculous, naive articles, stop complaining that you're getting censored on a system. The system doesn't... It's not, it's not free speech book, that's not what it is. It's not respect human rights book, it's Facebook, facade book. They are strictly there for commercialization of your habits, nothing else.
Jason Rigby (05:02):
And don't think the largest tech company, Apple, because they're doing all this privacy stuff. What are they doing with your data?
Alexander McCaig (05:08):
Of course, they...
Jason Rigby (05:09):
They just don't want Facebook to have it anymore. I'm not going to share, you're not playing in my sand box anymore.
Alexander McCaig (05:13):
It's the same thing we talked about with China and it's own big tech companies.
Jason Rigby (05:16):
Yes. Yes.
Alexander McCaig (05:17):
But now it's we have these super tech companies, I've gone from big tech to super tech. Super tech's, no, you can't take away our most fundamental asset. They understand information is the key to everything, it always has been.
Jason Rigby (05:30):
Who has more data, google, Facebook, Microsoft?
Jason Rigby (05:35):
The-
Jason Rigby (05:35):
Oracle?
Alexander McCaig (05:35):
... Rothschild's. The Rockefeller Foundation.
Jason Rigby (05:39):
No, the Bohemian Grove.
Alexander McCaig (05:43):
Yeah, Bohemian Grove.
Jason Rigby (05:44):
Those guys.
Alexander McCaig (05:46):
They have the info.
Jason Rigby (05:48):
YouTube's going to get us now.
Alexander McCaig (05:50):
But the point is, guys, stop bitching about Zuckerberg, stop bitching about Facebook. You're going to continue to write these articles because they are not, from their core, fundamentally designed to respect your rights.
Jason Rigby (06:05):
And if you're a researcher and you're a data scientist like this, and you go in and you find these anomalies and you find different things, they went through a hundred thousand political ads and all this stuff and you're going against them. What are their attorneys going to do?
Alexander McCaig (06:17):
Shut them off.
Jason Rigby (06:17):
How many attorneys Facebook ads.
Alexander McCaig (06:18):
What's the easiest way to squash a problem?
Jason Rigby (06:21):
Just...
Alexander McCaig (06:22):
Shut it off. Block them.
Jason Rigby (06:23):
You're poking around. You signed up for Facebook and you signed up for our user agreement and you're violating that.
Jason Rigby (06:31):
Okay, then bye.
Alexander McCaig (06:32):
That's what they did.
Jason Rigby (06:33):
That's what they do.
Alexander McCaig (06:33):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (06:33):
That's what they do.
Jason Rigby (06:36):
Read the user agreement it and don't sign up.
Alexander McCaig (06:38):
Read TARTLE's user agreement, we're here to benefit you.
Jason Rigby (06:40):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:41):
We're not going to say, get rid of that guy because we don't like what he says. We respect the fact that you have a voice. We respect the fact that you make choices. We respect the fact that your information is the most important thing for humanities future.
Jason Rigby (06:51):
And why don't these data scientists, at the New York University Center for Cybersecurity, come and speak to us-
Alexander McCaig (06:57):
Why? Because...
Jason Rigby (06:58):
... and do a positive article about what TARTLE's doing. We would love to talk to you?
Alexander McCaig (07:02):
You want to know why? Because positivity doesn't sell.
Jason Rigby (07:04):
I know it's-
Alexander McCaig (07:05):
It never does.
Jason Rigby (07:06):
... [crosstalk 00:07:06] shit.
Alexander McCaig (07:06):
The truth is always, always, always unfashionable. It's always unpopular.
Jason Rigby (07:13):
Well they even came up with this in the research. They found the most bizarre statements and crazy stuff are the one to get all the clicks.
Alexander McCaig (07:19):
Of course they do. Why do you think cures get all the glory?
Jason Rigby (07:22):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (07:23):
Right? They're the loudest. That's not what it is. If you don't like Facebook, stop using it, but don't use a system and then complain about it. Go somewhere else. You have every opportunity under the sun to use so many other people that are doing phenomenal things.
Jason Rigby (07:41):
There's so many companies out there.
Alexander McCaig (07:43):
Leave. Just leave. Who cares? It's Facebook. You're going to let that determine your life. Get out of that.
Jason Rigby (07:51):
Yeah. Delete Instagram, whatever.
Alexander McCaig (07:52):
If you don't like Apple, use another damn cell phone manufacturer.
Jason Rigby (07:56):
Yes, exactly.
Alexander McCaig (07:56):
There's plenty of them that want to respect your privacy. Plenty.
Jason Rigby (08:00):
It's really that simple.
Alexander McCaig (08:03):
It's not that hard.
Jason Rigby (08:04):
Let's get into tartle.co. How do people know that we respect their privacy and how can they sign up and understand when they sign up what is going on behind the scenes to protect their data?
Alexander McCaig (08:19):
Here's number one, did we force you to sign up? No. Do we use coercion? No. Do we use education? Yes. Do we ask you to pay into something to use it? Absolutely not, it's free for you to use. Do we take any profit from you? Never. Can TARTLE see any of your information? Impossible. Do we reward you for your hard work? Absolutely. Are we a public benefit corporation? You bet we are. Are we on our way to getting fully certified B corporation two, by an independent third party to verify that we're actually doing this work for others? Yes. Do we give you an option to donate towards causes you care about because we want to fix this world just as much as you do? Absolutely.
Alexander McCaig (08:59):
And we're not in this for the money, we're in this to help humanity evolve. Because if we do not evolve, if we do not understand ourselves better and our neighbors and all the plants and animals, we will burn ourself off of this closed system, which is this planet. And this is our last life support, it is our only life support. And if we destroy that through a lack of understanding, who are you going to blame, Facebook? No, you're going to have to blame yourself at that point. You're going to have to take a hard look when it comes down to that moment. When you're, man, I should have done something when I had the choice. And we've given you that choice so when you sign up at TARTLE you're taking a stance for humanity, the planet and yourself. And you're telling everybody that I want to be responsible, I want to be logical, I want to do the right thing. I want to stop complaining and start working. That’s what you do at tartle.co.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?.
