Headline May 10, 2018/ ''' STUDENTS -*!WOW!*- SHINNINGS '''

''' STUDENTS -*!WOW!*- SHINNINGS '''

WHAT TO DO AND SEE - organizing yourself  to push for change isn't just a viable option - it might be the only way out of every mess.......

SCAMMERS IMPERSONATE social media executives to prey on the vulnerable. Many, many of the Internet protocol addresses - of the fake accounts have been traced to Nigeria and Ghana.

AN EXAMINATION BY The New York Times found 205 accounts impersonating Mr. Zuckerberg  and Ms. Sandberg on Facebook and its photosharing site Instagram-

Not including fan pages or satire accounts, which are permitted under the company's rules.

At least 51 of the impostor accounts, including 43 on Instagram, were lottery scams like the one that fooled Mr. Bernhardt.

The fake Zuckerbergs and faux Sandbergs have have proliferated on Facebook and Instagram, despite the presence of  Facebook groups that track the scams and complaints about the trick dating to at least 2010.

A day after the The Times  informed  Facebook of its findings, the company removed all   96  impostor Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg accounts on its Facebook site.

There were 109 fakes on Instagram, which were removed.

''Thank you so much for reporting this,'' said Pete Voss, a Facebook spokesman.

He could not say why Facebook had not spotted the accounts posing as its top executives, including several that appeared to have existed for more than eight years.

''It's not easy,'' he said. ''We want to get better.''

[Dear Students], Dear tech workers: 

*A shortage of skilled workers at  technology companies has led to lucrative bidding wars, tipping the balance of power in workers favor*.

What if Facebook employees publicly took their executives to task for neglecting the real-world  violence their products are causing in places like Myanmar and Sri Lanka?

What if Google or Twitter employees threatened to walk unless their executives took major action against radical extremists and hate speech?

What if Apple employees insisted the company stop parking billions of dollars in offshore  tax-shelters, or Amazon engineers threatened to quit unless the company paid its warehouse workers higher wages?

And that's before we even get to the thorny ethical debates surrounding technologies like artificial intelligence, in which companies goals  -

Amass huge amounts of data to help train increasingly sophisticated machine learning models maybe be at odds with what's good for society.

There are few signs that Washington is capable of policing the use of emerging technologies.

And while companies like Google have formed their own A.I. ethics groups, those groups are ultimately powerless if executives decide to ignore their advice.

That leaves an opening for you.

''It's not clear where the pressure's going to come from otherwise,'' said Leslie Berlin, a Stanford historian who has studied  Silicon Valley's labor culture.

Some tech workers are already making noise about unionizing, and service workers at several tech companies have already joined unions.

But even if traditional labor unions don't take hold in Silicon Valley, there are still plenty of avenues for influence.

The Tech Workers Coalition, a group of concerned industry employees, has chapters in San Francisco, Seattle and San Jose, and a group called Tech Action began meeting New York this year.

The Center for Humane Technology, a group of ex-tech workers, has been pushing for ethical product development.

The groups are still small, and none has produced concrete results yet. But they are early signs that greater political consciousness is stirring in the industry.

In a tech dominated world, when the decisions made by handful of Silicon Valley executives have the ability to reshape the nations and transform billions of lives, there's no better time to stand up.

Together, you can encourage your employers to behave in ethical and humane ways, and blow the whistle publicly when they fall short.

Organizing yourself to push for change isn't just a viable option - it might be the only way out of this mess.

Godspeed,
Kevin. 

The Honor and Serving of the latest Operational Research and  original thinking on Technology and Society continues. The World Students Society thanks researchers and authors Jack Nicas and  Kevin Roose.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Technologists, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See Ya all ''register'' on !WOW! - the World Students Society and Twitter - !E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:

''' News & Surges '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless