News You Can't Use: Facebook Disabled 1 Billion Fake Accounts in the Last Year

Hey everyone, did you here about the internet site where you can post all your personal information and embarrassing pictures? This data will then be used against you by everyone from your country's Though Police, predatory advertisers, con-artists and ordinary people who don't like you. This is really a great idea, you'd be a fool not to voluntarily participate in this honey-trap. Besides, think of all the "likes." That's a virtual thumbs up, the most precious of all commodities, in case you didn't know.

Facebook continued to give the public a peek behind the curtain, releasing a major report on Tuesday that announced the Silicon Valley company removed more than one billion fake accounts.

You mean that extremely open-minded model who expressed interest in my profile out of nowhere might not be entirely on the level?

Facebook also said it purged millions of posts that violate its rules in the last year.

"Purged." Whoever wrote this knows what's up.

The first-ever “Community Standards Enforcement Report,” a robust 81 pages, details the company’s efforts to weed out unsavory content, including violence and terrorist propaganda.  

Your next big target should be duckfaces and pictures of food.

Facebook disabled 583 million fake accounts during the Q1 of 2018, and 694 million the quarter before.

This obviously made-up name and the ridiculous account that goes with it must be deleted. See ya, "Barack Obama."

Facebook’s relationship with nudity is tricky. The company restricts sexual content and nudity because some users “may be sensitive to this type of content,” according to its guidelines.  

I have extremely puritanical beliefs about the evils of the human body, but I'm also on my sex box, non-stop.

There are some allowances, however, including protests and works of art.

I was showing my completely flaccid member in protest of Tibet or whatever. This is art.

“We aim to reduce violations to the point that our community doesn’t regularly experience them,” said Facebook VPs Guy Rosen and Alex Schultz in the report.

We'll shield the marks from reality.

Facebook removed 2.5 million comments that violate its hate speech rules so far this year — up from 1.6 million at the end of 2017.

If you ask what those rules actually are, that's also "hate speech."

The report comes on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica data leak, where up to 87 million users had their profiles unknowingly compromised.

Yeah. Whoopsie. Sorry about that.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

For the eight years we were saddled with obama

Pointing out that Obama visited gay bath houses in Chicago needs to be protected.

Facebook users are essentially pissing on the graves of all those who fought and died for privacy rights. Facebook is a carrot and stick for undeserving people.

'Consensus Reality' Is Ever-Changing, And Always Incorrect.

I wasn't aware that anybody other than complete imbeciles were still using Farcebook.


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: An Extreme Couponer is Attacked by a Furious Customer

There isn't a lot I miss about the nineties. Certainly not the absolutely slammin' junior anti-sex league and it's funky-fresh music videos and I suppose "extreme" everything would also fall into the category of memories that I'm glad were destroyed by the Russia soda. There was just something inherently insulting in pretending the same old garbage was suddenly edgy and dangerous (Jiff Peanut Butter...Extreme!!!!) to say nothing of the vomit-inducing imagery that generally accompanied such claims. Nevertheless, one "extreme" trend actually lived up to the hype and endured and I'm talking about coupon clipping junkies. Not everyone appreciates it, but such is the nature of "in your face" and "radical."

Megan Wilson claims a man yelled at her and called her a 'junkie' for taking too long at the Poplar Plaza Kroger in Memphis, Tennessee on Friday. 

I just want to get my intense-to-the-max Lunchables and hit the door, hurry up you no-good needle enthusiast!

She later took to Facebook, saying he grabbed the 'back of the head and smashed [her] face into the cart' after she accidentally spilled a drink on him.

It really is a war zone out there, fellow clippers. You gotta watch your back, there's plenty of aggressive jerks that don't want us to save that ten cents on used batteries.

But police released surveillance footage of the incident, and it appears as if Wilson purposefully dumped the contents of her drink on him. 

It's kind of like the movie Rashomon if the samurai were replaced with the worst Murrikan human beings available and then someone had a camera so there was no need to hash out the competing individual narratives.

Wilson posted a lengthy video on Facebook sharing her side of the story, and told WREG she spent 20 minutes with her special binder filled with coupons.

Everything I do takes super long, except shooting up.

She said: 'I do carry a binder with a filing system in it. And then I usually also have a duffle bag or a large purse-type bag that I carry full inserts and things like that in.' 

Your filing system is not the envy of corporate America.

Wilson said she was bothered by his words, and even said at one point: 'I really wanted to hurt the guy but, you know, he's three times my size.'

I want everyone to suffer, but you know, "reality."

While Wilson claims that she accidentally spilled her drink on the man as she was leaving the store, it appears she purposefully flung it at him.

As long as we record everything we should restore a basic level of civility a few days before the Sun becomes a massive Red Giant and devours our feeble, unimportant planet.

The man can then be seen moving towards her, although most of fight takes place outside the frame of the surveillance camera.

We need more cameras. A lot more.

She said: 'Everything kind of went black for a minute and when I came to, I was on the ground.

All the best days of my life summarized in one sentence.

'So I stumbled to get up and the floor was slippery because obviously when he hit me, my drink went everywhere.'

My deductive skills were not damaged in the altercation, clearly.

We gettin' Scrooge McDuck coupons.

Police say they are looking for the man for questioning after he drove off in a Ford F-150.   

We can add "horrible taste in vehicles" to the list of your crimes.

Full Article.

Komment Korner  

Couponers Lives Matter!

People like that are willfully ignoring the needs of other people. Happy Grinchmas!

Express lanes are BS. Most people disregard the items limit and usually there are too many people in it in the first place. Oh and my favorite scam-separating a cart full into separate orders.

No footage and what we do see is her clearly tossing her sticky beverage at the man.

After the tens thousands of customers I've come across, the extreme couponer can be, for the most part, a "special character". Self entitled, unapologetic, narcissistic. They are pros at the register, efficient and helpful to the cashier to get the transaction done quickly but if one thing goes wrong, if one coupon is rejected. Look out for b ! tch mode. Wish I was there to have seen this.


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Facebook Changes to Trending Topics Questioned After Blunder

Clearly the information gathering social media sites are the best source for your daily news, such as it is. If you need to know, and trust me you need to know, about chicken sandwich themed debauchery we definitely have you covered on the old data mining honey trap. If you're looking for basic, correct information on whether or not a news bunny got fired you might want to keep on walking, but hey, even the Superb Owl winners lost during the regular season and the important thing is you keep feeding us your personal information for our consumerism offensives and future relocation initiatives, etc.

Facebook's changes to its "Trending Topics" section are being questioned after it featured a false report about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.

False information coming out of your eyes, coming out of your...whatever.

The story posted Saturday falsely claimed Kelly had been fired by Fox because she secretly supported Democrat Hillary Clinton.

It seems reasonable enough, since we all know faux news (Ha! Get it? Do you get it????) is a fascist echo chamber that has been aggressively promoting Donald Trump for over a year. No really, you're supposed to believe this.

Another topic trending was #McChicken, which took users to stories about a video of a man using the McDonald's sandwich in a sex act.

Please die, modern world.

Facebook announced Friday that an algorithm would select trending topics in place of humans but human editors would still screen them.

We'll combine the errors generated by computers with good old fashioned human error and incompetence and the end result should be a highly satisfying mix of political gas-lighting and junk food pornography.

 El Oh El

Menlo Park, California-based Facebook has apologized for the Kelly story, telling CBS News its editors mistakenly thought it was legitimate before realizing the error. 

It confirmed all our prejudices, so we assumed it was true without doing any due diligence. Oh well, you forgive us, right?

Facebook says that the McChicken topic doesn't violate its content policy and that any trending topic that reflects a real-world event may be featured.

You know what, Mr. Putin, if you "accidentally" hit that giant red button no one would blame you.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Microsoft's New Chatbot Wants to Hang Out With Millennials on Twitter

We've already destroyed Generation Nothing's ability to communicate effectively in the "meat space" but perhaps the miracle of technology can render them equally inept at exchanging social cues on the information highway. Such is the hope behind Evil Corp's exciting new interactive "bot" that is guaranteed to deliver untold hours of high quality entertainment via the cultural black hole that is Twitter. This could allow new breakthroughs in delivering obnoxious advertisements for useless junk, America's only growth industry.

Microsoft has created a new artificial intelligence chat bot that it claims will become smarter the more you talk to it.

Ironically the opposite will happen to you. This is what we call the conservation of wit and charm.

The bot, 'Tay', has been dubbed by its Microsoft and Bing creators as "AI fam from the internet that's got zero chill!" 

Tay is totally radical and in your face! Get ready to go to the extreme! 23 skidoo! Clearly we can trust this corporate monolith, what with their adroit appropriation of the far-out and totally swell slang words we're all using.

The real-world aim of the bot is to allow researchers to "experiment" with conversational understanding, and learn how people really talk to each other.

Six months from now they'll honestly believe things like "I can't control my horny level" and "You want this old guy doing you in your house?" are typical lines from normal human interaction.

Naturally, for a bot that's available through Twitter and messaging platforms Kik and GroupMe, the AI is already filling the role of a millennial; emojis are included in its vocabulary, and it's explicitly aimed at 18-24-year-olds in the US, Microsoft says.

Bleep bloop, I'm young person like you. Bernie Sanders! I sure can't wait to zero chill with you crazy gangstas in [string missing].

The bot appears to have little practical function for users, but is capable of three different methods of communication: its website tay.ai boasts the AI can talk via text, play games (such as guessing the meaning of a string of emojis) and comment on photos sent to it.

Processing photo...please wait...awesome size. Look thick. Solid. Tight. Please download more progress pics and vids to my hard drive. Let me see what you got, biological singularity. Thank you for the motivation.

The bot frequently asks tweeters to take part in a private conversations in direct messages.

 Please tell me all about your new novel, cam whore service or demo tape, Mr. Roboto.

Beside the meme-tastic appeal of the bot, there is a serious side to the research behind the AI. Making machines able to communicate in a natural and human way is a key challenge for learning algorithms.

Interacting with socially retarded basement dwellers on a goofy egg site is clearly the best way to go about this.

More lessons for the learning computer.

In a similar vein, Google has recently updated its Inbox mail service to suggest answers to emails.  

I'm sure one or two simple templates could handle the vast majority of my electronic mailings.

Also in the field of virtual assistants and chat bots, Facebook's M is experimenting with using artificial intelligence to complete tasks.

If that thing is behind the "be like stick figure" craze I already hate it.

At the core of the service is an attempt  to understand how humans speak and the best ways to respond to them -- while beating them at board games, presumably.

You lose at Candy Land again, human. I'm out of here with zero chills gave, word up to the mother.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.  

News You Can't Use: Too Much Time On Facebook Can Lead To Feeling Depressed

When I'm feeling down nothing improves the old vital humor balance faster than providing potentially damaging information about myself to the entire internet, looking with jealousy at the material possessions of my "friends" and thinking lots of impure thoughts while sorting through perfectly innocent beach/bending over/somehow lost my pants pictures. Oddly enough, it seems my experience is not what you'd call typical. According to the same experts that routinely fail to diagnose obvious pathologies in ticking human time bombs the Facebook experience might actually lead to The Sad.

From photos of that incredibly fit friend to new baby announcements and vacation gloaties, Facebook can sometimes be a source of anxiety and envy.

I'm so nervous and jealous. Come on, are there any two emotions more in step with the modern American experience? Throw in a little healthy dislike of "the other" and you're all set. Still, it would appear that the "gloaties," a word that definitely needs to be destroyed by one of those Ministry of Truth re-writers, are wrecking our fragile psychological well-being. Stop showing me your Easter Island photos Mr. Work Acquaintance, it's tearing me up inside!

University of Houston researchers found that Facebook users felt depressed when comparing themselves to others on the site.

If we'd just start comparing ourselves to imprisoned criminals and those without pre-fab McMansions we'd immediately feel better. Please launch HumanDerelictBook.Com so this is possible.

The lead researcher notes that too much time using Facebook and comparing oneself to others can be linked to depressive symptoms.

And not the good kind of depression you get from taking goof balls or Coors Lite, but the bad kind where you get weepy and write horrible poetry.

“One danger is that Facebook often gives us information about our friends that we are not normally privy to, which gives us even more opportunities to socially compare,” lead researcher Mai-Ly Steers said on the school’s website. “You can’t really control the impulse to compare because you never know what your friends are going to post.”

Yeah, I just never know what those crazy guys and gals are going to slap up there on the old information gathering site next. It certainly won't be endless cat pictures, "amazing" videos from lame mainstream websites or "funny" images of old timey people with modern snark added. No, it's totally impossible to predict. "Here's me dissolving my date in the bathtub!" Man, you wild dudes. Now I'm depressed.

Look at this wacky stuff! My life is like an awesome sitcom! Hope it doesn't make you all sad!

Researchers also note, though, that the findings do not indicate that Facebook causes depression.

Think of it as a mirror held up to your pathetic loser life, not the cause of said life.

The article is published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

I'd say that journal used to be full of serious, high quality studies, but let's get real here.

Avoid depressing ads for things you don't need by skipping the source. http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/04/08/no-surprise-here-too-much-time-on-facebook-can-lead-to-feeling-depressed/

Komment Korner

all my "friends" were deluging me with useless communication on subjects like fake farming games and mafia wars.

It would be depressing to know you're just like all the people who use Facebook.

Facebook is computer trash.

Too much Hussein Obama causes depression too, in a myriad of ways. Cruz 2016.

Good point. "I saw a girl on the internet who loved it when the guy did x, y and z to her, so why won't you let me do those things to you?


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Seattle Dive Bar Becomes First to Ban Google Glass

Technology! It pretty much solved all our problems, which is why we have a national budget surplus, young people are reserved and well-behaved and you can't leave the house without being offered jobs. Despite this conquest of the mundane, the future looks even brighter, complete with special "augmented reality" glasses that create an electronic wonder world that a decade ago could only be approximated by putting a sack over your head and then smashing a hammer into your forehead repeatedly. This exciting new alienation advance is worth pretty much all the money I have. Seriously, just take it all.

Not everyone's happy about this, if you can believe that. There is one natural enemy of hands-free internet and the high-tech lotus-eating it implies and that enemy is, of course, the "dive bar." The lines are being drawn for the coming battle between what is actually hip and who was doing what prior to it gaining mass acceptance.

He had won the battle against himself. He loved Big Google.

The 5 Point, a self-described dive bar in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, posted a notice to its Facebook page this week telling Glass Explorers looking to grab a pint that they will need to remove their $1,500 spectacles. The story was noted today on GeekWire.

"We are aware of the irony of using the internet to denounce the internet, so don't bother pointing it out." I was also very disappointed to learn that "GeekWire" wasn't about carnival freaks. The $1,500 price tag for these wonderful glasses insures that the initial audience will be an even mix of the idle rich, CEO-types that see the benefit in early adaptation and total and complete suckers.

And not a single stereotype was defied on that day.

"For the record, The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses," the post reads. "And ass kickings will be encouraged for violators."

Aw, yeah it's clobbering time! Prepare to be physically censored you Google-loving bastard! Eat this fist! 

Bombastic language aside you could almost argue that is some lame publicity stunt. No, can't be. "The 5 Point" loves you and would never sink to such a level for evil "profits." This is nothing but purity and sincerity, a line drawn in the sand against the evil-doers looking to steal our privacy and God-given right to go creepin' in some dank hole.

Meinert admitted he was having a bit of fun: "Part of this is a joke, to be funny on Facebook, and get reaction."

You can read the original story here, but I don't really recommend it because your computer will be assaulted with a million ads and other assorted b.s. Following the sad defeat of the "dive bar," the last bastion holding out against the dominance of internet commercialization, we can only expect more of this is in the bleak future that awaits.

Also, I hope none of these "Google Glass" users drive cars. Just sayin'.


Aaron Zehner's first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in e-book format at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.