daniel

Social Media – A Global Force In Need of Reform

It’s been less than 15 years since social media took off in the US and less than that globally. But given the huge influence of these platforms, it seems they’ve been around a lot longer.

In Sweden today, 76% of all residents have a Facebook account and 54% use Facebook at least once a day – every day of the year – according to Facebook’s own statistics from 2019.

If you add all the other platforms, the number of account holders is certainly over 90% of the Swedish population and almost as many globally use one of their accounts daily.

These statistics are essentially the same in all developed countries. This means that the status and use of social media is unparalleled by any other technology invented by mankind.

Fewer people in the world have a toilet, and use one every day.

There is only one other industry that comes close to this kind of blanket immersion into every day life. In the 1950s, and for a while into the 1960s, a new “technology” – namely the car industry – had a similar kind of impact. With its size and influence, the big car manufacturers were able to operate outside the regulatory and customer-oriented framework that other companies were subjected to.

The famous consumer activist, and later environmentalist, Ralph Nader exposed how the big car manufacturers acted and thought. Nader wrote the highly acclaimed book Unsafe at any Speed in 1965, in which he revealed that the car manufacturers were lobbying to prevent road safety. Worse, decisions to make cars safer were made entirely on the basis of a cold economic calculation of the profit on a car model and then how much they would have to pay out in damages to motorists who had been injured. As long as the profit exceeded the damages, no safety changes were made at all. Such practices also included calculations about the potential cost of new laws – and further, preventing as much regulation as possible.

The customers – both drivers and passengers, were just a collection of users who could be coldly exploited for car company profit. Thanks to Nader’s work, the authorities began to realise the problems and started to legislate road safety in a whole new way.

Another tradition that developed in the US in the 1950s and 1960s was that large companies, especially insurance companies, made all communication with them as complicated and bureaucratic as possible in order to either completely discourage customers from making claims or requests, or to tire the customer out so that he finally gave up on receiving compensation for claims.

Fast forward sixty years and it is easy to see the same mentality and strategy at most of the major social media companies. Trying to get in touch with someone on Facebook to get a correction, or make a complaint is virtually impossible. There is only one method, and that is to write an email with no certainty that one will hear back. This applies to anyone who wants to get in touch with Facebook, including public authorities such as the police or the tax authorities. There is no telephone or reception.

Looking at what has happened in the last 4-5 years, a company like Meta Platforms Inc – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has been fined more than 15 times for violations of various national and international rules such as antitrust laws. Meta has had to pay punitive taxes and just recently Meta was prosecuted in Italy and demanded to pay 925 million Euros in unpaid VAT.

There is no doubt that the strategy of many of these big tech companies is to do as little as possible, take as much time as possible – and then pay fines only when authorities fine them is not only deliberate but also almost a carbon copy of the strategy used by car manufacturers in the last century.

Add to this the fact that users are clearly not seen as customers, but as a mass of people who can be monetised and who should not be able to get in touch easily with the company, together with scandals like Cambridge Analytica, where Facebook sold millions of users’ data for use in various other contexts, and a rather sinister picture emerges. Namely that social media users are not customers and have placed a very large part of our private lives and social contacts in the hands of companies who have very little respect for users.

People used to collect their memories in a family photo album. Now most people use their Facebook account. Users can of course close down such accounts, but they still have almost no control over what personal data is used for, and how.

Add to that the fact that the various social media filter what users see and have access to, and this filtering becomes not only a “trade secret” but a place where issues such as democracy, freedom of information and people’s social assets are at risk.

In recent years, beyond the problems at such companies themselves, scammers have also realized that social media is essentially a risk free playing ground to recruit gullible people.

Indeed there have been an avalanche of sophisticated and organised scams rampaging through social media and hooking victims.

One way to do this is that scammers pay Facebook, for example, to advertise on the platform. Authorities, individuals whose names and images are hijacked and victims have all repeatedly reported the same to Facebook for at least the last five years. Yet for all the vague promises about improvement, nothing has really changed.

For this reason, it is overdue, just as in the 1960’s, that the social media companies, just like the car companies, face up to and deal with the damage done. Further, that large profit-maximising companies with a lot of influence are able to take on a moral and self-critical role is a naive idea.

It is overdue for both national and international authorities and bodies to make demands, develop legislation, exercise oversight and gain insight into how these social media tech companies should be allowed to operate.

Lars olofsson strategy has spread globally. Time to touch the “untouchables”

US Supreme Court Conflicted About Liability of Social Media Firms for Content

The US Supreme Court is currently pondering how liable social media firms are for damaging content posted via their networks. What impact does this have on the Juicy Fields case?

 

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court appeared less than sympathetic to an avidly watched case in the social media world. Namely whether Google should assume liability for content posted via its networks. In the case, the family of a 23 year old man who was shot by Islamic gunmen in Paris is arguing that Google and Youtube are responsible for aiding and abetting terrorists by recommending its videos to users.

 

Google, unsurprisingly, argued that it is not liable, citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996, shielding internet companies from liability for content posted by third parties.

 

While the statute has been cited repeatedly for allowing the growth of social media, the reality is that the “internet” is not what it was in the 1990’s – anywhere. This was recognized by the justices, but they also expressed concern that a ruling against Google might open the door to a deluge of lawsuits against social media companies.

 

This is the first time that the Supreme Court has been asked to examine Section 230, but it was only the first of two. On Wednesday, the Court also heard a similar case against Twitter, namely whether the platform enabled terrorism by allowing the Islamic State (Isis) to use its platform.

 

The cases will be decided by June.

 

Pros and Cons

There has been increasing pressure on social media firms, generally, to better regulate the content they allow, and further the use of algorithms to steer content towards users based on their profile and what they watch.

 

During the Brexit debacle in the UK and the Trump presidential campaign in the United States, the dominance of social media, and the manipulation behind the scenes by savvy operators was a big discussion that was never really solved or addressed.

 

Since then, in Europe in particular, social media firms have also come under increasing scrutiny for potential violation of strict EU privacy law – known as GDPR – and transferring users’ data to the US.

 

The fact of the matter is that the internet generally, and social media more specifically, is far from the digital world that existed in the mid nineties. This entire section of media, now infiltrated into the daily lives of the globe and billions of users, remains largely unregulated and beyond the reach of federal agencies (such as the FCC) in the United States.

 

In Europe, however, no matter what the Supreme Court decides, the fate of most social media still hangs in the balance – and on balance tech firms are on a rapidly shorter and shorter runway.

 

Impact on the Juicy Fields Case

Lars Olofsson, the Swedish lawyer now suing Mark Zuckerberg and Meta in Sweden, home of the largest Facebook servers outside of the US, is making the same kind of argument in Europe as the Supreme Court is considering in the United States.

 

The landscape here is very different – to the point that Meta is already considering how, if at all possible, to continue to operate in a landscape where GDPR is an accepted part of the legal landscape here in a way that is fundamentally absent in the US.

 

In fact, in Lulea, where Olofsson first filed his case, the complaint has now been escalated beyond the regional court to the national level. And in Europe, where such litigation is far less common, the common good of European citizens is far more compelling than US law.

 

In essence, what is going on is a two track challenge to decades old unchallenged statutes in desperate need of revision. And no matter what happens in the US, court decisions on this side of the pond are likely to create a dual legal challenge, that, if successful, will certainly reverberate in the land of the First Amendment, no matter what happens with the cases currently at the Supreme Court.

 

The reality is that social media is not “neutral,” and furthermore capable of creating highly dissonate, damaging echo chambers of false realities if not “news.” And this is a dilemma very much of the 21st century.

 

How all of these decisions impact the cannabis industry more generally is also certain to be front and center as Twitter and Google proceed with cannabis advertisements.

 

In the meantime, the legal landscape for “social media” is clearly and dramatically changing.

 

The world is not what it was in 1996. And that includes both social media and the cannabis industry more generally.

 

 

 

The juicyfields fraud exposé Cannabis cowboys episode 8 released 2023-02-23

In todays episode we hear the investigation coming to a few dead ends up until Lars Olofsson enters with our investigative work since July 2022, finally the Juicyfields story is clearing up, the truth will be known to the world so that justice can take its shape one way or the other. Enjoy this episode and await your minds to be blown next week when the introduktion is over.


Thank you all for listening

https://www.dw.com/en/cannabis-cowboys/program-62614055

Juicyfields scam keeps going investors held hostage by their own money

The scammers behind the Juicyfields have manipulated victims that the concept works and that they can help make all the other victims whole. These investors then go out to the groups and share that they got their money back so that more victims fall for the trap. These victims are now tools for the scammers and even if they mean well they are now responsible, hiding their faces and names wont help as people talk.


https://businesscann.com/juicy-fields-splinter-group-claims-to-be-raising-new-funds-to-refund-victims-but-investors-warned-not-to-share-details/

Cannabis Cowboys episode 6 “Juicy Nobility” By german dw aired 2023-02-16

Todays episode we follow the investigation into the designed drama orchestrated for their exit scam. Using other proffesional scammers as scapegoats to get away. Cant wait for the next episode when Lars Olofssons whistleblower from inside the criminal network behind juicyfields gets to give us clarity

https://www.dw.com/en/cannabis-cowboys/program-62614055

Big step towards global justice. Facebook is thanks to Lars Olofsson now open to be sued for these scam ads

Exciting times!

Big news from Sweden! The wind has turned

Who knew that it would be the cannabis industry that  would open up legally for facebook to be sued for all scam ads they allow. All industries have fraud but it was the cannabis community who did not just lay down even though the system is not working properly, there is always a way!

We show this here
https://cannabis101.de/legal-eagle-update-juicy-fields-investigation-and-litigation/

Swedish “Kalla fakta” investigated fraud using facebook ads on tv4 today 2023-02-08

After following over 200 scam ads on facebook they saw that even if a scam is removed the same user can just upload it again without any problems. I cant speak for anyone else but my facebook is full of scam ads when i scroll down the flow.

Our juicyfields lawsuits now comes in to force social medias like facebook to take their degree responsability.




https://www.tv4.se/artikel/6vrMNxKIfg3fISjod0m55o/facebook-later-kaenda-bedragare-fortsaetta-lura-offer