Jul 19, 2019
Craig was on with Jim Polito. We talked in some detail about some of the 50 years that have passed since we landed on the moon and the massive changes we have seen in technology. Why Google and Facebook and the whole social media thing are a direct threat to our democracy.
These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com
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Transcript:
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.
Airing date: 07/16/2019
50 years since we landed on the moon. Changes we have seen in technology. Google and Facebook and the whole social media thing and the direct threat to our democracy.
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Craig Peterson
Hey good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson, here. We are in for a
hot pot time here northern New England is supposed to get up to 99
degrees this weekend. It's going to be hot. I heard this morning
down in Phoenix it's going to be 115, but you know Phoenix it's it
is a dry heat. I've got to admit that it's just not as bad. I've
been to Phoenix quite a few times, and I think it's not bad at all.
Up here, man that humidity supposed to be high. It's going to be
uncomfortable. You know, I don't know how to live in Florida or
not. Where do you retire? Anyhow, I was on with Mr. Jim Polito. And
we spent a little bit of time talking about the moon shot and some
of the technology out there. But we delved into some reasons that I
bet you may not have heard before, maybe you thought about I don't
know you guys are pretty smart about why you might want to read
move your Facebook, login, get rid of that account, but Google and
everything. This whole social media thing and what's been happening
online is a direct threat to our democracy. So here we go with Mr.
Jim Polito
Jim Polito
On this anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 to the moon. First
man on the moon. I'm sure if he were working, then he would have
been right there at the forefront. Joining us now. Our Tech Talk
guru and good friend Craig Peterson. Good morning,
Craig Peterson
Sir. Hey, good morning. Oh, that I could have been like goodness, I
remember it. So well. Sitting there, watching TV. Oh, man, I was
working in my uncle's store selling penny candy. Yeah, for those
who aren't aware, candy used to be a penny.
Jim Polito
I remember, we shut the store. Yeah, the whole thing. Wow, son of a
gun. I still remember it as a little kid, little boy, and wanting
to be an astronaut. Remember, with my brothers and my parents
watching it on a black and white TV. And then Teddy Kennedy crashed
his car off a bridge and Chappaquiddick. And, you know, he was
lucky that they were going to the moon because everybody was paying
attention to that instead of him. I remember the day after it was
the first time I had ever seen color in the newspaper on the front
page
Craig Peterson
Yeah, was a color picture of the moon shot of the moon landing. It
was such a time in America. And at the time, I was living the great
white North thing. Yeah. And even up there. It was, it was the
thing of things. It was just the most incredible thing ever. I
don't know that we'll ever have it. If not, then I don't think a
Mars landing would have anywhere near the No, no.
Jim Polito
Yeah, no. It was different back then. I mean, technology was
reasonable compared to now. And what people expect? No, it would
not be as big of a deal. The entire world would never be transfixed
as we were then. No, not like we were back then. But back then, you
know, guys like Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. They were, you know,
they had some ideas, and they were smart guys like you. And Steve
Wozniak was one of the CO creators of apple. But now he is saying,
delete your Facebook account. If you want any online privacy,
what's this all about, Craig?
Craig Peterson
Well, this is huge. And I think most people know a little bit about
the online privacy for were you mentioned to a friend on Facebook
or one of their different platforms, remember, they own that, you
know, they have their messenger platform and Oculus, they've got a
whole bunch of different platforms. Now, if you mentioned something
else, platforms, most people are aware, all of a sudden you start
seeing ads for it. And you know, what, what are they trying to do?
We've known forever, that Facebook isn't the product. We are the
product. They're trying to sell advertising to various vendors out
there. I don't think that comes as a surprise to anybody. I think
Steve Wozniak had a point about this, too, when you read this
particular article from the Daily Mail, remember, this is out of
the UK, we don't see this kind of coverage much here in the States.
But he says, you know, he's worried about everything. So let's have
a look at what's happening. Next year, we've got got a big election
coming up. And we've got people who are on the line who are going
around, right, talking about the election. But before we get into
that, I want to get into one more point about this. How does
Facebook make money? The bottom line is they make money, by selling
your information to advertisers, so that they can place an ad in
front of you. Now, personally, I would prefer to get an
advertisement for cars when I'm thinking about buying a car, right?
I'm not interested in enlargement or other types of products. Yeah,
that you used to see online all of the time. I'm just not
interested in those. However, what they're doing now is they're
trying to manipulate your decisions. Now. Okay, that makes sense.
Should I buy shreddies or something like corn flakes? If shreddies
is advertising? Well, that's a Canadian cereal.
Jim Polito
Shreddies, one sec, advert ties with Facebook, they're going to
pull up an ad, that's a breakfast cereal, they're going to pay for
it.
Craig Peterson
So now Facebook's job is to manipulate you in potentially subtle
ways to buy the product of that advertiser. Now, how did they do
that? You know, back in the day, if you follow somebody on
Facebook, you would see everything that person said. Now what
Facebook does is it manipulates what it's showing you. And it's
shaping the results "for your benefit." Air quotes around that. In
case you're wondering, yeah, and the idea of for your benefit is
right, they don't want to waste your time. So they're only going to
show you the postings that contain words like Happy birthday, or
Congratulations, or little posts that are popular amongst your
friends. But they can use psychology, and they do use psychological
tricks here to manipulate you into thinking, wow, maybe I should
eat some breakfast cereal this morning. And they'll do that by
showing you articles, postings and things that are related to
products that they're promoting. So they're trying to manipulate
your decisions to get you to buy more things to get you to buy
things that maybe you wouldn't have bought before. Okay, so that's
a fascinating point. So let's move on to Project Veritas. Now,
Project Veritas, if you're not familiar with it, this is this guy
that runs around, for those that aren't sure what's going on here,
and he does undercover reporting. He's the guy that found all kinds
of stuff out about Planned Parenthood and selling baby parts. I
think everyone's heard that on the news, right? So he had an
article that came out that and he brought it up online courses of
videos on YouTube, and YouTube almost immediately shut it down.
Right. And there's a very intriguing story on the new site called
Spinquark (https://www.spinquark.com/) S-P-I-N-Q-U-A-R-K that you
might want to check out. And it's looking on LinkedIn. And it has
pictures of the pages there on LinkedIn. So if you go to spin,
Clark, you'll see it's like the first link on the page. But they
went to LinkedIn. And they found who is working for Facebook, who
is working for Google, who are the top people in these different
companies, and they put up snapshots of the Facebook pages with
their names blurred out 31 of these senior people are people who
came straight from the Obama campaign. Twenty-five of them from the
Clinton campaign. Fifteen of them are former from the DNC. Five of
them are directly from Pelosi's office. So we were talking about
manipulation, the distillation of results. According to the Los
Angeles Times, this just came out last week, and they're talking
about a study by a professor in California, who was looking at the
search engine manipulation effect. And the ones that he looked at
the people he looked at, he had 47,000 searches by dozens of
undecided voters in the districts of newly elected democrat reps
and Porter router and Levin. And what he found was that there are
an estimated 35,500 people's votes. These are voters who are on the
fence. They were persuaded to vote for democrats entirely because
of the sources that Google sent to them.
Jim Polito
Wow.
Craig Peterson
Now, same things happening with Facebook, you have this many people
just very high super high percentage of people working for Facebook
working for Google, who came straight from the left-wing
politicians who are known to be manipulating search results to
favor them who have come out. And some of these people have
publicly said that the Trump election was an absolute travesty, and
they're going to do everything they can to make sure it doesn't
happen again.
Jim Polito
Did the Project Veritas uncover that Yes, precisely?
Craig Peterson
Now you have an understanding of why someone like Steve Wozniak
line like people like me are saying this is and the Los Angeles
Times although you know, they've been taking potshots at this, this
study. But even the LA Times is saying, hey, people, not only can
you be tracked online, they are tracking you online. You are their
product, but they are manipulating you. Wow, in every way they
possibly can. Okay, so this is a much bigger story than I think
most people we're aware of, Jim.
Jim Polito
Look, this story. Other important stories. Did you hear that folks,
you can get them from my friend Craig Peterson, even when he's not
here? And all you have to do is text My name to this number
Craig Peterson
855-385-5553. That's texting Jim, to 855-385-5553.
Jim Polito
Standard data and text rates apply. But that's it. He won't try to
sell you anything you. He won't annoy you. And he will provide you
with this kind of information. There are so many things that Craig
and I could talk about every week, so much information he gives to
me. We don't have the time to do it all. But you can get it all
from him. Craig, Thank you. That was fascinating. I appreciate the
time, and we'll talk to you next week.
Craig Peterson
Hey, take care, Jim. Thanks. Bye, bye.
Craig Peterson
Hey, I reached out to a few of you guys who are on my email list to
see if there's something I can help you with help your business
with more particularly when it comes to security. So if you haven't
responded to that email, please do let me know. Also, don't forget,
we've got our security summer coming up here in just a couple of
weeks. I'm going to make that happen. Keep an eye out on your email
for that as well. We're going to go through 24 brass tacks, back to
basics getting your business up to a mainstream security standard
is what we're starting to call this thing. We might have something
there. It covers the things you need to be doing you should be
doing, whether you are a CEO, we're going to help you with
governance, if you are a home user, what you should be doing in the
home. And then also if you're the designated IT person for your
business, what you should be doing for the company as well. So we
have three different tracks. Keep an eye out. We are working hard
on this. All right. Have a great day. We'll be back tomorrow with
the WGAN and the interviews happening there. Bye-bye.
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