Facebook has decided to allow administrators of some groups to begin charging $4.99 to $29.99 a month for exclusive memberships. The company made the announcement in a blog post indicating it was part of an early test.
Only certain groups will participate
Groups in the area of parenting, cooking and home cleaning will be the first to take part in the tests. For now the free groups will remain as they are but they will shortly have the option of launching premium groups with charges attached.
Groups that will participate include an Organize My Home group that will cost $14.99 a month to join and the administrator will be Sarah Mueller, a lifestyle blogger who now has a Declutter My Home group.
The Grown and Flown Parents group will launch a College Admissions group that will charge $29.99 a month and will enable members to access college counselors.
Reasoning behind the change
In the past Facebook groups have always been free but the company feels that a charge for membership would make members feel more special. However, it could end up just driving people away.
Another reason for the change is to allow administrators of groups to make some money for all the time and effort they expend to expand their groups. The money earned could also be used to purchase higher value content for the group, including more posts, videos, and even offline events.
The blog announcement notes: "We hear from group admins that they’re looking for ways to help them earn money to deepen engagement with their members and continue to support their communities. Many admins do this today by creating an additional subscribers-only group that sits alongside their existing group, and rely on additional tools to track and collect payments. Subscription groups were created to make it easier for admins to provide these experiences with built-in tools, and to save them time so they can focus on offering members-only content."
For now Facebook will not receive any part of the fees
The project is still at the experimental stage and Facebook will not receive any return from the fees charged. However, as part of the standard App Store and Play Store policies, Apple and Google will take a part of the subscription fees. However, this is just the beginning of Facebook's attempt to monetize groups. Unlike the News Feed, the groups do not rely on advertising to generate revenue.
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and networking service company with headquarters in Menlo Park California. It operates world-wide except in a few countries where it is banned. The chief executive officer is Mark Zuckerberg.
The company was founded in February of 2004 by Zuckerberg together with a number of fellow Harvard College class mates.
Facebook had its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2012 with the company valued at $104 billion the largest valuation so far for a newly listed company. Most of Facebook's revenue comes from ads on screen.
As of January this year, Facebook had more than 2.2 billion monthly users.
Facebook is using artificial intelligence AI to scan and analyse users' Facebook posts for signs of suicidal thoughts.
When AI detects someone who could be in danger the post is flagged and sent to human moderators.
The moderators respond by sending the user resources on mental health, and in more urgent cases contacting first responders to try and find the individual.
Facebook has been testing the tool for months in the United States but may now extend it to other countries. However, the AI system will not be active in any EU country since it violates data protection laws.
The rationale for the project
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook in a Facebook post said that he hoped that the tool would remind people that AI is "helping save people's lives today". He said that during October alone, the AI tool helped flag cases to first responders more than a hundred times.
Zuckerberg said that“If we can use AI to help people be there for their family and friends, that's an important and positive step forward.."
How the AI tool works
The AI program scans for key words and phrases such as "Are your ok?" and "Can I help" in comments. However, Facebook is not providing many details as to who needs to be flagged. Human moderators will do the work of assessing each flagged case and responding.
A recent study used AI to try to predict who would attempt to commit suicide within the next two years. It did so with 80 to 90 percent accuracy. The study focussed on people who had been admitted to hospital after self-harming. Studies of individuals in the general population are yet to be published.
Facebook will use AI to prioritize risky or urgent reports so they will be addressed more quickly by moderators. Facebook has 80 local partners such as Save.org, National Suicide Prevention and Forefront.
Concerns about privacy
Some are worried about the privacy implications of the project. Your posts are being monitored without your consent and the data analysed without asking your approval. You are then sent messages of advice that were not requested. Perhaps you may find that first responders are at your door.
Facebook previously worked with surveillance agencies such as the NSA.
Alex Stamos chief security officer said that the "creepy/scary/malicious use of AI will be a risk forever" and that it was important to weigh "data use versus utility".
When Josh Constine a writer at TechCrunch asked Facebook how the company would prevent the misuse of the AI system he received no response. Perhaps it will come in time.
Facebook as social worker whether you like it or not
One would think that Facebook is a means of communicating with friends by text, videos links etc. We can expect some ads as a means of paying for this service but even now Facebook is using what is called native advertising techniques to make it look as if an ad is a post as it appears along with the other posts. You can identify them by the word promoted, sponsored, or suggested.
However now, Facebook is not just going to use data gleaned from your posts to tailor ads to what seem to be your needs and desires but it will also be checking on your mental health. If AI and Facebook's moderators find you have suicidal tendencies then they are going to send you unsolicited advice and perhaps even send first responders to your door.
Facebook may expand its social welfare role. CEO Zuckerberg writes ""in the future. AI will be able to understand more of the subtle nuances of language, and will be able to identify different issues beyond suicide as well, including more kinds of bullying and hate"
Facebook will become a monitor to ensure that all those bad things such as suicide, bullying, and hate are tracked before they even take place. It all sounds as if Facebook should receive an award for social responsibility.
Questions and critical comments
You cant opt out of being spied upon to see if you have suicide thoughts and need advice etc. In other words you are going to have your posts scanned and tagged by AI whether you like it or not. Even if you consider this an invasion of your privacy you cannot stop Facebook from its actions. Your only choice is to exit Facebook,
The justification for not being able to opt-out is very paternalistic. A Facebook spokesperson said that the feature is designed to enhance user safety and that support resources offered by Facebook can be quickly dismissed if a user does not want to use them.
It is not clear how the project enhances user safety. At most it may lead to some with suicidal thoughts to decide not to commit suicide. It has zilch to do with user safety in general.
Where does AI monitoring stop?
Zuckerberg suggests that the AI tool could be extended to tag bullying and hate speech. No doubt there could be AI tools developed for detecting potential alcoholics, and pedophiles.
The problem of biased algorithms
AI uses algorithms to sort through and tag those with suicide thoughts. However algorithms are often biased. The algorithm(s) used by Facebook need to be rigorously examined for bias.
A recent article in TechCrunch points out that biased algorithms are ubiquitous. Recent examples of flawed algorithms include flawed systems for ranking teachers.
Many stakeholders including the companies that develop and apply these AI systems show little interest in limiting algorithmic bias. Perhaps the bias is often in their interests or they may not understand it is even present.
Suicide
Although in some countries suicide is a crime it is not in Canada and the U.S. nor in most other countries. Should a social media outlet be attempting to prevent someone from committing what is not a crime if they do not request help?
For people with incurable and very painful diseases suicide may be a quite reasonable action and it is not clear that there should be attempts to prevent it. In Canada assisted suicide is lawful in such cases as it is in some states in the US. Does the AI distinguish these cases?
One might ask what training the human moderators in this project have. Are they paid? By whom?
One might also ask how one knows how many, if any, lives are saved by these actions. Those given advice may not have committed suicide anyway. Some may have actually committed suicide after it was made clear to them that they had suicidal thoughts. There is no real proof given that this project actually saves lives. At most one could say only that it may have saved some lives, at least for a while!
Some time ago Bill Gates and Warren Buffett issued an invitation for the very rich to join their Giving Pledge. Some of Germany's super-rich have rejected the invitation.
Some of the critics claim that obligations that are often better provided by the state should not be left to philanthropy and private funding. Peter Krämer, a Hamburg-based shipping magnate and multimillionaire, has emerged as one of the strongest critics of the "Giving Pledge." TheWikipedia entry on the pledge reports:
April 2012 that "81 billionaires committed to giving at least half of their fortunes to charity".[1] As of August 2015, 137 billionaire or former billionaire individuals or couples have signed the pledge; a significant majority so far are, like Buffett and Gates, US-American citizens.[2]Most of the pledges come from North America but there are a number from Europe and Asia as well.
Peter Hamburg notes that those super-wealthy people who sign on get to decide what their money is used for, not the state or the people. In the end, the super-wealthy indulge in their hobbies that could be in the common good but are quite personal and not decided by representatives of the people. Of course many will claim the money is the property of the rich individuals to use as they wish. I presume Hamburg's point is that a proper tax system would ensure that the rich paid more in the first place in the form of taxes, so that they did not have such large sums of money.Hamburg concludes:It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?What gives them the legitimacy and power is that they have the money, in most cases probably legitimately in terms of existing laws. Hamburg also takes a swipe at the US noting that it already has a desolate support system. He said that Gates and Buffet should have given their money to some of the many communities in the US who do not have funds to provide proper public services.
Recently on the birth of their daughter, Mark Zuckenberg a co-founder of Facebook, and his wife Priscilla Chan announced they would donate 99 percent of their worth, mostly Facebook stock valued at $45 billion . However, the couple are not donating directly to charities or even setting up a charitable foundation. Zuckenberg has created a limited liability company, the Chan Zuckenberg Initiative LLC. As Gawker explained: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is not even an actual charitable organization, but rather structured as an LLC. Unlike a charitable trust, which is compelled to spend its money on charity, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, LLC will be able to spend its money on whatever it wants, including private, profit-generating investment.As the New York Times points out the LLC unlike a charitable foundation is not even required to allocate a certain percentage of its assets every year to charity. The LLC will not be subject to such rules or the transparency requirements either.
The LLC can invest in for-profit companies but no doubt described as socially responsible. The LLC can also make political donations and spend money lobbying for changes in the law. Jesse Eisenger in the New York Times says of Zuckenberg's donation: He created a limited liability company, one that has already reaped enormous benefits as public relations coup for himself. His P.R. return-on-investment dwarfs that of his Facebook stock. Mr. Zuckerberg was depicted in breathless, glowing terms for having, in essence, moved money from one pocket to the other.
In spite of these issues, society is no doubt better served by Zuckerberg channeling his money into the LLC rather than spending it in conspicuous and lavish expenditures of the type exhibited by some gulf oil potentates as well as others. One of the reasons Zuckerberg and his wife have a great deal of public appeal is this lack of conspicuous consumption to show that they are rich. However as critic Teju Cole puts it the power of being rich often "supports brutal policies in the morning, founding charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening".
