Posts Tagged Social Media

So I Am Adding Video…

So I am adding video to my site, I have create a sub-blog just for video and it’s own theme and everything, it can be found here: http://www.ned.wtf/vid/.

Yes, I know I can easily put these up on YouTube, and I may do that at some point, but there is something about hosting it myself and not needing to worry about someone making a claim to YouTube about copyright violations because there is music in the background that belongs to them or something else dumb like that. I actually had a video taken down from YouTube that I recorded at a Red Sox game because Blurred Lines was playing in the background of the video where I was recording other fans dancing around to the song.

While I am all for protecting copyrights and such, there’s definitely a point where things just go too too far, and don;t even get me started on the whole Super Bowl name thing and the NFL’s anal retentiveness with that.

So here is a link to the first video I have up and running, it is just a quick one of part of the train ride from my hotel outside of Munich into the city on the first day I was there prior to picking up the bike which happened the next day.

http://www.ned.wtf/vid/2014/munich-train-ride/

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Oooo… Exciting…

So, I decided to jump on the new TLD domain name craze that’s happening right now and buy a new domain for my blog here… I have put in the order and I am in the process of setting up the new domain now, it is fun and I think it is very “me” in a way, but I am not going to share it quite yet… I want to spend some time setting it up and getting it running just right before I share the new URL…

but the question remains, should I move all my posts from here to there and then set this up as a redirect? or should I just start out fresh and new over there and keep this one sitting here? I will keep owning this domain name regardless since I use a few of the emails for things but these are some tough choices to make as things move forward… what to do… what to do…

Any suggestions?!?

Although, as a side bonus, the site name is short enough that I will be installing my own URL shortner, cuz yeah, I am gonna be all kinds of cool like that!

oh, wait, what’s that?!? Look up in your URL bar… you should see the new URL up there now… neat right?!?!?

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Dumped…

No, this post has nothing to do with a relationship, well, actually it does, but not in the way you may think.

I have ended a relationship less than 24 hours ago, but I did the dumping, I wasn’t the one dumped, and it wasn’t even a relationship with a person, or a pet, or a job.

I dumped Facebook last night.

I am probably going to ramble a bit, but I promise there is a salient point to all of this.

It was a bit of a hard breakup, any breakup or separation with someone or something that has become an ingrained, everyday part of your life is a difficult decision to make, and an even more difficult decision to execute. Just like with other difficult choices I have made in my life before this, people, jobs, and other such things, I have been thinking about it for awhile and weighing in the positives and the negatives and what it would mean for other aspects of my life.

I think the positives outweigh the negatives though, part of the positives are eliminating the negative aspects of Facebook in the first place. This applies to Facebook as well as MySpace if anyone actually still uses that, or any other social network that is out there that isn’t focused on a specific topic. I say that as an exclusion to other semi-social networks like Flickr, or LinkedIn, or even FourSquare; All of those have some fairly specific in their nature and are not as insipidly invasive as Facebook.

All of this goes back to what I think is the real contradiction of social networks and social networking, it’s not actually social. Partially because so many people have a misunderstanding about the internet and they don’t realize that the internet is not real, therefore we have developed a culture of the illusion of being social.

We have developed a culture of the illusion of being social.

From the Merriam Webster dictionary:

Socialrelating to or involving activities in which people spend time talking to each other or doing enjoyable things with each other

That’s the first definition listed, there are 2 more listed as well.

– liking to be with and talk to people : happy to be with people

– of or relating to people or society in general

I think if you read any of those quickly, then they can certainly apply to the use of a social network, however I think upon some deeper reflection, only the last one actually applies to a social network, but everyone thinks of the first two as the ones which describe them.

Prepositions are some powerful parts of speech that people often overlook and don’t think about their real meanings and the affect they have on the definition of a word. In these definitions, the key prepositions are those of “with” and “to”, they’re so small, yet they carry so much meaning and yet people ignore them so easily.

Withused to say that people or things are together in one place

 – used to say that two or more people or things are doing something together or are involved in something

Toused to indicate the place, person, or thing that someone or something moves toward

– used to indicate the place where someone participates in a particular activity

“Together in one place”

“Doing something together”

“Someone or something moves toward”

Now, this is where people’s lack of understanding of the internet comes into the picture, the internet is not real, it is not a physical place, and you are not actually moving toward anyone, and you are not together with those who you interact with online. Yes, you are interacting, but it’s not together, it’s not in unison, it is not a social interaction. Posting to a person’s wall and then them responding 10 minutes later, or 10 seconds later, it’s still not together.

You aren’t talking to a person, you aren’t focused on that person, you aren’t interacting with them, even when you add another person or 10, it’s not a social interaction because you lose all context for emotion, physical cues, tone of voice and timing. When you have a conversation with someone, hearing their statement and then thinking about how to respond for 10 minutes or a day isn’t going to work. It’s cold, it’s calculating, it’s unnatural for what is a real social interaction.

For a real world example, let’s take it literally for the way a social network actually works. Imagine that you have something you want to share with your friends, so you post a note on a bulletin board on the front door of your house, then your friends wander by on their morning walk with the dog, or they stop by on their way to work quickly and read what you have to say. Then, a few of those people have a reaction so they respond to you by writing a note for you and then tacks it under the message you left and then you see it when you get home.

What was social about that?

NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

This is the illusion that I talk about, we post on each other walls, lists, we share things with other people that we wouldn’t share with people in the course of regular conversation, things that are so insignificant that we don’t even care about them.

It’s not social to sit, alone, in your house watching tv by yourself and bouncing around on Facebook commenting on this or that, liking this, posting a photo of your eggs or the new sneakers you go, or bragging about how cute your child, dog, or boyfriend is or what funny thing that any of them did today.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that there are some great aspects to the site, like being able to keep in touch with people or organize events, or share pictures of your kids with people who want to see them without needing to email dozens of photos to dozens of people. There are other methods to do this sort of thing though, and this is where Facebook has capitalized in order to get what they want… they have taken advantage of our greatest weakness, the fact that we have become an inherently lazy society. This is similar to Amazon’s capitalizing on the same thing, we are lazy, we want everything in one place and we want it to be as easy as possible, which is exactly what Facebook has accomplished, the problem is that we are so enamored with how easy it is and how easy it has made certain things for us, that we don’t realize the negative effects that this has had on us, both individually and as a society.

So, this is the main issue I have and have developed through the use of Facebook, and it’s what I want to change at least about myself, and maybe hopefully a few other people out there in the world. I want to actually be social with people, I want real experiences and I want real people actually in my life that actually are willing to put in some effort to be part of my life, not just tag along because it’s easy.

There is more I have to say on this, but I don’t want to overwhelm in just one entry… this will continue with more in the future… maybe tomorrow, maybe next week…

Comment is you want, or don’t, I don’t really care if you do, but one thing I would like to have you do is think, just think for a little bit about your time, your life, your experiences and the people with whom you are actually TOGETHER with during those times, during that life, and are part of those experiences.

So Ned Cleary is no longer on Facebook.

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Facebook & Social Media Falsehoods…

Ugh…

This happens every time Facebook sends out any kind of privacy update, and it kind of annoys me every time I see it. It’s not just facebook, but Twitter, Flickr, or almost any other site where users are the ones generating the content on the site. No, it’s not the update to the privacy policy of Facebook that annoys me, it’s the reaction of the users and the buying into myths that someone decides to create in terms of letting people know how they can “protect” their own intellectual property, usually through referencing some sort of law, legal decision or some other kind of legalese.

This is the current text of the one I have seen posted by more than one person, and it always really bothers me when I see someone I have always believed to be intelligent, sensible human beings, and yet they buy into the fallacious postings as if they are absolute and true. The superscript numbers apply to my comments afterwards.

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention1,2).
For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!3

Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws by the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control.4 The content of this profile is private and confidential information.5 The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-1036 and the Rome Statute7).

Facebook is now an open capital entity.8 All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.9

Now to deconstruct and explain why this is meaningless for you…

1- There is no such thing as the Berner Convention. There is something known as the Berne Convention, which is what this is likely referencing, but failing to do so because of a bad typist, and then no one actually understanding what they are copying and pasting, but just blindly doing so because they are sheep and think they are protecting something that either needs no protection or can’t be protected.

2- According to the Berne Convention, which the US didn’t actually agree to become a member country until 1989, you own any original creative work and automatically own the copyright unless you sign away that copyright to someone else, or you created that creative work under contract for someone else. Even if it contains a trademarked item, image, or phrase, you still automatically own the copyright to what you created, you just can’t use it for anything since someone else owns the trademark.

3- Facebook already has your written consent to use your updates and their content, you agreed to the Terms of Use/Service when you signed up for an account.

4- Facebook isn’t going to take any action against you unless you violate the the TOU/S that you agreed to when you signed up. What kind of action do you think they will actually do? Delete a post? Delete your account? While this may surprise some people, this is completely within their rights to do those things.

5- Nothing you post anywhere online is private and confidential, the very act of posting it online makes it public. Yes, you can control who can view your profile on Facebook with security settings, but that only applies to other users, not to Facebook or any of it’s partners. They can and will use anything you post in whatever way they want, you posting is what generates content, which generates information for them to use in order to market ads and products to you based on your interests and your friends interests.

6- This section I find incredibly funny. I am not 100% sure what they are referencing with the UCC, it could be either Universal Copyright Code or because the numbers don’t align with anything in the Universal Copyright Code it more likely is a reference to the Uniform Commercial Code, but even then, it doesn’t make any sense.

Sections it would be referencing in the Uniform Commercial Code.

§ 1-103. Construction of [Uniform Commercial Code] to Promote its Purposes and Policies: Applicability of Supplemental Principles of Law.

(a) [The Uniform Commercial Code] must be liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying purposes and policies, which are: (1) to simplify, clarify, and modernize the law governing commercial transactions; (2) to permit the continued expansion of commercial practices through custom, usage, and agreement of the parties; and (3) to make uniform the law among the various jurisdictions.

(b) Unless displaced by the particular provisions of [the Uniform Commercial Code], the principles of law and equity, including the law merchant and the law relative to capacity to contract, principal and agent, estoppel, fraud, misrepresentation, duress, coercion, mistake, bankruptcy, and other validating or invalidating cause supplement its provisions.

§ 1-308. Performance or Acceptance Under Reservation of Rights.

(a) A party that with explicit reservation of rights performs or promises performance or assents to performance in a manner demanded or offered by the other party does not thereby prejudice the rights reserved. Such words as “without prejudice,” “under protest,” or the like are sufficient.

(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to an accord and satisfaction.

Neither of these means anything within the context of a posting on Facebook.

7- The Rome Statute – Sounds serious and intimidating and official right? Well, unless you think Facebook is committing a core international crime such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression, then you don’t have any claims under the Rome Statute. If you think that Facebook is committing any of these crimes by using your content, then you should go talk to a therapist first, you have some major issues to work through.

8- So Facebook is an open capital entity now, so they are a public company. This has no bearing on anything to do with any type of privacy or copyright.

9- The crème de la crème of this entire posting. This is an outright and blatant lie. You are in no way tacitly giving Facebook any kind of permission by not reposting this or any similar statement; You have already explicitly given Facebook the right to ” use elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates”. When you may ask? When you signed up and joined the site you gave them that permission.

This section from the terms that can’t be over-ridden by anything you post on your timeline – “you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook”.

To translate this for you in everyday language, “by posting anything on Facebook you give us the right to use it, give it to someone else to use, or sell it to someone else to use, anywhere in the world and we don’t have to pay you anything to do that.”


So let’s wrap up this with a simple explanation.

Anything you post on Facebook can be used by Facebook however they want. You have granted them the full right to use or license to someone else for them to use simply by using the site and giving them the pictures or status update content.

Everyone always thinks that Facebook is great because it’s free, but while it may not cost you any money, it is not even anywhere close to being “free” in any sense of the word. Facebook has you pay for it’s service and it’s features because you are paying for it with your information instead of cash money, Facebook then uses that information to make money, either through generating ad income because it can intelligently parse your posts and determine your interests, or by selling your information to other people to parse for their own purposes. The more information you give them through posts, responses, games played, applications used, people, products, companies, and posts “liked” then the more you are paying them for the use of their service.

Yes, you own the content, every social media site is always going to tell you that you own your content because you do, and they can’t usurp your right to own your content and intellectual property. The part they hide in all the long user agreements is the legal aspect that while you own the content/IP that you are posting, the fact you are posting it means you are licensing it to them for their own use and their own purposes.

If you or anyone you know really is concerned about your own privacy and don’t want your things used, then you should really just stop using Facebook, or any other social media site. Anything you post online should always be assumed to be in the public domain and visible to anyone and everyone, if you don’t want someone or anyone to know about it then don’t post it online, ANYWHERE. If you want to privately share something with someone else, then you should either call them on the phone, email them, or do the completely unthinkable thing in this day and age – TALK TO THEM FACE TO FACE.

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