[ad_1]
On September 27, Brett Kavanaugh, a Supreme Court candidate, appeared before Congress on charges of sexual assault. Joel Kaplan, one of his best friends, is also at the head of Facebook's global politics.
I took note of Kaplan's presence when it happened and asked readers, especially those on Facebook's orbit, what they had done. Well, now we know. This is Mike Isaac in the New York Times:
The surprise appearance of Mr. Kaplan has sparked anger and shock among many Facebook employees. Some of them said they viewed his action as a tacit demonstration of support for Judge Kavanaugh – as if it were a Facebook support himself.
The turmoil quickly spread to Facebook's internal bulletin boards, where hundreds of workers have since posted comments on their concerns, according to current and former employees. To quell the hustle and bustle, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a busy meeting Friday that Kaplan was a close friend of Judge Kavanaugh and that he had not broken the rules. 'business.
A similar set of documents appears to have been disclosed to the Wall Street newspaperDeepa Seetharaman, who draws the same conclusions in her own story.
For Facebook, the controversy around Kaplan represents a new dividing point in a company that is still struggling with the unexpected departure of Instagram's founders and with the biggest data breach in its history. Only when it comes to the controversy over Kaplan, I do not quite see what should be the next decision of the company.
Suite C seems to have been upset by Kaplan's presence, but she initially ignored the concerns of the employees. (What is the concern of the employees? My favorite detail in Isaac's story is that they entered the Kaplan calendar and learned that he had do not in fact, the 27th is a personal day, as Kaplan originally stated. The calendar was then updated to reflect the fact that it was a personal day.)
In ordinary times, it would not even seem worthy to say that a Facebook employee would take the time to support the candidacy of a good friend in the government. But these are not ordinary times, and this was not an ordinary audience. And among Facebook employees, who rallied to Kavanaugh's growing number of accusers, Kaplan's support for his friend has become a problem in the workplace.
As Isaac notes, Kaplan was hired specifically because of his deep ties to the conservative world. Facebook is facing various federal investigations and regulatory threats, and it needs allies from both sides to navigate these waters – especially these days. So far, Kaplan's conservatism has been considered an asset to society.
That's still the case – somewhere in Facebook's communications team right now, I imagine there's a slight craze for a news cycle focused on the fact that its leaders are standing up to their more liberal employees to defend a conservative colleague. But this can also be a handicap, especially if many of these employees take the opportunity to leave the company to work in an organization that does not have the strategic imperative to do good business with the Administration. Trump.
Andrew Bosworth, a 13-year-old Facebook veteran and Zuckerberg's confidant, appeared to encourage employees to follow their principles. Here is Isaac again:
"If you need to change teams, societies, or careers to make sure your daily life matches your passions, we'll be sad to see you go, but we'll understand," Bosworth wrote. "We will help you with the path you choose. But it is your responsibility to choose a path and not the path of the company you are working for. "
But after the backlash from the employees, Boz resumed his remarks. "I spoke at a time when I had to listen and it was a big mistake," he would have written in an internal message. Another meeting is scheduled for Friday to allow leaders to listen to employees' concerns. The problem for Facebook is that it is not clear, beyond listening, that Facebook can actually do.
Democracy
The Big Hack: How did China use a tiny chip to infiltrate the United States?
Everyone is talking about this story of Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley, who claims that Chinese spies have compromised the US technology supply chain by inserting tiny chips into servers for nearly 30 US companies, including Apple and Amazon. Apple and Amazon have both denied this story with the utmost firmness, explaining in detail why they believe the Bloomberg story is false. It's an extraordinary set of events – I hope we'll learn more. (Facebook seems to have been affected by hacking in a minor way.)
Pence calls Google to abandon mobile research project in China
The Vice President called on Google to abandon its Chinese ambitions – a sharp escalation of US government pressure on Alphabet, report Michael C. Bender and Dustin Volz:
In a speech describing the White House's long list of frustrations and grievances in Beijing, Vice President Mike Pence called on companies to reconsider the business practices of the world's second largest economy, which is to overturn intellectual property. or to "promote the oppression of Beijing".
"For example, Google should immediately halt the development of the Dragonfly app that will strengthen the Communist Party's censorship and compromise the confidentiality of Chinese customers," said Pence in his speech to the Hudson Institute, a group of conservative thinking based in Washington. security and economic issues.
Most Twitter accounts related to the 2016 misinformation are still active.
According to a new study by the Knight Foundation, nearly 90% of accounts that spread misinformation during the presidential election continue to work and spread or amplify false stories.
The Knight Foundation researchers looked at millions of tweets and concluded that more than 80% of the accounts associated with the 2016 Misinformation campaign are still being published, even after Twitter announced in July the introduction of a fake account purge.
"The persistence of so many easily identifiable abusive accounts is difficult to reconcile with effective enforcement," write authors Matthew Hindman of George Washington University and Vlad Barash of social analytics firm Graphika.
I asked Twitter to answer and here is what I got:
"First of all, this study was built using our public API and therefore does not take into account any of the actions we take to remove content and automated or spammed accounts from user consultation. on Twitter. We do it proactively and on a large scale, every day. Secondly, as a single open service, Twitter is a vital source of antidote in real-time to everyday lies. We are proud of this use case and work diligently to ensure that we show the context and diverse perspectives of people when they participate in the civic debate and conversations about our service. "
Senators call for a federal inquiry into children's apps
Two Democrats have asked the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether thousands of apps violate the law on the protection of children's online privacy. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Natasha Singer report:
Senators Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Wednesday sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, informing him that thousands of applications could "unduly follow children and children." collect their personal information.
Senators asked the agency to consider whether the apps, as well as the advertising agencies they work with, were violating a federal law designed to protect children's privacy online. The law requires sites and apps aimed at children under the age of 13 to get verifiable permission from a parent before collecting any personal information about a child, such as an e-mail address, a specific location , a telephone number or persistent digital identification codes used for behavioral advertising.
How China's largest social network fights false news
WeChat publishes the best rumors every month … to demystify them. It would be a more encouraging development if WeChat was not also a monitoring and propaganda tool of the Chinese government!
Europe draws new lines of battle around the ethics of Big Data
Giovanni Buttarelli, Head of Data Protection for the European Union, TechCrunch Technology giants are flouting new privacy regulations and will not be able to stand it anymore:
"I did not appreciate the tsunami of legal opinions published on behalf of millions of users, written in obscure language. Many of them were totally useless and at the limit, even with spam, to ask for useless agreements with a new confidentiality. politics, "he tells us. "Which, in a few cases, seems to be in total violation of the RGPD – not just in terms of spirit."
He also says "not surprised" to Facebook The latest security debacle – describing the massive new data breach that the company revealed on Friday – has been labeled "business as usual" for the tech giant. And indeed, for "all the giants of technology" – none of them is investing enough in security.
Somewhere else
Snap Chief Executive Sets Profitability Target in 2019 and Sets New Strategic Objectives for Employees
Evan Spiegel wants Snap to make a profit in 2019, according to a 6,500-word memo Alex Heath got hold of. (A big day for my rivals who get their hands on documents to make me jealous! I also have a signal, guys!) I'm going to nibble this one overnight, but for now, here's a fun and flattering detail of Spiegel:
Researchers at the University of Michigan discovered that Snapchat was the second player in face-to-face communication when it came to generating positive feelings:
The researchers say that Snapchat's interactions are associated with more positive emotions than Facebook and other social technologies.
Hootsuite's social media analytics platform explores sales: sources
Hootsuite, which is a widely used platform for social media management, is currently exploring a sale that could yield more than $ 750 million, reports Liana B. Baker and Carl O'Donnell.
Unilad: The viral editor of Facebook passes to the administration
One of the biggest publishers of viral content on Facebook is apparently about to go bankrupt:
His understanding of the type of video content that Facebook's audience wants to watch has allowed the latter to become the fourth-largest publisher on the social network in August, according to data from the NewsWhip analysis company. Facebook has recently stated that it will give priority to better information in user feeds.
Many viral publishers have struggled to translate their huge reach into a profitable business model because of the high cost of creating custom-made native ads. Advertising sources said many agencies had cut ties with Unilad before Thursday.
Marne Levine, COO Instagram – A secure application after the Facebook release of the founders
Marne Levine, former chief operating officer for Instagram and the new head of global partnerships and business development on Facebook, spoke briefly about her boss's exit from the company last week at a conference this week. She acknowledged that it was "unexpected":
She added that, even though the timing was unexpected, it was "quite natural" that the founders, "whose vision … fundamentally changed the way we connect and share," would be thinking of the next step after six years of driving Instagram on Facebook. She pointed out that when the social media giant acquired Instagram, the photo sharing platform had only 13 employees and "no business". Today, it has more than one billion users and a "thriving and growing business" with over two million assets. advertisers and more than 1,000 employees worldwide. "It's in a very different place," she said.
When technology knows you better than you know yourself
Historian Yuval Noah Harari and Time Well Spent co-founder Tristan Harris discussed the future of artificial intelligence with wiredChief Editor, Nicholas Thompson. There is surely a lot to chew here, but it's an amazing story about how mind-leaders meet these days:
YNH: Curiously, during an expedition to Antarctica, the Chilean government invited us to the Congress of the future to talk about the future of humankind. Part of the Congress was an expedition to the Chilean base of Antarctica to witness global warming. with our own eyes. It was still very cold and there were so many interesting people on this expedition
TH: Many philosophers and Nobel prizes. And I think that we especially contacted Michael Sandel, who is a philosopher of moral philosophy really incredible.
Teenagers who post the same thing every day on Instagram
Earlier this week, Alyssa Bereznak tweeted a comic set of Instagram accounts that post the same image every day. It turns out that Taylor Lorenz was already working on a version of this story, which she published today. It is delicious:
And although these accounts publish the same picture every day, their legends and stories change. Some teens who manage accounts with a single photo use their page as a kind of diary or an anonymous blog to post articles about what's going on in life, at school, or how they feel. "I had to pack my bags all day and today, I spent about eight hours on a plane," wrote the owner of an account that publishes every day the same picture of a watermelon. "Ya girl is out in grade 8," said the owner of @same_picture_of_kun. "Catch me late for my first day of summer," they added in another photo.
Miranda, a 14-year-old girl who runs @ same.picture. of.kumquat with two friends from his high school, said that they had opened the account as a stripper and outlet. "They are legends of personal life for not having such a personal image," she said. "It avoids having to post a photo of your face or something like that. We do not have to edit photos; the followers know what they're getting. We can just publish a weird legend about our life right now and tell it. "
launches
Instagram nametag makes it easy to track people you meet IRL
WWW.THEVERGE.COM – Share
Instagram introduces a version of Snapcodes, allowing you to follow people by taking a photo of their unique "badge". What's more interesting to me is the test described here in which students will be asked to complete a more complete Instagram profile, including their profile. school, which will then be added to a directory accessible to all users of this school. Facebook is Benjamin Buttoning from the beginning.
Instagram also adds historical places, which seems to be part of a possible effort to create a Flash Card style feature in Instagram. (Josh Constine speculates that this is the broadcast of local ads.)
Yahoo returns to messaging with Yahoo Together inspired by IRC
Also Yahoo has made a new messaging app for some reason? I did not understand anything.
Take
Finance, media and catastrophic breach of trust ($)
John Authers has published a thought-provoking article on the contribution of social media to a loss of confidence in journalism and the dangers that would come with it during the next financial crisis. Sad and sobering:
All the obvious political answers carry dangers. Regulating social media from its state of disease and ugly presentness would bring benefits, but would also be the end of a very long divide. Greater transparency and political control by central banks could restore confidence, but at the risk of politicizing institutions, we desperately need to preserve our independence from politicians. And a redesign of the white collar crime prosecution system, to avoid the scandalous way that so many scoundrels escaped a calculation a decade ago, could do wonders to boost public confidence – but not if it led to to scapegoats or lawsuits.
On one point, I stay dark. Without confidence in the financial institutions themselves, their collaborators or the media covering them, the next crisis could be much more lethal than the previous one. Just ask JP Morgan.
And finally …
The new FiDi pasta store is literally named after Instagram
Last June, I wrote a long article about how Instagram's popularity was turning bars and restaurants into more colorful, kitsch and whimsical versions of themselves. Today, this trend has arrived at its logical conclusion, with a pasta restaurant in New York named Pastagram and making all its value proposition: you can take pictures of its dishes:
But food is not quite the problem here. The Pastagram truly plays the angle of social networks, promising "photogenic" details in all its dishes as well as a bright, turquoise decor in the space. "Every detail has been thought to be the most photogenic possible. It is aimed at customers who, today more than ever, seem to attach as much importance to aesthetics as to the quality of food, "says the press release. .
I do not know; it is something that values the "gram" especially in a restaurant that seems a little … without taste.
Talk to me
Send me tips, comments, questions and internal Facebook messages that you share with Mike and Deepa: [email protected].
Source link
