2191: Conference Question

2019-08-19T14:07:07Z

BobDou: Added "Word of Power" as a reference to Skyrim

{{comic
| number = 2191
| date = August 19, 2019
| title = Conference Question
| image = conference_question.png
| titletext = I also have an utterance. Less of an utterance and more of an incantation. Less of an incantation and more of a malediction. Less of a malediction and more of a Word of Power. Less of a Word of Power and more of an Unforgivable Curse.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT that's more of a FRIENDLY BUG. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Usually at a conference or other event involving a speaker addressing a crowd, members of the crowd are given the chance to ask questions. This is intended so that people can perhaps ask the speaker to elaborate on a point they've made, or to ask the speaker's opinion on a topic related to their talk.

Occasionally, people at such an event will use (or, rather, abuse) the opportunity to ask a question to instead provide their own (unsolicited) opinion or statement. Such statements are often preceded with something along the lines of "I have a question. Well, less of a question and more of a comment."

In the comic, this idea is taken to an extreme, with [[Beret Guy]] not only transforming the opportunity to ask a question into an opportunity to make a statement, but through successive transformations, turning this into an opportunity to show off a bug he has found.

Ironically, his final sentence "Do you want to meet it?" is, in fact, a question (though presumably not one related to the topic of the speaker's talk).

The title text refers to successively worse forms of magic spells which would, presumably, have a negative effect upon the listener. A malediction is another word for curse (the prefix "mal" being a Latin root meaning "evil"). "Word of Power" probably refers to the dragonish form of magic in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The term "Unforgivable Curse" refers to a set of three spells from the Harry Potter series, said to be so evil that their use on another person could not be forgiven- the three spells are able to mind-control, torture, or kill their target respectively.

The title text can be interpreted as a reply by [[Hairy]] (the speaker) to Beret Guy, indicating his annoyance at the topic being derailed. Potentially, it could also be representative of the author's feelings towards those who abuse the opportunity to ask a question in order to make a statement.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[ [[Hairy]] stands atop a stage, apparently having just addressed a crowd of seated people. [[Beret Guy]] stands in the middle of the crowd, addressing Hairy. One of Beret Guy's hands is raised at chest height. ]

:Beret Guy: I have a question.
:Beret Guy: Well, less of a question and more of a comment.
:Beret Guy: I guess it's less of a comment and more of an utterance
:Beret Guy: Really it's less an utterance more an air pressure wave.
:Beret Guy: It's less an air pressure wave and more a friendly hand wave.
:Beret Guy: I guess it's less a friendly wave than it is a friendly bug.
:Beret Guy: I found this bug and now we're friends. Do you want to meet it?

{{comic discussion}}

2106: Sharing Options

2019-02-04T19:34:21Z

BobDou: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2106
| date = February 1, 2019
| title = Sharing Options
| image = sharing_options.png
| titletext = How about posts that are public, but every time a company accesses a bunch of them, the API makes their CEO’s account click 'like’ on one of them at random so you get a notification.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is flying in an atmosphere that represents a Virtual Reality cyberspace, and he is talking to a screen that may be a smartphone with an advanced virtual assistant installed. This suggests that the comic is set in the distant future, where VR will have become commonplace and be embraced by [[Cueball]] and his friends. [[Ponytail]] and other characters also fly in the background, so this cyberspace may be the social network’s cyberspace where everyone interacts. The clouds represent the cloud server where the data of the social network is stored. The advanced virtual assistant seems to have a virtual face and have very advanced AI, which can even be arrogant by assuming that it already knew the information about the “option in between”.

Many social media sites allow users to control who is able to see data (posts, pictures etc.) that they share online, ranging from immediate friends to all other users (public). The settings for controlling the sharing of data are not always obvious to the user and several high profile social media sites have sparked controversy by having default settings that allow user data to be widely shared.

As most social media sites are free to use, the business model for these companies involves a mixture of selling advertising space on their website and selling data on its users to other companies, who may be interested in using it for marketing purposes. Targeted advertising takes data on users’ past behavior and things that they have liked, and uses this to predict what adverts they may be interested in or be most vulnerable to. Targeted adverts are more valuable to advertisers as they avoid paying to show adverts to individuals who are unlikely to be interested in their products; but can lead to users feeling that they are being spied on. Whilst the terms and conditions for social media websites will include details of how data will be used, the length of these documents and legal terminology may deter some users from reading them, meaning that they may be unaware that their data is being exploited in this way. Government legislation has so far been slow to catch up with changing online trends; however, the European Union have recently introduced {{w|General Data Protection Regulation|General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)}} which aims to regulate how user data can be shared. GDPR was featured in comic [[1998: GDPR]].
Internet scammers refer to the scammers who acquire user data from using web crawlers to automatically scan social networks for personal information (particularly emails) to scam their owners. Those bots called web crawlers can get the information without scammers' manual browsing of the victims' profile. Those people who set their social network account as public (the 2nd option in the comic) are more likely victims of scammers since they can access their profiles without being the victim's friend or follower.

Randall, who might have never heard of the Facebook option to share with “friends of friends” as well, is making a point that there ought to be some option between sharing posts only with your friends and making them completely public. The title text shows that he would specifically like to know when corporations read regular peoples' posts.

This also could be a stab at the sharing policies between Facebook and the just-announced end of Google+. Google+ was designed so that users could create multiple groups called 'circles'. Posts could then be shared by targeting specific circles. For example: "I'm in the hospital" could be shared with just the family circle, but the "I got a promotion" could be shared with the family circle, the co-workers circle, and the general public circle.

The comic is set in the future of VR, yet the fact that Internet companies like Facebook, Tencent and Twitter try hard to collect and sell user data won't change. This may suggests that Randall believe those companies will never reconsider their approach regarding user privacy.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball floating in midair is communicating with a small floating screen that resembles a smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background.]
:Screen: Welcome to social media! When you put stuff here, you have two options: (1) You can make it available to a small set of 300 or so approved friends.
:Screen: Or (2) you can share permanent copies of it all with billions of people, including internet scammers, random predatory companies, and hostile governments.

:Cueball: Why would anyone pick option two?
:Screen: Two is the default.
:Cueball: Yikes.

:Cueball: So those are the only two options? There’s nothing in in between?
:Screen: I don’t understand. Like what?

:Cueball: I mean…there are numbers between 300 and a billion.
:Screen: Huh? Name one.
:Screen: ''Pretty'' sure I would have heard of those.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2191: Conference Question

2106: Sharing Options