Mark Zuckerberg should try living in the real world | John Naughton

The Facebook founder puts all his faith in an empowering ‘global community’ to cure all our ills. Dream onOn Thursday 16 February, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and supreme leader of Facebook, the world’s most populous virtual country (population 2bn) published an epistle to his 89m disciple-followers. “Building Global Community” was the headline. “On our journey to connect the world,” the supreme leader began, “we often discuss products we’re building and updates on our business. Today I want to focus on the most important question of all: are we building the world we all want?”Good question. But wait a minute, who’s the “we” here? It crops up 156 times in the 5,700-word epistle. And it turns out that it means a lot of different things. Once in a while, it means us – you and me, the poor schmucks who are Facebook users. Sometimes, it’s the entire population of the known world – even those who are not yet Facebook users. Some of the time, it seems to mean the supreme leader and his employees who, it appears, are being called upon to shoulder the Herculean task of building a “global community”. But mostly the message is that the author of the screed presumes to speak for all of humanity. As the critic Nicholas Carr observes: “There is no opt-out to his ‘we’. It’s the default setting and, in Zuckerberg’s totalising utopian vision, the setting is hardwired, universal and non‑negotiable.” Related: Facebook is hiring moderators. But is the job too gruesome to handle? Continue... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2017-05-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #global community

Other news stories related to: "Mark Zuckerberg should try living in the real world | John Naughton"


Mark Zuckerberg should try living in the real world | John Naughton

The Facebook founder puts all his faith in an empowering ‘global community’ to cure all our ills. Dream onOn Thursday 16 February, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and supreme leader of Facebook, the world’s most populous virtual country (population 2bn) published an epistle to his 89m... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2017-05-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #global community #important question


The tide is starting to turn against the world’s digital giants | John Naughton

Multimillion fines are just the start for Facebook and Google, as the world comes to realise how political big tech has becomeIn his wonderful book The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began, the literary historian Stephen Greenblatt traces the origins of the Renaissance back to the rediscovery of a... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2017-09-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #silicon valley #giant corporations


Allison, I know the world is killing you – but where did it all go wrong? | John Crace

Somewhere along the way Pearson lost her sense of humour and now finds herself at the centre of a stormWe need to talk about Allison.Thirty years ago Allison Pearson was an award-winning TV critic for the Independent. Funny and sharp. About as close to a bleeding heart north London liberal as... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-11-18 19:10:42 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #pearson


Children’s Authors on the Real-World Cost of Book Banning

Authors discuss how having their work targeted by censors has directly affected their livelihood and their well-being. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-09-16 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #book banning #authors discuss


Scott And Mark Hoying's Debut Children's Book Celebrates Their Real-Life Love Story

The Pentatonix singer and his husband say "How Lucky Am I?" parallels their own experiences as a married couple, including their dream of starting a family. Continue reading at HuffPost

[ HuffPost | 2024-06-20 16:24:07 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #children's book #debut children


The Tech World’s Greatest Living Novelist, Robin Sloan, Goes Meta

In which Robin Sloan writes Moonbound—a science fiction book about science fiction—and our writer writes his way into total insanity. Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2024-06-11 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #science fiction #tech world


ChatGPT and the like will co-pilot coders to new heights of creativity | John Naughton

Far from making programmers an endangered species, AI will release them from the grunt work that stifles innovationWhen digital computers were invented, the first task was to instruct them to do what we wanted. The problem was that the machines didn’t understand English – they only knew ones and... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-05-11 15:00:29 UTC ]
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Horror novel sales boomed during year of real-world anxieties

The genre has departed from classic themes, with new books dealing with war, politics and powerlessness – and sales have risen 54% year-on-yearHorror fiction is having a moment, according to data showing 2023 was a record-breaking year for book sales in the genre.Between 2022 and 2023, sales of... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-04-04 13:22:32 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #nielsen #biggest year #record-breaking year #book sales


Publish Nazi newsletters on your platform, Substack, and you will rightly be damned | John Naughton

The online publishing service has been criticised for the way it has allowed extremist propaganda to flourish on the siteIt’s funny how naive smart people can be sometimes. Take the founders of Substack, a US-based online platform that enables writers to send digital newsletters directly to... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-01-06 16:00:14 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #online publishing #issues raised #earn money #ve found


Beware the ‘botshit’: why generative AI is such a real and imminent threat to the way we live | André Spicer

Unless checks are put in place, citizens and voters may soon face AI-generated content that bears no relation to realityAndré Spicer is professor of organisational behaviour at the Bayes Business School at City, University of LondonDuring 2023, the shape of politics to come appeared in a video.... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-01-03 12:00:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #book business #ron desantis #generative ai #hillary clinton


For all the hype in 2023, we still don’t know what AI’s long-term impact will be | John Naughton

As with the printing press and the dotcom boom, initial frenzy and speculation obscures the lasting legacy of new technologies“Innovation,” wrote the economist William Janeway in his seminal book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, “begins with discovery and culminates in speculation.”... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-12-30 16:00:37 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #printing press #awful lot #late 1990s #recent times


Preserving our digital content is vital. But paying $38,000 for the privilege is not | John Naughton

Storing online data in perpetuity is not just about photos and texts but thoughts and ideas. Platforms such as WordPress are starting to act, but it must be at a realistic priceWay back in 2004 the two founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, thought that it would be a cool idea to scan... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-11-25 16:00:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #digital content #university libraries #larry page #printed books


Kiley Reid’s Real World

Nuanced, true-to-life characters shine a spotlight on issues of class, race, and ethics in the author’s latest novel, 'Come and Get It.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-10-27 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #real world #kiley reid


How Russian emigres scratched out a living once they lost their world of luxury

In "After the Romanovs,” British historian Helen Rappaport traces the changed lives of Russian exiles who fled to Paris after the Bolshevik Revolution. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2022-03-25 12:41:59 UTC ]
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John le Carré left behind a novel, ‘Silverview.’ Does it live up to the spy master’s reputation?

The best-selling writer’s new book, published 10 months after his death at age 89, delivers a thought-provoking story — and a warning. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-10-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Watch live Jan. 26 at 2:30 p.m. EST: How Kroger leverages “always on” analytics for real-time marketing decisions

Watch the live broadcast here on Jan. 26 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern—and join the conversation on Facebook, Periscope, LinkedIn and Twitter. To RSVP, click here. Even the largest supermarket chain in the U.S. has to adjust to business disruptions and think fast on its feet—particularly in the... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2021-01-21 19:30:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #associate publisher #connected device #test-and-learn culture #general manager #kroger vp #implement ap #analytic partners #kroger partnered #real time #global pandemic #business disruptions #live broadcast #kroger leverages #watch live #analytics helps


John le Carré didn’t just invent the characters in the foreground of the spy world. He designed the entire set.

His genius was that his re-imaginings of people and events have proved more memorable than the real things. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-14 10:02:24 UTC ]
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How the Literary World Reinvented the Book Festival in Real Time

As the literary world moved online in 2020, a central question for many organizations was how to manage the annual festivals that gather thousands of readers from around the world. Here, the directors of five festivals—Sara Ortiz of the Believer Festival, Lissette Mendez of the Miami Book Fair,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-03 09:57:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #literary world #book festival #literary hub #lissette mendez #central question #real time


Join Us for a Live Update on Translation From the Arab World

Presented by the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, a publisher and a translator weigh in with practical insights and observations. The post Join Us for a Live Update on Translation From the Arab World appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-09-25 19:02:04 UTC ]
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How Amazon puts misinformation on your reading list | John Naughton

Algorithms routinely come up with ‘recommendations’ for anti-vax ‘bestsellers’ or juices that cure cancerIt’s a truism that we live in a “digital age”. It would be more accurate to say that we live in an algorithmically curated era – that is, a period when many of our choices and perceptions are... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-08-08 16:00:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #browsing history #digital age