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 ]
News tagged with: #conspiracy theories #alex jones

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Ambitious breakup of Amazon, Facebook and Google is proposed by Elizabeth Warren

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pledged Friday to take aim at Amazon, Facebook and Google if she is elected president in 2020, breaking apart each of the big tech companies and introducing sweeping new regulation of Silicon Valley. The proposal marks the most ambitious and aggressive effort... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun

[ Baltimore Sun | 2019-03-08 20:40:00 UTC ]
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Elizabeth Warren pledges to break up Facebook, Google and Amazon

Today, Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren published a post on Medium in which she detailed why she wants to break up large Internet companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Google. In her post, she accuses these companies of using their v... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2019-03-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amber Tamblyn Is Done Asking Powerful Men For Permission

The actress' new book, "Era of Ignition," explores her journey from professional object to activist subject -- and asks us all to do better. Continue reading at The Huffington Post

[ The Huffington Post | 2019-03-05 21:48:33 UTC ]
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Faber’s Stephen Page Opens London Book Fair’s Quantum Conference: ‘Cultural Responsibility’

The chief of the UK's 90-year-0ld Faber & Faber will tell the Quantum audience at the London Book Fair that however troubling Brexit's confusions may be, publishing holds the world's 'editorial centrality' in its hands: and that means it has a job to do. The post Faber’s Stephen Page Opens... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Why this digital publisher refuses to blame Facebook for media's woes

Subscribe to us on iTunes, check us out on Spotify and hear us on Stitcher, Google Play and iHeartRadio too. This is our RSS feed. Tell a friend!Ben Lerer has a message for digital publishers: Stop blaming the big, bad duopoly for eating your homework. Continue reading at AdAge.com Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2019-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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5 things we learned about Facebook content moderation from a Reddit AMA

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[ Advertising Age | 2019-02-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook and Medium are digital media’s never-ending merry-go-rounds

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[ Fast Company | 2019-02-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Green Book’s Best Picture Win Sparked Facebook and Twitter During the 91st Academy Awards

Green Book winning the Best Picture award was the most-talked-about moment on both Twitter and Facebook during the 91st Academy Awards Sunday night. The most-tweeted-about moments during the event were: Green Book wins Best Picture Shallow wins Best Original Song Rami Malek wins Best Actor Lady... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2019-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Several apps funnel users’ sensitive data to Facebook without consent, report says

Several phone apps are sending sensitive user data, including health information, to Facebook Inc. without users’ consent, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. An analytics tool called App Events enables app developers to record user activity and report it back to Facebook even... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun

[ Baltimore Sun | 2019-02-22 22:40:00 UTC ]
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Several apps funnel users’ sensitive data to Facebook without consent, report says

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[ Baltimore Sun | 2019-02-22 22:40:00 UTC ]
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Facebook decided which users are interested in Nazis — and let advertisers target them directly

Facebook makes money by charging advertisers to reach just the right audience for their message — even when that audience is made up of people interested in the perpetrators of the Holocaust or explicitly neo-Nazi music. Despite promises of greater oversight following past advertising... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun

[ Baltimore Sun | 2019-02-21 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook decided which users are interested in Nazis — and let advertisers target them directly

Facebook makes money by charging advertisers to reach just the right audience for their message — even when that audience is made up of people interested in the perpetrators of the Holocaust or explicitly neo-Nazi music. Despite promises of greater oversight following past advertising... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun

[ Baltimore Sun | 2019-02-21 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Video Briefing: Beware, Facebook Watch publishers, the subsidies will not last

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[ Digiday | 2019-02-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook needs regulation as Zuckerberg 'fails' - UK MPs

The House of Commons publishes its report into fake news with some strong criticism of Facebook. Continue reading at BBC News

[ BBC News | 2019-02-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Roger McNamee: ‘It’s bigger than Facebook. This is a problem with the entire industry’

Mark Zuckerberg’s mentor and an early investor in Facebook on why his book Zucked urges people to turn away from big tech’s toxic business modelRoger McNamee is an American fund manager and venture capitalist who has made investments in, among others, Electronic Arts, Sybase, Palm Inc and... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-02-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook tests empowering publishers to deliver ads to Watch

Facebook wants to be friendlier to TV networks and digital media publishers who have shows on Watch by giving these partners the ability to sell ads through their own ad technology, according to advertising and technology executives with knowledge of the initiative.The social media giant is... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2019-02-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook Watch has a new program to fund publisher shows starring influencers

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[ Digiday | 2019-02-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Roesler promoted to editorial director at S Fischer

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[ The Bookseller | 2019-02-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The potato solution: how the Guardian switched to biodegradable packaging

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[ The Guardian | 2019-02-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HCG buys picture book on the power of positive thinking

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