The Guardian view on Facebook: power without responsibility | Editorial

Social media cannot ensure they only publish truths. But what about deliberate falsehoods designed to damage?Are social media companies responsible for the lies their users tell? Both the obvious answers, “yes” and “no”, are clearly wrong. Complete responsibility is a bad idea, and impossible in practice: even in China, the home of the largest and most sophisticated censorship apparatus on the web, the internet is expected to slow down markedly in the coming weeks under the burden of combing through it to ensure that no references to the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre are published. And, as the Chinese example shows, there are also considerable difficulties that arise when any one organisation can decide what counts as truth or falsehood. Yet it can’t be right, either, to say that social media companies have no responsibility to exercise the powers they have to remove obnoxious material from their servers. Videos of murder, child abuse and other horrors are routinely and rightly removed. It will be objected that these are horrible precisely because they are not lies – they record things that really happened. But that doesn’t stand up. It is no defence, either in British law, or in any moral sense, to say that a video of atrocity is faked. If it works as propaganda for jihadis, or for child abusers, it will be censored and its originators punished if that’s possible.The platforms have been much more reluctant to act against lies which promote causes... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2019-05-27 17:25:07 UTC ]
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The Observer view on our new tabloid format | Observer editorial

From the French revolution to Brexit, this newspaper has put itself at the heart of the issues of the moment, whatever its sizeToday, we are proud and excited to launch our new design for the Observer. We think it’s vital for a newspaper to shed its skin from time to time, to reimagine itself... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2018-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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‘Our relationship with Facebook is difficult’: The Guardian’s David Pemsel says the platform doesn’t value quality

David Pemsel, CEO of Guardian Media Group, is concerned about Facebook but bullish on the ability of philanthropic contributions to fund publishing. The post ‘Our relationship with Facebook is difficult’: The Guardian’s David Pemsel says the platform doesn’t value quality appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2017-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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‘Facebook views are a vanity metric’: Overheard at the Digiday Video Anywhere Summit

From Facebook to Go90 to Nielsen, video publishers have a lot on their minds. The post ‘Facebook views are a vanity metric’: Overheard at the Digiday Video Anywhere Summit appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2017-11-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Nielsen ratings give credit for Facebook, YouTube and Hulu views

Media ratings giant Nielsen announced today that publishers will now get credit for digital video content aired on Facebook, Hulu and YouTube. "Through capturing this audience, Nielsen is providing publishers, agencies and advertisers with a better p... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2017-08-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Video View Metrics for Facebook and Instagram Are Being Added to CrowdTangle

Video publishers on Facebook and Instagram now have a new measurement option, as the social network announced that video view metrics for those two platforms will be added to CrowdTangle starting Thursday. Facebook said in a release that publishers will now have another way to track emerging... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2017-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook wants longer videos, but takes away key view metric

Facebook has replaced a key metric it made available on Facebook Insights, which allows publishers and other page owners to track video performance on the platform. The post Facebook wants longer videos, but takes away key view metric appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2017-02-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers see short-form video views on Facebook cut in half

Publisher’s short-form Facebook videos have been on the wane after the algorithm has prioritized Facebook Live and the news feed has become flooded with content. Six months ago a well-performing video from The Sun would fetch 250,000 views, now it’s good to get over 100,000. In 2016, The... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2017-01-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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‘It’s all powerful and it knows it’: Publishers reveal their biggest challenges with Facebook

Facebook is all powerful and it knows it. Publishers have little choice but to play by its rules. At Digiday’s Publishing Summit in Nice we asked publishers what their biggest challenge with Facebook was: unclear metrics, murky routes to monetization and unpredictable priorities were among... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-10-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Guardian’s Katharine Viner: ‘Social media companies have become overwhelmingly powerful’

Guardian News and Media editor-in-chief Katharine Viner laid out some serious home truths about the risks of publishing in an algorithm and platform-dominated era, to 370 advertisers at the ad trade body ISBA's annual lunch. "Social media companies have become overwhelmingly powerful in... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-07-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Business Insider joins 1 billion monthly Facebook video views club

Business Insider says it did 1 billion views on Facebook in March. The milestone comes just eight months after the company started publishing videos directly to the social network. The focus on social distribution has also driven a more “nuanced” approach to how Business Insider staffs its video... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo balk at UK's Investigatory Powers Bill

The Investigatory Powers Bill may only be in draft form at the moment, but the UK government has already come in for criticism for its plans. Today, scores of pieces of written evidence, both for and against the proposals, have been published, including input from the Reform Government... Continue reading at Betanews

[ Betanews | 2016-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Snapchat getting 6 billion video views daily, but how does it compare to Facebook's 8 billion?

Days after Facebook announced that its users watched videos 8 billion times a day,  Snapchat told the Financial Times on Sunday that its smaller set of users opened videos 6 billion times a day. See the most-read stories this hour >> The statistics reveal fast growth: Since the spring,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook’s growing video power has publishers embracing the sound of silence

The rise of Instagram and Facebook, which mute video audio by default, is forcing publishers to rethink their video creation strategies. NowThis and Fusion, for example, are creating video that's "volume agnostic", meaning that they can viewers can watch them with the sound on or off and still... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2015-06-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook Instant Articles: BBC News and Guardian sign up to initiative

New initiative, which also involves BuzzFeed and the New York Times, speeds the process of loading news articles on the social networkBBC News and the Guardian are the first UK media companies to sign up to a new Facebook initiative that will transform the way users read news articles.Facebook... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2015-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Why Uproxx is betting big on Facebook video (hint: 20 million views in a month)

Woven Digital, the publisher behind Uproxx, views Facebook as its primary video-distribution vehicle. It drew more than 20 million views across 10 videos in April, far more than on YouTube or its own site. While Facebook has yet to introduce a video ad product for publishers, Woven CEO Scott... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2015-04-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How PopSugar went from zero to 14 mil. Facebook video views a month

PopSugar produces dozens of videos each week for its audience of millennial women, and then it tailors them for each distribution platform. The publisher posts longer videos on YouTube and on its own site, while Facebook gets more clips and flashy text graphics, because the platform autoplays... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2015-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New-Media Powers Say They'll Be Profitable Soon. Don't Ask About That Facebook Plan

New media titans have shown they can attract investors' money, raking in millions in venture capital funding, but they have not answered clearly whether they can show a profit.At South by Southwest, sales chiefs for three heavily-funded digital publishers said they can do that too, or can soon,... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2015-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google, Beware: Facebook to Open Ad Exchange Powered by LiveRail

Facebook continues its campaign to invade Google's ad-tech turf.Facebook is building an ad exchange that would automate the sale of other publishers' ads, according to people familiar with the matter. LiveRail, the online video ad-tech firm that Facebook bought last summer, will be the one... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2015-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google and Facebook: voracious giants with the power to create the future

The internet powerhouses are using their billions to challenge in sectors far removed from their original business modelsThe webs biggest consumer companies make the bulk of their incomes, and have built up vast assets, from targeted advertising. It accounts for around 90% of Facebooks revenue... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2014-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Conde Nast Reshuffles Executive Ranks as Editorial Director Leaves and President Gains Power

The executive suite at Conde Nast, publisher of Vogue and Vanity Fair, experienced a shakeup Wednesday that leaves Vogue Editor Anna Wintour as the unchallenged top editorial voice at the company and moving Conde Nast closer to an eventual transition in the CEO role.The company said its longtime... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2014-07-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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