Organizing and Influencing Field Metaphors and Privacy Consequences

From best to worst:

Grass Roots - When an effort is made up of volunteers who believe they are doing good for a common purpose.

Advertising - When one entity pays another entity to present a message.

Astroturfing - When an effort to influence and organize appears to be Grass Roots but is actually incited and financially or otherwise backed on the down low by some organization with a vested interest. This happens all the time when organizations with money want to make something happen politically.

Crowdturfing - When an effort influence is hidden and appears to be made up of individuals offering unbiased comment and endorsement via comment sections, social networks and other free means. This has always occurred on a small scale, of course, but now it's been named and gone corporate and companies are selling it as a service. Some folks think that a major portion of comments on all major online shopping sites are generated this way. I think those folks are probably right.

But here's my biggest fear:

SocialTurfing? RelationshipTurfing? FriendTurfing? - Pushing a message by systematically modifying content over what appears to be a netural common carrier. I fear Facebook will do this if they aren't already. There's a ton of money in manipulating which friend's messages appear at the top of each other's walls. Your friends influence your opinions more than any add can. Imagine you are a political moderate and Facebook sells the list of folks who appear as suggested friends on your wall. We all know folks who grind out endless posts at both ends of the political spectrum. I believe you are, in large part, who your friends are and the ideas you are exposed to. I don't know what kind of clever "turf" name this will end up with. I am quite sure it will be effective and very profitable.

While CrowdTurfing is made up of hundreds of one to one lies to try and get you to act, FriendTurfing slants the entire system to try to change your belief system/world view.

Don't think Facebook and their train wreck of a privacy record will do this? Consider Facebooks well known privacy abuses and the news that came out this week:

Facebook already collect unbelievable amounts of data, including shadow profiles for people who never even signed up, they delete nothing and claim that data about individuals is their trace secret even when requested by those individuals.

I wonder if we need a European style open records policy where individuals have the legal right to find out what a corporation knows about them. We shine sunshine on government all the time with open records laws. Why can't I know what Domonos pizza and my grocery store and, yes, facebook know about me and who they have sold it to?

I have often thought that I'd like to find a health insurance cooperative to join.

WPS Health Insurance (Wisconsin Physicians Service not Public Service) is a health insurance  non-profit that seems to offer a whole spectrum of individual plans with optional dental coverage and two different drug options. Even the best plan seems reasonable compared to COBRA.

Anyone in NE WI used them? If you have, I'd love to hear your experiences!

Packer Stock Sale Observations

The packers are selling stock to pay for facilities improvements.

First off, it's $250 per share plus $25 per transaction meaning, effectively, it's $275 for most buyers.

Second, as an NFL team owner, you have some restrictions. Here's the text from the offering document with the obvious stuff removed and the interesting stuff emphasized by me:

"The NFL Rules prohibit conduct by shareholders of NFL member clubs that is detrimental to the NFL, including, among other things, ... publicly criticizing any NFL member club or its management, employees or coaches or any football official employed by the NFL... If the Commissioner of the NFL (the “Commissioner”) decides that a shareholder of an NFL member club has been guilty of conduct detrimental to the welfare of the NFL then, among other things, the Commissioner has the authority to fine such shareholder in an amount not in excess of $500,000 and/or require such shareholder to sell his or her stock. In addition, if the Commissioner determines that a shareholder has bet on the outcome or score of any game played in the NFL, among other things, then the Commissioner may fine such shareholder in an amount not in excess of $5,000 and/or require such shareholder to sell his or her stock. If the Commissioner requires a shareholder to sell his or her stock, then the Corporation may have a right to repurchase the stock at $0.025 per share. See “Transfer Restrictions.”"

In other words, if you smack talk the NFL or a club or even a coach or player you can be fined up to half a million dollars and you may have to turn your $250 share in and get 2.5 cents for it.

Well, I have two things to say to that. All the refs need glasses and the Bears still SUCK!