Your Facebook & Twitter Activity Is Tracked More Closely Than You Think
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 25, 2009 by admin in Technology
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009Sentiment Analysis & Social Media Monitoring are compiling massive amounts of data for trend tracking, but as a side effect, compile massive amounts of data about individuals as well.
Next time you’re Twittering your thoughts, making a status post, or taking a quiz on Facebook, remember that not only are you creating part of an eternal online identity and probably sharing your information with more people than you thought (especially see question 3 in that ACLU quiz), you’re also helping shape marketing and political decisions. We’ve written jokingly about Googlewanking and Googlewashing before, but the two latest big things on the web – Social Media Monitoring and Sentiment Analysis – are making the web a different place. On the abstractly interesting side of this, sentiment analysis sort of renders the typical CNN or Time user poll (typically called a Voodoo Poll) even more absurd than they were. Online polls have always had major shortcomings, but the main one was that of limited demographic diversity, i.e.: only dorks who take CNN polls take CNN polls. A recent classic example of their susceptibility to gaming and inaccuracy was when “moot”, the 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, became the “World’s Most Influential Person” in a Time user poll. The difference with these newly evolving data mining tools is that they Read the rest of this entry »
Am I Still Hip If I Oppose Gay Marriage?
[ 7 Comments ]Posted on November 1, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, November 1st, 2008And if Obama loses, is it Anthony Romero’s fault?
 Sorry Anthony, your e-mail had unintended consequences. |
Note to self: if you ever go into politics, remember the law of unintended consequences. I recently received an e-mail from the ACLU in which Executive Director Anthony D. Romero shared the sad story of the results of his outing himself with his parents. He then went on to explain why I should be concerned about California’s Proposition 8, and the rights of gay people to get married in general. I was surprised (as I found myself seriously pondering this topic in-depth for the first time) what my more complicated thoughts on the subject really are. First, I want to say that I ADAMANTLY believe in an individual’s right to have whatever kind of relationship they like with whatever gender or species they desire, so long as both are consenting and in agreement. And although none of my friends do the interspecies thing, easily half of my friends are gay, be they men or women (and half of them will want to kill me when we get around to discussing this). What Romero’s plea highlighted for me is that I don’t think I really care if the government sanctions gay marriage, because, once I really pondered my feelings on the topic, I realized I also don’t think people should get tax breaks for being married in the first place, and I don’t think the government has any place putting their stamp of approval on such agreements. For one, what if your spiritual beliefs preclude Read the rest of this entry »
They, The People
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 20, 2008 by admin in Politics
Monday, October 20th, 2008There’s A Constitution Party, But I’m Not On The Guest List
Am I a “Constitution Voter”? Well, as outlined by the Constitution Party, I guess not. Number three of their “Seven Principles of the Constitution Party is “Family: One husband and one wife with their children as divinely instituted”. Is that a Constitution-based principle? I’ll have to read the darn thing again to be sure, but that just doesn’t sound right. I guess anybody could form a political party and call it “The Constitution Party”. I mean, Vanilla Ice called himself a rapper, right? This whole question came up for me in 2003 or so, when I said to a friend of mine that since neither party had represented my values for so long, I’d be ecstatic if a new party came together, maybe one that had a big emphasis on constitutionality. Oh well. Another dream hijacked by the power-hungry. I didn’t let that stop me from getting my free ACLU I’m A Constitution Voter bumper sticker though, gosh darn it. Which gives me an idea. One of the GOP’s key strategies over the past twenty years has been defunding the left. Maybe if we all banded together and demanded every free campaign item imaginable from our opponent (whoever they are), and then didn’t use it…
FISA: A Big Barack Obummer
[ 4 Comments ]Posted on July 14, 2008 by admin in Politics
Monday, July 14th, 2008How much deceipt will Democratic voters accept in the name of winning?
The passage of the FISA bill in congress last week reminded me of how glad I am that I’m usually able to maintain my ignorant dreams of utopia. This ability comes in handy at times like these, when a politician I thought I really admired so whole-heartedly caves in and signs off on what I consider to be one of the most un-American pieces of legislation to slither through the gutter that is the U.S. Congress. Hey, B.O.! You really let us down on this one! It was only October last year that Obama’s spokesperson Bill Burton said “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies” . October Surprise, indeed. If you want to learn more about the FISA bill, Glenn Greenwald had an informative piece on Salon, and here’s the Wikipedia entry. If you want to take action, you can support the ACLU, which has filed a lawsuit questioning the bill’s constitutionality, or support the EFF, with their Continue the Fight Against Warrantless Wiretapping campaign.