Archive of ‘Facebook’ category
Google, Meta, and others will have to explain their algorithms under new EU legislation
The Digital Services Act will reshape the online world
https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/23/23036976/eu-digital-services-act-finalized-algorithms-targeted-advertising
The EU has agreed on another ambitious piece of legislation to police the online world.
- argeted advertising based on an individual’s religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity is banned. Minors cannot be subject to targeted advertising either.
- “Dark patterns” — confusing or deceptive user interfaces designed to steer users into making certain choices — will be prohibited. The EU says that, as a rule, canceling subscriptions should be as easy as signing up for them.
- Large online platforms like Facebook will have to make the working of their recommender algorithms (used for sorting content on the News Feed or suggesting TV shows on Netflix) transparent to users. Users should also be offered a recommender system “not based on profiling.” In the case of Instagram, for example, this would mean a chronological feed (as it introduced recently).
- Hosting services and online platforms will have to explain clearly why they have removed illegal content as well as give users the ability to appeal such takedowns. The DSA itself does not define what content is illegal, though, and leaves this up to individual countries.
- The largest online platforms will have to provide key data to researchers to “provide more insight into how online risks evolve.”
- Online marketplaces must keep basic information about traders on their platform to track down individuals selling illegal goods or services.
- Large platforms will also have to introduce new strategies for dealing with misinformation during crises (a provision inspired by the recent invasion of Ukraine).
hese tech companies have lobbied hard to water down the requirements in the DSA, particularly those concerning targeted advertising and handing over data to outside researchers.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-04-25-facebook-makes-it-cheap-to-market-to-new-students-but-it-costs-colleges-dearly
complex campaigns that crossed the boundaries of social media, like Facebook, and our own channels, like university websites or institutional email.
Facebook celebrates its 18th birthday this year. Anxiety about its ethics has been around almost since its infancy, and privacy issues surfaced as early as 2007.
According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer survey of more than 36,000 people in 28 countries, only 37 percent of respondents state that they trust social media as a source for general news and information.
The implications of this for colleges and universities are twofold. We’ve aligned ourselves with a partner that is in direct opposition to the values higher education claims to hold dear: truth, curiosity, democracy, critical thinking and debate.
The public perception of higher ed has been eroding over the last two decades. Which organizations we align with—both at the institutional and industry level—matters. Would you choose an advertising or branding agency with Facebook’s track record?
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/04/congress-could-help-prevent-another-jan-6-data-privacy-law-say-campaigners
“Facebook’s business model has evolved into social engineering via psychological warfare,” she declared. “The platform weaponizes user data to fuel algorithmic manipulation in order to maximize ad sales—not just for products, but for ideas like the disinformation that led to the conspiracy theories associated with the January 6 Capitol attack.”
“One thing is clear: Facebook and the other digital platforms that rely on an extractive business model will not change on their own,” the letter states. “Congress needs to step in.”
“The secretive collection, sale, and algorithmic manipulation of our personal data by platforms like Facebook must end,” he said. “It is a primary driver of the virality of the misinformation, hate speech, and online radicalization that people across the political spectrum are worried about.”
Backed by former Facebook and Twitter execs, Tagg launches social branding app for Gen Z
A “social branding” app for creative teens and twenty-somethings, Tagg is announcing a $2 million seed round today from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Facebook’s former VP of International Growth Ed Baker, TripAdvisor founder Stephen Kaufer, Pillar VC and more.
Founded by recent alumni of Brown University and the neighboring Rhode Island School of Design, Tagg is still in private beta with thousands of users, and thousands more on a waitlist.
LaTurbo Avedon Is Way Ahead of the Metaverse
https://www-wired-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.wired.com/story/laturbo-avedon-digital-art/amp
The artist, who only exists online, was working in digital spaces long before anyone talked about NFTs.
The deal with Avedon is this: They don’t exist offline, simply describing themselves as “from the internet.” They are a digitally native creature, building art across online worlds like Second Life, Fortnite, and Star Citizen, and showing said art in prestigious galleries across the United States and Europe.
There’s no separating the art from the artist, because the artist is the art project, a sprightly-looking, nonbinary virtual being untethered from a human body. You could call them a high-art version of avatar influencers like Lil Miquela, although the most apt characterization might be a cross between the Japanese hologram pop idol Hatsune Miku and the pseudonymous British street artist Banksy—the performance of persona is part of the project. Like the ethereal Hatsune Miku, Avedon is visually represented by an avatar. But while it’s out in the open that Miku is a software-fueled collaboration between teams of humans,
More than 300 scientists have told Mark Zuckerberg they want access to Meta’s internal research on child and teen mental health because it doesn’t meet scientific standards
https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-meta-open-letter-kids-mental-health-300-scientists-2021-12
The letter concludes by asking Meta to create an independent oversight trust that would monitor and study adolescent and child mental health.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri is due to testify before Congress about children’s safety on the platform Tuesday.
a Forrester survey of 4,602 Americans aged 12 to 17, published last month, found that 63% of respondents used TikTok on a weekly basis compared with 57% for Instagram. It also found 72% of respondents used YouTube weekly. It did not mention Facebook.
The 3rd Era of Social Is Coming. Are You Ready?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/3rd-era-social-coming-you-ready-joe-lazauskas/
The News Feed made Facebook an actual social network. In turn, the News Feed became synonymous with social media.
Twitter’s feed was chronological, so you could tweet out a ton of links to content and get consistent clicks from your followers. Facebook’s algorithm was incredibly friendly to “link posts” that sent users to news or blog articles.
Stories let Snapchat users post a series of snaps that would last for 24 hours, and it was an immediate hit.
Stories were so absurd on LinkedIn that the company is shutting it down by the end of this month).
TikTok’s success has often been attributed to its algorithm, which is very good at predicting the type of video you’ll like. But TikTok is also so successful because it plays on the same part of our brain that makes gambling so addictive. random reinforcement
As our research showed earlier this year, people will continue to consume content in an array of different formats—from blog posts to YouTube to podcasts to good old-fashioned memes.
Some fluff on the metaverse
https://skarredghost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/skarredghost.com/2021/09/21/metaverse-fluff/amp/
I remember some years ago reading an article on The Verge saying that like 40% of startups that claim to do AI actually don’t do AI. They just use the name AI because it is cool, but they don’t actually use it. The same goes for the metaverse. I’ve seen things like a company that does AR/VR software writing on Linkedin “WE CREATE METAVERSES”.
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more on metaverse in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=metaverse
https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/25/21664951/facebook-ban-stolen-artifacts-aids-criminal-organizations
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more on Facebook in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=facebook
Facebook Says It’s Your Fault That Hackers Got Half a Billion User Phone Numbers from r/technology
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88awzp/facebook-says-its-your-fault-that-hackers-got-half-a-billion-user-phone-numbers
Facebook has become accustomed to dealing with multiple massive privacy breaches in recent years, and data belonging to hundreds of millions of its users has been leaked or stolen by hackers.
Facebook does not plan to notify half-billion users affected by data leak from r/worldnews
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2BU2ZY
The July 2019 FTC settlement requires Facebook to report details about unauthorized access to data on 500 or more users within 30 days of confirming an incident.
The Facebook spokesman declined to comment on the company’s conversations with regulators but said it was in contact to answer their questions.
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more on facebook in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=facebook