Google adopts ‘value-neutral’ language to make selfies less about ‘beauty’ Google has revealed it has adopted “value-neutral” language in the interests of improving both selfies and mental health. File this one under “unintended but all-too-predictable consequences of technology,” because Google’s doing this after discovering that so-called “beauty filters” offered in smartphone operating systems and …
When it's discovered a large proportion of the public have adopted an unhealthy lifestyle or relationship with a product which continues to be profitable.
Much the same was done about the increase in the grossly overweight, the labels were changed so those affected could feel better about their problem and continue to spend.
@Ken Hagan
"So junk the social media. You won't miss it. It's clearly full of objectionable twats. Put the phone down and get a life."
This seems to be a lesson missing from people today. Kids are mean as a general rule, they push boundaries and try to work out how to be top dog and what they can get away with socially. It is now easier to take pictures and share them with the world, but kids are still kids.
Interestingly there is a similar issue with adults and young adults who also have more of a mean streak when writing over the internet. So maybe its not just a kids issue but a maturity one in general. But a kids resilience to bullying (or people in general) is still being developed.
Now imagine that you were stuck in that playground 24/7. With the pervasiveness of social media, that's pretty much the experience of kids today.
They can not participate, unlike real playgrounds. They can stop anyone talking to them whenever you like, unlike real playgrounds. They can't be physically hurt, unlike real playgrounds.
There are problems with social media, of course. Characterising them as strictly worse than what people used to have is not helpful.
When I got my new phone I didn't notice I had moved the slider over and thought something looked odd about a couple of selfies I took. It took me a while to figure out that the little wrinkles around my eyes and mouth were gone. I'm a young looking 49, but looked 25 in the photos.
I found a lot of this recent nonsense was perfectly illustrated as such by Kanye West's recent twitter rant about his issues with record companies. Here you had a black man on a very angry tirade in which he frequently referred to his "masters," but there was zero confusion and everyone knew he was talking about the master recordings the companies held. Nobody felt the need to clarify that this was in no way related to slavery. Yet half the tech world is falling over itself to whitewash perfectly good tech terms on the off chance somebody to stupid to understand the concept of context might choose to take offence. Sounds about right for 2020.
But the Romans did have social media. It wasn't digital, though, it was analog. One variation were called "praecones", and were somewhat similar to latter-day town criers. They also had sailors going from port to port, traveling sales folks, and farmers bringing their wares to market. To say nothing of gossip at the watering hole, the public baths, and etc.
Oddly enough, there were Romans complaing about decadence long before they had a great empire. For them, merely conquering part of Sicily had thoroughly corrupted Rome and robbed it of its virtue, its manliness. Centuries later, the empire was far more immense, thriving, adapting and still being slated as decadent.
<sarcasm>
Don't worry, it's anonymous. Just a random ID (tied to the Google account on the phone and every freaking site that has some connection to Google) which, pinky swear, contains no identifiable personal information.
Third parties can see and use said ID and won't be able to track it back to you. Google, on the other hand....
But that's Google, they are the good guys. They keep the internet flowing. They know what you want to search/read/see/listen to, even before you know it.
</sarcasm>
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