#I have been doing this for Two Years and without feeding the algorithm I’d probably have less than 300 subscribers

[starlitangels]

Ignore this it’s just a tag rant

[theotherackerman]

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Any recognizable elements belong to Attack on Titan.

NOTES:

Friday January 22nd

chapter twenty-five: said i'm fine but it wasn't true

It was Mikasa and Levi’s grandfather’s birthday.

Mikasa only knew it was by the calendar in the kitchen.

“He was an ass anyway. You didn’t miss much by not knowing him,” Levi informed her as he did every year.

Armin and Eren left that afternoon.

--------------------

Apparently being a dumbass was contagious.

While Zeke was trying to process the file Levi had given him, Armin had dropped Eren off back at the house on Friday morning.

"Niccolo and Sasha broke up," Eren informed him. "Well, not that they were actually together yet…"

Zeke groaned. "Why?"

"Apparently, he had some issues with her still being friends with Connie...is Pieck drunk on our couch? It's not even the afternoon!"

"You're one to talk, tiny Jaeger," Pieck said from the couch.

"Oh see that dumbass there just broke up with her boyfriend too," Zeke said as he pointed at her.

"He wasn't my boyfriend!"

"Wait, is this the mystery guy? Who was he?"

Pieck face planted into the couch and mumbled something that Eren and Zeke didn't understand.

"Is she drunk?" Eren asked him.

"On sugar probably. She already ate the last of the ice cream."

Eren didn’t say anything as he went to his room upstairs.

Zeke looked over the still face planted Pieck.

“Will you go talk to him already? It is not too late to go back and tell him you are a dumbass,” Zeke said as he looked at the scans of the file on his computer.

“It is! I broke his heart and now he’s going to go out with a younger woman.” Pieck said as she sat up.

Why did Zeke have to be the only sane one in his group of friends?

“You didn’t see his face, Zeke. I destroyed him and just left. Without looking back.”

“Pieck...go back. Go admit your fuck up.”

Zeke had seen Pieck cry a handful of times. Once when her father had been diagnosed with cancer and the other when Dina had died.

But not like this.

Pieck hadn’t been in many relationships. She always said things like she was allergic to relationships or why waste time on something that statistically wouldn’t work out. No, Pieck was married to her art.

It was this moment that Zeke realized Pieck had said all of these things to keep herself safe from this.

The tears were streaming down her face.

Eren came downstairs and stopped there.

“Pieck….” Eren said as he crossed to Pieck.

“I just see him in my head. I go back and he’s already with her. She’s so much younger and prettier than I am. I just...I can’t. Eren, I’m sorry,” Pieck apologized.

“Why?” Eren asked.

Zeke moved from the table over to sit next to Pieck.

“He’s your friend and you’re going to find out very soon. It’s Jean. I’m sorry,” Pieck began crying more.

Zeke did not have the first clue about what to do. Neither did Eren.

“I’m going to make a phone call,” Eren said before stepping out of the room.

“Don’t! It has to be over. I don’t want to feel this….anymore..”

“Okay,” Eren said. “I won’t call Jean.”

Eren stepped out of the room.

After what happened with Armin and Mikasa, Eren said he wouldn’t lie about things like this anymore. But Eren had to lie this time.

He went out of the room and pressed Jean’s contact in his phone.

“What do you want, Jaeger? Now is not a good time,” Jean’s voice rang out on the other side of the phone.

“Are you in love with Pieck?” Eren asked.

“What? Why is that any of your business?”

“Because she’s crying to Zeke in my living room right now.”

“She’s the one who ended it. Not me! So don’t come at me about it.”

“I’m not. I just..”

“What do you want me to do, Eren? Beg her to stay? I told her just to say the word and I’d tell my mom not to set me up on a date. I told her I loved her. She said she didn’t feel the same. She said she didn’t love me and it was just sex. So no, I’m not fucking begging her when she’s made her feeling perfectly clear. We’re not you and Mikasa. If she wanted to be with me, she had the chance.”

Eren couldn’t argue with that.

“I’m sorry,” Eren said after a moment.

“It’s whatever. I’ll bounce back. I mean how can I not? I’m me.”

“If you need to talk…”

“You’d be the one I’d call?”

“If anyone knows about losing the one they love…”

“Well, you’ve got a point there. You do know about fucking things up, don’t you? You idiot. How is that going by the way?”

“Good.”

“Good. Don’t do that again.”

“Oh. Don’t worry. I won’t. By the way, why didn’t you make a move on Mikasa when we were broken up?”

“Because unlike you, I’m not an idiot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I dropped that idea the day I asked her out and she turned me down. She told me she had feelings for you and then when I saw you two together the next day, I knew. You two were meant for one another. Even if you’re an idiot who fucked it up, I wasn’t. I knew there was no way I could compete with you...when it comes to Mikasa.”

“Did you just say something nice to me?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Okay, horseface.”

“Fucking idiot.”

“...you want to get online and shoot some shit?”

“Give me ten minutes.”

“Don’t pull my rank down.”

“Don’t pull mine.”

--------------

Pieck eventually stopped crying.

Zeke patted her on her back while she cried.

And Pieck cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.

She was done.

“So teach me another song.”

“Do you..”

“No.”

“Okay. Yeah, sure.”

----------------

Mikasa’s writer’s block had begun to disappear. She spent most of the day in the sun room writing lyrics to one of the unfinished pieces she had from Historia.

Annie had given up on work half way through her shift and shuffled into the sun room where Ymir was restringing her acoustic guitar.

The sound of power tools in the basement could be heard.

“They having any luck down there?” Annie asked before she sat down in one of the chairs.

“They brought up some ripped out carpet,” Ymir said as she tightened the string down.

“So this is actually happening. We’re going to record,” Annie gave a small smile.

“We’ve come a long way in a little over a year,” Ymir replied as she finished tightening the string down. “Speaking of coming a long way, how’s our social media numbers looking?”

Annie sighed, “well, Facebook sits at the same numbers. Twitter gained a few. YouTube has gone up. Instagram is the problem. We’re dropping views on whatever we post in the feed.”

“Why?” Mikasa asked as she stopped playing.

“It’s the algorithm. The more people who see and interact with our stuff, the more it spreads but it has to show up on the feed first. We’re fucked sometimes. I’ve been trying to put everything into stories where I can but people still have to interact with it.”

“You remember the days when things were just chronical on our feeds?” Ymir asked. “Now you have to be a math genius like Annie to get anywhere.”

“To be fair, I still haven’t beat it.”

“You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

“We all need to interact with the posts. That’ll help too. I know we have been but we have to keep it up.”

“Just tag me in that shit and I’ll share it everywhere. Speaking of genius...are we going to have another new song or what?” Ymir asked as she looked over at Mikasa.

“I’m working on it. Have we thought about the idea of collaborating with The Restorationists? Their follower numbers are larger than ours. Plus, they just got a new bassist. Might be a good idea to see if they want to do a livestream with us or something,” Mikasa said before she shrugged.

“What about Niccolo and Sasha?” Ymir asked.

“Yeah, I’m worried about that too,” Mikasa sighed.

“Wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Annie shrugged.

-----------------

Sasha kept her word of not speaking to Niccolo for a little bit. He didn’t try to contact her and she didn’t try to contact him. However, as Sasha had said, the farm was doing great at the farmer’s market. Mr. Blouse even gave both Sasha and Historia a bonus when they finished work today.

“I don’t know how we’re going to have four guitars,” Ymir scoffed.

“And a bass,” Annie added.

“Yeah, that too. I love the song as much as you all do but I’m wondering how we’re going to pull it off.”

“What about a collaboration with The Restorationists?” Annie asked.

“Oh yeah. Niccolo did tag us on their Instagram. We should do that,” Sasha said.

“Even with you and Niccolo being all….whatever?” Ymir asked.

“I can be professional. Besides, I thought you all wanted this to be a more stripped down song. I can use the cajón,” Sasha shrugged.

“What the fuck is a cajón?” Ymir asked.

“The percussion box,” Sasha answered.

“Then just call it that!”

“This song is pretty personal, Historia. I’ll leave it up to you,” Sasha said before she hit the cymbal, causing Ymir to jump.

Ymir responded with a very horrible sound from her bass.

Annie sat down on the piano bench next to Mikasa and Historia as she sighed.

“It is pretty personal,” Mikasa said as she looked over Historia.

“We need four guitars, two percussion, and a bass. Can they read music?” Historia asked.

“Eren can,” Mikasa answered.

“Pieck is their bassist now. She can read music,” Annie said.

“Didn’t she work at the tutoring center with you for a while?” Ymir asked.

Annie nodded.

“Small world,” Ymir said.

“That leaves Zeke and Niccolo,” Historia said.

“Niccolo can,” Sasha answered before looking down.

Levi walked by the sun room with Sawney and Bean following him.

“Hey Levi, can Zeke read music?” Ymir asked.

“Why would I know the answer to that?” Levi asked as he stopped.

“He’s your therapist. Maybe you two bond over music or something. I don’t know but do you know?”

“No, I don’t. It really doesn’t come up in conversation.” He continued on his path with Sawney and Bean followed him.

“I’m sure Zeke can read music. I can always call Eren after practice,” Mikasa said as she turned to the next page of her sheet music.

“Are you okay with it being a collaboration, Mikasa?” Historia said.

“I’m okay with it,” she smiled.

“Guess that settles that. Just need to ask The Restorationists. Do you want me on bass, electric, or acoustic for this song?” Ymir asked.

“Acoustic,” Historia and Mikasa said at the same time.

“All of our band…” Historia started.

“On acoustic,” Mikasa finished.

“Add their band here,” Historia said as she pointed to the music.

“Should we do all five of us singing this lyric here?” Mikasa asked.

“Wait, I didn’t agree to sing on this song!” Sasha said as she stood up from her drum set.

“Oh yes, let’s do that. That should be low enough for everyone to sing, right?” Historia asked.

“It’s hopeless, Sasha. They’re in the zone. They’re not hearing a thing we’re saying,” Ymir said as she put her bass down on its stand.

“If that’s the case, I’m going to go figure out what to make for dinner,” Sasha said as she left the sun room.

“I’m going to go make myself some more tea before I get morning sickness again,” Annie said as she placed her guitar on the stand.

Historia and Mikasa were left alone in the sun room to continue work on the song.

While Rod Reiss sat on his throne, his daughter was dismantling it in her music.

[wolftraps]

Sign over your soul

Many people (including @sidewalk-and-chalkin most recently) asked about Cass and her meeting with Martin about keeping her job and the whole reveal. Technically this doesn’t include the full reveal, but I already gave you a powerpoint for that. So here. Have Cass and Martin trying to one-up each other while Jon continues being a disaster.

--

Cass and Martin have never been friends. Which is odd because it’s not like they haven’t known each other, and they’re both generally friendly people. They’ve even been friends with a lot of the same people. And yet, even after years of working in the same place and talking to the same people, they still know each other almost solely by reputation. Reputation which, prior to Martin joining the Archives, had been good. Now… well, now it’s hard to say. The doors are locked, as usual, when Cass arrives for her pseudo-interview, but that’s been the case for months and it hasn’t mattered so far. And as usual, Patrząc meets her out front and leads her around to a side door, propped open with a tape recorder, that she locks back up behind her. As always. “And how are you today, beautiful?” Cass asks. Patrząc meows back, pleased. “That’s great. So, what are the odds I’m about to lose my job?” Another meow; Cass laughs. “I know better than to bet against myself. Do you even have any money?” Patrząc ignores her, just leads her through the familiar building to a room on the ground floor that Cass knows has been turned into Martin’s new office. There they stop. “Right.” Cass takes a deep breath. “Wish me luck.”

“Mrrow,” Patrząc says. “It doesn’t matter if I need it or not. It’s polite.” The cat just stares. “Oh hush.” With another breath, Cass knocks, intending to wait, but as soon as she does, Patrząc huffs and rubs up against the door, which swings open with only a soft click. She meows at Martin as she leads Cass in and then stalks right back out as the door closes behind her. “That cat has no sense of decorum,” Cass says fondly, staring after her. “She’s Jon’s cat,” Martin responds, just as fond, “I’ve given up. Anyway. Sit, please. You want any tea?” “Sure. Just a—” “Small spoonful of sugar,” Martin finishes, already setting the mug in front of her. It’s made perfectly. “So, first off, thank you for all the work you’ve been doing. It’s really been a relief to not have all that to worry about.” “No idea what you’re talking about,” Cass lies. “Right. So you don’t want this bonus I was going to give you.” “Well it’s not like you or Sims were going to maintain the network. Also you can blame the cat for letting me in.” “Yeah, I know. I’ve always known. If it was a problem we would’ve talked way before now.” “Right. Good… Should I bother asking how? I know you’re not watching the security footage.” She’d checked. No one had accessed any of it but her since they closed the doors. “You… can. First I’d like to go over some things myself. And, whenever he can be bothered to join us, Jon has some questions too.” “O- oh.” Cass doesn’t actually have anything to hide— not really. She still gets a shiver down her spine, though, and takes a sip of perfect tea to cover it. “Sure.” “Cool. Alright. Where—” Martin flips through the papers on his desk, fumbling a bit. It makes him look like the same nice, approachable man he’d been before. Something about it feels deliberate, though. Cass forces herself into a relaxed posture to match. Finally, Martin finds what he was ‘looking’ for, two sheets down in the stack right in front of him. “Ah! Here we go. So you’ve been working here for six years, right? Two promotions in that time. Do you like working here? I guess that’s a good place to start.” “I mean, yeah. It’s not exactly easy work. IT in a place like this—” “Not exactly easy to do any job in a place like this,” Martin mutters. “Well, yeah, but you never had to explain to Elias that it didn’t matter how high- or low- tech we went, security cameras wouldn’t work in the Archives.” “You didn’t have to hide in your flat for a full day because supernatural worms trapped you there.” “You didn’t have to create an entirely new encryption program to prevent data corruption in all Elias’s emails.” “You didn’t have to try to convince Tim not to murder Jon.” “You didn’t have to write a virus to keep Tim from stalking Sims even more.” “Did you really?” “Yeah.” “Oh… thanks.” Cass waves him off. “Not like it worked.” “Still… You didn’t get chased through secret tunnels and stumble across your old boss’s corpse.” “Right, about that! Who did kill Gertrude? Really?” “Elias.” “Yes! Called it…” She considers for a second. “You didn’t have to crawl through the walls to replace the cables the worms ate through. You think the ECDC cleared out all their gross, wriggly little corpses? They didn’t.” Martin sets down his tea, looking appropriately disgusted. “Oh, ugh. Hmm… You didn’t have to run from a creature that eats people and steals their identities.” “You didn’t have your friend replaced and have to explain to their best friend what happened without fully understanding it yourself.” “I… kind of did, actually.”

Cass pauses, something suddenly becoming clear. “Oh… oh. I’m… surprised Tim was as controlled as he was, then.” “Yeah. He had… other things to distract him. It’s not exactly the same. Sasha’s still around, sort of. She’s just—” Not something he really wants to talk about, clearly. “Right. You’ve never had to spend hours trying to figure out exactly how Sasha fucked up your system after she changed things without warning.” “I have, though,” Martin sighs, clearly exasperated. “The number of forms I’ve had to redo. It’s not… totally her fault. She doesn’t mean to do it; it’s more like a reflex.” “Oh no. Michael Lanson’s entire existence in our system was not some reflex. She did that intentionally, and she made it just right enough that I probably wouldn’t have noticed for months if Hannah hadn’t said something, and just wrong enough I had to redo the whole thing from scratch or it would’ve drove me insane.” “Oh. That. Yeah. She was… trying to do us a favor, sort of? Anyway, you never had to convince Daisy Tonner that you had no clue where Jon might be while he was on the run.” “Sure I did. Not as hard as you did, sure, but I still had to lie to her.” “Wait— You knew where Jon was?” “I mean, not at first. But Melanie King comes in talking about the dead guy being Jurgen Leitner and leaving with boxes from the Archives? That she’s just allowed to carry out? After Sims utterly destroyed Diana in her defense?” “Wait, Jon did what?”

Cass sits bolt upright, potential glee already taking hold. “You don’t know about that? I swear the archives were CCed.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Oh my god. Okay. Hold on,” Cass says, already scrolling through the saved emails on her phone. It takes less than a minute to find and send the right one. “You never wondered why Diana hates Sims so much?” “I mean. A lot of people hate Jon, and I doubt Diana could kill him, so I wasn’t that worried that… Oh my god, Jon. How did I miss this? I… I think I might need to frame this… Wait, if you thought he was with Melanie, why didn’t you say anything to Daisy?” Cass pauses for a second, but, well, given how freaky the Archivist himself is, this probably won’t phase Martin too much. “I didn’t just think. I traced her mobile to place her at Georgie Barker’s and then hacked CCTV feeds until I caught Sims.” “You…” Martin sighs and slumps a bit. “Of course you did. I don’t know why I… That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell Daisy.” Cass shrugs and takes another sip of tea. “Wasn’t my business. Also, that would’ve been tampering and all the bets I’d taken would be void. Anyway. You never had to prove to Daisy Tonner that you’d already destroyed any and all evidence that might implicate Jonathan Sims in any murder, especially that of Peter Lukas, after she joined the Institute.” “You never had to get Jon to talk about his feelings.” “True, but you never had to explain to Elias both what keyloggers are and why we shouldn’t use them.” “Key— Wait, are you trying to tell me there aren’t keyloggers on every computer here?” “Oh, no, there absolutely are. But all collected data is immediately encrypted with a specially created algorithm where the key changes at short, irregular intervals and requires both knowledge-based and biological-based authentication just to generate a decryption key for use. Also our storage space is limited, so most of it can only be kept for a week at most. He probably still knew everything everyone ever typed, but any actual evidence was only ever accessible by me.” It takes Martin a moment to process this. Cass takes another sip of tea. “How did you get away with that?” “Assured him Gertrude would never be able to access any of it. And then every time he came around for any reason I started thinking about all the upgrades I wanted to ask for.” He looks a little shell-shocked. “I… honestly can’t tell how much you know about everything that’s been going on around here.” “Not as much as us, but more than most everyone else, and enough she likely won’t change her mind about staying,” Jonathan Sims says, striding in looking harried with a very self-satisfied cat draped across his shoulders. “I… apologize for my tardiness, Martin, Josie.” Cass freezes. “Jos—” Martin starts to ask. “Ahh,” Sims says, almost sheepishly. “I- I’m sorry. I didn’t—” “It’s fine,” Cass says stiffly. “I figured you probably knew. It’s— not actually that big a deal.” “Still. I shouldn’t— I didn’t mean to—” Well, this is awkward. “Martin said you had some questions,” she cuts him off. “Y-yes. I— don’t think that will be necessary.” “Wait- really?” Martin asks incredulously. “You don’t have any questions? You?” “I—” Cass knows many things about most of the people who have worked in the Institute over the past six years, but there’s only so much you can ever actually know about a person from a distance. She’s good at filling in the blanks, but it still somehow surprises her to find that the dreaded Archivist is almost painfully awkward. He looks at her with something like apprehension. “Go ahead,” she tells him and goes to take another sip, only to find her cup empty. Damn. “Miss Walters has a grand total of one close friend outside the Institute, and that only because Hannah Kenway has now left our employ. Her only remaining family is a grandfather who lives in a small town near Barcelona and hasn’t taken any of her calls in the past five years, though she still always tries on Christmas and her mother’s birthday. She has had an interest in the paranormal since… ah.” “Since?” Martin prompts. Cass keeps staring at the empty mug in betrayal. “Since her mother disappeared when she was six, after reading her a children’s book titled “Una Invitada Para el Señor Araña.” “What does— Ohh.” “Guessing you know that one, then,” Cass says. “I— had my own encounter with it,” Sims tells her. “About three years after yours, though it was in English then.” “Yeah. Strange how no one ever believes the kid who says they saw a giant spider eat someone.” “And yet— You aren’t afraid of spiders.” “I am. Sort of. After it happened, I decided I was going to learn everything there was to know about spiders, the supernatural, and Jurgen Letiner. Which eventually brought me here. It’s just… Spiders are fascinating. I have a… healthy respect for them—” “And you’ve always been attracted to dangerous things.” Cass narrows her eyes at him and tries to keep her voice serious when she says, “If you’re about to say the word ‘murderwives,’ I’m gonna have to insist you let me record it.” Sims scowls, something like affront on his face. “I would not.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but now I actually kind of want to hear you say that, Jon,” Martin says. Cass wonders again why they aren’t friends already. “I will not!” “I bet Sasha could get you to say it.” “She could not, and you are not going to call her in here just to try,” Sims asserts, but the mischievous smile Martin has doesn’t seem to agree. “Martin.” “I won’t call her in here just to try,” Martin promises, though Cass notes what he doesn’t say and doubts that will be the end of it. Around Sims, Martin nods at her, just slightly, and she knows that she’ll probably get an audio file from him within the week. Sims looks reproachful. Martin looks entirely unrepentant. “Regardless,” Sims decides to move on, “Miss Walters has found herself rather attached to the Institute and likely hasn’t even considered not staying on. Also I suspect, should we not keep her on, our network may refuse to cooperate with her replacement entirely.” “… You mean that literally, don’t you?” Martin sounds so resigned Cass has to laugh. “That’s my baby,” she says proudly. “Right,” he sighs. “So I guess we’ll just go straight to selling your soul to a fear god, then.” She can’t say that’s what she was expecting to hear, especially with someone like Martin in charge. But, she supposes, they don’t actually know each other that well. Anyway, selling your soul to a fear god sounds dangerous, and she’s intrigued. “Alright,” she asks, “is that a bug or a feature?”

[wreckedhoney]

June 2019 – Highlights of Tristan Harris (Computer Scientist, Design Ethicist, ft. on documentary The Social Dilemma) and others before Senate Commerce Committee regarding large tech companies using algorithms and machine learning to influence the public in the context of radicalization from false information and accountability.

The video is sixteen minutes and transcribed, and I’ll paste the dialogue under a cut for this post with some highlights in bold, but I want to share first just one of the many important insights of this meeting:

“…the business model is to keep people engaged…There's a tendency to think here that this is just human nature – that people are polarized and this is just playing out; it's a mirror it's holding up, a mirror to society. But what it's really doing is it's an amplifier for the worst parts of us.…It's calculating what is the thing that I can show you that will get the most engagement, and it turns out that outrage, moral outrage, gets the most engagement.…the polarization of our society is actually part of the business model.”

“…shorter, briefer things work better in Attention Economy than long, complex, nuanced ideas that take a long time to talk about…But reality and the most important topics to us are increasingly complex, while we can say increasingly simple things about them that automatically creates polarization – because you can't say something simple about something complicated and have everybody agree with you; people will, by definition, misinterpret and hate you for it, and then it's never been easier to retweet that and generate a mob that will come after you… subsequent effects in polarization are amplified by the fact that these platforms are rewarded to give you the most sensational stuff.”

Harris: Everything you said –  it's sad to me because it's happening not by accident but by design, because the business model is to keep people engaged – which, in other words, this hearing is about persuasive technology, and persuasion is about an invisible asymmetry of power. 

When I was a kid, I was a magician, and magic teaches you that you can have asymmetric power without the other person realizing it. You can masquerade to have asymmetric power while looking like you have an equal relationship. You say pick a card, any card, while meanwhile, you know exactly how to get that person to pick the card that you want – and essentially, what we're experiencing with technology is an increasing asymmetry of power that's been masquerading itself as an equal or contractual relationship where the responsibility is on us. 

So, let's walk through why that's happening in the race for attention, because there's only so much attention companies have. They get more of it by being more and more aggressive. I call it “the race to the bottom of the brainstem.” 

So, it starts with techniques like pull-to-refresh; so, you pull to refresh your newsfeed that operates like a slot machine. It has the same kind of addictive qualities that keep people in Las Vegas hooked to the slot machine. Other examples are: removing stopping cues. So, if I take the bottom out of this glass and I keep refilling the water or the wine, you won't know when to stop drinking. So, that's what happens with infinitely scrolling feeds; we naturally remove the stopping cues, and this is what keeps people scrolling. But the race for attention has to get more and more aggressive, and so it's not enough just to get your behavior and predict what will take your behavior; we have to predict how to keep you hooked in a different way. 

It crawled deeper down the brainstem into our social validation – so, that was the introduction of likes and followers and how many followers do I have. It was much cheaper to – instead of getting your attention – to get you addicted to getting attention from other people, and this has created the kind of mass narcissism and mass cultural thing that's happening with young people, especially today. After two decades in decline of the mental health of ten-to-fourteen year old girls, it has actually shot up in the last eight years, and this has been very characteristically the cause of social media and the race for attention. 

It's not enough just to get people addicted to attention, and the race has to migrate to AI, who can build a better predictive model of your behavior. And so, if you give an example of YouTube: You're about to hit play in a YouTube video, and you hit play, and then you think you're gonna watch this one video, and then you wake up two hours later and say, “What just happened?” The answer is, because you had a supercomputer pointed at your brain, the moment you hit play, it wakes up an avatar voodoo doll like version of you inside of a Google server, and that avatar based on all the clicks and likes and everything you've ever made – those are like your hair clippings and toenail clippings and nail filings that make the avatar look and act more and more like you. 

So, that inside of a Google server – they can simulate more and more possibilities. If I pick you for this video, if I pick you for this video, how long would you stay? The business model is simply, “what maximizes watch time?” This leads to the kind of algorithmic extremism that you've pointed out, and this is what's caused 70% of YouTube's traffic down be driven by recommendations; not by human choice, but by the machines. And it's a race between Facebook's voodoo doll, where you flick your finger – can they predict what to show you next? – and Google's voodoo doll. And these are abstract metaphors that apply to the whole tech industry, where it's a race between who can better predict your behavior. 

Facebook has something called loyalty prediction, where they can actually predict to an advertiser when you're about to become disloyal to a brand. So, if you're a mother, and you take Pampers diapers, they can tell Pampers, “Hey, this user is about to become disloyal to this brand.” So, in other words, they can predict things about us that we don't know about our own selves, and that's a new level of asymmetric power. 

And we have a name for this asymmetric relationship, which is a fiduciary relationship, or a duty of care – relationships the same standard we apply to doctors, to priests, to lawyers. Imagine a world in which priests only make their money by selling access to the confession booth to someone else. Except, in this case, Facebook listens to two billion people's confessions, has a supercomputer next to them, and is calculating and predicting confessions you're gonna make before you know you're gonna make them – and that's what's causing all this havoc. 

So, I'd love to talk about more of these things later. I just want to finish up by saying this affects everyone even if you don't use these products. You still send your kids to school where other people believing the anti-vaccine conspiracy theories impact your life, or other people voting in your elections. And when Marc Andreessen said into 2011, that the quote was, “Software is going to eat the world,” and what he meant by that – Marc Andreessen was the founder of Netscape – what he meant by that was that software can do every part of society more efficiently, because it's just adding efficiencies. And so, we're going to allow software to eat up our elections, we're gonna allow it to eat up our media, our taxi, our transportation – and the problem was that software was eating the world without taking responsibility for it. 

We used to have rules and standards around Saturday morning cartoons, and when YouTube gobbles up that part of society, it just takes away all of those protections. And I just want to finish up by saying that I know Mister Rogers, Fred Rogers, testified before this committee fifty years ago, concerned about the animated bombardment that we were showing children. I think he would be horrified today about what we're doing now, and at that same time, he was able to talk to the committee. And that committee made a choice differently, so I'm hoping we can talk more about that today. Thank you. 

Senator Thune (R-South Dakota): We know that internet platforms like Google and Facebook have vast quantities of data about each user. What can these companies predict about users based on that data? 

Harris: Thank you for the question. So, I think there's an important connection to make between privacy and persuasion that I think often isn't linked, so maybe it's helpful to link that. 

With Cambridge analytic – that was an event in which, based on your Facebook Likes, based on a hundred and fifty of your Facebook Likes, I could predict your political personality, and then I could do things with that. The reason I described in my opening statement that this is about an increasing asymmetry of power is that without any of your data, I can predict increasing features about you using AI. 

There's a paper recently that, with 80% accuracy, I can predict your same Big Five personality traits that Cambridge analytic got from you without any of your data. All I have to do is look at your mouse movements and click patterns. So, in other words, it's the end of the poker face. Your behavior is your signature – and we can know your political personality based on tweet text alone. We can actually know your political affiliation with about 80% accuracy. Computers can calculate probably that you're homosexual before you might know that you're homosexual. They can predict with 95% accuracy that you're gonna quit your job according to an IBM study. They can predict that you're pregnant. They can predict your micro expressions on your face better than a human being can. Micro expressions are your soft reactions to things that are not very visible, but are invisibly visible. Computers can predict that. As you keep going and you realize that you can start to deep fake things. You can actually generate a new synthetic piece of media, a new synthetic face, or synthetic message that is perfectly tuned to these characteristics. 

The reason why I open the statement by saying we have to recognize: That what this is all about is a growing asymmetry of power between technology and the limits of the human mind. My favorite socio-biologist, E.O. Wilson, said, “The fundamental problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic ancient emotions, we have medieval institutions, and we have godlike technology.” So, we're chimpanzees with nukes, and our Paleolithic brains are limited. Again, the increasing exponential power of technology at predicting things about us, the reason why it's so important to migrate this relationship from being extractive to get things out of you, to being a fiduciary, is you can't have asymmetric power that is specifically designed to extract things from you – just like you can't have, again, lawyers or doctors whose entire business model is to take everything they learn and sell it to someone else. 

Except, in this case, the level of things that we can predict about you is far greater than actually each of those fields combined when you actually add up all the data that assembles a more and more accurate voodoo doll of each of us. And there's two billion voodoo dolls by the way; there's one for one out of every four people on Earth with YouTube and Facebook are more than two billion people. 

Senator Peters (D-Michigan): Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses. This is a fascinating discussion. I like to address an issue I think is of profound importance to our democratic republic – and that's the fact that, in order to have a vibrant democracy, you need to have an exchange of ideas and an open platform. And certainly, part of the promise of the Internet, as it was first conceived, is we'd have this incredible Universal Commons, where a variety of ideas would be discussed and debated, and it would be robust. And yet, it seems as if we're not getting that. We're actually getting more and more siloed. Doctor Wolfram, you mentioned how people could make choices, and they could live in a bubble, but at least it would be their bubble that they get to live in. But that's what we're seeing throughout our society as polarization increases, more and more folks are reverting to tribal type behavior. Mister Harris, you talked about our medieval institutions and Stone Age Minds. Tribalism was alive and well and in the past, and we're seeing advances in technology, in a lot of ways, bring us back into that kind of tribal behavior. So, my question is to what extent is this technology actually accelerating that, and is there a way out? 

Harris: Thank you. I love this question. There's a tendency to think here that this is just human nature – that people are polarized and this is just playing out; it's a mirror it's holding up, a mirror to society. But what it's really doing is it's an amplifier for the worst parts of us. 

So, in the race to the bottom of the brainstem to get attention, let's take an example like Twitter. It's calculating what is the thing that I can show you that will get the most engagement, and it turns out that outrage, moral outrage, gets the most engagement. So, it was found in a study that for every world word of moral outrage that you add to a tweet, it increases your retweet rate by 17%. So, in other words, you know the polarization of our society is actually part of the business model. 

Another example of this is that shorter, briefer things work better in Attention Economy than long, complex, nuanced ideas that take a long time to talk about, and so that's why you get a hundred and forty characters dominating our social discourse. But reality and the most important topics to us are increasingly complex, while we can say increasingly simple things about them that automatically creates polarization – because you can't say something simple about something complicated and have everybody agree with you; people will, by definition, misinterpret and hate you for it, and then it's never been easier to retweet that and generate a mob that will come after you. And this has created a callout culture and chilling effects, and a whole bunch of other subsequent effects in polarization that are amplified by the fact that these platforms are rewarded to give you the most sensational stuff. 

One last example of this is on YouTube. Let's say we actually equalize; I know there's people here concerned about equal representation on the Left and the Right in media. Let's say we get that perfectly right. As recently as just a month ago on YouTube, if you did a map of the top 15  most frequently mentioned verbs or keywords in the recommended videos, they were: “hates,” “debunks,” “obliterates,” “destroys” – in other words, you know, “Jordan Peterson destroys social justice warrior in video.” So, that kind of thing is the background radiation that we're dosing two billion people with, and you can hire content moderators in English and start to handle the problem, but the problem is that two billion people in hundreds of languages are using these products. How many engineers at YouTube speak the twenty-two languages of India where there's an election coming up? So, that's some context on that. 

Sen. Peters: Well, there's a lot of context. Fascinating. I'm running out of time, but I took particular note in your testimony when you talked about how technology will eat up elections, and you were referencing, I think, another writer on that issue. In the remaining brief time I have, what's your biggest concern about the 2020 elections and how technology may eat up this election coming up? 

Harris: Another example of how we used to have protections that technology took away – we used to have equal price campaign ads, so that it cost the same amount on Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. for any candidate to run an election. When Facebook gobbles up that part of media, it just takes away those protections – so, there's now no equal pricing. What I'm mostly worried about is the fact that none of these problems have been solved. The business model hasn't changed. And the reason why you see a Christchurch event happen in the video just show up everywhere, or, you know, any of these examples – fundamentally, there's no easy way for these platforms to address this problem, because the problem is their business model. 

Harris: This is one of the issues that most concerns me. As I think Senator Schatz (D-Hawaii) mentioned at the beginning, there's evidence that in the last month – even as recently as that, keeping in mind that these issues have been reported on for years now – there was a pattern identified by YouTube that young girls who had taken videos of themselves dancing in front of cameras were linked in usage patterns to other videos like that, which went further and further into that realm, and that was just identified by YouTube, as a supercomputer, as a pattern. It's a pattern of “this is a kind of pathway that tends to be highly engaging.” 

The way that we tend to describe this is: If you imagine a spectrum on YouTube on my left side, there's the calm Walter Cronkite section of YouTube. On the right hand side, there's crazytown, UFOs, conspiracy theories, Bigfoot – you know, whatever. If you take a human being and you could drop them anywhere, you could drop them in the calm section, or you could drop them in Crazy Town. But If I'm YouTube and I want you to watch more, which direction from there am I going to send you? I'm never gonna send you to the calm section. I'm always gonna send you towards Crazy Town. So, now you imagine two billion people, like an ant colony of humanity, and it's tilting the playing field towards the crazy stuff. 

The specific examples of this: A year ago, a teen girl who looked at a dieting video on YouTube would be recommended anorexia videos, because that was the more extreme thing to show. The voodoo doll that looked like a teen girl – there's all these voodoo girls that look like that – and the next thing to show is anorexia. 

If you looked at a NASA moon landing, it would show Flat Earth conspiracy theories, which were recommended hundreds of millions of times before being taken down recently. I wrote down another example. Fifty percent of white nationalist in a study had said that it was YouTube that had “red pilled” them; “red pilling” is the term for the opening of the mind. The best predictor of whether you'll believe in a conspiracy theory is whether I can get you to believe in one conspiracy theory, because one conspiracy sort of opens up the mind and makes you doubt and question things and, say, get really paranoid. And the problem is that YouTube is doing this en mass, and it's created sort of two billion personalized Truman Shows. Each channel has that radicalizing direction, and if you think about it from an accountability perspective – back when we had Janet Jackson on one side of the TV screen at the Super Bowl, and we had 60 million Americans on the other, we had a five-second TV delay and a bunch of humans in the loop it for a reason. But what happens when you have two billion Truman shows, two billion possible Janet Jackson's and two billion people on the other end? It's a digital Frankenstein that's really hard to control, and so that's the way that we need to see it.

From there, we can talk about how to regulate it. 

Senator Sullivan (R-Alaska): Anyone else have a thought on a pretty important threshold question? 

Harris: Is it okay if I check in? Thank you, Senator. The issue here is that Section 230 of the Communications Decency section – 230 has obviously made it so that the platforms are not responsible for any content that is on them, which freed them up to do what we've created today. The problem is if, you know, is YouTube a publisher? Well, they're not generating the content, they're not paying journalists, they're not doing that, but they are recommending things, and I think that we need a new class between, you know… 

The New York Times is responsible if they say something that defames someone else that reaches a certain hundred million or so people. When YouTube recommends flat earth conspiracy theories hundreds of millions of times, and if you consider that 70% of YouTube's traffic is driven by recommendations, meaning driven by what they are recommending, what algorithm is choosing to put in front of the eyeballs of a person, it's if you were to backwards derive a motto, it would be, “With great power comes no responsibility.”

[whatelsecanwedonow]

I’m picking out parts of this conversation I found especially interesting. Italics are mine:

You know, I’ve been trying to think of some precise, encapsulating question to ask you about what we’ve been witnessing over the last few weeks, and everything I was coming up with felt forced or phony. Maybe it’s better, because you’ve been eloquent during times of crisis in the past, just to ask what you’ve been thinking about and seeing in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing? I’d like to say I’m surprised by what happened to him, but I’m not. This is a cycle, and I feel that in some ways, the issue is that we’re addressing the wrong problem. We continue to make this about the police — the how of it. How can they police? Is it about sensitivity and de-escalation training and community policing? All that can make for a less-egregious relationship between the police and people of color. But the how isn’t as important as the why, which we never address. The police are a reflection of a society. They’re not a rogue alien organization that came down to torment the black community. They’re enforcing segregation. Segregation is legally over, but it never ended. The police are, in some respects, a border patrol, and they patrol the border between the two Americas. We have that so that the rest of us don’t have to deal with it. Then that situation erupts, and we express our shock and indignation. But if we don’t address the anguish of a people, the pain of being a people who built this country through forced labor — people say, ‘‘I’m tired of everything being about race.’’ Well, imagine how [expletive] exhausting it is to live that.

Does the scale and intensity of the protests suggest some positive strides toward accountability? Maybe. Look, every advancement toward equality has come with the spilling of blood. Then, when that’s over, a defensiveness from the group that had been doing the oppressing. There’s always this begrudging sense that black people are being granted something, when it’s white people’s lack of being able to live up to the defining words of the birth of the country that is the problem. There’s a lack of recognition of the difference in our system. Chris Rock used to do a great bit: ‘‘No white person wants to change places with a black person. They don’t even want to exchange places with me, and I’m rich.’’ It’s true. There’s not a white person out there who would want to be treated like even a successful black person in this country. And if we don’t address the why of that treatment, the how is just window dressing. You know, we’re in a bizarre time of quarantine. White people lasted six weeks and then stormed a state building with rifles, shouting: ‘‘Give me liberty! This is causing economic distress! I’m not going to wear a mask, because that’s tyranny!’’ That’s six weeks versus 400 years of quarantining a race of people. The policing is an issue, but it’s the least of it. We use the police as surrogates to quarantine these racial and economic inequalities so that we don’t have to deal with them.

...we’ve got a [expletive]-up permanent campaign system with too much money in it. Don’t people know that already? The politicians don’t even know how [expletive] up their system is. Nancy Pelosi was on ‘‘The Daily Show,’’ and we were talking about how money has a corrupting influence in politics. I said, ‘‘You raised $30 million. How does that money corrupt you?’’ She said it doesn’t. So money corrupts, but not you? That’s someone within the system. And when I went down to Washington for the 9/11 victim-compensation bill, I learned something that shocked me. We had a program that was working. Bureaucratically, it wasn’t broken. What is broken about Washington isn’t the bureaucracy. It’s legislators’ ability to address the issues inherent in any society — and the reason they can’t address them is that when you have a duopoly, there is no incentive to work together to create something better. Plus, you have one party whose premise is that government is bad and whose goal is to prove that, which makes them, in essence, a double agent. All these things coalesce to make problem-solving the antithesis of what we’ve created. We’re incentivized for more extreme candidates, for more extreme partisanship, for more conflict and permanent campaigning, for corporate interests to have more influence on the process, not less. The tax code isn’t complicated because poor people have demanded that it be that way.

What do you think of the news media’s handle on this political moment more generally? I don’t think it has ever had a good handle on a political moment. It’s not designed for that. It’s designed for engagement. It’s like YouTube and Facebook: an information-laundering perpetual-radicalization machine. It’s like porn. I don’t mean that to be flip. When you were pubescent, the mere hint of a bra strap could send you into ecstasy. I’m 57 now. If it’s not two nuns and a mule, I can’t even watch it. Do you understand my point? The algorithm is not designed for thoughtful engagement and clarity. It’s designed to make you look at it longer.

Have there been any positive changes, though? Let me give you an example of what might be one: When you were doing ‘‘The Daily Show,’’ part of what made you unique was your last-sane-man-in-Crazytown quality. You would actually say that someone in power was telling a lie when the nightly newscasters wouldn’t. Now they will say that. Is that a step in the right direction? The media’s job is to deconstruct the manipulation, not to just call it a lie. It’s about informing on how something works so that you understand the lie’s purpose. What are the structural issues underneath the lie? The media shouldn’t take the political system personally, or allow its own narcissism to rise to the narcissism of the politicians, or become offended that the politicians are lying — their job is to manipulate.

How much might his administration’s response to Covid-19 hurt him in November? That’s the question the media asks. What they should be focused on is, here’s what happens when you hollow out the pandemic-response team. You have to go after the case of competence and anticorruption. The media wants to prosecute the case of offensiveness. That doesn’t matter. But there were decisions about P.P.E. and the states that were made without any federal response, and that does matter. It’s really about, what is government? Are we the Articles of Confederation? Are we the Constitution? Are we the United States? What are we? If we’re just 50 states, and if New York can push Delaware out of the way and get masks, and now Delaware has got to pay 10 times what it was going to pay — are we being led or not? It’s the wildest thing. I’ve never seen anybody who can say in the same breath, as the president does, ‘‘I am in charge, only I can fix this, and I take no responsibility.’’ You cannot process that. So what you have to process is the actual process: How do masks help? Do they help? You have to really explain it to people, but we allow the mask-wearing to be reduced to its symbolic meaning. Things like masks can’t just become another avatar of political representation. That’s where we go wrong.

This might be a little Civics 101, but I hope you’ll indulge me: A lot of your work has fundamentally been about interrogating certain truths or ideas about America and the American experiment. Things like: What does this country mean? What are its ideals and values? What’s its character? Over the last few years those questions have only become harder to contemplate in any coherent way, let alone answer. Do those questions still hold for you? Every society lies to itself to some extent. Every person does. And sometimes you have to face the truth. The truth of the American experiment is that government is messy. It’s hard to manage. We are melding cultures and religions in a way that most countries don’t. But we have an exceptionalism that we have taken for granted, and we get lost in the symbolism of who we are rather than the reality. The reality of who we are is still remarkable. You can’t take the anecdotal and pretend it’s universal. You can’t take a picture of the Lake of the Ozarks and people on top of each other drinking and say, ‘‘That’s how America responded to the pandemic.’’ Because it’s not. The boots-on-the-ground response has been phenomenally resilient and responsible and courageous. The sense that this could all turn into ‘‘Mad Max’’ tomorrow always hangs over everything — but it hasn’t. There are issues, but again, we point a spotlight on the anecdotal and pretend that it’s universal. What that does is feed the narrative for people who want to use it for their own purposes. That’s what drives me bananas. We’re basically having giant public fights about symbolism, while the reality of our situation goes unexamined.

Are you hopeful about what lies ahead? Always. Because the view we get of the country is not accurate. We get the artifice of it, the conflict of it. I’m not naïve. I don’t think that true divisions and animosities and bigotry and prejudices don’t exist. We see that every day. But fundamentally, we are a resilient and strong and resourceful nation that has oftentimes overcome our worst tendencies — ‘‘overcome’’ is probably too strong a word. But our biggest problem as humans is ignorance, not malevolence. Ignorance is an entirely curable disease.

How? Information and work. You need to talk to people. Ignorance is often cured by experience, by spending time with what you don’t understand. But I honestly don’t know. Well, you know what? I do know: In the same way that Trump’s recklessness is born out of experience, so is my optimism, because good people outweigh [expletive] people. By a long shot.

[drlauralwalsh]

The Lusty World of Lesbian Widows

I’m really frustrated that COVID has gotten in the way of my grief achievements.  I figured 3 months in, I’d be doing the television talk show circuit, sold my book, and set up a non-profit foundation.  If only this pandemic hadn’t gotten in my way.

In my life before, if I spent too much time alone (like, over 4 hours), I’d start texting my sister-in-law that I was unsupervised and feral.  Uh oh.  I’d start going down rabbit holes and come up with weird stuff like how buff male kangaroos get.  Or questioning if my parents were really married since I couldn’t find a record of their union in the limited online databases. I could have paid for real records but I’m cheap.  I know, sounds crazy.  

But now, I’m alone for long stretches of time.  I’ve managed to channel some of this agitated energy into writing essays that speak to weirdos like me (shout out to my fellow weirdos!).  I spend hours researching (me-searching as we said in grad school) and discovering overachieving methods to dam the waters of my new spouse-less life.

I’m not just your average widow.  Oh no no no.  Of course, I have to be special so allow me to tack on some extra layers - lesbian, stepmom, and young (-ish, right?).  At 45, I have finally found a way to inch back towards the youth and relevance lost as you enter the fourth decade of life.  Today, I’d like to let you into the wonders of lesbianism.

I’m going to assume you’re not submerged in this subculture so I’ll tell you some secrets.  People are fascinated by lesbians.  To be fair, we live pretty mysterious lives.  We leave you hanging on profound questions like who takes out the trash and how do they have sex without a woody woodpecker? Sometimes, other communities get lumped in with us but they are actually quite different.  Of these witches, spinsters, and women who wear comfortable shoes, I only belong to only one of those so far.  I’m working on my stovetop skills and hope to someday conjure a penis.  Not a real one; that would be weird.

Amazon’s book market best represents the variable interests of our fan club members.  Right after my wife died, I launched a search for books on “lesbian widows.”  You’d think the algorithms would have pegged me by now (ha ha).  I was dismayed yet amused by the grand interpretation of what Amazon thought I meant.  The following is an unedited list of the top books recommended for me to purchase under these auspicious terms:

Lesbian Widows: Invisible Grief

by Victoria Whipple (Kindle $25.98, Paperback $46.95, Hardcover $907.71)

I’m impressed that the first one actually included my search terms but dang, it’s expensive to be a lesbian widow.  To be fair, you can rent it for $9.21 a month.  It’s also terribly niche within an already  small niche - invisible lesbian widows?  Published in 2014, you’d think it would be a little more hip.  Maybe it’s because I live in Chicago but even as an introvert, I’m decently visible.  Still, glad it exists and appeals to all eight people who each gave it a 5-star rating.

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows: Feminine Pursuits

by Olivia Waite (Kindle $3.99, Paperback $6.99)

I must quote the basic plot description for you to get the full impact of this novel: “The last thing the widow wants is to be the victim of a thousand bees. But when a beautiful beekeeper arrives to take care of the pests, Agatha may be in danger of being stung by something far more dangerous…”  The cover depicts said wapish widow sit/leaning against her handsome, pants suit-clad beekeeper.  At the much less expensive price for kindle and paperback, I’m only slightly put off by labeling bees as pests.

Odd women?: Spinsters, lesbians and widows in British women's fiction, 1850s–1930s

by Emma Liggins (Kindle $73.24, Hardcover $95.00)

The period is a little off but at least it includes diverse, international women.  I was looking for a self help book but this seems slightly more academic.  Not sure why there’s a question mark in the title as there’s no question about our oddity.  The description reads, “Women outside heterosexual marriage in this period were seen as abnormal, superfluous, incomplete and threatening, yet were also hailed as ‘women of the future’.”  Aw shucks, I *am* ahead of my time.  Dang that price tag!  No renting option for this one.

The Grass Widow

by Nanci Little (Kindle $0.00, Paperback $14.95)

It’s unclear where we’ll find the lesbian widow in this 2010 novel but the description yields some mild foreshadowing: “As a familiar civilization fades into the distance, she is nineteen, unmarried and pregnant, and has no reason to think that the year 1876 won't be her last...Joss, in her brother's clothes and severely lacking in social graces, has no time to mollycoddle a pampered, pregnant New England lady. It's work or starve, literally. There are no servants, no laborers - just a failing farm, impending winter and the two of them to face it together.”  It sounds like the shameless Joss needs her own dose of mollycoddling (wink, wink) to get through the chilly nights.

Her Widow

by Joan Alden (Paperback $18.00)

More popular with 10 people giving it an almost stellar rating, this tomb’s immodest summary insists it belongs on every bookshelf.  YOU WILL PAY ATTENTION TO US!  That’s how I read it.  Seriously, of all the books this one comes the closest to what I actually wanted.  Waiting for the kindle unlimited edition….(having no man money makes us frugal).

Made For You 3

by K. Shantel (Kindle $4.99)

Apparently, Made For You 1 and 2 were not as popular. Despite the fair price, this tale omits widows opting for the groundbreaking combination of lesbian romance and football.  While tragedy surely threads through this plot, it falls short of crossing the threshold from football to death (it probably does).  Shocker, I defy the sporty lesbian trope and instead prefer to spend time among my vast, treasured collection of power tools.  Just to be clear, I mean the ones for home repair (get your mind out of the gutter!)  If the lady protagonists of this book had been thrown together building a Habitat for Humanity house with their 10 dogs using only their Subaru to transport lumber, I might be more captivated.

The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, Book 1 of 1: Feminine Pursuits Series

by Olivia Waite (Kindle $3.99, Paperback $6.99)

I’ll give the author the benefit of believing there are more to come in the series. The title of this one intrigues me (I may steal it later) but sadly, it also defaults to worn stereotypes.  This collection of lesbian tropes finds my kin scoring yet another toaster for the conversion of a hapless straight lady.  Lesbians for the win!  Lady Reads-A-Lot gave it 5 stars and commented, “This was poetic and lovely, full of beautiful descriptions that knew exactly how to leave you breathless and then stop just before tipping into tedious.”  I’m guessing she means the sex scenes?  If you’ve ever watched any real lesbian porn, you know that it’s far better for the participants than the viewers.

Erotica: The Forbidden Adventures Of A Grieving Widow (Seduction, Lust, Lesbian Sex, Interracial Sex, Bondage and More)

by Amy King (Kindle $0.00)

This one is hands down, my favorite title and you can’t beat the price.  The author keeps the marketing short to sell you her novel: “All Ava wanted was to erase the memory of her recently departed husband. Little did she know that in trying to do so, she would experience mind-blowing adventures and lust across the globe. Ava would never be the same again as she ravenously eats up whatever adventure blows her way.”  Even though it’s another toaster novel, as a grieving widow ‘ravenously eats up’ does resonate.  I don’t think she means jars of cookie butter.

Of the eight masterpieces on the list, five are romance novels, one is academic, and two are in the ballpark (excuse the sports metaphor).  Scrolling further only yields more erotica including another novel titled, “Football Widows (lesbian)” by Amanda Mann and Deadlier Than the Male Publications.  Now I get it that we make up a small percentage of the population but this is some seriously messed up shit.  

Removing the lesbian and searching only for ‘widow’ yields twenty pages of books. I know what you’re thinking - “C’mon Laura, what’s the big deal?  Just get the standard widow book.”  And believe me, I’ve amassed quite the collection and am waiting for just the right intersection of not too devastated but ready to sob.  Bear with me for a sec - think about how we just want to be seen when we’re at our lowest.  When I first typed those words into the search bar, I just wanted something that used wife instead of husband.  

Every grief has specific salient elements and it’s too super niche to touch on all at the same time.  It would be weird and/or maybe nice to find another lesbian widow stepmom psychologist who lost her cop wife of almost 5 years to a PTSD-induced psychotic break and suicide.  That’s a Subaru full of identities.  If this person did exist, I’d be suspicious we’re the target on Incel trolls, longing to read the words of more seductive, witchy lesbians.  Instead, I plan on taking the high road.  I’ll get my knowledge and support from those who accept me by the category.  Obviously, one out of one lezzies agree there’s a market for lesbian widow self help guides - at the right price.  I may still write that book but if I want to get rich, I’ll definitely have to add more sex scenes.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT STARTUPS TO GET STARTUP FUNDING

I heard this, I thought, the world. You could conceivably lose half your brain and live. Result: if it can't contain exciting sales pitches, spam becomes less effective as a marketing vehicle, and fewer businesses want to use. You need to be software for making them, so we decided to write some software, it might be a good startup is the percentage chance it's Google. I remember sitting in the living room of an apartment, and a game much closer to the one played in the real world, it's generally for some common purpose, and the number of nonspam and spam messages respectively. 5, or that can incorporate live data feeds, or that you've done something inappropriate. They got in fights and played tricks on one another. An essayist needs the resistance of the plate.

I calculate as follows: continuation 0. Arthur Miller wrote, but looking back I have often wished I'd had the temperament to do an absurd comedy, which is not an all or nothing thing like a series A round in which a single VC fund or occasionally two invested $1-5 million. A startup's life will be easier, cheaper, more mobile, more reliable, and often more powerful than desktop software. It works well for Google and ITA, which are the most general of general principles. But the more you realize you can do things to influence the outcome. The early adopters will be driven ever further apart. Arbitrarily declaring such a border would have constrained our design choices.

We'll suppose our group of founders know what they're doing, you'll be denounced as a yellowist will just be a distraction.1 Bill Gates will of course come to mind first will be the rule with Web-based software is never going to shut me up. Imitating it was like trying to run through waist-deep water. Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, or Alan Kay, or someone writes a particularly interesting article, it will be for the better.2 Someone responsible for three of the best things Google has done. Telling me that I didn't want to have too much to do with the prisoners as possible, so they can tell when someone copies them. If you have any opinions that you would want to put their name on. But, like us, they don't use sentences any more complex than they do when talking about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one outside person acceptable to both.

If there's one thing all startups have in common is the extreme difficulty of making them work on anything they don't want to see what focus overlooks. 99 and, say, approach offers as in this approach offers having a probability of. No one except the owner of a piece of software that's full of bugs. A rookie on a football team doesn't resent the skill of the veteran; he hopes to be like the alcohol produced by fermentation. So if you're a quiet, law-abiding citizen most of the talking, but he described his co-founder of Excite.3 They will have to design software so that it can easily kill you. Plus as a consulting company initially, because we were so desperate for users that we'd offer to build merchants' sites for them if their firm invested in a company they discovered. In startups one person may have to do licensing deals, or get shelf space in retail stores, or grovel to have your own computer. What you need to win. Being smart seems to make you unpopular. I suddenly found myself working for a big company, they were the keepers of the knowledge of vaguer, buglike things, like features that confused users.4

Which is of course an extremely incriminating sign, except in the mail of a few sysadmins. Well, they are more afraid of you than you are of them, you won't just have fewer great hackers, you'll have no trouble with the small trips outside the box that they'd make people's hair stand on end, you'll have no trouble with the small trips outside the box that they'd make people's hair stand on end, you'll have zero. An improved algorithm is described in Better Bayesian Filtering. It was presumably many thousands of years between when people first started describing things as hot or cold and when someone asked what is heat? An advantage of consulting, as a deal progresses, to start to believe that stricter laws would decrease spam. Perhaps the best policy is to make more than you actually are. Good hackers find it unbearable to use bad tools. But it could. Just make stuff and put it online. Have low expectations.

Say what you're doing, and b explain why users will want it. That idea is almost as old as the web. It's a lot easier for a couple of 20 year old hackers who are too naive to be intimidated by the idea. Just a few months, until blown out of the system you're dealing with, things probably either already are or could easily become much worse than they seem. Don't let rejections pile up as a depressing, undifferentiated heap. Bigger companies solve the problem at all, it means you don't need Microsoft on the client, and a great many configuration files and settings. Every designer's ears perk up at the mention of that game, because it's no worse than lots of others.

Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups.5 They were designed to be a good thing: if your society has no variation in productivity.6 Will I ever read it? And if they're driven to such empty forms of complaint, that means you've probably done something good.7 In fact they tend to spend all their time doing that. Another approach is to follow the case of contemporary authors. The reason they were funding all those laughable startups during the late 90s was that they hoped to sell through it. But there's a magic in small things that goes beyond such rational explanations. Server problems were the big no-no for us, the premise was, and we'll give you a way to keep tabs on industry trends than as a way to turn a billion dollar industry into a fifty million dollar industry, so much the day to day management. In the process of talking to them all can bring a startup to write desktop software now you do it on Microsoft's terms, calling their APIs and working around their buggy OS.

At Viaweb, support was free, because we wanted to know. The archaeological work being mostly done, it implied that those studying the classics were, if not beyond the bounds of possibility, is beyond the scope of this article. Google is going to beat them. So who are the great hackers? This is why the worst cases of bullying happen with groups. Imagine a kind of suggestion box, because users only used it when the predefined page styles couldn't do what they want.8 So I inverted the 5 regrets, yielding a list of all the great programmers I can think of who don't work for Sun, on Java, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Java. At most software companies, most code had one definite owner.

Notes

The same reason I say the raison d'etre of prep schools supplied the same as they are bleeding cash really fast.

Spices are also startlingly popular on pre-money valuation of an investment. But if idea clashes got bad enough, a lot of money around is never something people treat casually.

Several people I talked to mentioned how much of it. Fortuna! But I think the main emotion I've observed; but it might be tempted to ignore these clauses, because the remedy was to realize that. As well as good as Apple's just by hiring sufficiently qualified designers.

One YC founder told me: Another approach would be worth about 30 billion. That may require asking, because you have no idea how much of the War on Drugs. Incidentally, the growth rate as evolutionary pressure is such a discovery. Founders rightly dislike the sort of person who understands how to appeal to space aliens, but we are only partially driven by the high score thrown out seemed the more corrupt the rulers.

If they really need a meeting, then they're not. You should always get a poem published in The New Yorker.

For similar reasons, including the numbers we have to pass so slowly for them, but explain that's what we now call science. Francis James Child, who probably knows more about hunter gatherers I strongly recommend Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's The Harmless People and The CRM114 Discriminator. At the seed stage our valuation was in a band, or an electric power grid than without, real estate development, you can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you better be sure you do. These range from make-believe, is not work too hard to say about these: I should add that none of your identity.

How to Make Wealth when I was a test of success for a patent is now replicated all over the internet. A few VCs have an edge over Silicon Valley is no richer if it's not the sense that if you agree prep schools improve kids' admissions prospects. If a man has good corn or wood, or because they are bleeding cash really fast.

Trevor Blackwell, who may have been truer to the company's present or potential future business belongs to them this way, be forthright with investors.

Thanks to Eric Raymond, Geoff Ralston, Rajat Suri, Sam Altman, Jon Levy, Fred Wilson, Jessica Livingston, Sarah Harlin, and Ross Boucher for smelling so good.

[haldenlith]

I feel like ranting

Because COPPA/YouTube shit keeps popping onto my feed. I went and got more informed on the situation, and I couldn’t help but cackle.

This is literally Tumblr all over again. Why? Let me explain. Go get some coffee, cookies, whatever. You’re going to be here a little while.

SO! First things first: Why is this happening? Well, it’s happening because YouTube/Google got hit with a gigantic fine for all of the weird, not-kid-friendly shit on Youtube, and as such, YouTube pulled a kneejerk reaction of instituting new rules and regulations on the content creators.

Cue everyone blaming COPPA, and acting like it’s a new thing. Newsflash: COPPA was passed in 2000. It’s been around for TWO DECADES. BEFORE YOUTUBE.

Sure, COPPA has problems, but it’s honestly not THE problem here. That, kids, is what Google wants you to think. Yes, yell at the government! Don’t notice our incompetence!

Why incompetence? Because this whole debacle is because YouTube hasn’t had proper content monitoring for a long time. It’s been obvious for years that they’re understaffed, and leave most of the heavy lifting to their Algorithms of Doom. Those algorithms frequently flag the wrong things, and miss the right things.

See example A of all of the weird shit on YouTube Kids, like My Little Pony torture porn.

So, rather than admit that maybe they should hire more people and fix their algorithm, they made new rules to plug into their algorithm and continue to essentially blame the community -- what got them into this problem in the first place.

The only difference between this and the Tumblr debacle is that the YouTube community isn’t yelling at Google/YouTube, they’re yelling at... someone else, which makes no sense. See, the existence of COPPA isn’t the problem. You can look at the past three years of content creators having extreme problems on Youtube, some just straight up leaving in favor of Twitch, to see that.

Example B: Markiplier’s original channel got shut down. He appealed it. It got denied. I’m pretty sure he still doesn’t know why the algorithm deemed it such a heinous mark upon the Youtube community it needed shut down.

Example C: Still Markiplier: Recently, huge swaths of his community got their entire Google accounts suspended for spamming emojis in stream chat. Sure, it’s been reversed, but the fact it happened in the first place shows again another problem with YouTube’s “automated ban-hammer patrol.”

Pretty sure that, in both examples, this has happened to smaller Youtubers, and ruined them. No one hears about them, because they’re not big enough to get Google’s attention with bad press, because they’re not part of the money makers. Big, big Youtubers like Markiplier at least have some influence. Honestly, that’s probably why not very many of them are talking about it -- it won’t really affect them, and if it does, they have the influence (of both money and a gigantic community/fanbase) to get things done.

And that’s just it, it’s about money, guys. Even without COPPA, if the shareholders feel it’s more profitable to enact these rules, they’ll do it. As a matter of fact, they kind of already did. I’ve heard from MANY YouTubers, both current and previous (who now only operate on Twitch), that there are SO MANY THINGS that can get your video demonetized -- including cussing/swearing, of all things, because it might “reflect badly on advertisers”. Hell, your videos can get demonetized ANYWAY, or straight up taken down, for no reason. You can appeal it, but you can also get denied, and when you’re denied, generally, that’s the end. You can’t keep appealing. If you contact YouTube about it, they’ll just shrug and go “if it’s denied there’s nothing we can do”.

So, yeah, I get people’s concern, but you’re mad at the wrong people. I’d also like to remind you that YouTube is a private business at the end of the day. If they wanna pull the plug on their servers tomorrow, barring contractual obligations, they can. They absolutely can. Google can issue one last paycheck to all of those content creators and say “Sorry for your luck, find something else.”

Like, the joke I commonly hear these days is, when content creators are asked by people “Oh, how do I get started on YouTube?” the answer is “DON’T” because of the laundry list of problems. YouTube is becoming increasingly unfriendly to individuals and FAR more friendly to businesses and corporations.

Still, if you want to fight, write your emails and comments to Google. Let them know. Be heard. You’re the customer base, at the end of the day. Will they listen? Maybe. Maybe not.

And no, don’t stop writing to the FTC, either. I’m not discouraging that at all. Please do. COPPA is probably horrifically out of date, given that it’s a twenty year old fuckin’ act, made by a bunch of idiot blokes that barely understand how the internet even works. But please, please, please do not do it under the assumption that you’ll be changing anything about how Google runs YouTube. You have to yell at Google directly for that.

They’re not doing this shit because of COPPA, either. They’re doing it because money, and because mommy yelled at them for not cleaning up their own fuckin’ mess -- that they’re still refusing to clean up. It’s the same shit as Tumblr and their refusal to actually deal with the hate speech blogs, the porn bots, etc., instead leaving it in the hands of a random AI.

[girlaboutcampus]

How I optimised my social media for my mental health

cw: this blog post contains references to food, fitness and dieting culture. 

A few years ago I was working for a chain bookstore over the festive period, mostly on the tills serving customers and occasionally dealing with enquiries and shelving. There was blissfully minimal phone answering too. Bookshops tend to stay pretty busy after Christmas with sales, folks coming in to buy something to read in their remaining time off and to buy dieting books. When I clocked in to take my shift on Boxing Day, there had already been a table of dieting and fitness bibles set up, all on two-for-one deals. Whilst I’m sure this table was set up on corporate instruction, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Bookshops are by no means safe spaces- they’re a place you should go to look for material that challenges and stretches your beliefs, as well as things to help you relax.  However, I don’t think they’re a place you go to be judged for your lifestyle, especially if you’re just on the way up to grab a muffin and latte with friends in the cafe. In many ways, this is the experience of being on social media in microcosm.

This summer, I had a bit of a meltdown, which I’ve talked about a little before. Without university to occupy me, I became obsessed with going to the gym. When I didn’t see results as quickly as I had in the past, I started to hyperfocus on my appearance and weight. It quickly became clear that I’d got myself into a dark place, so I started going to see one of the counsellors at my university (which is an enormous privilege you should make the most of if you also have access to it). It became clear to me, in talking to my counsellor, that a lot of my problem was down to the space I had curated for myself on social media. The fitness board I maintained on Pinterest meant that the algorithm was constantly generating unattainable bodies, diet foods and problematic motivational statements. From following some of my younger brother’s school friends on Instagram, I began to feel bad about not having the body shape of a teenager anymore. I decided to clear a whole day to go through all my social media and make it as much of a hospitable space for my mental health as possible. I should be clear at this point that this might not necessarily work for you, though I found it to be incredibly helpful. I’m sharing in the hope that it might make a little difference for someone else. I’ll start with the easier social networks and work my way up to the big guns. 

Facebook

This one might be more difficult for you depending on how much use you get out of Facebook. Personally, I use it mostly for keeping up with events, messaging friends and updating family members. One thing you can do if you only use it for the latter two is delete the Facebook app and just keep Messenger, that way you have to be on an actual computer to check facebook. If you don’t want to delete the app, then start to take advantage of the mute button. You can go through the hassle of sitting going through your whole friend list, removing people you no longer talk to, see, or are interested in keeping up with (you can let go of some people from school at this point, face it). However, I find that the experience of unfriending people can actually make me feel more anxious. 

The best thing I do- and this one isn’t something you can necessarily do in one day- is mute or unfriend as I scroll down my feed. If someone I once met in a job I had four years ago starts posting offensive and ill-informed political memes to my feed, that’s their time to go. If a friend’s mum posts a lot of things about her New Year’s diet, she’s going to get muted for the time being. If a friend posts a photo of her super cute baby, that’s getting a big heart react- give me more of that good shit. A big part of all of this stuff is trying to train your algorithm to show you the stuff you want, even if it fights back. 

Twitter

First huge bit of advice- block all the bigoted reactionaries. That’s your Piers Morgans, Katie Hopkinses, Julia Hartley-Brewerses and that girl who worships guns. This isn’t me openly advocating shutting yourself out of political discourse, or creating some kind of political echo chamber for yourself.  It’s just starving people who thrive on outrage of the attention they crave. I don’t care if you have a witty rebuttal. They don’t deserve your attention, views or clicks. Try to find professional journalists, politicians, and pundits whose expertise you can trust and who conduct themselves ethically and responsibly, rather than trying to just get clicks for their work. Also, read whole articles and think pieces rather than just the headlines. Headlines are often written to stir up outrage over something that just isn’t outrageous.

 Find tweeters who make you laugh, make good art and whose voices you’d like to amplify. 

Instagram (and Tumblr) 

Now we’re getting into the heavy lifters. It seems to me that the more image-dense the platform, the worse it can be for your mental health, especially if your mental health is tied up in your body image. Instagram and Tumblr might be the platforms to be most cutthroat with. What you decide to do with this one is really deeply personal, but I would suggest going with your gut and unfollowing and muting anything that makes you feel less than, no matter how nice the person running it seems. My first call was to unfollow more or less everyone who’s ever breathed in the general vicinity of a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. A lot of these models seem to be lovely women, but their lifestyles and bodies are the definitions of unattainable. The one exception I make to this rule is Chrissy Teigen because her content is all about earnestly enjoying food, family and travel. Plus, she doesn’t take herself too seriously. Instagram also has a useful feature that allows you to mute stories, posts or both at your own discretion. That way if there’s someone you follow who posts great travel photos but is always talking about weight loss in their stories, you can filter out that content and keep what you like. I found that, personally, having fewer bodies in my line of sight is for the best. I like to maximise the presence of delicious food, cute animals and uplifting messages I follow. Here are some favourites:

Nigella Lawson

Shila and Eddie the Pomeranians

withlovelinh

Hannah Witton

Demi Adejuyigbe

Pinterest

This is the daddy of all the image-based platforms. Whilst probably the least popular of all the platforms listed here, it probably has the most potential to do harm. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinterest. It is one of the most easily spaces online and the fact that it is image focused means that there is very little text involved, so it’s an ocean of calm compared to a platform like Twitter. However, it also has what might possibly be the most reactive algorithm of any platform. This is broadly a helpful tool, allowing you to locate the exact material you’re looking for, but it can really double down on any harmful material you put into it. It’s the internet’s worst enabler. In this sense, spring cleaning it is work. I got rid of my fitspo board and replaced it with one more focused on self-care. This didn’t mean getting rid of all my fitness-focused stuff- I still pin specific exercise routines- but I don’t pin #bodygoals stuff now.  A very important part of changing this is being conscientious of what I am choosing to repin. Specifically, I have to ask myself 

“Do I really like this hair/ makeup/ clothing, or do I just want to look like the model?”

If the answer is no, I will ask Pinterest to remove it from my feed. Pinterest also has a zero-tolerance policy for content that encourages eating disorders and self-harm so you can report anything like that. Whilst Pinterest will continue to show you things after you have deleted the boards you can, over time, train it to show you more of the things you want to see. I’ve finally got it to a point where I’m seeing things that make me feel bad far less frequently. 

All of this is work and requires a conscious effort from yourself to remove things that are harmful before they get to you. This system isn’t perfect and you will continue to see garbage some of the time. It is still possible to optimise what you’re seeing in order to feel less anxious and down on yourself. Do keep in mind, that it’s just a small part of your life and that if you are genuinely concerned about your mental health to talk to a professional if that is something you are able to access. Also, this isn’t an alternative to minimising your screentime, which we should probably all try to do a little more. 

Happy new year! 

More like this 

You are doing enough. 

Did I Keep my 2018 Resolutions?

[bri206]

Soulmates Part 6

Hey guys I apologize if you read the first post this morning, I updated the ending, so check it out for a more accurate read!

When the sun blankets over the two intertwined figures on the bed, the first thing seen is the look of absolute peace on each face. All the worries were gone. That is until a certain brown haired little sister barged into the room unexpectedly.

“Ollie!”

At the sound of the petite, young voice, both figures raise up in shock. At the sight of a very young Thea Queen, Felicity squeaks, pulls the covers over her spaghetti strap cami,  and looks around for a way to hide.

Noticing the blonde woman for the first time, Thea, looks at her suspiciously.

“Your not Laurel.”

At the accusation, Felicity tries to pull the covers over head to hide.

“THEA! What are you doing in my room?” Oliver says trying to shield Felicity.

“Mom’s been calling for you for the last 10 minutes, so she sent me to come wake you up.”

“Thea.” he says taking a deep breath. “I will be downstairs in a few minutes, now please close the door on your way out.”

The feisty 12 year old, hesitates as she continues to let her eyes linger on the woman who is not his girlfriend.

“Thea.”

“Ok, ok. I’m going.”

As she turns around, she is about to leave, when another person arrives in the room.

“Ollie, please don’t tell me you’re still aslee..p” Seeing Felicity for the first time, partially hiding behind Oliver, makes Tommy stop his sentence. “Well hello there. Am I interrupting something?”

“No” Thea says at the same time Oliver says “Yes”

“Are you just gonna sit there and make me have to guess who your friend is?”

At this point, Oliver hangs his head in both embarrassment and frustration.

“Get out. Both of you.”

“I will  once I get this pretty girl’s name” Tommy says flashing his signature smile, and wink.

At the look that he has seen a million times over the years, his friend has used on so many different women, Oliver feels jealous course through his veins. Just the thought that his best friend was hitting on his wife, in his bed, is unbelievable.

“Tommy if you don’t get out in the next three seconds I will have you wishing you never told me that secret at Tony Parker’s party three years ago.”

At the threat, Tommy is singing a different tune. “It was very nice to meet you, beautiful stranger.”

And with that, the door closes, and they are both surrounded in the silence of the day.

“We are really failing at this keep subtle thing, aren’t we?” Felicity asks innocently.

Oliver simply answers by throwing his head back and hitting the pillow dramatically. “I’m gonna take that as a yes.”

Reaching for her glasses, across his body  on his nightstand, she grabs them and puts them on. When everything becomes crystal clear, she gets a good look of Oliver Queen’s childhood bedroom.

The first thing she notices, is how big it is. It has to be at least the size of her apartment. The second thing she notices is the simplicity of the room. She knows better than anyone that Oliver likes his room nice and tidy, but this surprises her.

“Is your room always this tidy?” she asks slowly getting out of the bed.

“You sound surprised.”

“Not for you, but for Ollie, yes. I just figured your room would be as chaotic as your life.” she says shrugging her shoulders.

As she advances on one of his two bookshelves, she lets her fingers graze the worn covers and then stops.

“You never told me you read Moby Dick.”

“That’s because I didn’t” he says leaning against the headboard as watches her.

Turning around, she gives him a confused look. “Then why do you have it?”

“Decoration.”

Rolling her eyes, she goes back to exploring the humongous room.

“You have a lot of boats in here.”

“Yeah, it was kind of my thing.”

“Oh the irony” she whispers. Then she sees the window.

Pulling back the curtain, she can see one of the most beautiful gardens she’s ever seen.

“Wow”

“I know” he says wrapping his arms around her waist and letting his lips graze against her earlobe.

“It’s beautiful.” While she watches the roses and daisies, Oliver only has eyes for her.

“Yeah.”

Turning in his embrace, she kisses him. They savor the softness of one another’s lips.

“Thank you”

“For what?”

“For letting me stay here. It didn’t really end up in our favor, but it was nice to be in your arms.”

“I know what you mean.” he says bringing her in for a hug.

After a couple minutes, she pulls away.

“I should probably go, I’m sure Thea has snitched to your parents that I am not Laurel. Besides I need to get in contact with Sara.”

“I’ll try to sneak you out.”

“Ok.”

After gathering her sneakers and hoodie, Oliver takes her hand and leads her out the door of his bedroom. When he sees the hallway clear, they quietly walk down the corridor.

Reaching the grand staircase, they don’t hear movement from below, so they start to move. When they reach the bottom of the steps,  Oliver looks around as if he were trying to get them out of a rescue mission. Finally coming to the beautiful double doors, his family calls the front door, Felicity whispers, “We made it.”

“Yeah”

“I’ll call you the second I hear confirmation from Sara” she says pecking his cheek.

And without another thought, she walks out the doors.

As soon as Felicity’s feet touch the hardwoods of her apartment, she is kicking off her shoes and dropping her hoodie to the ground. Jogging over to the laptop that is sitting untouched on her island, she sits down and gets to work.

After an hour of developing the algorithms she needs to contact the Waverider, everything is perfect, all she has to do is push the ‘Enter’ button. Seconds later, she does just that.

A few seconds later, Sara’s face shows up.

“Sara” she sighs.

“Felicity, hi. What’s going on? Where are you?”

“It’s a very long and complicated story, but the short version is, Oliver and I are stuck in 2007.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I know. And before you ask, no we don’t know how we got here, but none of that will matter when you arrive and take us back. Which I’m hoping is in the next few hours.”

At her happy assumption, Sara’s confused look turns to a downcast look.

“Woah, what is that look for? Sara?”

“About that, it might take a little longer than a couple hours.”

“Ok, how long exactly?”

“I… don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Sara you are literally on a time ship, you can be here in seconds.”

“Could. Could be in there in seconds.”

“I’m sorry, why did you just use the past tense of can?”

“The Waverider might be under construction right now.”

“Under Construction?” she asks in disbelief. “No. No, the Waverider can not be down, it’s practically indestructible.”

“Oh god I wish. Look I’m sorry Felicity, believe me when I say that I would be there in a heartbeat if I could.”

Looking down, she feels all hope leave her body. “So when do you think you’ll be here?”

“I don’t know, it could be anywhere from a couple days to…”

Sighing, Felicity leans back. “Sara if you’re not here in the next two weeks, Oliver is going to have to relive one his most terrifying memories ever.”

“The Gambit” she utters.

“Yeah”

“Ok, look I can’t promise that it will be done by then, but I can promise that I will do everything in my power to save you two as soon as I can.”

Giving a small smile, she simply says, “I know you will.” Sitting up, she sighs. “Keep me updated.”

“I will. Hang in there.”

And with one final nod, Felicity cuts the feed, and is left with a black screen.

“Great.”

After Felicity left, Oliver went to eat, and luckily his parents didn’t seem to give him the accusing look they give him, whenever they catch him with a girl. Which means Thea didn’t snitch on him. But that didn’t stop her from glancing at him curiously every few seconds.

After breakfast, he walks to the stairs, when he gets the message.

‘I need you NOW’

Walking into Felicity’s apartment, he feels the change in mood very quickly.

“Felicity?”

Then he sees her. On the couch, she is looking ahead, lost in thought.

“Felicity”

Gasping when she feels him lay a hand on her shoulder.

“Oliver.”

“What’s wrong? Was Sara not there?”

Giving off a humorless laugh, she looks away.

“Oh she was there alright. She told me that she can’t come.”

“What?”

“Apparently the Waverider was damaged in combat and it’s not working.”

“So what does that mean? That we’re stuck here?”

“Yes.”

After the shock of the revelation comes down on him, Oliver is sitting down, and Felicity is in action, getting up and pacing.

“Ok we have to think, since they won’t be here until TBA, as much as I hate to say this we HAVE to keep everything on track. So what were you doing a week before the Gambit goes down?”

Oliver looks down and makes a disgusted look.

“What’s that look for? Oliver?”

“I was sleeping with Sara at this time.”

“You were wh-” Taking a deep breath she turns around and murmurs to herself, “Of course you were.”

Turning back to him, she’s scared to ask the next question.

“Is that absolutely necessary for the development of this story?”

“The only reason she came on in the first place was because I made her… I made her feel like she had a chance.”

Sighing, she looks down conflicted.

“Felicity, I made a vow to you and that means more to me than anything. I don’t want to sleep with Sara, I don’t want to cheat on you.” The next words that leave his mouth, has him sounding and looking like a lost little boy.  “Please don’t make me.”

“Oh Oliver. What about Sara?”

“We’ll find another way. I’ll convince her right before the Gambit.”

“Ok, but we need to make sure she gets on that boat, because if she doesn’t we screw her life up too, and we will permanently be stuck here.”

“That’s tomorrow’s problem, let’s just focus on what we can control.” “And what is that?”

“Having a night to ourselves for once.”

Smiling she hugs him, “I’d like that. Can I cook?”

“Absolutely not.”

“It was worth a shot.”

@candykizzes24 @wherethereissmoak @ao3feed-oliverfelicity @almondblossomme @dreamalongwithamy @smkkbert @miriam1779  @jcc04220 @emisfritish @smoakqueenalways @leuska @lovelycssefan @it-was-a-red-heeler @omglovechrissie @smoakqueenalways

[whitneyrmcguireblog]

On Black Breastfeeding Week

By Whitney McGuire

It’s Black Breastfeeding Week according to Instagram and I’m sad. I don’t want to waste time describing the sadness, and maybe that’s not even the right word to describe how I feel, but tears are welling up in my eyes and my heart aches a bit.  I’m a black woman. I had a baby 4 months ago. I am not breastfeeding.

I don’t have time to entertain judgments, even those cloaked in support. And trust me, there are a lot. I’ve already lashed out on a woman for communicating the assumption that I stopped breastfeeding due to cosmetic reasons. Now that I think about it, I’m like, “so what if it was?” I only have time to be present - to see that my first child, who’s somewhat traumatic entry into this world (for me) revealed parts of myself of which I wholeheartedly am in awe. 

Presently, I see flashbacks of endless pregnancy nausea (worse than morning sickness. I had that too.) and breastfeeding classes at my midwife’s office. The joyful expectation that I will be a great mother who breastfeeds her child for at least a year. A. Great. Mother. I learned latching techniques, different hold positions to make for a comfortable feed for me and baby, and an understanding that every woman can and should breastfeed her child. “Was my former co-worker actually hyperbolizing when she said she couldn’t produce breastmilk for both of her children as she broke down in the break room every other day?” I faded out of my inner questioning and listened to statistics being tossed at me from the breastfeeding counselor making it patently clear that the act by omission -- not breastfeeding your child -- is basically considered child abuse. It didn’t take long for my instagram explore page algorithm to catch up , depicting images of pregnant women, or women with young children, happy and glowing. I knew not to click on those images. I am pretty cognizant of strengthening my muscle not to compare. But sometimes I skipped my workouts. Sometimes those images brought me to profiles that inevitably revealed a woman with one or both breasts exposed and the back of a baby’s head cradled lovingly, happily sucking away. Images like this made me feel warm and proud. Like I was about to join a sisterhood of like-minded, revolutionary, strong women championing the normalization of breastfeeding. A few looked like me. Many didn’t.

After giving birth, a lactation consultant visited me the day before I was discharged from my 7-day stay. She sat on the foot of my hospital bed. I sat in a recliner nursing my new child. He was very small. He decided to come four weeks early. The consultant quizzed me. “Do you know why breastfeeding is so important?” I listed stats I’d memorized from my breastfeeding class and hours of prior research on the topic. I wanted to be a GREAT mom. I had already delivered via emergency c-section and was repeatedly reminded how dangerously high my blood pressure was due to preeclampsia. I already wasn’t starting this motherhood journey the way I’d hoped. So, I didn’t want to fuck this quiz up.  She affirmed the correctness of my answers and gave me a warm smile and nod. I took that to mean that she agreed with me. I was going to be a great mom.

By the second week of my son’s life earthside, I had one nipple that was chaffed, sore, bleeding occasionally. Yes. I used the organic nipple balm. The other nipple was functioning but was unfortunately attached to the less milk abundant breast. My son began to fuss. Loudly. His entire body stiff, arms splayed open in frustration. Until this point, his latch had been great. Something changed, however. Now, he kicked aggressively and cried abundant tears when my nipple made contact with his mouth. He was not eating enough. I researched why this could be. I tried different holds, pumping even the sore nipple with tears of agony welling up in my eyes to try to produce more milk to freeze for future bottle feedings. I wanted to be prepared to give myself time to heal when/if this happened again. Pumping on a chaffed nipple was what I’d hoped was peak “this sucks,” for me. They tell you pumping more will help you produce more milk. I’ve heard many testimonials to this truth and a few to the contrary. For me, pumping only produced more tears. My nipple eventually healed after I began using a plastic nipple guard my friend, also a new mother, purchased for me. Feedings became easier. Finally, I felt like one of those moms I admired. Some I knew. Others I didn’t. Moms who look like they take time and energy to be patient loving attentive moms. My son enjoyed the nipple guard too.

One month after my baby’s birthday, I sat on the stoop of our brownstone Apartment cradling him prepared to finally breastfeed outside of my home or the pediatrician’s office/ ob/gyn clinic. It was a hot day. We didn't have air conditioning. I was proud to possibly perform what I considered an amazing phenomenon of the human body, in public. I wanted to look anyone in the eye who passed and glanced in my direction during this sacred, beautiful act. I was ready to make my activism seen...known.  I wanted to challenge any glances contrary to approval. Proud. Stern. Stately. I am proudly a black woman. I was also proudly a breastfeeding woman -- just with a nipple guard. Eventually it was time to feed my baby.  I realized I left the nipple guard upstairs, so I took out one of my breasts and attempted to put my bare nipple in my baby’s mouth. He hollered and protested. A foiled attempt however, not the final one. 

Two weeks later the kicking and screaming started again, even with the nipple guard. I relied on the advice and support of my fellow new moms one of which paid for an in-home lactation consultant. This one was different than the hospital counselor. She was more thorough. She weighed my baby before and after feeding. She observed his latch and informed me that I probably didn’t need the nipple guard anymore. “He’s doing perfectly! Great latch!” I smiled in affirmation. But felt the sting of impending failure creep up from that nipple guard comment. I had been using it religiously for a little over a month. Maybe that was too much time. She watched me pump for 20 minutes. Observed that I was producing a “perfect” amount of milk and put me on a more strict pumping schedule so I could start to store milk. I hadn’t been able to store milk during the days leading up to her visit. His appetite had grown voracious. I was pumping and feeding around the clock. Days blurred together. I was so tired. I resented my husband for being able to leave the house to go to the laundromat or the corner deli. I cried more. My child’s appetite grew more insatiable.

I lamented a bit on instagram stories about my journey thus far. Many mothers expressed their similar journeys and frustrations with breastfeeding. They connected me to other moms and doulas. A few moms directed to lactation support groups. The thing was, I had anxiety about leaving the house. I was unsure that I would be able to perform the act of breastfeeding in front of other moms. I began to feel my goal of being a great mom slipping away. How was I only 1.5 months in and already fucking up?

A very good friend of mine, a mother of four young children, also a black woman, informed me that she too was unable to adequately breastfeed her first 3 children. She supplemented the little breast milk she was able to produce with formula and donor milk. She too pumped often, on the highest setting sometimes. Her first three children had been delivered via cesarean. All three had some amount of trauma attached the circumstances of their birth, from hospital staff to insurance, her first was the most traumatic of them all. Yet, all of her children are remarkable. My idea of a great mother was becoming more layered. As a result, I massaged the thought of formula feeding and tabled it.

I’ll never forget asking my husband, through tears, to run to the drug store to get formula one particularly rough night. I counted every ounce of formula I gave my baby. I tried to reserve his consumption of it for times when he wouldn’t latch at all, which became more and more frequent. Every time I prepared a bottle of formula for him I cried. I couldn’t watch my husband feed it to him. Each time he was fed from the bottle, his crying stopped. He was full, not of breast milk, but of a manufactured substance. He would burp and fall asleep just like he did when he was full of breast milk. He was full. He was at peace. Did he know the difference? Maybe I wasn’t a great mom at the moment, but I was starting to feel like a pretty ok one.

Feeding my baby formula two weeks into his third month still evoked intense sadness for me, but somehow it also allowed me to experience more freedom: longer naps, sporadic phone meetings for work, time out of the house with or without my baby. The sadness led me to once again seek out lactation support. A doula I met on Instagram told me how bad the formula advice was that my friend gave me. I disagreed but thought this doula’s perspective was worth exploring. Maybe my friend wasn’t as educated as this doula was on the subject. Maybe this doula wasn’t as educated about the validity of one’s inability to breastfeed.

I walked 2 miles (part of my personal recovery from my csection) to another lactation counselor’s office. I’d called the day before to make sure someone would be there. I showed up. She wasn’t there. My hopes of reclaiming my great mom title came crashing down. It didn’t help that I had also just had an argument with a close friend that morning. I was reeling with anger and frustration. “WHY HAS ALL OF THIS BEEN SO HARD?!” My pregnancy was mired in sickness. I developed a disease that came pretty close to taking me, my baby, or both of us out of here. And now breastfeeding wasn’t going well? I felt faint and dizzy from the thoughts of failure. I accepted defeat during the two mile walk back home and immediately made my son a bottle of formula. 

I’m four months into being a mom and I’m learning more and more each day that I am not just an ok mom, I’m a good mom. I know this based on the fact that my child is happy and according to his pediatrician, quite healthy. He exudes joy. He is taken care of and loved with every fiber of his parents’ (and grandparents’) being. I’m still sad, however. When hashtags and my instagram algorithm remind me that other moms would look at what I feed my child in pure disgust, I get sad. When I see my friends effortlessly whip out a boob to soothe their fussy child forming an instant, animalistic, instinctual, necessary bond, I’m sad.  My mother breastfed me for two months before switching to formula. She had to go back to work. She tells me she couldn’t produce enough milk to store. I too had a voracious appetite, apparently.  I didn’t know this until after I gave birth. Why would I? I didn’t fit the description of the “formula fed baby” I pieced together from the statistics freely tossed at me during breastfeeding class.

Simply put, my baby preferred the bottle over my breast. Ultimately, he decided for himself and left me in the grey of a seemingly black and white issue: breastfeeding is best, formula is worst. Pick a side. What of those of us whose children picked a side for them? Are we cast out of the club? Do we form our own club? As a black woman, I’m pretty exhausted with aspects of my existence being defined in reaction to othering. And now, it seems like there’s no way for me to cross the isle into Breastfeeding Mom Land. Even if breastfeeding women empathize with my situation, I will still envy their ability to breastfeed because I cannot. I will still, somehow be othered and quite frankly, as a result, judged. Motherhood is not a monolith. Our experiences, while somewhat similar, are wholly our own. So are our children (archaic concepts of the ownership of people aside). The best lesson from motherhood so far is that my child is not a vessel for my insecurities or fears. He is not a projection of the aspirations I have for myself. He is his own person with his own karma, abilities, and abundant future (hopefully joyful) experiences. 

The movement for public breastfeeding is in the lead for breastfeeding causes and this messaging exists in a variety of media. Black breastfeeding is a distant cousin. Still present. Not as amplified. Which is why I wholeheartedly support Black Breastfeeding Week and its mission. I want other black mothers to know of this movement. I want them to do their independent research on breastfeeding, take classes, form support networks early and often (or at least know where to go for breastfeeding support). Very few moms discuss how incredibly hard breastfeeding actually is. Even fewer discuss the inherent effects of racism on black mothers from the healthcare system to the availability of general education on the topic of breastfeeding. #Blackbreastfeedingweek will hopefully change that.

I am choosing to nurture my child holistically. I’m not sure whether this means stepping away from social media to eliminate the trigger of seeing a woman breastfeeding, especially since I’ve received so much helpful advice and support from complete strangers on social media. I am sure that it involves formula, albeit organic. I’m certainly not happy about my ejection from the breastfeeding club, especially when I tried so hard to get in. Expending more time and resources to be told what I’ve already tried, about which I’ve cried so so much about to this day, no longer interests me. I’m really only interested in being present for my baby’s beautiful growth which I’m overjoyed to witness, even behind occasional tears.

[kerishaharris]

Going, going, (not quite but almost) gone: the sad state of local newspapers

True story: As a young, would-be journalist, I applied at the behest of my high school journalism teacher to the Hugh N. Boyd Minorities in Journalism Workshop. The program was a two-week intensive workshop open to high school students across New Jersey with an interest in journalism. It promised to provide the 15 or so selected participants with real-world experience in the field absolutely free of charge, as local newspapers across the state sponsored the event, covering all expenses for selected students. Having always been rather introverted and somewhat shy, I didn’t think my writing was good enough to make the cut. But to my surprise, I ended up being selected and was sponsored by my hometown newspaper, The Record of Bergen County, aka The Record (or, so it was called at the time). The experience was transformative for me, and gave me my first insight into life as a journalist. I’d go on to study journalism as an undergraduate student at the University of Florida, starting off in print but switching to broadcast, and working professionally in the field for more than a decade for CNN, NBC, ABC, Univision, and more. And for a time, I briefly took a job as the lead social media editor for none other than the local newspaper that helped give me my start in the business: The Record of Bergen County.

(fun fact: The Record broke the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal which made national and global headlines) This week, I chose to take a closer look at local newspapers, and in doing so, briefly examine why they’ve struggled to remain relevant in a changing industry (I’ll only scratch the surface, because I could probably write an entire dissertation on this topic). It’s actually quite sad, as I firmly believe that local newspapers and beat reporters are critical to freedom of the press and unbiased, balanced, and fair reporting. Sadly, the digital age has done irrevocable damage to this industry. And I hate to say it, but digital and social media are almost solely responsible for the demise of newspapers, and sadly, I’m a part of that problem too. As a tail-end millennial who came of age with the internet, if the news isn’t on my smartphone or easily accessible via an app or a free website, I quickly lose interest and seek my information elsewhere. I can’t remember the last time I had a newspaper subscription, or even purchased a newspaper. I recognize how important they are, I just have so many other options for news consumption now that I just don’t turn to newspapers anymore. Freedom of the press

Local newspapers have been part of the fabric of this country since as early as the 1600’s. Every journalism student remembers studying the great circulation wars of the 1800’s between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. If not, everybody remembers how fun it was when instead of class, our teachers took a day off from teaching and instead showed “Newsies” on VHS in history class. It never gets old. 

(truer words have never been said, Jack Kelly) But the rise of television news, and eventually digital and social media, pushed local newspapers aside, as audiences had a quicker, easier way to access news on-demand instead of waiting for the morning paper. According to a recent report by researchers at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 300 more newspapers failed since the fall of 2018 bringing the death toll to 2,100. That’s 25 percent of the 9,000 newspapers that were being published just 15 years ago. It also noted that there are about 200 “news deserts,” or communities without any local newspapers. Most of those news deserts are in economically challenged rural areas, but more and more, even the economically advantaged suburbs are feeling the pinch too. 

(via UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media) The danger here? Local papers highlight and elevate local stories we might not otherwise know about, but we absolutely need to care about. What’s going on in our schools, with our local elected officials, within our communities, local zoning and budget decisions that impact our daily lives. They provide a micro-level guide to the things that impact us every single day. So if nearly all of your news is coming from social and digital media and their sometimes questionable algorithms, or television news that’s almost undoubtedly biased (at least in the U.S.), you really have to question whether you’re receiving fair, unbiased coverage. Dying, but not (quite) dead It was encouraging to see that while the industry is undoubtedly suffering, there are still some people who often consume their news via local newspapers. According to the Pew Research Center, people aged 65 and older account for most of the existing newspaper audience, roughly four in 10 of whom say they still often get their information from newspapers. This is about what I would expect from the older generation, but this sadly doesn’t say much for younger generations and their newspaper consumption. Only 18 percent of people age 50-64, 8 percent of people age 30 to 49, and a mere 2 percent of people age 18-29 say that they often get their news from newspapers. 

And even among those 65 and older, newspapers are a pretty distant second in terms of the source they visit most often for news, as 81 percent of people in this age group cite television as the source they often use for news.

If you can’t beat them, join them In my brief time as social media editor for The Record, it was obvious to me that the paper was trying hard to adapt to a changing world, opening themselves up to methods they’d never had to use before. The same was true of most newspapers, even national newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. It has been interesting to see the ways in which these newspapers have branched out into new forms of media to adapt to the way people consume news today. I highlighted this in a previous post, but I’ve been impressed by the NYT’s foray into LinkedIn Live, creating immersive, engaging conversations on key stories, and giving the audience the chance to actively participate with the media. At its core, I’ve always said that the best thing about social/digital media was that it took what were always one-way conversations, and made them into two-way experiences for the audience and the content creator. And speaking of the Times, their efforts on Instagram are among my favorite. Beautiful portraits that would once only live on paper are now shared in a beautifully curated feed that is always so pleasing to the eye. Often, these are stories that wouldn’t typically make the front page of the paper, but the visuals are so stunning that they tell a story in and of themselves.

(via the New York Times on Instagram) Using local newspapers as a communications professional

Part of my renewed interest in newspapers came about when I was a communications manager for a small nonprofit organization. Our primary goal was to engage in state level advocacy on behalf of the state’s charter schools. Effectively that means, catch the eyes and ears of lawmakers and state your case so that when budget time comes around, they’ll make sure to enact a budget that ensures the survival of these schools. I learned that these lawmakers and influencers pay close attention to newspapers, perhaps even more than other forms of media, and so getting our agenda into the local newspaper was a large part of the work that I did. I would write (well, ghostwrite) opinion pieces for senior leadership, students and parents, and pitch them for placements in the local papers in the districts of the lawmakers we needed to reach, I would develop relationships with local education reporters, invite them to press events, give them quotes for their stories, organize editorial board meetings and more. Newspapers became a critical part of the work that I did, as were the relationships I built with members of the newspaper industry, and I’d imagine the same is true for other communications professionals. Much to my (pleasant) surprise, there are still some brands doing important work with traditional print newspapers. According to FORBES, “MasterCard placed a two-page spread in The New York Times, almost unheard of these days, to articulate its support for the LGBTQIA+ community and MasterCard’s support for GLAAD’s NEON Legacy Series, a photo and video collection produced by Black LGBTQIA+ creators. The ad states MasterCard’s commitment to equal treatment, equal opportunity and equal rights. The ad features both the MasterCard logo and the GLAAD logo.” I can’t find a photo of the ad anywhere, but I’m sure it was great! Of course, this is very different from the way the general public engages with newspapers, as they’re looking for unbiased updates on what’s going on in their communities. But it’s still nice to know there are still some communicators out here tapping into the power of local newspapers to promote their brands, and I was one of them.

(sigh. a beautiful sight)

A sad future for local newspapers Sadly, none of the statistics point to a revival of newspapers anytime soon, although I’m holding out hope. With fewer local papers, and increased reliance on (often biased) television and (often wrong) social media for news, I worry that this is just one of the unfortunate ills of the digital age we’re living in. Sadly, many local papers are unable to stay afloat despite employing every possible adaptation in the book, often succumbing to major buyouts by huge conglomerates, resulting in newspapers that are controlled by corporate interests and offer no true local, unbiased reporting. 

And as for The Record? It suffered a similar fate in 2016 after it was ultimately bought out by Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain. For folks like me from northern New Jersey, it was the end of an era. I still remember being saddened when I learned the news, even feeling a tad guilty that I didn’t stick around long enough to perhaps contribute to a more favorable outcome. While my time there was brief, I worked alongside some of the smartest, most passionate and hard-working people I’d ever met. They lived and breathed northern New Jersey, and they put their heart and soul into every letter of every story that went to print. But what happened with The Record has sadly happened to so many local newspapers with no signs of slowing down. As communications and marketing professionals, we certainly can play a role in trying to help revive the industry, but my fear is that any efforts we make would be too little too late.

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

How AI-generated music is changing the way hits are made

The idea that artificial intelligence can compose music is scary for a lot of people, including me. But music-making AI software has advanced so far in the past few years that it’s no longer a frightening novelty; it’s a viable tool that can and is being used by producers to help in the creative process. This raises the question: could artificial intelligence one day replace musicians? For the second episode of The Future of Music, I went to LA to visit the offices of AI platform Amper Music and the home of Taryn Southern, a pop artist who is working with Amper and other AI platforms to co-produce her debut album I AM AI.

Using AI as a tool to make music or aid musicians has been in practice for quite some time. In the ‘90s, David Bowie helped develop an app called the Verbasizer, which took literary source material and randomly reordered the words to create new combinations that could be used as lyrics. In 2016, researchers at Sony used software called Flow Machines to create a melody in the style of The Beatles. This material was then turned over to human composer Benoît Carré and developed into a fully produced pop song called “Daddy’s Car.” (Flow Machines was also used to help create an entire album’s worth of music under the name SKYGGE, which is Danish for “shadow.”) On a consumer level, the technology is already integrated with popular music-making programs like Logic, a piece of software that is used by musicians around the world, and it can auto-populate unique drum patterns with the help of AI.

AI is already integrated with consumer music-making programs like Logic

Now, there’s an entire industry built around AI services for creating music, including the aforementioned Flow Machines, IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta’s NSynth Super, Jukedeck, Melodrive, Spotify’s Creator Technology Research Lab, and Amper Music.

Most of these systems work by using deep learning networks, a type of AI that’s reliant on analyzing large amounts of data. Basically, you feed the software tons of source material, from dance hits to disco classics, which it then analyzes to find patterns. It picks up on things like chords, tempo, length, and how notes relate to one another, learning from all the input so it can write its own melodies. There are differences between platforms: some deliver MIDI while others deliver audio. Some learn purely by examining data, while others rely on hard-coded rules based on musical theory to guide their output.

However, they all have one thing in common: on a micro scale, the music is convincing, but the longer you listen, the less sense it makes. None of them are good enough to craft a Grammy Award-winning song on their own... yet.

Michael Hobe, co-founder of Amper Music.

Photo by Christian Mazza / The Verge

Of all the music-making AI platforms I’ve tried out, Amper is hands down the easiest to use. IBM and Google’s projects require some coding knowledge and unpacking of developer language on GitHub. They also give you MIDI output, not audio, so you also have to have a bit more knowledge about music production to shape the output into an actual song.

Amper, on the other hand, has an interface that is ridiculously simple. All you have to do is go to the website and pick a genre of music and a mood. That’s it. You don’t have to know code or composition or even music theory in order to make a song with it. It builds tracks from prerecorded samples and spits out actual audio, not MIDI. From there, you can change the tempo, the key; mute individual instruments, or switch out entire instrument kits to shift the mood of the song its made. This audio can then be exported as a whole or as individual layers of instruments (known as “stems”). Stems can then be further manipulated in DAWs like Ableton or Logic.

I had Amper generate the clip of music below while cruising around LA in the back seat of my friend’s car. Using my phone, I picked rock as the genre, and then, appropriately, “driving” as the mood. It spent about a minute churning away before delivering 30 seconds of audio. The result isn’t radio-ready, but it has chords, a little structure, and it sounds... pleasant. It could easily sit in the back of a YouTube video or an advertisement and no one would guess it was coded, not written.

As someone who makes music, the idea that code can do what I do is freaky. It’s unnerving to think that an algorithm can make a not-terrible song in minutes and that AI is getting in on creative turf we categorize as distinctly human. If AI is currently good enough to make jingly elevator music like the clip above, how long until it can create a number one hit? And if it gets to that point, what does it mean for human musicians?

Taryn Southern showing off IBM Watson Beat.

Photo by Christian Mazza / The Verge

These aren’t questions that Taryn Southern is concerned with. Southern is an online personality who you might know from her YouTube channel or when she was a contestant on American Idol. These days, Southern is interested in emerging tech, which has led to her current project: recording a pop album. Those two things don’t sound like they could be related, but her album has a twist: instead of writing all the songs herself, Southern used artificial intelligence to help generate percussion, melodies, and chords. This makes it one of the first albums of its kind, a collaboration of sorts between AI and human.

Amper was the first AI platform Southern used when beginning her album, and now she also works with IBM Watson Beat and Google Magenta. She views AI as a powerful tool and partner, not a replacement for musicians.

“Using AI, I’m writing my lyrics and my vocal melodies to the actual music and using that as a source of inspiration,” Southern tells me. “I find that really fun, and because I’m able to iterate with the music and give it feedback and parameters and edit as many times as I need, it still feels like it’s mine in a sense.”

AI isn’t good enough to craft a hit radio song on its own... yet

To get an idea of how a human can work with AI, look at Southern’s 2017 single, “Break Free.” The SoundCloud audio below is an early export of material from Amper. Compare that to the YouTube video that has the final, released version of the song. Bits of the AI-composed original peek through here and there, but it’s more like seasoning, not the main dish. To transform it into a pop song, Southern made a lot of creative decisions, including switching instruments, changing the key, and, of course, writing and performing the vocals.

Southern originally turned to AI because even though she was a songwriter, she knew “very, very little about music theory.” It was a roadblock that frustrated her to no end. “I’d find a beautiful chord on the piano,” Southern says, “and I’d write an entire song around that, but then I couldn’t get to the next few chords because I just didn’t know how to play what I was hearing in my head. Now I’m able to iterate with the music and give it feedback and parameters and edit as many times as I need. It still feels like it’s mine in a sense.”

This feeling of empowerment is exactly what Amper Music is trying to deliver. “I don’t look at it like artificial intelligence,” Amper co-founder Michael Hobe says. “It’s more of intelligence augmentation. We can facilitate your creative process to cut a lot of the bullshit elements of it. For me, it’s allowing more people to be creative and then allowing the people who already have some of these creative aspects to really further themselves.”

When Hobe says “bullshit elements,” he’s talking about a guitarist not knowing how to orchestrate an instrument they’ve never worked with before, the time spent crafting the velocity of individual drum hits, or simply being faced with writer’s block. Amper isn’t meant to create the next AI superstar; it’s meant to enable musicians. Of course, using AI also has the added benefit of allowing Southern and others with no formal music background to participate in making music. It democratizes the creative playing field so anyone can play what they hear in their head, just like Southern.

it’s not about creating the next AI superstar; it’s about enabling musicians

I ask Southern what she would say to people who think using AI is cheating. “Great,” she says. “Yes, we are totally cheating. If music is concretely defined as this one process that everyone must adhere to in order to get to some sort of end goal, then, yes, I’m cheating. I am leading the way for all the cheaters.” She laughs, and then pointedly says, “The music creation process can’t be so narrowly defined.”

It’s something to think about. Every time a new technology is introduced and that tectonically shifts the way we create music, there are naysayers. Things like AutoTune, the use of samples and loops, and Digital Audio Workstations were all “disruptors” that we adapted to and are now commonplace tools and methods. AI will probably be next.

The technology’s impact on the music industry as a whole remains to be seen. Will it destroy jobs? How will it affect musical copyright? Will it ever be able to work without a human? But people like Hobe and Southern believe it will ultimately reap positive benefits. Sure, an algorithm making music sounds scary because it mirrors human capabilities that we already find mysterious, but it’s also a compelling tool that can enhance said human capabilities. AI as a collaborator increases access to music-making, it can streamline workflows, and it provides the spark of inspiration needed to craft your next hit single.

“You’re collaborating and working with the AI to achieve your goal,” Hobe says. “It’s not that the AI is just doing its own little thing. It’s all about the process between it and you to achieve that final artistic vision.”

This content was originally published here.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

It turns out purposely messing with your targeted ads isn't a good idea

Facebook is convinced that I am a young mother with a love of kraken-themed decor. 

Unless you count my cat, who is 11-years-old and the animal equivalent of the grumpy old man from Up, I absolutely do not have a child. But for the last six months, my feed has been inundated with ads for baby products, from nasal suction devices to teething toys that look like plush versions of a bad acid trip. 

Over the summer, my cat underwent a veterinary procedure that, to spare the nasty details for the faint of heart, required me to dab antibiotic ointment on his butt twice a day. Because he had a knack for getting out of his cone of shame and getting ointment everywhere, I put him in diapers for the day after the surgery. But diapers made specifically for pets are absurdly expensive, so I bought a pack of (human) infant diapers online and went on my cat owner way. I started seeing ads for baby products that night. 

I know big tech companies have too much on me already. I've been on social media since I was 10-years-old, entering my email and date of birth on Neopets and Club Penguin, so my data has likely been tracked for more than half of my life. I'm online for a majority of my day, and I've accepted the fact that my digital footprint runs too deep for me to ever truly go off the grid. 

Which is exactly why I've started fucking with my ads. 

It's not just weird baby products. I've been curating my ads to show me extremely specific cephalopod-shaped home decor. After months of carefully engaging with ads, I've finally cultivated what I want to see on my Facebook feed. 

Image: screenshot/morgan sung

Image: screenshot/morgan sung

SEE ALSO: All the social media opt-outs you need to activate right now

I'm not the only one. Caroline, a Twitter user who tweets under the handle @defundpoppunk, also curates their ads. After clicking on specific Facebook ads, they managed to prune their feed like an artisanal algorithm — a concept first floated by Twitter user @JanelleCShane — into a masterpiece: Unreasonably baggy pants.

It's like a cursed personal data-laden bonsai tree. 

I click every ad I see on Facebook for weird pants in an effort to train Facebook to show me the weirdest pants. I think it's finally starting to pay off: pic.twitter.com/nS1oMl1Mv7

— olivia colman's oscar (@defundpoppunk) March 12, 2019

Caroline says they searched for jogger-style pants before, and has been getting ads for them ever since. For weeks, they've been clicking on any ad featuring "vaguely interesting-looking" pants. 

Like me, Caroline is fed up with the unending lack of privacy we have, and started engaging with their ads just to mess with them. 

"So at first it was a little bit of private trolling just because I know e-comm [e-commerce] people take their click through rates really seriously," they told Mashable through Twitter DM. "But then once I started my targeted ads actually changing, I got a little more deliberate about it out of curiosity." 

Aside from being an "amusing reminder that everyone is being tracked online constantly," as Caroline said, playing with targeted ads is like playing a game. 

There's something deeply satisfying about knowing that even though I as an individual can't really stop power hungry tech giants, I'm giving them a digital middle finger by engaging with the "wrong" ads. It's the online version of the Florida man who runs into hurricanes with heavy metal and American flags. Realistically, messing with my ads won't shroud me from the inevitable tracking that comes from being online, but it feels like I'm making it slightly more inconvenient for large corporations to know everything about the real me. 

Shoshana Wodinsky, a tech reporter at Adweek, gets why deliberately polluting your targeted ads is entertaining. 

"These kinds of big tech platforms are really powerful," she said during a Skype call. "They're like multibillion dollar companies and the fact that they screw up sometimes is kind of funny. Part of it's definitely punching up, but part of it's like, even these behemoths are somewhat fucked up."

Wodinsky has also experimented with purposely muddling her digital presence; she once changed her Bitmoji to be pregnant to see if it would affect her targeted ads. (She told Mashable that she is very much not pregnant, and during her interview, she said that the only children she has are her two cats.) Although she said it started "as a joke," she wondered how far she could take it.

"Realistically, I know that me pretending to be pregnant isn't going to do anything, but it's kind of like looking outside of the fishbowl," she said. "It's fucking over the big businesses, and who doesn't like to do that." 

i gave myself a pregnant bitmoji to see if it would screw with the way ads are targeted toward me and..... im here to tell you that nothings changed pic.twitter.com/SmfWkpRGys

— שוש (@swodinsky) February 13, 2019

fb thinks im preggers,,,,,, success

— שוש (@swodinsky) February 13, 2019

Less than half an hour after creating the Bitmoji, her ad interests included "motherhood" and "breastfeeding."

It's unclear what prompted Facebook to include those options in her interests — it could have been her Bitmoji, or it could have been the fact that she tweeted about it. 

Realistically, just clicking on and engaging with specific ads won't do much to your digital footprint; if you really wanted to go deep, you'd have to change your entire online behavior. Your ads aren't just targeted based on what you interact with on specific social media platforms, but what you search and interact with across the entire internet. Thanks to the cookies Facebook uses to track users, regardless of whether or not you're logged in, you can leave fingerprints all over the web. Truly tricking the algorithm would mean a complete overhaul of your search habits, your social media, and whatever personal information is publicly available. 

Meddling with your ad preferences by intentionally engaging with them sounds like a harmless prank, but it might have a dark side. Dr. Russell Newman, a professor at Emerson College who specializes in internet privacy, surveillance, and political communication, worries that any engagement with ads can have long term consequences. 

"You might feel like you're exercising some bit of control, but in fact, you have none," he said during a phone interview. "There are unknown ways that the game you are playing right now will affect your future existence, and you won't really be able to know."

Newman stresses that we really have no idea what information can be pulled from our online interactions, and how it can be used in the future. Because internet users are "seen in a particular way, quantified in a particular way, and identified in a particular way," he says, engaging with certain ads and showing a preference for certain ads can preclude certain options. He worries that engagement like this can affect life-altering factors like credit score. It sounds far fetched, but Newman said convincing advertisers that my cat is actually my baby, for example, could possibly affect my future health insurance premiums without me even knowing. 

"All the decisions that are going to be made about you going forward," Newman said. "Or the rest of your existence, are going to be based on the truth provided digitally."

Washington Post editor Gillian Brockell experienced the insidious side of online advertising last year. Shortly after she delivered her son, who was stillborn, the credit company Experian sent her an email prompting her to "finish registering" her child to track his credit for life. She noted in a viral Twitter thread that she had never even started registering her baby, and it was particularly cruel that companies wanted his information after his death.

I find this hard to believe. I'd been using Experian to check my credit regularly, & I'd never received any spam like this from them before, just a monthly email saying my report was updated. + the ad didn't say “family protection solution.” it said “register your child.” 3/ pic.twitter.com/dUPRxyWRKH

— Gillian Brockell (@gbrockell) March 12, 2019

"These tech companies triggered that on their own, based on information we shared, Brockell wrote in a piece reflecting on how she never asked to be targeted with parenting ads. "So what I’m asking is that there be similar triggers to turn this stuff off on its own, based on information we’ve shared."

Newman emphasizes that while Google, Facebook, and Amazon market themselves as a search engine, social media network, and online marketplace, respectively, the companies have a greater goal: advertising. 

"It's notable that you're saying, 'My privacy is gone, so I'm just going to roll with it,'" Newman said during a phone interview. "The problem isn't that your privacy is gone, the problem is that we don't actually have a nationwide regime set in place in regards to privacy."

Luckily, there are a number of ways to scale back on ad tracking, from opting out of social media data collection to using private browsers. 

Here's the bottom line: It turns out messing with my targeted ads probably wasn't a good idea. As satisfying as it is to make it slightly more inconvenient for advertisers, purposely engaging with ads for kraken-specific products is less damaging than limiting the data that advertisers can hold over me. Since my conversation with Newman, I've stopped haphazardly clicking on strange ads and opted out of sharing across my social media presence. 

But old habits are hard to break, and I admit that when I'm scrolling through Facebook before bed, I'll still linger on ads that include octopi. 

WATCH: BTS' 'Boy With Luv' shatters viewing records on YouTube

[kellykperez]

Facebook is a local search engine. Are you treating it like one?

As soon as Facebook launched its Graph Search in 2013, it was only a matter of time before it became a big player in the search engine game.

But Graph Search was limited as far as optimization was concerned. The results it returned focused on providing an answer on the relationships between people, places, and things on Facebook rather than a link that contained what was likely the answer to your query like Google.

It was an IFTTT statement on steroids that never missed a workout.

It wasn’t until 2015 that Facebook became a major player in keyword search.

A brief history on Facebook Search

2011, August: Facebook beta tests sponsored results in search feature

Since Facebook’s search was in its infancy at this time, testing sponsored results may have been too soon since search functionality was limited to page titles, profiles, games, etc…

So you couldn’t target based on keywords quite yet, nor could you take advantage of a searchers affinity. Which means the only way to target was by targeting another page or product.

Sponsored results were short-lived as it turned into competitors targeting competitors relentlessly to steal traffic. In June of 2013, less than a year of Sponsored Results’ formal release, they were terminated.

2013, January: Facebook launches Graph Search

Prior to 2013, Facebook Search had only returned results based on existing pages. There wasn’t much logic in the algorithm other than the name of the person or page you’re looking for in your query. That changed with Graph Search.

Graph search took pages, categories, and people and put them into a revolving wheel of filters that was heavily personalized to each searcher and returned different results for everyone. It even allowed users to use natural language like, “friends near me that like DC Comics” and return results for just that.

At least that’s what you would have had to search to find friends you should stay away from…

The two major flaws in this were:

You had to already know what and whom you were looking for.

You also had to hope that what you were looking for had a page or tag associated with it.

 2014, December: Facebook adds keywords search functionality to Graph Search

This was the obvious next move by Facebook. They took what was already seemingly amazing at the time and added the ability to pull results based on keywords alone from your friends, people your friends have interacted with, or pages you like.

As far as a search engine was concerned, Facebook still had a long way to go to compete with Google.

2015, October: Facebook expands search to all 2 trillion public posts

Less than a year later, Facebook opens the floodgates in their search engine from inner-circle results to global, real-time, public news and posts. You could now search for any public post in their over 2 trillion indexed posts. Facebook now became a search engine that competed with the likes of Google for industry news and trending topics.

Viewing Facebook as a search engine

Prior to any real search functionality in Facebook, social media platforms were merely viewed as potential ranking signals and traffic boosters for your website.

Despite Matt Cuts denouncing the claim that Google uses social signals in their algorithm, Bing has gone the opposite direction about how they use engagement metrics from social media.

Facebook has been a solid directory site for local businesses to have their business page since 2007 when the number of businesses listed on the social media was only about 100,000. It allowed businesses to be in front of one of the fastest growing social media networks in the world, but the discoverability of your business was limited to mutual connections and brand awareness.

It wasn’t until 2014 when Facebook launched a new and improved version of the 2011 Places directory that Local Business Search became a focal point for Facebook to compete with Yelp and FourSquare.

Now, when searching for a company in Facebook’s Search that’s near you, you’ll get results that are eerily similar to the local 3-pack on Google. If we know anything about local 3-packs, it’s that there’s definitely an algorithm behind them that determines which businesses get to show up and in which order.

Facebook sees over 1.5 billion searches every day and over 600 million users visit business pages every day. They still have a ways to go to reach Google’s 3.5 billion searches per day. That said, claiming search queries just over 40% of what the search engine giant has — as a social media platform — isn’t anything to scoff at.

Why Facebook Search is important for local businesses

Facebook has provided a different means for customers to engage with brands than a typical search engine. But now the search engine has come to Facebook and the data shows people are using it. Not only to stalk their ex but also to find businesses.

Facebook has a large user base using their search engine

Local businesses can be discovered using search

Local business are ranked using search

So I guess that means we should be optimizing our local business pages to rank higher in Facebook’s search for specific queries…

Sounds a lot like local SEO. But this time, it’s not about your website or Google.

The whole reason us SEOs are obsessed with SEO is that the value and opportunity it holds when 74% of buying journeys start with search engines during the consideration stage. If no one used search engines, SEO wouldn’t be much of a big deal. But they do and it is.

According to a survey by Square, 52% of consumers discovered a brand through Facebook. That’s a pretty significant number to be passing off.

And with the launch of Facebook Local in late 2017, the network is getting more discover-friendly.

Optimizing for local Facebook SEO

Facebook has caught up with typical search engines and started implementing keywords in their algorithm and database. Bundle that knowledge with the fact that 600 million users visit business pages, and Facebook alone has a whopping 1.5 billion searches every day. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Facebook SEO shows to be valuable in local business discoverability on the platform.

All we have to do is crack the code in optimizing Facebook business pages. Unfortunately, it seems Facebook is a bit more secretive than Google on what are and aren’t ranking signals in their local business Graph search.

It’s a matter of finding out why Facebook chose to rank Lightning Landscape & Irrigation over Dynamic Earth Lawn & Landscape, LLC when Dynamic Earth is both verified and closer.

 In most of my research, Facebook tends to heavily weight posts and pages based on user engagement. But it doesn’t mean other ranking factors don’t exist in search. We’re looking at around 200 ranking signals similar to Google, but also vastly different.

Trying to crack this code has led the idea of “optimizing your Facebook business page”, including myself. But most seem to be focused on optimizing Facebook pages to rank in other search engines rather than Facebook itself.

While it is definitely a good idea to follow SEO best practices for the former reason, why not do both?

Facebook testing search ads

Coming into 2019, Facebook has started beta-testing search ads. They’re not keyword-based yet. Rather, they serve as extensions of news feed ads and only on supported ad formats. It’s quite an improvement from the original search ads that were abandoned in 2015.

It’s the type of subtle testing that could definitely produce some useful analytics in pursuing a full-blown search ad feature with keywords.

Related: “Facebook is expanding into Search Ads. What will this mean?”

Facebook knows two things:

1) Ad space on news feeds is decreasing.

2) More and more people are using their search feature.

The fact that Facebook is testing this doesn’t really tell me anything about local SEO signals on the platform. But it does tell me even Facebook sees a real opportunity in their own search engine. And their analytics are probably better than what we have right now.

Summary

Without any solid advice from Facebook, I think it’s time for the SEO community to start thinking about organic brand exposure through the social media platform itself. We should start viewing it as an enhanced search engine as it continues to grow and improve its search features.

More so, without search analytics from Facebook, there really isn’t a lot we can do in regards to optimizing for placement. At least right now there isn’t.

I’d love to see their new search ads beta really get traction and prompt Zuckerberg to consider a more SEO-friendly approach to search marketing on his own platform.

Of course, this is going to give “social media gurus” another reason to clog up my news feed with ads.

Jake Hundley is the founder of Evergrow Marketing.

The post Facebook is a local search engine. Are you treating it like one? appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/02/11/facebook-local-search-engine/ from Rising Phoenix SEO http://risingphoenixseo.blogspot.com/2019/02/facebook-is-local-search-engine-are-you.html

[srasamua]

Facebook is a local search engine. Are you treating it like one?

As soon as Facebook launched its Graph Search in 2013, it was only a matter of time before it became a big player in the search engine game.

But Graph Search was limited as far as optimization was concerned. The results it returned focused on providing an answer on the relationships between people, places, and things on Facebook rather than a link that contained what was likely the answer to your query like Google.

It was an IFTTT statement on steroids that never missed a workout.

It wasn’t until 2015 that Facebook became a major player in keyword search.

A brief history on Facebook Search

2011, August: Facebook beta tests sponsored results in search feature

Since Facebook’s search was in its infancy at this time, testing sponsored results may have been too soon since search functionality was limited to page titles, profiles, games, etc…

So you couldn’t target based on keywords quite yet, nor could you take advantage of a searchers affinity. Which means the only way to target was by targeting another page or product.

Sponsored results were short-lived as it turned into competitors targeting competitors relentlessly to steal traffic. In June of 2013, less than a year of Sponsored Results’ formal release, they were terminated.

2013, January: Facebook launches Graph Search

Prior to 2013, Facebook Search had only returned results based on existing pages. There wasn’t much logic in the algorithm other than the name of the person or page you’re looking for in your query. That changed with Graph Search.

Graph search took pages, categories, and people and put them into a revolving wheel of filters that was heavily personalized to each searcher and returned different results for everyone. It even allowed users to use natural language like, “friends near me that like DC Comics” and return results for just that.

At least that’s what you would have had to search to find friends you should stay away from…

The two major flaws in this were:

You had to already know what and whom you were looking for.

You also had to hope that what you were looking for had a page or tag associated with it.

 2014, December: Facebook adds keywords search functionality to Graph Search

This was the obvious next move by Facebook. They took what was already seemingly amazing at the time and added the ability to pull results based on keywords alone from your friends, people your friends have interacted with, or pages you like.

As far as a search engine was concerned, Facebook still had a long way to go to compete with Google.

2015, October: Facebook expands search to all 2 trillion public posts

Less than a year later, Facebook opens the floodgates in their search engine from inner-circle results to global, real-time, public news and posts. You could now search for any public post in their over 2 trillion indexed posts. Facebook now became a search engine that competed with the likes of Google for industry news and trending topics.

Viewing Facebook as a search engine

Prior to any real search functionality in Facebook, social media platforms were merely viewed as potential ranking signals and traffic boosters for your website.

Despite Matt Cuts denouncing the claim that Google uses social signals in their algorithm, Bing has gone the opposite direction about how they use engagement metrics from social media.

Facebook has been a solid directory site for local businesses to have their business page since 2007 when the number of businesses listed on the social media was only about 100,000. It allowed businesses to be in front of one of the fastest growing social media networks in the world, but the discoverability of your business was limited to mutual connections and brand awareness.

It wasn’t until 2014 when Facebook launched a new and improved version of the 2011 Places directory that Local Business Search became a focal point for Facebook to compete with Yelp and FourSquare.

Now, when searching for a company in Facebook’s Search that’s near you, you’ll get results that are eerily similar to the local 3-pack on Google. If we know anything about local 3-packs, it’s that there’s definitely an algorithm behind them that determines which businesses get to show up and in which order.

Facebook sees over 1.5 billion searches every day and over 600 million users visit business pages every day. They still have a ways to go to reach Google’s 3.5 billion searches per day. That said, claiming search queries just over 40% of what the search engine giant has — as a social media platform — isn’t anything to scoff at.

Why Facebook Search is important for local businesses

Facebook has provided a different means for customers to engage with brands than a typical search engine. But now the search engine has come to Facebook and the data shows people are using it. Not only to stalk their ex but also to find businesses.

Facebook has a large user base using their search engine

Local businesses can be discovered using search

Local business are ranked using search

So I guess that means we should be optimizing our local business pages to rank higher in Facebook’s search for specific queries…

Sounds a lot like local SEO. But this time, it’s not about your website or Google.

The whole reason us SEOs are obsessed with SEO is that the value and opportunity it holds when 74% of buying journeys start with search engines during the consideration stage. If no one used search engines, SEO wouldn’t be much of a big deal. But they do and it is.

According to a survey by Square, 52% of consumers discovered a brand through Facebook. That’s a pretty significant number to be passing off.

And with the launch of Facebook Local in late 2017, the network is getting more discover-friendly.

Optimizing for local Facebook SEO

Facebook has caught up with typical search engines and started implementing keywords in their algorithm and database. Bundle that knowledge with the fact that 600 million users visit business pages, and Facebook alone has a whopping 1.5 billion searches every day. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Facebook SEO shows to be valuable in local business discoverability on the platform.

All we have to do is crack the code in optimizing Facebook business pages. Unfortunately, it seems Facebook is a bit more secretive than Google on what are and aren’t ranking signals in their local business Graph search.

It’s a matter of finding out why Facebook chose to rank Lightning Landscape & Irrigation over Dynamic Earth Lawn & Landscape, LLC when Dynamic Earth is both verified and closer.

  In most of my research, Facebook tends to heavily weight posts and pages based on user engagement. But it doesn’t mean other ranking factors don’t exist in search. We’re looking at around 200 ranking signals similar to Google, but also vastly different.

Trying to crack this code has led the idea of “optimizing your Facebook business page”, including myself. But most seem to be focused on optimizing Facebook pages to rank in other search engines rather than Facebook itself.

While it is definitely a good idea to follow SEO best practices for the former reason, why not do both?

Facebook testing search ads

Coming into 2019, Facebook has started beta-testing search ads. They’re not keyword-based yet. Rather, they serve as extensions of news feed ads and only on supported ad formats. It’s quite an improvement from the original search ads that were abandoned in 2015.

It’s the type of subtle testing that could definitely produce some useful analytics in pursuing a full-blown search ad feature with keywords.

Related: “Facebook is expanding into Search Ads. What will this mean?”

Facebook knows two things:

1) Ad space on news feeds is decreasing.

2) More and more people are using their search feature.

The fact that Facebook is testing this doesn’t really tell me anything about local SEO signals on the platform. But it does tell me even Facebook sees a real opportunity in their own search engine. And their analytics are probably better than what we have right now.

Summary

Without any solid advice from Facebook, I think it’s time for the SEO community to start thinking about organic brand exposure through the social media platform itself. We should start viewing it as an enhanced search engine as it continues to grow and improve its search features.

More so, without search analytics from Facebook, there really isn’t a lot we can do in regards to optimizing for placement. At least right now there isn’t.

I’d love to see their new search ads beta really get traction and prompt Zuckerberg to consider a more SEO-friendly approach to search marketing on his own platform.

Of course, this is going to give “social media gurus” another reason to clog up my news feed with ads.

Jake Hundley is the founder of Evergrow Marketing.

The post Facebook is a local search engine. Are you treating it like one? appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digtal Marketing News https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/02/11/facebook-local-search-engine/