Suzanne Dibble (left) and me (fangirling) at Traffic & Conversion Summit 2019 in San Diego. For today’s blog, I want to introduce you to a person who has no idea they’ve made a massive impact on the closeted LGBTQ+ community.
She is a very prominent lawyer who has worked for one of the richest men in the world. She’s an online small business lawyer, and as far as I am aware, she has nothing to do with the queer community.
This woman’s name is Suzanne Dibble.
Before I can tell you about Suzanne, we need to go back to a specific event in LGBTQ+ history: The Facebook Real Names Policy.
She is a very prominent lawyer who has worked for one of the richest men in the world. She’s an online small business lawyer, and as far as I am aware, she has nothing to do with the queer community.
This woman’s name is Suzanne Dibble.
Before I can tell you about Suzanne, we need to go back to a specific event in LGBTQ+ history: The Facebook Real Names Policy.
Some Back Story:
See, way back in 2013 Facebook had been collecting all of our data on an epic scale.
Everyone was. This was the same for Google, YouTube, Twitter, and every other website because your data was insanely useful for advertising. It got so bad that a small little-known site called Ello.Co was started to change the way we view ads as a public.
Then Facebook made a major mistake.
To prevent fake accounts, and to ensure that their data always included “real” and “reliable” information on each person with an account (to sell ads more easily), Facebook took a step to ensure that no "fake names" could be used on the platform.
To implement this policy, Facebook made an algorithm that decided what a name looked like, and made a new rule that stated you could report accounts that had “fake names” or names that were not attached to a real person. Once flagged the algorithm would either shut down the account, throw the doors wide open on its privacy, or worse - ask for legal documents to prove the name.
Everyone was. This was the same for Google, YouTube, Twitter, and every other website because your data was insanely useful for advertising. It got so bad that a small little-known site called Ello.Co was started to change the way we view ads as a public.
Then Facebook made a major mistake.
To prevent fake accounts, and to ensure that their data always included “real” and “reliable” information on each person with an account (to sell ads more easily), Facebook took a step to ensure that no "fake names" could be used on the platform.
To implement this policy, Facebook made an algorithm that decided what a name looked like, and made a new rule that stated you could report accounts that had “fake names” or names that were not attached to a real person. Once flagged the algorithm would either shut down the account, throw the doors wide open on its privacy, or worse - ask for legal documents to prove the name.
The real names policy effectively crowd-sourced account deletion to the masses, and the masses then unfairly targeted people with “odd” (ethnic) names and LGBTQ+ people who they just simply didn’t like.
Needless to say, it It affected minorities heavily.
Entire swathes of the LGBTQ+ community were dead-named, accounts trans people were previously using as other identities were deleted, people ended up homeless, and Trans Lifeline, The Trevor Project, and other emergency LGBTQ+ organizations reported record suicide calls.
Needless to say, it It affected minorities heavily.
Entire swathes of the LGBTQ+ community were dead-named, accounts trans people were previously using as other identities were deleted, people ended up homeless, and Trans Lifeline, The Trevor Project, and other emergency LGBTQ+ organizations reported record suicide calls.
"The masses unfairly targeted people with “odd” names and LGBTQ+ people who they just simply didn’t like. It affected minorities heavily. "
Entire families and lives were ruined because Facebook wanted to stalk more accurately.
This Policy created 2 things:
| And Second: It created a massive rift of trust between Facebook’s use of data, their moral integrity, and whether its public could trust them which ultimately lead to the Cambridge Analytica Scandal and scrutiny for all other platforms. |
Fast forward several years and we can see that a vast majority of the distrust against Facebook and literally every other data-mining business including Google and YouTube largely began in these early years of social media between 2010-2014.
Today we live in a world where it's legal for any company to pigeonhole users into disclosing every aspect of themselves for "marketing based on surveillance" which we call "analytics".
These are marketing tactics based on stalking every user every second of their life. I discussed how this works in my previous blog, "Why the Web is Built to Out You, and How You can Avoid it."
Today we live in a world where it's legal for any company to pigeonhole users into disclosing every aspect of themselves for "marketing based on surveillance" which we call "analytics".
These are marketing tactics based on stalking every user every second of their life. I discussed how this works in my previous blog, "Why the Web is Built to Out You, and How You can Avoid it."
Enter Suzanne Dibble...
Suzanne actively teaches businesses the danger of surveillance marketing. Since the Facebook real names policy and Cambridge Analytica scandals, the small businesses and the marketing industry as a whole has been in the spotlight for abusing surveillance marketing tactics.
And in this world Suzanne Dibble has made her career navigating small businesses ethically and properly through this gigantic mess of big data farming for marketing purposes.
When a broad-sweeping set of regulations and laws called the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR passed in the European Union in 2017, marketing companies FLIPPED.
GDPR severely restricts how the internet uses your user data. This is the reason every company HAS to inform you cookies are a thing and why. If you don't know what cookies are we made a blog here.
And in this world Suzanne Dibble has made her career navigating small businesses ethically and properly through this gigantic mess of big data farming for marketing purposes.
When a broad-sweeping set of regulations and laws called the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR passed in the European Union in 2017, marketing companies FLIPPED.
GDPR severely restricts how the internet uses your user data. This is the reason every company HAS to inform you cookies are a thing and why. If you don't know what cookies are we made a blog here.
Here's your Trophy! wait....Well, we'll make one when we have money! But Suzanne went a step further.
Suzanne made a businesses that not only allowed businesses to navigate GDPR, but she discussed the future of data protection and the END OF SURVEILLANCE MARKETING!!!
For her, this era of mass data abuse will end. There is no stopping it. Instead of waiting for hard-fought laws to change businesses, she's making businesses change culturally BEFORE the laws even change at all!
Every client who takes her advice, will naturally, without knowing it, become a little more closet-friendly.
And for that, Suzanne Dibble, Lawyer extraordinaire, is helping to end a dangerous era for LGBTQ+ people, People of Color, and virtually every other net-citizen.
So I would like to nominate right now, Suzanne Dibble for the just now invented, totally should be real, “RESCQU.NET Unsung Internet Improvement Hero Award".
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. It was amazing to meet you. And I hope you read this. Keep doing your work in amazing and fantastic ways.
~ Samantha
Suzanne made a businesses that not only allowed businesses to navigate GDPR, but she discussed the future of data protection and the END OF SURVEILLANCE MARKETING!!!
For her, this era of mass data abuse will end. There is no stopping it. Instead of waiting for hard-fought laws to change businesses, she's making businesses change culturally BEFORE the laws even change at all!
Every client who takes her advice, will naturally, without knowing it, become a little more closet-friendly.
And for that, Suzanne Dibble, Lawyer extraordinaire, is helping to end a dangerous era for LGBTQ+ people, People of Color, and virtually every other net-citizen.
So I would like to nominate right now, Suzanne Dibble for the just now invented, totally should be real, “RESCQU.NET Unsung Internet Improvement Hero Award".
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. It was amazing to meet you. And I hope you read this. Keep doing your work in amazing and fantastic ways.
~ Samantha
 | Samantha V LoganSamantha is a full-stack marketer and the Executive Director of RESCQU.NET. Her experiences in marketing allow her to keep closeted and stealth LGBTQ+ people safe by working to combat the more nefarious aspects of marketing in her communities and on RESCQU.NET's site. |
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