Is your toaster spying on you? If it has a Facebook account, it just might be.
Facebook reported good results last Wednesday. More users, more profit, more employees more advertising and so on. The shares rose strongly. Facebook said it now has 2.20 billion monthly active users. I repeat, they use the word “active”.
Now let’s get back to your toaster. Is it a Facebook user? Here’s why I think it might be.
2.2 billion monthly active human users? Really?
There are roughly 7 billion living humans. Of those, only around 44% have access to the internet. That’s around 3 billion.
More than a quarter of those are under 15 or over 65.
I think it safe to assume that most of those over 65 don’t use Facebook. As for the under 15s, I think the same is probably true. What self-respecting teenager would be on the same social network as her mum?
So eliminate the young and old and that takes the number of potential human users down to 2.2 billion roughly equal to Facebook’s actual number of monthly “active” users.
Now, I don’t believe that every internet-connected person between 15 and 65 is an active user of Facebook. I don’t use Facebook. My assistant doesn’t. My spouse doesn’t. My younger brother won’t go near social media. My two adult sons aren’t on Facebook. Of course my little baby toddler still isn’t old enough yet. I don’t think we are alone in not being Facebook users. Loads of people don’t use Facebook.
Let’s be generous to Facebook and say that one in two eligible people are “active” on Facebook at least once a month. Then that would make roughly 1.1 billion active Facebook users. So who are the other 1.1 billion “active” users? Here’s where you toaster becomes a suspect.
My Advice
If your toaster is connected to the blockchain, then it could be a “spy-bot”. If in doubt, pull the plug out.
Isaac Assimov warned us about this 78 years ago
Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer, wrote a series of short stories 78 years ago which envisaged personal robot servants. The 1940’s series of short articles was called “I Robot”.
I Robot
The series inspired the 2004 movie “I Robot*, where the plot takes place in the future, - in 2035. In the story, civil servants are now all robots. A group of rogue robots have developed a fiendish plan to enslave the human race. Luckily for us, actor Will Smith is still alive in 2035. He and his human-friendly Robot called “Sonny” single handedly take on an army of enemy robots in an epic battle.
Final score: Humans: 1, Robots: 0. (Humans win).
The three laws of robotics
Isaac Asimov also developed what has become known as the “Three laws of robotics”. Since these “laws” were developed in the 1940s, long before we had vacuum cleaners, dishwashers and toasters, he seems to be remarkably prescient (having knowledge of events before they take place). Here are the “Three Laws of Robotics” that he designed.
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Next time you are having breakfast, you might want to ask your toaster if it knows about those rules.
The robots may have already enslaved us.
Looking at the people on the bus this morning, I think we may be already enslaved by our devices. Nobody looks up any more. Nobody looks out of the window. People miss their stops because they are too glued to their devices. Their faces are lit up by smartphones and pads. I can’t say what they were looking at, but I’ll guess it mostly wasn’t Facebook.
I have my facebook account as many users, since it was one of the first pages that revolutionized the world, currently I only go in to look for some photos and very rare I check the history mural, but there are still a lot of slave users of that page in their most young people, for example here in venezuela everyone I know uses a lot of facebook, and do not open to the world of cryptocurrencies prefer to waste time posting nonsense. Regards!!!
@swissclive Love the gif up top. Lol. I had this conversation with a friend just a few days ago. That the number of Facebook users has to be exaggerated for sone of the reasons you went into above. You did it with more factual numbers as I was kinda just pulling shit outta my ass but we came to the same conclusion. Interesting write up man. Just came across your stuff. Gonna have to go back and start reading your prior pieces. Followed!
Glad you liked it. One in the comments here knows somebody who has five catfish accounts on FB. So I guess they are not all bots.
Nutty. Right? Either way ya slice it...not individual users. I know 2 crazy wives of friends who have joint facebooks with their husbands (weak). Yet also have a separate fake one so they can stalk their ex’s and nonsense like that. If I know 2 personally that do shit like that, I’m sure there are plenty more. Those FB #’s are horseshit when you boil it down. Lol
And then there are all the mums who set up fake accounts to spy on their children.
The weird thing is my daughter is turning 15 in a few weeks and she never uses Facebook. Neither do most of her friends. They use Snapchat like crazy. That and instagram. Facebook is gonna have a problem getting the younger generation to use its platform.
facebook launched in february 2004, while steemit launched in July 2016. before steemit launched facebook users in 2012 reaches 1 billion more active users, even year after year increasing.
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when steemit launched July 2016, two years later facebook users began to decline. this is because Steemit is a social networking and blogging site on the Stein blockchain database. Blockchain Steem generates STEEM and Steem Dollars that can be used by token users to get posts, find and comment on compelling content. steemit users get rewards in the form of steam dollars while on facebook not. therefore make facebook users feel saturated and day by day diminishing. if only facebook put blogging on the blockchain data base. Blockchain that generates Dollars that can be used by token users to get posts, find, and comment on content that appeals day-to-day facebook users will increase.
Best regards
Hi Mufti, Everything you say seems to valid. For steemit to keep evolving I would like to see several new types of tokens created as follows:
‘Steem shields”: can be used as a defense against flags. The more you have, the stronger your defence.
‘Steem tags”: The more you have, the more tags you can use.
wow this time i got information about 'Steem shields "and' Steem tags":.
please give me knowledge @swissclive because i am a beginner in steemit. would @swissclive teach me ..? thank you
Well @muftii, all the knowledge on the planet is out there written down. You can easily search for anything you want to know, such as “Beginner’s guide to steemit”. You will find many lessons that way. Later when you want to know something specific you can search for that too, just as I did to know how to align my text correctly on the left and right when I wrote this post.
If after making the effort to find an answer you are still foxed, then many steemians may be able to help, including me of course.
thanks @swissclive for giving me a good explanation, I will try to find out all that for my good in the future. I also want to ask you if I write an article so I have to use what tags to make my posts visible to you ..,
greetings from me. thank you
@swissclive I appreciate the level of knowledge you have pertaining to this subject matter. Honestly, I haven't given this issue serious consideration. Your writing style is also commendable, it's simple and makes the post easy to understand.
Isaac Asimov really looked beyond what was happening in his days and he predicted the future correctly. It looks like you really follow his work.
You can take me, but you will never take my bunghole, Hm heh.... For I am the Great Cornholio Hm heh I have no bunghole, hm heh...
This post was so well put together! First off the hilarious title drew me in so well done with that. Just as I was starting to lose a little interest I was roped back in with you talking about I,Robot because I absolutely love that movie. "The robots may have already enslaved us." was such a great closer presenting a new point [albeit a funny and sadly true anecdote as well] and wrapping up the article just like how a well wrote essay would finish!
Thank you for that. Good blogs require alot of work to get them “just right”.
My only regret with hindsight was to miss out @jerrybanfield. He would have been there rallying the troops to sign up for the army of genuine steemians to defend against the bot invasion.
Good blogs need an intro, body, and conclusion. I try to do that.
I think that more people are NOT being active on facebook.
Take me for instance, I used to be glued to FB. But now, I only post once in a long while. Some of my friends have even deleted their FB account and focused on Twitter or Instagram!
Now that I am on steemit, I can hardly keep up with other social apps coupled with work.
The last part of your article is an unfortunate phenomenon in the world now!
I try to peel my eyes away from my phone to have a good conversation with my parents.
I have given myself time to check my social apps.
Experience life my dear friends!!!!
I'll conclude by saying these famous words.
'Stop and smell the roses'
Really good advice. I don’t think I am screen addicted, but I do turn it on when I wake up, watch it on the bus, peep at it when the boss isn’t looking at me, study it over dinner, take it to bed with me and fall asleep watching it. Oh, yes, I also take it to the lavatory with me. When I take a shower or brush my teeth I stand it where I can see it. I barely look at it more than 4 times in the night. Honestly I could give it up any time.
hahahahahahaaaaa. OPPOSITE!
Hehehee couldn't really hold back my laughter while reading this. Funny to conclude that our toasters could be connected to the blockchain...lolz
You raised very valid points though because if really those below 15 and those above 65 don't use Facebook and also those found in the middle don't all use Facebook or are not active users ,then where did they get their statistics from? Could it be a hoax? Well, might not be far from it.
If this is a recent News then we have a problem. Lately, there has been a campaign for people to delete Facebook and join steemit and it's been trending all over Twitter, all thanks to @stephenkendal. So how come did the number of users increase even with the scandal and all? Phew.
I think what Issac Assimov said is finally coming to pass as i can relate with what you said concerning we being glued to our devices and letting it control us. People no longer have good facial chats. You sit beside someone for hours and he doesn't even know you are there. Ita crazy but that's the world we find ourselves in today....The jet age.
I loved the comic relief as well.
I’m 61. I just remembered that when I was a kid we called it... “the jet age”. I think today it’s got a more modern name like “the internet age”
Facebook is exaggerating. I guess they just made up the statistics so as to still put up a face.
I never accused them of exaggerating.
I am just making the point that when they said “2.2 billion monthly active users”, they wisely didn't say “human users”.
No normal human has the time to read what you had for breakfast, except that hot looking person on the other side of the planet who you accepted as a “friend”. Probably a robot.
Well, they might be true because the active users might not only be humans.
You are so right. I doing guilty of this. I've missed my bus stop several times just because I was glued to my phone. In fact, there was a day I was sick and I missed by bus stop on my way to the hospital just because I was pressing phone. I has to trek a long distance back to the hospital with my condition.
You also guess right. Mine was not facebook as facebook cannot make glue to my phone that much. The only thing that has made me missed my bust stop several times is no other than steemit. I'm so much addicted that any small opportunity to press my phone, you see me on steemit.
Steemit is fine, because the posts are interesting. Nobody writes about what they had for lunch, or that their baby was crying because his fist tooth is coming through.
Firstly I must say Facebook is a time waster compared to steemit where your time is valueable. And this the most reason why I join the campaign #DeletefacbookJoinsteemit
Facebook is a manipulative database in form of social media. Collecting some personal datas into its database making it the largest database in the world with the so said number of active users 2.2billion. This cunny database updates itself everyday by asking you to share your daily story in the status feed.
About robots, some feared that the machines {AI} Artificial intelligence are smarter, stronger and faster than us. They feared someday this machine will start to come alive , becoming aware of their environment and attaining self control will wage a war against us and take over making us become active and not passive slaves that we are now. This was also portrayed in the movie I Robot .
If robotic development were to stop here, we’d be just fine. Even artificial intelligence is fine. The thing to fear is when that artificial intelligence turns into consciousness. Then we will be dealing with power struggles, despots, megalomaniacs, terrorists and so on, and all in the form of robots.
Those figures look exaggerated to me, i think it is over hyped. It is simply impossible to have that amount. Personally i think the statistic could be criticized. Nice and interesting post swissclive
That’s the point. It can’t be 2.2 billion normal human beings. Maybe some people have 5 accounts. Maybe your toaster has an account.
You are very correct...never thought of that. Its also possible that some persons while trying to sign up forget their password, automatically leaving that account for another. I've experienced this personally, years back while trying to open an account. Can't stop thanking you for this interesting post. You are simply the best boss
Very good post. Wasn't the real revelation about Facebook recently that they make their money not with their users, but with meta data of users, which users have no control over? I mean, everyone can download his user file from FB and delete his account and therefore his user file. But all the connections to other users and information collected about user and non-users (like address information) are still with FB and stay there.
That is the real treasure: FB knowing stuff about people who aren't FB users in the first place. The reality of those 2.2 Billion could be that it is the number of people they have up-to-date information about regardless whether they have an account at FB or not.
@lisaliebeslust. Come on, you are so suspicious. facebook are a large reputable company. They would never lie to you. They would surely not store all your data after pretending to delete it? I mean, I trust them totally. Don’t you?
All this nonsense we read in the paper about hacking and selling of confidential information has just got to be a load of baloney from people who are paranoid.
I say you could even disclose where you live, who your friends are, and the password to your bank account, and write it on your wall, and I am sure that somewhere in that user agreement that nobody read, it will promise not to steal or store any of your private information, let alone, God forbid, sell it to complete strangers.
Yeah, perhaps you are right and it's time for me to take off my tinfoil hat... and also my top and take a couple of nude pictures to send them to Mark Zuckerberg so he can prevent them from spreading through the Internet :-)
Absolutely safe to do that in my opinion. And don’t forget to include your credit card information with pin numbers, so they can pay you for your contributions to Facebook.
Oh, sorry, I forgot. You don’t get paid on Facebook. Maybe there’s no point in sending him the photos after all, unless you want to marry a geek.
lol... me and Mark - I'm sure he knows already if we are a perfect match :-)
I guess you are right. If he hasn’t friended you on FB yet, there’s little chance of you becoming his FB friend, let alone his wife. Might as well find some loser who doesn’t spend too much time catfishing.
if only facebook put the blog in the database blockchain. Blockchain that generates Dollars that can be used by token users to get posts, find and comment on content that appeals daily facebook users will increase. hopefully there will be awards for Facebook users from Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. thank you
My hunch would be that FB is afraid they could lose the monopoly on their user information if it got stored in a publicly accessible blockchain...
I think that Facebook is dying, now or there are only "old" people who wants to meet their old friends.
The most used social network is instagram, with a lot of users, from all the ages, especially from 14 to 35.
Maybe Facebook owns Instagram? Things come and go. I remember “MySpace”. Before that we had MSN, and before that, it was ICQ, and before that IRC (Inter Relay Chat), and before that, there was only ham-radio.
I didn't knew you have more sons, congrats! About children under 15 years old, I don't know what to say, a part of them may be using Facebook from 12 years old, but still not enough to cover that 1.1 billion people missing from the calculus. There could be devices indeed, but who can say for sure?
In a conversation of two IT guys that I caught ~two years ago, they were saying that the smart devices from Samsung were not safe to talk your secrets next to, because they may be recording everything. I never took the time to check it, but it wouldn't surprise me to find it is true.
Have you also thought about duplicate accounts? I knew a guy who had 5 of them :))
Aha! Duplicate accounts? I never thought of that. I guess 5 accounts means 5 identities? That’s himself plus 4 catfish accounts? Maybe you could expand on that guy’s motivation for having so many accounts?
He tried to get in touch with many gurls (mistake on purpose), but since some of them were pretty active on his first account and he could not talk to others from that account, he made the second one. And so on :))
Also, I have seen people making second accounts for anonymity, like getting into political fights, but without letting this messing up with their friendships. I guess there are a lot of reasons why people who are socially active on Facebook will have many accounts, I needed my FB account for an university group where announces were posted, homeworks, projects and stuff like that.
So if he is talking to 5 hot chicks at the same time, and if each of those hot chicks has five accounts to talk with 5 hot guys, and so on, the numbers could start to make sense.
You got the point :))
To be honest, I'd agree with the robot slavery because everything in life now revolves around using one.
Like myself, I am not a tech crazy person but gradually, my involvement in different online platforms like on here, has made me glued to and fond of my device.
It could be more with someone somewhere.
Yup real-life is in competition with your device.
I honestly don't believe these logistics 2.2 billion users indeed.
I can't remember the last time I used my Facebook account.
Probably on New year's Day!
🤔
Asides the imminent threat of robotic enslavement, this was a pretty good read. I enjoyed reading this article. I'll turn on notifications for your post on ginabot. I'd love to read more of your write ups.
In the meantime, what if we have a situation in which the only way to save humanity is to perform a mass execution of at least a 3rd of the world's population. I think the robot's synapses would fry from overthinking the situation.
You’d better watch the iRobot movie. I think that’s what’s coming for real, except the score won’t be humans:1, robots:0.
Lol. Imma download it tonight. Let's hope we triumph eventually.
Ugh - indeed. If you let that number sink in - those can't be humans. The numbers have been made up or... We should try to get Assimov back to life so he can start a DLive channel warning us.
Good thinking! Soon with DNA engineering we’ll be able to bring back Assimov from the dead.
@swissclive i strongly agree with this your articles there are also a lot sick ones who are in the hospital intensive care you unit and so many other who do not have access to internet 📶 . this also applies to those who are in the rural village settings too who do not have access to Internet.
I am also excited 💗 that with this wonderfully written articles i have been informed about the "Three Laws Of Robotics"
Greetings ... you're right about the phones, and people do not talk ... for example at a family meeting or friends, most are looking at the phone. Everything revolves around their phones. In regards to the facebook, I never liked it, and my husband less. However, I must mention that in Venezuela even the cat has a Facebook account, or at least in my city. My friends open their account to their girls of 7 or 8 years old, and also children of 10 years of age already have their facebook account, there are also people who have their personal account and also a business account. so it may be people with multiple accounts and if it is global they could match the figures although the media often exaggerate.
Cats in Venezuela have facebook Accounts? They must be pretty stupid cats. They could go on steemit and earn some money instead.
Here’s a song I’d like to dedicate to all the cats in Venezuela with Facebook accounts. It’s called “Cool for cats” by Squeeze - a very cockney English band.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ2cEc_TCH8
Lolzzzz.. I think the other 1.1 billion active users are more in Indian and Nigeria. 😁😁
Facebook has been most people's baby boy and girl before blockchain surfaced and took over. Hahahah.. Now I'm glued to Steem..I really cant remember the last time I logged in my facebook account.
Loads of people tell me they “had” a Facebook account, but never login and they have now fotgotten their password.
Everyone is glued to their phone. Busy surfing the web. Some will be so buried that they punch the screen on the side of the road and then before they know it, they are in the middle of the road.
Everyone is engaged in one thing or the other but not all of this people are on facebook. That figure is so alarming.
It love the humour you have there in your post. I'll say I'm one of those facebook users but I am no longer the "active" user. Maybe facebook should have just said "human users" like you said. Or something like, "total user."
And also taking about how this robots have enslaved us. It's so difficult these days to have a good conversation with a friend because there face is glued to their phone all day. They'll rather spend ours giggling to their virtual friends than to turn this faces to the one taking in front of them for a second.
Men have created robots to bring the world close together but families are now far apart because of it.
Yes it's true. We and our children prefer to build relationships with people on the other side of the planet, more than our family members, neighbours and work colleagues.
Haha I agree. Can't stop laughing though. If Facebook has 2.2 billion active users, who are they ?
I have to agree my oven keeps looking and spying at Mee too. So I guess my oven is a Facebook user too. Lol
You are laughing, but if your oven is new, it probably knows more about you than you think.
This article is one of many reasons why I’ve been telling friends and family to join Steemit, and at the very least, spend way less time on Facebook, if not delete it outright. It’s still a tough sell, unfortunately. People still think crypto, blockchain, and getting paid to blog are too good to be true.😟
The worst that can happen is that you don’t get voted. The best that can happen is that a whale pays you 1%
That’s sort of what I say to people about Steemit. Why bother posting on Facebook and be certain you’ll get nothing when you can do it on Steemit and potentially make $, but I think a lot of people have hard time believing making money blogging is reality here in 2018.
I bet it wasnt facebook... Even many of the really young ones nowadays now know about blockchain and crypto. The world is evolving sweetheart.
On the best for ur wor u are amazing i like ur post
Really funny man... 2.2 million are active in facebook...😂 nicely said man.👍
Good write up at @swissclive, it will come a time were robot would over take our day-to-day activities...should I say it's the laziness of man or the human side of relation?
Thanks for your corrections on my recent post...i appreciate your concerns. Just picked alittle write up to support my post because it is all for charity but never feel bad to support. Steemit needs people like you. Thank you very much!!! @swissclive
A very wise analysis that in my country Indonesia is still a lot of ignorant people who connect with facebook and enslaved by robots and their orders only to seek sesannasi and mortal pleasure only, and they only speak on behalf of registered accounts only, without learn to activate them in every day, and I agree because I am one of them who have rarely opened it, thank you for making this post
I agree, that all over the world, many people choose to use Facebook. That is their free choice. Many people smoke, drink or take drugs. These are also free choices. Some people rich or poor leave a good tip when eating out, others choose to leave none. It’s a free choice. Most of these thing have little or no impact on others, so I would never try to force them one-way or the other. On the other hand I do believe people should be equipped with the information they need, to understand the consequences. Certainly today, Facebook causes no harm. The worst that can happen is that you will see a targeted ad. It might go further than that in the future. That is the message I wish to convey. You don’t know for sure what might happen to your private information in the future. It may be helpful and useful, it may be annoying, it may be controlling, or it might become downright evil. Just be aware.
Yes it is very pure in love with one of the accurate evidence that has happened to the theft of user account data as much as 50 million, it is very regrettable, and very likely some of them have experienced a deep kegeilisasi event, hopefully the data has been lost is not to be misused
hi @swissclive .., how are you, are you okay ...?
Great post. I'm not a fan of Facebook. It's an interesting proposition to think that a toaster could be on Facebook; I most certainly wouldn't doubt it. I do get upset time to time when I confront the reality we're living in, as nearly everyone lives in some alternate electronic world. Something I found particularly daunting was the observations I made while sitting in lecture - there would be hundreds of kids staring at their laptops while the professor spoke with little eye-audience. I thought deeply about how our devices have interfered with our ability to perform as humans. This left me obsessing over the impacts that electromagnetic fields generated by these devices have on our cognition. This area of research is very underdeveloped. I plan to post more about it soon though. As for your post, I only wish it were longer!
try clicking through and reading some of the priviacy notices you have been receiving from Twitter, Google or Facebook. It seems that somehow they have access to your entire address book and contact lists.
@steem881 you're on the @abusereports naughty list!
If you do not stop, your account will be rendered invisible on Steemit. Bad Steemian! Bad!