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Balancing Care & Shame
TL;DR #177 – 12/7/2018
Welcome to this week’s issue of Too Long; Didn’t Read. Hopefully you’re finding time to unplug and enjoy some downtime this week. Self care is important. 🙂
- The most valuable thing on the Internet is your attention – These two posts have been a longtime coming. I think I’ll continue to unpack some of these threads over the coming months.
- Critically evaluating online information while under attack – The first post set the table for this post. I’ve been slowly examining this each week in TL;DR. I’ve also talked (emailed) with several of you on this topic. Let me know what you think.
Dad makes daughter walk 5 miles to school after she’s accused of bullying (2:06)
An Ohio father has gone viral for the interesting way he punished his daughter. Matt Cox wanted to teach the girl a lesson after she was kicked off the school bus for three days for bullying another student. It was the second time she’d gotten into trouble for picking on someone. “My beautiful daughter is going to walk five miles to school in 36-degree weather,” Cox says in a video he recorded while driving behind her as she walked. Some are questioning whether the punishment was too harsh.
My concern is about why you would decide to publicly shame a child by documenting this punishment and sharing it online. It is not a case of “simple old-school parenting” as suggested by some. Perhaps having your child deal with the consequences…yes. Posting it online to shame the child and teach others a lesson…I don’t see the need.
Big tech has your kid’s data — and you probably gave it to them
Many parents today enjoy posting about their family on social media. But along with those adorable photos, they are sharing crucial data about their children that big tech companies are harvesting.
In late November, Anne Longfield, England’s children’s commissioner — tasked with promoting and protecting the rights of children — published a report titled “Who Knows What About Me,” which examines how big tech collects data on children and what the potential dangers can be.
A big culprit: “sharenting,” or parents willingly giving away their children’s information, like name and date of birth.
Facebook emails show its real mission: Making money and crushing competition
Last week I asked if it is ultimately a moral issue whether or not you leave Facebook? Those of you that have more reason to possibly leave Facebook received more motivation.
British lawmakers released 250 pages of internal emails in which Facebook’s executives are shown discussing ways to undermine their competitors, obscure their collection of user data and — above all — ensure that their products kept growing.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Facebook said the documents included in the lawsuit were a cherry-picked sample that “tells only one side of the story and omits important context.”
Here’s some of the takeaways that you need to know:
- The company engineered ways to collect Android users’ data without alerting them.
- Mark Zuckerberg personally approved cutting off a competitor’s data access.
- Facebook used a privacy app to collect usage data about its competitors.
- Facebook executives wanted more social sharing, as long as it happened on Facebook.
Oath Agrees to $5 Million Settlement Over Children’s Privacy Online
Facebook (and other companies) definitely need to held to task for their practices as they collect and monetize our data. I’m also concerned about the unknown entities that collect, control, and track our behaviors and identity.
Not really an unseen entity, but Oath, the owner of AOL and Yahoo, has agreed to pay about $5 million to settle charges from the New York attorney general that the media company’s online advertising business was violating a federal children’s privacy law.
AOL, through its ad exchange, helped place targeted display ads on hundreds of websites that it knew were directed to children under 13, such as Roblox.com and Sweetyhigh.com, according to a settlement that the attorney general’s office plans to announce on Tuesday. The attorney general’s office said that the ads were placed by using personal data, like cookies and geolocation information, in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, which is known as COPPA.
The “Yellow Jackets” Riots In France Are What Happens When Facebook Gets Involved With Local News
The Yellow Jackets movement is what happens when you point Facebook’s traffic hose at France’s small towns. The question now is: How do you turn it off?
What’s happening right now in France isn’t happening in a vacuum. The Yellow Jackets movement — named for the protesters’ brightly colored safety vests — is a beast born almost entirely from Facebook. And it’s only getting more popular. Recent polls indicate the majority of France now supports the protesters. The Yellow Jackets communicate almost entirely on small, decentralized Facebook pages. They coordinate via memes and viral videos. Whatever gets shared the most becomes part of their platform.
This isn’t the first time real-life violence has followed a viral Facebook storm and it certainly won’t be the last. Much has already been written about the anti-Muslim Facebook riots in Myanmar and Sri Lanka and the WhatsApp lynchings in Brazil and India. The same process is happening in Europe now, on a massive scale. This post details how Facebook tore France apart.
Multitasking actually does boost performance. Wait, what?
A study focused on finding out whether or not having a sense that you’re doing two things at once leads to better work output. “The Illusion of Multitasking and Its Positive Effect on Performance” was published in Psychological Science, by University of Michigan’s Shalena Srna, University of Pennsylvania’s Rom Y. Schrift, and Yale’s Gal Zauberman.
Across 32 studies (30 of which had performance-based incentives) containing a total of 8,242 participants, we found that individuals who perceived an activity as multitasking were more engaged and consequently outperformed those who perceived that same activity as single tasking.
How to Live an Extraordinary Life, Starting Right Where You Are
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” ~Rumi
I’ve been thinking a lot about self care over the last year. I’ve also seen several friends recently dealing with personal & professional issues. I’m thinking about how to be the best you possible.
- Be tenacious in your appreciation & optimism.
- Define your extraordinary.
- Make friends with your body.
- Lose yourself in curiosity & creativity.
- Be of service in a way that’s meaningful to you.
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.
Dr. Seuss
TL;DR is a summary of all the great stuff from the Internet this week in technology, education, & literacy. Please subscribe to make sure this comes to your inbox each week. You can review archives of the newsletter here.
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