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SAP Founder Hasso Plattner Fears the Scourge of Social Media (afr.com)
In a wide-ranging interview, Hasso Plattner, the 74-year-old co-founder and chairman of global business software powerhouse SAP, talked about his apprehension of the social media. From the story: He saves his greatest condemnation for the scourge of fake news and societal manipulation on large social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Despite the founders of the social giants pledging to do more to ensure public debate is not artificially skewed, Plattner believes the solution will have to come from law enforcement and criminal penalties. He says humans are genetically wired to thrive on rumours, dating back to ancient times when rumours about what was going on in the next village would be on everyone's mind. He fears social platforms have simply become rumour distribution machines of unbelievable power.
"I was very optimistic that social networks would improve access to information and democracy in general, but I am very disappointed that the opposite is happening," he says. "Professional information producers undermine the social networks, undermine states and elections. It is unbelievable what is happening and we have a huge problem." Plattner draws a parallel with insider trading, which he says is as easy to commit as social media manipulation, but is not so common because people know they will be slugged with criminal convictions. "This is all before we look at the exploitation of personal data, where we are naked in front of the social networks, because we undress ourselves, and not only literally," he says. "I think this will continue until we have the legal systems properly looking at it, and have strong laws that people have to obey."
"I was very optimistic that social networks would improve access to information and democracy in general, but I am very disappointed that the opposite is happening," he says. "Professional information producers undermine the social networks, undermine states and elections. It is unbelievable what is happening and we have a huge problem." Plattner draws a parallel with insider trading, which he says is as easy to commit as social media manipulation, but is not so common because people know they will be slugged with criminal convictions. "This is all before we look at the exploitation of personal data, where we are naked in front of the social networks, because we undress ourselves, and not only literally," he says. "I think this will continue until we have the legal systems properly looking at it, and have strong laws that people have to obey."
Donald Trump? I guess that's a rational fear given the insanity circumstances.
So he means the controlled media? The JEWISH media...
Perhaps we should just let the Jews continue to censor conservative voices on Fakebook and Twitter, that wouldn't be 'societal manipulation' would it...
It's not just the large social media platforms who can be faulted
It's mostly all the other media and marketing companies who want their slice of the pie.
Can't let them big tech giant have their cake and eat it now, can we.
passphrase === "subset"
The elite don't get away with spreading their rumors any more. They don't get away with pissgate dossiers and they don't get to manipulate and subvert the democratic process.
Calls for censorship, corporations deciding what's truth and what's not, or who gets to speak and who not, mainstream media colluding to push a narrative, using law enforcement to enforce political bias, etc.
And you want to lecture others about manipulation? The whole basis of these discussions is manipulation, i.e. bolstering one political leaning while suppressing others.
Back in his days, people listened to good old government propaganda, like they ought to do!
But not social media. He should fear the wrath of anyone who's ever had to use or support his software.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Social media has killed people, and will kill again.
Most people fear SAP for what this piece of shit software is...
the reason why a bunch of good companies folded with unwiedly SAP deployments from hell !
The fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi regime shows how futile and counterproductive such approaches are. The Weimar Republic had strong laws regulating speech and the press. Far from shutting down the Nazis, the Nazis made a fight against "fake news" part of their own platform ("We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press."). Given Germany's history, for a German to propose criminalizing speech is a sign of profound historical ignorance and irresponsibility.
And let's not kid ourselves why billionaires and political elites in Europe and the US bristle at social networks and blogs: since Edward Bernays, they have used control over the press to “control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it" (his words). In case you don't know, Bernays is responsible for overcoming the resistance of Americans to enter WWI and for addicting American women to tobacco.
Between the fall of the Weimar republic and the rise of the nat-socialists you forgot one "small" key detail, the rise of the Communists. Which made the natsies look good.
Merkel twisted Zuck's arm into providing a full censorship system for Germany on Facebook.
Germans are now punished for noticing that with her influx of 1m "refugees" they have had a surge of barbaric sexual violence.
Courts have allowed culture and "sexual emergencies" to excuse things as evil as child rape by the same "refugees."
Now they wonder why the "right wing parties" are rising. Gee, could it be because the existing strong laws are being used to violently suppress anyone who commits the sin of noticing that the elites are virtue-signaling their nations into misery?
I'll make my own prediction: Germany is more likely to adopt strong treason laws that allow them to execute these elites within 10 years than maintain the status quo.
This sort of thing is music to the ears of the establishment. One more powerful voice to stand with with ruling class as they screw up the courage to criminalize those that annoy. It's been taken so far that Plattner has lost his inhibition to openly state his intentions.
Realize who you're climbing in bed with. This is the quintessential Captain of Industry; a man that has spent his life capturing regulators and leveraging IP law to propel himself to the 0.0001% bar in the wealth histogram. But hes singing the right song so you look past all that because you lost an election and if the criminal ban hammer is what it takes to make sure that never happens again well then all hail Mr. Plattner and any other Great and Good that join him.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Anyone happen to have an alternative Link?
Just what we need: another wealthy baby boomer selling to criminalize more behavior and lock up more people. This seems to be more about class control than any real and tangible fear since the largest userbase are the poor and working classes. Passing laws like these just take freedoms away, and if you're wondering, I'm a Gen Xer and an anarchist.
Fake news are usually made from private interest groups trying to manipulate mass perception to provoke a responde... Like all those are tools used by PR companies and marketing.
... in case their slaves start exposing them, organising, and fighting back. We can't have that!
Google 'Ursula Haverbeck' to find out what is happening.
WTF is the word "Social" doing in TFA title?
When you ban free speech; then only criminals will have a voice.
- Gordon
And it reflects the baseness and egocentric behavior of nearly everyone when they go online. There is a switch that flips when people feel they are anonymous or can suffer limited social consequences for their behavior and they behave like borderline sociopaths in that situation.
This is the dawn of the information age. And a widely connected society is something very new for us. Unfortunately few have adjusted to the change well, and most people are in a social infancy. An infancy where they struggle to find acceptable behavior because they are unable to read social cues online. The Internet has become Lord of the Flies, and the Simon's of the world are few and far between.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I think the world needs to be more worries about the scourge of SAP. Ever hear of a smooth implementation of SAP that came in on time and under budget? No? Neither have I...
Blind gullability and livestock-like herd behavior. Which leads to the worst type of conspiracy theorist there is: The anticonspiracy theorist.
Somebody who, ignoring all facts and all of reality if he has to, believes there can never ever be any conspiracy of any kind whatsoever, and everyone is just either nice and happy-clappy or merely dumb and incompetent.
It's the exact same thing as a conspiracy theorist: Somebody who can't handle reality, and has to cling to a delusion that makes everything make sense and be acceptable to his feeble mind.
The best example of that, is the NSA leaks denier. Who just ignores everything published about it, never read the documents himself, yet claims everything written in there is made up, when you tell him about it.
These are people that make the time cube 'tards look like reasonable people. You can stab them in the back with a knife so large it comes out the front, say "whoops, sorry" and they will not only write it off as clumsiness, but attack anyone who points out that it might be deliberate, as a "tin foil hatter" or "nutjob". You can then stab them again, and use the exact same trick as before. They will deny it to their literal death.
It's amazingly close to schizophrenia.
... the anticonspiracy theorist. People like you, who aren't holocaust deniers (one point for you), but definitely NSA leak deniers (aand it's gone). People, who, even after that whole shit, still break out the "tin foil hat" attack.
Just like a conspiracy theorist, with merely the opposing polarity (so blind gullibility and groveling obedience), and hence the worst kind of smug arrogance this planet has ever seen.
Which is as sad, as seeing a 1980s-style "cool kid" try to ridicule and bully "nerds" in 2018.The cringe could collapse an universe.
[quote]Blind gullability and livestock-like herd behavior. Which leads to the worst type of conspiracy theorist there is: The anticonspiracy theorist.[/quote]
Yeah but thats a bit of a strawman dude. Nobody really believes that *no* conspiracies exist. I mean maybe one or two folks genuinely believe that spy agencies dont.... uh.... spy or whatever.
But lets be honest. 99% of conspiracy theories are blatent bullshit.
There was never a pizza sex dungeon run by Hillary from her lizard spacecraft.
Q is a 4 chan troll who has no idea what happens in washington , and every prediction he's made has come false.
Climate change actually is real and caused by humans, and theres no vast conspiracy of scientists to lie about physics dating back to the 1800s.
September 11 really was done by Bin Laden boys, just like bin laden said they did.
And we *know* these things to be true because the alternative just isn't how the world actually works.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The JSDF and blurred genitals in cinema/anime/etc are both holdovers of the American occupation. And while there is talk of things changing now, you will note they have also signficantly raised age of consent across the country.
Japanese society had always been self-repressive in certain matters, but the US pushed a good deal of 'christian' values on them as part of the surrender.
one of the lesser human beings here. One of those who, according to you, shouldn't have the right to free speech that people in the US enjoy.
> If you really, really want to go to war against Germany again in 50-100 years from now and if you enjoyed the total destruction of Europe by the Nazis or the communist occupation of Eastern Europe, then please continue to insist that Germans should enjoy full freedom and speech, no matter how despicable, and to abolish constitutional safeguards against inner takeover by totalitarians.
Sure, just make bad words illegal and the underlying problems magically disappear. I wish it was that simple. No constitutional safeguard can stop a desperate and disenfranchised population. Like those people in Germany who lost their jobs due to the financial crisis of the late twenties and then had their unenployment benefits cancelled in the name of austerity.
If you really, really want to see the rise of the next Nazis and if you enjoyed the total destruction of Europe, then make sure the next financial crisis devastates people's lives and then hit them with "austerity" and don't forget to dump some more problems on them, like masses of refugees from a never-ending colonial war. Oh wait, you are already doing that. And then, when their jobs go away and the rent is going up, which apparently has started to happen in Germany and Sweden partly due to unplanned mass imigration, tell them that their real problem is their xenophobia. The Nazis are waiting for them with open arms and will be very happy when you censor them, because then they can paint themselves as prosecuted martyrs.
You had me at "he invented SAP", and then you told me that he was 74 years old.
tone
.. or the former newspaper NYT....