Facebook is widely mistrusted by lawmakers around the world, who are hostile to the company for a multitude of real and perceived sins: user privacy violations, monopolistic practices, claims of left-wing bias, corrosive effects on democracy. That's a pretty big goal, but right now it has even bigger problems. It's a printing press for cash built on monetizing your personal information, often without you knowing it or explicitly agreeing.
But it could produce real consequences in the coming months, as a Democratic House takes over in the United States and lawmakers in Europe and other countries start rolling out new rules around online ads, privacy and other core Facebook concerns. The problem with a true believer isn't that they believe in their company, they're supposed to do that.
Well, for a small group of select people the time is now.
Some executives seem to believe that the real issues are image and perception, and that most of what’s needed to correct them is a big, new hearts-and-minds campaign on Capitol Hill and a revamped media strategy.
By Adam Goldman, Sheera Frenkel and Julian E. Barnes.
First, they care about access to a huge audience of people to see their ads, and second, that they can show you relevant ads that you'll click on. On Tuesday, officials from nine countries gathered in London to grill a Facebook policy executive, Richard Allan, about the company’s data practices and its distribution of misinformation and false news. Facebook says its mission is "to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together."
Sign up here. And they are sending a clear message that they believe a change is necessary both in direction and leadership, but the company--and more specifically its 35-year-old founder, isn't listening. ), Adding to the already dramatic proceedings was a trove of internal Facebook documents that were obtained by Damian Collins, the British lawmaker who convened the hearing. Most of it centers around Russian interference in our elections, along with "fake news" more generally, amid concerns over exactly what information Facebook is tracking and what the company does with it. Cities and states face huge bills to deal with voting during the pandemic. I wanted to write an entire newsletter about the only news that mattered this past week: Knickers, the extremely large Australian cow (who is actually, as my colleague Daniel Victor reported, an extremely large Australian steer). Almost all of that came from ads, which means its primary obligation is to advertisers.
A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Zuckerberg published a long note about the company’s efforts to reduce the spread of “borderline” content that almost but doesn’t quite break its rules.
A chair was left empty for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, in London on Tuesday when nine nations convened a hearing on Facebook’s practices. According to Facebook's most recent SEC filing, almost 68 percent of outside investors voted to remove Zuckerberg as Chairman. These include the way Facebook’s News Feed algorithm puts a priority on sensational content and gives oxygen to viral hoaxes, the way products like WhatsApp can be used to broadcast misinformation over end-to-end encrypted channels, and the behaviors encouraged by the design of apps like Instagram, which has created a culture of bullying and harassment.
Hello, old friends! It's why some incredibly successful founders are only able to take a company so far.
They're unable to see beyond the huge blind spot made by their best intentions.
crises, dwindling user satisfaction numbers and low employee morale. The company has faced extraordinary scrutiny and criticism lately on a range of fronts from lawmakers, federal regulators, shareholders, privacy advocates, and even one of its co-founders. What if big tech companies paid for lower income Americans to have fast internet access?
Making political problems go away is not rocket science — companies spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lawmakers to great effect. Which brings us back to the problem of the true believer. Facebook announced last year that it was working on “The New Facebook” and said it will begin rolling out this spring.
Imagine what they could do about QAnon. These include the way Facebook’s News … My colleague Steve Lohr explained how this happened: It’s a story of a company’s succeeding by embracing cloud computing, cutting some losing bets and loosening up its notoriously tight grip on its products.
■ I’m obsessed with the article by Li Yuan, our China tech columnist, about the booming Chinese industry of data-tagging. This is a great case for taking them more seriously, starting with Red Dead Redemption 2, which Mr. Suderman calls “a game about both making choices and living with them, about taking responsibility for how you’ve lived.”.
The first bucket, as we all know, is filled with political problems.