Social Media Incantations

This is what bullshit looks like

You’ve probably seen these posts. The ones that claim that if you copy and paste them, it will change what the Facebook algorithm feeds you (it won’t). The one that claims that everything on Facebook becomes public tomorrow (it won’t). The second one never actually specifies what day “tomorrow” refers to, but that only heightens the urgency, right? Unless you’ve seen it multiple times over an extended period and tomorrow never comes.

Some of them sound legal. There’s one the cites the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) and the Rome Statute, both of which sound really serious. The only problem is, as lawyers are happy to point out,

the UCC is a model code and is not law. Where the UCC has been adopted, it only applies to commercial transactions, not intellectual property.[1]

The stuff you’ve posted on Facebook: pictures, comments, and such are all intellectual property. Some of it might even be yours. That meme you copied? Not your intellectual property. There is a piece of text that floats around the Internet which inaccurately implies that stuff found on the Internet is public domain, while the stuff the person who posted the notice also posted is most definitely not public domain. Posting something on the Internet doesn’t alter its copyright status.

The Rome Statute part is even more interesting.[2] It’s the international statute (to which the United States is not signatory) which sets up the International Criminal Court. I really wanted the ICC to be the court that dealt with dashing jewel thieves who smuggle diamonds from Paris to New York while impeccably dressed. No such luck. The ICC is the court that deals with war crimes, genocide, and things like that. No matter how badly you think of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, you probably don’t think them guilty of genocide.

If your lawyer really told you do to this, find a better lawyer.

So what’s it doing in a much-shared post? It makes it sound legal. Same thing the reference to the UCC does. Or the posts that begin “under the advice of legal counsel” and go on to proclaim that the poster is a “free citizen of the world.” The concept of sovereign citizens has some pretty ugly roots in white supremacy. The people who coined the term felt that the only “free citizens” were free white citizens. Ouch.

Why is these things so attractive to people, given that they have no actual legal standing and that there are some associations that at best seem to be conspiracy theorists? I have a thought on that.

I am not a lawyer (IANAL) but I do have some training in Medieval Studies (IAAM).[3] I have seen legal mumbo-jumbo before. These posts aren’t intended to be legal. They’re incantations.

The Internet has become a scary place, in part due to Facebook.[4] The online world probably would be scary without hoaxes, fake news, reports of Russian manipulation, fake accounts, and so on. Then there are the moral panics, where someone is happy to report that social media will degrade your intellect and made you a worse person (typically without any data to support such a thesis), which fall in nicely with previous moral panics such as novels[5] or reading newspapers.[6]

What can you do about it? How do you deal with the terrors of the Internet.

You can recite an incantation. Because if these don’t have legal force, but they have emotional force (and why else would people share them?) they’re in the category of the superstitions people do to ward off harm (which is exactly what they hope these posts will do). Are they effective at warding off harm? Probably as effective as throwing spilled salt over your left shoulder. Also saying “bless you” after someone sneezes has no clinical efficacy in preventing colds. Or warding off evil. But you do it, don’t you?

These social media posts, with their meaningless language, are our contemporary version of some medieval charm. They sound good, although they have no actual power to ward off malign influences. If you’re bitten by a snake, you need modern medical attention, not the poultice of herbs in the Nine Herbs Charm (which tells you to recite the charm three times over each ingredient, and then in four places on the victim).

Medieval charms were chanted repeatedly, just like a social media post that gets shared again and again. Like a medieval charm, they don’t actually become more powerful by repetition. They never had any power at all.

The next time you see that a friend has posted something that tells you to copy it to your own timeline in order to ward off some dreadful aspect of social media (Facebook billing you, or showing you only twenty-six friends[7], or taking possession of your photos[8]), cross your fingers, knock on wood, close your umbrella before you go inside, but don’t copy that post. Please. Even if someone said that someone else’s lawyer said that you should.[9]

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1. Protecting Your Legal Rights on Facebook, retrieved 5 February 2019. If that’s not enough, here’s a post by a lawyer whose work is on copyright, trademark, publicity right, and media law.
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2. Well, at least to me.
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3. I Am A Medievalist.
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4. Yeah, thanks a lot, Facebook.
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5. The novel was guaranteed to be injurious to the mind, particularly the minds of young women. Clearly your high school English teacher did not have your best interests at heart, but we are talking about someone whose brain had been disturbed by years of reading novels.
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6. The death of conversation.
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7. We don’t know the specifics of the Facebook algorithm, but we know it rates posts as to how sticky you’ll find them. If you interact with a lot of memes and wonder why you never see the posts where friends tell what going on in their lives, it’s because Facebook can tell that you like and share memes and scroll past your friends. It’s watching you, which kinda does make you want to ward off evil.
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8. A violation of copyright, though if Facebook tried to monetize your work (instead of just you), you’d probably have a hard time getting damages.  ↩
9. I mean, free legal advice from a lawyer who didn’t put their name to it?  ↩

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Who the Fuck Says “Hebrews” in 2018?

Who the fuck says "Hebrews"?
Tip: Don't.

There’s a meme going around Facebook which attempts to promote a viewpoint about Israel. I won’t share it here, because memes take complex issues and reduce them to their most stupid and reductive elements. Although I don’t think anyone should be sharing it,[1] I do think it should be unpacked.

The meme shows a Native American man, dressed in traditional garb while riding a horse. The text says, “So you’re telling me…” and continues “You believe Hebrews are entitled to the land of Israel because their ancestors once lived there?”

It’s simple. It’s clear. It’s also wrong.

Let’s start with the guy on the horse. The image reduces the Native American to a caricature. He’s the Noble Savage fighting against the cowboys in the Western Expansion. Specifically, he’s the actor Rodney Grant in a scene from Dances with Wolves. In the image, he’s in character as a Sioux during the Civil War. He’s not indicative of the lives of modern Native Americans. When Mr. Grant is not acting the role of a nineteenth-century Native American, he doesn’t dress like that. There are plenty of pictures of him in a tux or in t-shirt and jeans, and even a picture of him wearing a shirt patterned with images of Elvis.

On the other hand, a Native American dressed up for a job in biotech or computer programming might not have quite the same impact on its intended audience of white liberals who might be convinced to be unsympathetic to Israel.[2]

Then there’s the text. “Hebrews?” Who the fuck says “Hebrews” today? It used to be a commonly used term, but those days have passed. The Union for Reform Judaism was named the Union of American Hebrew Congregations from is founding in 1873 to 2006. According to Google Ngram Viewer, the term “Hebrews” had its biggest use between 1910 and 1930, while “Hebrew” had its biggest use between about 1935 and 1945. Both terms are used far less than “Jews” for any period. So then why use it?

It mucks things up if you call them, not Hebrews, not Jews, but Israelis. After all, many Jews no intention of taking up residence in Israel.[3] So it becomes the standard question: does Israel have a right to exist. Well, no more (or less) than any other nation. But we never seem to question it about France. Or England. Should the Welsh be agitating to take back their island?[4]

If we’re not giving the throne of Britain to a descendent of Owain Glyndŵr, then why would we ignore all the history of Israel that doesn’t fit tidily into that meme? Unlike Britain or the United States, Israel didn’t come about through the conquest an indigenous population by foreign invaders.

I don’t want to deny that people were violently displaced from their homes. That happened. On both sides. This becomes part of the complex history that can only be dumbed down in a meme.[5] Maybe, just maybe, Israel’s legitimacy comes from decades of treaties and international resolutions, and not only because in the wake what is likely the largest genocide in history[6] it seemed appropriate to establish a Jewish homeland, something the Zionist movement had been trying since about 1896. But that’s hard to put into a meme.

When I posed the question with which I’ve titled this post, a friend of a friend (who had posted the meme) had an answer. I can’t verify her answer, but it is tempting. Who the fuck says “Hebrews” in 2018? Anti-Semites.

Update:
Instead of looking at memes on Facebook, read this. It’s a balanced look at the issues on both sides.

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1. Although some of my friends and relatives have.  ↩


2. Which is to say, if you’re white and posting this, you might want to check if you property was once in lands claimed by a Native American tribe. I’ll wait until you figure out your back payments.  ↩


3. Wht? Nd hv t lrn Hbrw? Ths ppl r n nd f vwls.  ↩


4. It’s only been about 1,570 years.  ↩


5. Memes are cancer. Memes make you stupid. Memes are the irritating inspirational poster in the office of that asshole boss you hated. “Work smarter, not harder,” reminding you that you just cancelled your plans because you have to work late and clean up a mess of your boss’s making.  ↩


6. The Holomodor in Ukraine may have killed more Ukrainians than Jews died in the Holocaust, though the total death toll of the Holocaust is larger.  ↩

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Facebook Advertises Malware — Again

Want my advice? Don't.

Clearly, Facebook just takes the cash, they don’t ask whether this is good for their millions of users, but if you’re a Macintosh user, you’ll want to steer clear of this month’s offer from “BestMacPhoto.com.” Back in October, there was a Facebook ad for MacPhotoPro, which I was able to determine was a browser hijack. As malware goes, browser hijacks are minor things, though it does mean that someone else is making cash off your browsing habits, and you’re probably providing more information about yourself that you’d care to. We’re not talking some trojan that takes over your computer. Still, my view is: Say no to browser hijacks.

Once again the link in Facebook takes you to a long link that looks like it says “BestMacPhoto.com,” but the real link is: http://bestmacphoto.com/nlp/color/fbmacph/Intensifypro?p1=1&utm_source=fbmacph&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=1&utm_content=Intensifypro#. Because I’m foolhardy (and kinda know what I’m doing), I clicked on the “Free Download” button.

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You can follow my blog on Twitter (@impofthediverse) or on Facebook. If you like this post, share it with your friends. If you have a comment just for me, e-mail me at impofthediverse@gmail.com.

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Is Facebook Advertising Malware?

Beware of Facebook pages
offering free apps

A current “suggested” post on Facebook claims that a “New Unique Patented Technology” will “Restore Old Photos in a CLICK!” And they’re giving this powerful software away. Now, remember, if you’re getting something for free, you’re the product, not the customer. Just what exactly is Facebook selling you for?

I can’t comment on the current iteration (probably because I commented on an earlier one), so I’m hoping that this post reaches as many people as possible (and not just because I love blog hits). The product is malware. It starts off with some really inconsistent marketing. The Facebook page calls the application “MacPhotoPro,” but the link takes you to a web page where it’s called “OldPhotoPro,” although the URL is macphotopro.com. (In the interest of revealing all, the full URL was: http://macphotopro.com/clp/1?sc=fbmacph&sn=Mac%20Photo%20Pro&ap=278470014&img_id=68738).

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You can follow my blog on Twitter (@impofthediverse) or on Facebook. If you like this post, share it with your friends. If you have a comment just for me, e-mail me at impofthediverse@gmail.com.

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This blog runs solely on ego! Follow this blog! Comment on this post! Let me know that you want to read more of it!