Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes
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You might have been inundated recently with totally-not-paid-for "news" stories about "What is Vero? The new social media app!" that all sound pretty much the same.
Well, here's your answer:
(Credit to Twitter user _heyheytyler for kicking this off)
https://twitter.com/_heyheytyler/status/968301107536523265
welp Vero was fun until i realized their CEO stopped paying salaries to 9,000 Filipino workers at his previous construction company rendering them essentially homeless and reliant on food donations. peace
I mean an ad-free social media platform, surely this can't have some huge fucking caveats in their TOS owait...
Well, sure, that MAY seem sketchy, but surely the company is in the hands of good, honourable, well-intentioned leadership OWAIT AGAIN...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-labour-foreign/abandoned-in-saudi-desert-camps-migrant-workers-wont-leave-without-pay-idUSKCN10T1M3
He's a shitheel billionaire who stiffed 9000 workers out of 8 months of wages, then abandoned them in what are effectively internment camps called "labor housing". They can't leave without an exit pass, which can only be given by the employers. And since they're now effectively undocumented, they can't leave the compound without facing prison sentences, can't get (or access existing) bank accounts, get medical attention, etc. It's so bad that the Saudi government is basically stepping in to bend the rules, get everyone home safe, then sue the company for wages.
Lovely man. Perfect for running a social media company.
Wow, looks like if you were hyped up by those paid-for "news" articles, you might now be rethinking using Vero. Might as well just go and delete your account
YOU GUESS IT! OWAIT
https://mashable.com/2018/02/27/how-to-delete-vero-account/
https://mashable.com/2018/02/27/how-to-delete-vero-account/You have two options:
- Go to the company's website, CREATE AN ACCOUNT ON THEIR WEBSITE, then put in a request to have your account deleted
- Find the hidden, buried, undocumented "delete my account" feature in the app itself-- which doesn't actually delete your account, but also submits a REQUEST to delete it.
What happens when you REQUEST to delete an account?
Who the fuck knows. They could tell you to fuck off, as far as anyone knows, and keep your account active. (Which a company trying to hype up their "popular" new platform SURELY wouldn't do).Who wants to bet that it won't be too long until a story surfaces that they've been scraping data and creating fake accounts in other people's names?
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Whew, safe from yet another piece of trash thanks to Windows Phone!
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@twelvebaud said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
safe from yet another piece of trash thanks to Windows Phone
A piece of trash saved you from a piece of trash
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@timebandit said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@twelvebaud said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
safe from yet another piece of trash thanks to Windows Phone
A piece of trash saved you from a piece of trash
Two wrongs sometimes make a steaming pile of festering week-old hobo poop in your pocket.
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@lorne-kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
They can't leave without an exit pass, which can only be given by the employers.
That's just plain slavery, if you look past the hand waving trying to make it look more legit to outsiders.
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@lorne-kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
What happens when you REQUEST to delete an account?
An employee judges your request and may or may not issue an exit pass...
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@timebandit Enjoying your Ubuntu Phone?
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@sockpuppet7 said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@lorne-kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
They can't leave without an exit pass, which can only be given by the employers.
That's just plain slavery, if you look past the hand waving trying to make it look more legit to outsiders.
Yes.
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Most of this is decent criticism, but this part is not:
I mean an ad-free social media platform, surely this can't have some huge fucking caveats in their TOS owait...
That's completely standard language in the TOS for basically any system, meant to protect the company and make them able to do their job. It means that they're able to use your data to do the things you expect their product to be able to do, without some
showing up and saying "what I wrote is copyrighted to me under the Berne Convention and you're violating my copyright by publishing it on your service, so give me 
."
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@masonwheeler said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
what I wrote is copyrighted to me under the Berne Convention and you're violating my copyright
Uh oh, that thread is leaking.
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@groaner Just an example of what it would be legally possible for a malicious user to do without a clause like that.
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@masonwheeler said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
It means that they're able to use your data to do the things you expect their product to be able to do
Exactly. Without that, basically, all your social media posts would be private to you only. Which, all in all, wouldn't be a bad thing.
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@magus said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Enjoying your Ubuntu Phone?
I never bought an Ubuntu Phone for the same reason I never bought a Windows Phone: dead platform
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@timebandit One made money. And it wasn't the one you liked better.
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@magus In what twisted logic did you came to the conclusion that I liked Ubuntu phone ?
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@timebandit It 's linux . It 's a given that you like it . You 're Time-Bandit after all .
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@magus said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
It 's linux . It 's a given that you like it . You 're Time-Bandit after all .
I like Linux too, but I would prefer the KDE phone.
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I'm not like some people that like EVERYTHING that comes from Micro-Soft, just because it's from Micro-Soft.
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@adynathos That actually does seem nice, admittedly.
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@timebandit No, you're that in a mirror.
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Wait, why would anyone use a "new social network" just because it's there? For all I know socal networks come and go a dozen a week, if not more.
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@magus Look kid, I don't even like Ubuntu to begin with, so your opinion is
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@masonwheeler said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@groaner Just an example of what it would be legally possible for a malicious user to do without a clause like that.
Many examples of what IS legally possible for a malicious corporation to do WITH that clause.
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@wft said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Wait, why would anyone use a "new social network" just because it's there? For all I know socal networks come and go a dozen a week, if not more.
Yeah, isn't social networking the big idea without blockchain? When are they going to add crypto?
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@timebandit said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Micro-Soft
Did you mean Microsoft?
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@jbert said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
When are they going to add crypto?
The Bad Ideas thread is
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@wft said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Wait, why would anyone use a "new social network" just because it's there? For all I know socal networks come and go a dozen a week, if not more.
Because EVERYBODY
*is using it!*by everybody, we mean a trumped up, bullshit number that we'll never define, but is totes real according to thispaid advertismentpress release we sent to all the news sites.
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@jbert said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Yeah, isn't social networking the big idea without blockchain? When are they going to add crypto?
Lorne's BitFace Status:
57309a5cf004fd4746ab508deb0093a5181fb93ead1fbf0b0ebf375b2e817fb6
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@masonwheeler said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Most of this is decent criticism, but this part is not:
I mean an ad-free social media platform, surely this can't have some huge fucking caveats in their TOS owait...
That's completely standard language in the TOS for basically any system, meant to protect the company and make them able to do their job. It means that they're able to use your data to do the things you expect their product to be able to do, without some
showing up and saying "what I wrote is copyrighted to me under the Berne Convention and you're violating my copyright by publishing it on your service, so give me ."Is it? I had that same thought when I originally read it, but the stuff about "data regarding your end users or email campaigns" makes me wonder what they're actually talking about.
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@wft said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Wait, why would anyone use a "new social network" just because it's there? For all I know socal networks come and go a dozen a week, if not more.
If I'm going to jump ship to a new social network, it'd better have some blockchain, or what's the point?
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@lorne-kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Lorne's BitFace Status:
57309a5cf004fd4746ab508deb0093a5181fb93ead1fbf0b0ebf375b2e817fb6An overweight GUID bit you in the face? :O
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@jbert I thought if it's HTTPS it's already crypto enough. In other definitions of crypto, nobody is using them because nobody knows about them or gives a fuck, like Fidonet.
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@boomzilla said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@masonwheeler said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Most of this is decent criticism, but this part is not:
I mean an ad-free social media platform, surely this can't have some huge fucking caveats in their TOS owait...
That's completely standard language in the TOS for basically any system, meant to protect the company and make them able to do their job. It means that they're able to use your data to do the things you expect their product to be able to do, without some
showing up and saying "what I wrote is copyrighted to me under the Berne Convention and you're violating my copyright by publishing it on your service, so give me ."Is it? I had that same thought when I originally read it, but the stuff about "data regarding your end users or email campaigns" makes me wonder what they're actually talking about.
Good point; I missed that the first time I
readskimmed it, too.
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@lorne-kates I don't think he's ever managed to not put random dashes in. It would be complex, like not pressing the spacebar before question marks.
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@boomzilla said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@masonwheeler said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Most of this is decent criticism, but this part is not:
I mean an ad-free social media platform, surely this can't have some huge fucking caveats in their TOS owait...
That's completely standard language in the TOS for basically any system, meant to protect the company and make them able to do their job. It means that they're able to use your data to do the things you expect their product to be able to do, without some
showing up and saying "what I wrote is copyrighted to me under the Berne Convention and you're violating my copyright by publishing it on your service, so give me ."Is it? I had that same thought when I originally read it, but the stuff about "data regarding your end users or email campaigns" makes me wonder what they're actually talking about.
Clearly there's some missing context. A user providing "data regarding your end users or email campaigns" doesn't sound like a typical social networking user. That makes it sound more like a mass-mailing service. The "email campaigns" part would make perfect sense, since they need permission to send out an email that you create. I'm not entirely certain what "end user" data would be protectable that they need permission to copy it.
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@lorne-kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@timebandit said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Micro-Soft
Did you mean Microsoft?
How old is @TimeBandit? Could be he got used to the original spelling when that was current and never managed to adjust to the new one.
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@gurth said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@lorne-kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@timebandit said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Micro-Soft
Did you mean Microsoft?
How old is @TimeBandit? Could be he got used to the original spelling when that was current and never managed to adjust to the new one.
Maybe he never bothered to adjust. Or maybe he was being perverse and/or contrarian.
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@masonwheeler said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@lorne-kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Lorne's BitFace Status:
57309a5cf004fd4746ab508deb0093a5181fb93ead1fbf0b0ebf375b2e817fb6An overweight GUID bit you in the face? :O
I rolled my own. Like any good crypto software should do. I mean, you don't want to use a crypto spec that's PUBLICALLY KNOWN, right? That means HACKERS know it.
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@lorne-kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
I rolled my own. Like any good crypto software should do.
Is ROT128 not good enough for you?
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@bb36e said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
Is ROT128 not good enough for you?
I'm more paranoid than you, and use triple-ROT256!
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@magus said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@timebandit Enjoying your Ubuntu Phone?
Pfft, that's for babies. I got me a LinuxFromScratch Phone.
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@pie_flavor said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
@ben_lubar said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
=H0Nk
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@gurth said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
How old is @TimeBandit?
Depends if you're counting age to 2018, or the 70s where he's stuck
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@anonymous234 said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
I got me a LinuxFromScratch Phone.
https://i.imgur.com/L4RczT5.png
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@ben_lubar said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
=H0Nk
"Fuck you, Honky" - Black Twitter
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@Lorne-Kates said in Vero: Another shitty social media site run by sociopathic assholes:
"What is Vero? The new social media app!"
Let's see what happened!
March 16th. SIXTEEN DAYS after the totally-not-paid-for awareness campaign:
Vanishing Vero? Fading hype for social media fad shows fickle nature of Internet
TORONTO – It seems like just yesterday that the Internet was overtaken with viral hype over Vero, a new social network that promised to right all the frustrating wrongs of the well-entrenched leaders like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But after a few weeks of making headlines and signing up...
Notable quotes:
“At first in my head I got really upset because I was like, ‘I’m so busy already trying to handle my current social media — Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook.’ And I had tried to do Snapchat,” says 30-year-old Ng, who uses social networks to promote his comedy videos on YouTube and other platforms.
“I thought, ‘This must be the new thing, this is going to be huge, I should get on this platform as soon as I can.’
“But you have to build a following from scratch, and the majority of people who went on it gave it like an hour and said, ‘This is stupid,’ and they quit.”
But how will this business sustain itself if it is "ad-free"?
Vero’s founders said that would only be possible by charging a subscription fee. It was originally announced that the first million users would be eligible for a “free for life” offer, but that has since been extended “until further notice.”
Historically, people love to pay to access a social network and do so easily and readily!!!
Ernest Barbaric, who teaches a social media strategy course at Mount Royal University, says there are plenty of examples in recent years of buzzy social networks that couldn’t sustain their initial hype, including Color, Ello, Mastodon, Meerkat, Peach and Yo.
Hmm, maybe I'll do a dive into how those social networks turned out. I've only ever heard of two of them.
Well, at least all that stuff I mentioned about the CEO being a sociopathic asshole didn't affect anything, right?
A #DeleteVero campaign was also launched after questions were raised about the alleged practices of a Saudi construction company where one of Vero’s co-founders was previously deputy CEO.
lol.
Okay, so what else happened with that platform?
Well, the CEO put out a press statement-- on Vero. So literally no one saw it until right now.
The events of 2017 destroyed the reputation [Saudi Oger, his former company] held for decades as a model place to work. I am and will remain greatly saddened by the suffering that the employees of Saudi Oger experienced and are continuing to experience.
I'm pretty sure what destroyed the reputation was that whole fucking thousands of people out of 8 months of wages and leaving them in a limbo-hell because you couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. Which does make me wonder just how reputable that "reputation" was-- especially if one news story can completely destroy that reputation. And it's nice that you're "greatly saddened by the suffering of the employees". Except I think they're a bit more saddened. And also they aren't employees, because you stopped paying them. Asshole.
As it turns out, being a shitty evil company gets you in trouble.
Saudi Oger under pressure over non-payment of salaries | Al Bawaba
The Saudi construction giant risks penalties as Asian governments lobby the Ministry of Labor on behalf of overseas workers who claim not to have been p
lol just kidding the only reason the courts got involved is because the company screwed over some other very rich people. The employee salaries are just a means to get at them. It worked though because...
End of a Dynasty: Saudi Oger Officially Shuts Down After 39 Years in Saudi Arabia | Al Bawaba
Saudi Oger downed its shutters on Monday after almost four decades in the Saudi market.
Boom. Gone.
What about the workers caught in limbo? News stories are harder to come by given the situation and region, but from what I can tell
- Saudi king put aside funds to help them
- Various foreign dignitaries came and rescued some of their own citizens, flying them home at country's expense. This was mainly for business relations
- Other construction firms stepped in and hired whoever they could
But overall, many of them are still stuck there, along with thousands of other workers screwed over by many other Saudi companies. And the police are, of course, harassing and killing them. Yay?
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/10/03/575947/workers-Saudi-Arabia-unpaid-salaries
As for Vero itself, after the start of March 2018, Google Trends shows the spike in interest plummeted. Looking through some search results show it's mainly late-to-game articles about "what is vero", a couple articles about failed social media networks, lots of coverage of the shitty CEO. But it does look like they managed to scam GQ out of some money (sorry, it's a Business Partnership), so I'm sure that sweet "no-advertisements" advertisement dollars will keep the shit afloat for a little while longer.
Vero App: what publishers need to know, and why GQ has partnered with it
Do publishers need yet another social network to follow and post on? Apparently GQ does. Whether this is GQ’s play to remain current and ‘on trend’ with
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HOORAY FOR SOCIOPATHIC ASSHOLES!
tyler on Twitter
Abandoned in Saudi desert camps, migrant workers won't leave without pay
