Updates from September, 2018 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Geebo 10:24 am on September 28, 2018 Permalink | Reply
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    Founder revolts hit Facebook hard 

    Founder revolts hit Facebook hard

    Instagram is the widely popular photo-sharing app prized by most younger people. Whatsapp is the most popular messaging app in the world even though its popularity is not reflected here in the US. Both apps were developed on their own and eventually were bought by Facebook for billions of dollars. Now, the founders of both apps may be regretting their decisions to sell to Facebook.

    On this past Monday, Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced that they would be leaving Facebook in the upcoming weeks. It’s been alleged that they’re leaving Facebook after Facebook reportedly stopped promoting Instagram on the main Facebook site and saw Instagram more as an adversary rather than a partner. Whatsapp founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum left Facebook last year. Earlier this week, Acton took to the media regretting his decision to sell to Facebook by saying “I sold my users’ privacy to a larger benefit.” Acton was said to be so upset with Facebook that he resigned before his stock in Facebook could be fully vested which cost him $850 million.

    So you would think that with these incidents that Facebook may start looking at their internal infrastructure to keep key figures from defecting. You’d be wrong. Instead, a top Facebook executive by the name of David Marcus fired back at Acton calling him low-class…

    “Lastly — call me old fashioned,” he wrote. “But I find attacking the people and company that made you a billionaire, and went to an unprecedented extent to shield and accommodate you for years, low-class. It’s actually a whole new standard of low-class.”

    If this is the official attitude of the Facebook faithful then it’s no wonder why app developers are leaving in droves.

     

  • Geebo 9:32 am on September 27, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 5G, ,   

    Is the FCC forcing 5G on cities? 

    Is the FCC forcing 5G on cities?

    FCC Chairman Ajit Pai

    When he’s not unilaterally gutting net neutrality regulations against the wishes of the public, FCC chairman Ajit Pai continues to act like the telecommunications in this country is own personal fiefdom. While not satisfied with giving consumers less choice when it comes to internet providers, Pai has shown his true colors once again when it comes to playing favorites with the teclos vs. the American public. The former Verizon mouthpiece has just given the country’s cell phone carriers a major weapon to wield when it comes to installing new cell towers for 5G mobile broadband coverage.

    It is called 5G because it is the fifth generation of mobile broadband implementation. We’ve been using 4G coverage for close to ten years now. While 5G will be multitudes faster than its predecessor, it will require more towers since the 5G signal can only go shorter distances than 4G. This requires not only an upgrade to existing towers but will require the construction of new towers as well. The FCC just ruled that the cell phone carriers can legally sue cities if the cities and municipalities take too long in allowing clearance to build the new towers. This gives the carriers the go-ahead to build towers wherever they want regardless of environmental or historical factors. This comes as a surprise as FCC Chairman Pai was opposed to rolling out 5G a few months ago citing security concerns.

    Once again, Pai touts that the construction of new towers will mean new jobs and better communications infrastructure, but at what expense, so phone companies could randomly sue your town if they don’t approve of putting a cell phone tower in your backyard? As usual, Chairman Pai shows just how much dedication he has to his former industry rather than looking out for the good of the American people.

     

  • Geebo 9:10 am on September 26, 2018 Permalink | Reply
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    Facebook blames failure to stop hate speech on ‘glitch’ 

    Facebook blames failure to stop hate speech on 'glitch'

    Once again, Facebook finds itself in the middle of a PR nightmare when it comes to hate speech. No, I’m not talking about John Oliver’s scathing critique of Facebook (NSFW) when it comes to the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, although he was spot on. No, today I’m speaking about something that hits much closer to home.

    BBC News has published a report that alleges Facebook is mostly paying lip service when it comes to the removal of hate speech on its platform. The BBC found that when hate speech was posted in a group that was dedicated to “Making America Great Again” and that hate speech was reported, Facebook was telling the person who flagged the content that it had been removed. However, the BBC’s investigation showed that the content remained. A spokesperson for Facebook said that there is a ‘glitch’ in their reporting system and they are “looking into it”, which seems to be a typical response for Facebook hoping that things like this just blow over.

    Once again, this is nothing new for Facebook. It has basically become the graffiti-strewn public bathroom wall of the world. With its userbase stagnating, Facebook is looking for any way to keep its users engaged on the platform which includes hate speech. We can’t realistically expect Facebook to do anything about the hate-fueled nonsense that consistently pollutes our news feeds. What should be done is that Facebook should be left to the hate mongers while the rest of us log off of the toxic platform.

     

  • Geebo 9:11 am on September 25, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Joshua Grey, , , Richmond, ,   

    Young man shot and killed in LetGo robbery in Virginia 

    Young man shot and killed in LetGo robbery in Virginia

    It’s actually been quite some time since I last posted about someone losing their life while using a classifieds app but unfortunately it has happened again. Last week, 23-year-old Joshua Grey was shot and killed after listing his iPhone for sale on the marketplace app LetGo. Joshua was said to have met his assailant alone at a local intersection in Richmond, Virginia. The killer shot Joshua and then took his iPhone. Joshua was able to get to a nearby convenience store where he tragically died from his injuries.

    Police in Richmond have released surveillance video of Joshua’s alleged killer and are looking for the public’s help in bringing the man to justice. The video can be seen here courtesy of WTVR. Police are asking anybody with any information regarding Joshua’s murder to contact Crime Stoppers at 804-780-1000 or at the Richmond Crime Stoppers website. Anyone contacting Crime Stoppers can remain anonymous.

    Again I have to stress that if you use any classifieds site or app it’s imperative that you meet the other person involved in the transaction at a local police department. Many police stations have set up public meeting zones at their locations to better protect those buying and selling through classifieds. Geebo has partnered with Safe Trade Stations to provide our users with a list of safe places to do business. Just meeting someone in a public place during the day is no longer enough as criminals have become more brazen in their violent methods.

    Our condolences go out to the friends and family of Joshua Grey.

     

  • Geebo 10:21 am on September 24, 2018 Permalink | Reply
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    NYT suing the FCC over alleged Russian involvement in net neutrality proceedings 

    NYT suing the FCC over alleged Russian involvement in net neutrality proceedings

    FCC Chairman Ajit Pai

    Once again, it appears that the FCC is actively trying to boondoggle the public when it comes to their repeal of net neutrality protections that had been put in place by the Obama Administration. If you’ll recall during the public appeal period leading up to the repeal, the FCC claimed that their website designed to elicit public opinion fell victim to a denial of service attack by net neutrality supporters. That turned out to not be true. Instead, the real reason the FCC site failed may be more insidious.

    The New York Times has been actively pursuing the FCC through Freedom of Information Act requests to get the logs of the email and IP addresses the attackers used to bring down the website. Not surprisingly, the FCC has been very uncooperative when it comes to releasing the logs. The Times believes that the site’s crashing was due to Russian interference from over 500,000 fake email addresses that originated from Russia. The New York Times has now resorted to suing the FCC to obtain these records.

    This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following the Trump Administration’s net neutrality debacle. Between the allegations of ties the Trump Administration has to Russia and the fact that FCC chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verzion executive it’s apparent to anyone who takes a close look at the situation that the current FCC is probably in the pockets of the big internet service providers and also appear to be covering up another possible scandal in this administration’s long list of them.

     

  • Geebo 9:01 am on September 21, 2018 Permalink | Reply
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    Is Facebook exhibiting shades of gray when it comes to white supremacy? 

    Is Facebook exhibiting shades of gray when it comes to white supremacy?

    When I first read Motherboard’s expose on Facebook’s policy regarding white nationalism I almost literally raised my palm to my face. Facebook’s current and constant PR disasters remind me of an episode of The Simpsons where erstwhile villain Sideshow Bob keeps walking into a rake no matter which way he turns.

    In this latest controversy, Motherboard, the tech arm of Vice News, obtained allegedly leaked documents from Facebook that determines which content is allowed to remain on their platform when it comes to the white supremacy movement that’s been emboldened in our country since a certain official was elected to office. According to Motherboard, Facebook tells its moderators that white supremacy is not allowed on Facebook, however, posts that advocate white separatism and white nationalism are allowed. While those among the goose-stepping set may argue that those are three different philosophies, they’re all cut from the same cloth. A cloth I might add that’s fashioned into a pointy hat with two eye holes.

    After Motherboard brought their findings to Facebook, the social media giant said they were going to review their policies regarding this kind of content in the future. However, the question needs to be asked, why were these kind of semantics allowed to happen in the first place. In my opinion is all goes back to the theory that Facebook thrives on this kind of controversy on their site as it is said to keep Facebook users engaged in their platform. There have been too many examples lately of Facebook harboring hate speech in order to maintain their userbase numbers. Not just in the US but across the world. Facebook has declined from a place where people kept in touch with old friends to become a global hate machine and Facebook likes it that way.

     

  • Geebo 9:33 am on September 20, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ACLU, , ,   

    Facebook accused of discriminating against women in job ads 

    Facebook accused of discriminating against women in job ads

    Facebook doesn’t seem to be able to stop making headlines for all the wrong reasons. If it’s not for massive data breaches or election meddling, it’s for doing little to nothing to prevent hate crimes and ethnic cleansing. Now Facebook is back in the news once again for allegedly allowing employers to target only men in ads for employment. This practice has been outlawed in the United States since the early 1960s.

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging that Facebook allowed the option of gender exclusion in their ad platform. For example, when an employer places an ad with Facebook there is an option that allows you to target only male Facebook users. Several employers are also accused in the complaint of actively using this feature.

    With all its faults, I don’t think Facebook purposely looked to violate civil rights laws by actively trying to exclude women from ads for jobs in male-dominated fields. However, this is a gross oversight that Facebook should have been well aware of before this became a legal matter. This is yet another example of how Facebook has lost control of its own power and scope. When the ad platform was designed, someone should have had enough sense to realize that while targeting merchandise ads to specific genders is fine while allowing employers to use the same gender-specific targeting was just asking for more bad PR nightmares than Facebook already has.

     

  • Geebo 9:08 am on September 19, 2018 Permalink | Reply
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    The craigslist modeling scam rears its ugly head 

    The craigslist modeling scam rears its ugly head

    One of the more disturbing scams that can usually be found on craigslist is the modeling job scam. The scammer places an ad on craigslist for a modeling job that is guaranteed to be easy money. The reality is that most of these ads are designed to do one of many things. They can lead from everything to you being bilked out of thousands of dollars for portfolios and modeling classes, to extortion, and human trafficking. Unsurprisingly, since craigslist refuses to moderate their own site, these dangerous scams continue to proliferate.

    In Colorado Springs, one such ad popped up on craigslist promising $500 to $1000 for a photoshoot. The ad requested that potential models submit headshots and pictures of the applicants in bikinis. The supposed shoot wasn’t even taking place in any kind of studio but rather in some guy’s house. I can almost guarantee that if anyone has sent in pictures to this so-called photographer that the conversation quickly turned towards requests for more explicit photos as this was probably someone allegedly looking for women to be in adult videos.

    Not everyone can be a model but these scammers, predators, and traffickers target victims who believe they have a shot in the modeling industry and take advantage of their dreams. If someone is advertising for models on craigslist or social media, they probably don’t have the best intentions in mind. The Federal Trade Commission website has some tips on how not to get scammed by modeling ads.

     

    • O.W 1:19 pm on April 1, 2019 Permalink

      This is bullsh*t. Yes SOMETIMES you will come across a jackass. I have been shooting for OVER 7 YEARS NOW and I have booked so many shoots off craigslist ads and other similar websites. Booking a shoot through social media is so extremely common! Who ever wrote this article is misinformed, they have all the wrong information, none of this is fact. Disregard this nonsense because that’s all this article is, pure nonsense lol
      You can come across a jerk on ANY website that involves modeling jobs. Just be careful. If you notice a red flag, big or small, don’t ignore it.
      Again, this article is a bunch of trash, none of it is fact. I’m a female model. I know firsthand from seven years of experience! I’m also a business consultant/coach, as well as a life coach(5 years experience with this) and my advice has NEVER steered anyone in the wrong direction. My advice has only made so many models, so many people, more successful in their careers and their lives.
      Just be careful and be smart when booking shoots! Pay attention to any and all red flags. If you see a red flag(big or small) then stop all communication with that person. Otherwise have fun at your shoot!!

    • Geebo 2:23 pm on April 1, 2019 Permalink

      Thank you for your comment, however, we stand by what we have stated as we have documented multiple instances of where craigslist modeling ads have led to unsavory circumstances for their victims.

      Also, we’d be remiss if we didn’t note the similarity between your comment and those who are in the business of sex trafficking when they say they don’t know any pimps or have a pimp.

    • O 6:38 pm on April 1, 2019 Permalink

      Smh..my comment is similar to a sex traffickers comment? No it’s not. That’s just ridiculous to even say. You’re only saying something so ridiculous as that because you’re being called out for not checking your facts. To say something so moronic like that, is because you know I’m right and rather then checking your facts you wrote down a bunch of exaggerated crap, followed by a moronic comment.
      Like I said in my first comment, yes, SOMETIMES you come across a jack ass on these websites but as long as you’re smart and you pay attention to any and all red flags, you will be fine. If you notice a red flag, even a tiny one, you stop all communication!
      You see, unlike you, I know all of this from actual experience.
      Check your facts next time you write a blog.

      Sincerely,
      A survivor of sex trafficking

    • Geebo 10:13 pm on April 1, 2019 Permalink

      Just because someone swims in shark-infested waters and doesn’t get bit doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. We’d rather have our readers err on the side of caution than taking any chances on a site rife with criminality like craigslist.

    • Armando 3:00 pm on August 24, 2022 Permalink

      I do believe craiglist has a lot of fake people. I could say more than half are not real jobs. I found a lot red flags more than oportunities but you do find some work here and there. The majority of this so called “photographers” wants very thin girls very young and very native if it’s possible. Most of them wants their phone numbers to date them oh who knows what else. I hardly have any jobs from here only once in a blue moon.

    • Armando 3:02 pm on August 24, 2022 Permalink

      Oh and by the way. We all qualify for modeling. Not fashion modeling since that one have a very specific requirements.

  • Geebo 9:01 am on September 18, 2018 Permalink | Reply
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    Even breeders can be puppy mills 

    Even breeders can be puppy mills

    In the past when I’ve posted about purchasing a new puppy for your family I’ve always recommended going to a licensed breeder if you’re looking for a particular breed of dog. Unfortunately, not every licensed breeder is on the up and up. Just because a breeder may be a legitimate business doesn’t mean their breeding their dogs in the most ethical way possible as one family in Tennessee found out.

    An elderly couple from Clinton, Tennessee, put a deposit down on a Yorkshire Terrier puppy they planned to purchase from a breeder that had advertised on Facebook. However, they wouldn’t be able to bring the puppy home until it was old enough to be separated from its mother. Sadly, after the couple put their deposit down the puppy became sick and died. The breeder allegedly told the couple that they would refund their deposit and find them a replacement puppy. According to this article from WTAE, neither has happened. The breeder was said to have had financial hardships and might not be breeding anymore yet advertisements for puppies have supposedly not ceased.

    As has been mentioned before, Geebo does not accept ads for pets as puppies advertised online tend to come from puppy mills where breeders put profit ahead of a puppy’s well-being. In the past, I’ve recommended going to a licensed breeder but even a licensed breeder can be a puppy mill which is actually not a crime. However, thanks to WTAE article we have more tools to find a legitimate breeder as you can use the American Kennel Club’s Breeder Referral Search to try to find a trusted breeder. Once again though, I strongly advise anyone looking to add a four-legged friend to their family to try to adopt a pet from their local shelter. Not only do shelters provide much-needed medical requirements for most pets looking for adoption but some even have services where you can be notified if they receive a certain breed of dog that you may be looking for.

     

  • Geebo 9:08 am on September 17, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Most customer service numbers found online are fake 

    Most customer service numbers found online are fake

    Seems legit.

    In Memphis, Tennessee, a man found the money emptied out of his online debit account. The man was trying to assist his mother who had the same type of account and called a customer service number he had found online that was supposed to be for the service. As you can probably guess, the customer service number that the man had found online was a fake, and the scammers had taken the man’s login information to take his money. Phony customer service numbers are one of the most prolific scams that can be found online today.

    As you can see from the video above, the customer support scam isn’t just exclusive to money apps. A number of scammers list customer service numbers online for many different services including, Facebook, Google, and many other free online services. This scam tends to target elderly internet users who tend to be more comfortable speaking to someone on the phone to try to solve their online issues. More often than not, most online services do not have any customer service options that can be accessed by phone.

    A lot of these fake phone numbers are listed on free services like craigslist and Facebook. Here at Geebo, we often receive ads for many of these customer service scams, however, since we moderate all of our ads we do not allow these ads to be displayed on our platform in order to better protect our customers.

     

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