Despite employing a small army of contractors to monitor posts, it’s clear the company is no longer fit for purposeWay back in the 1950s, a pioneering British cybernetician, W Ross Ashby, proposed a fundamental law of dynamic systems. In his book An Introduction to Cybernetics, he formulated his law of requisite variety, which defines “the minimum number of states necessary for a controller to control a system of a given number of states”. In plain English, it boils down to this: for a system to be viable, it has to be able to absorb or cope with the complexity of its environment. And there are basically only two ways of achieving viability in those terms: either the system manages to control (or reduce) the variety of its environment, or it has to increase its internal capacity (its “variety”) to match what is being thrown at it from the environment.Sounds abstruse, I know, but it has a contemporary resonance. Specifically, it provides a way of understanding some of the current internal turmoil in Facebook as it grapples with the problem of keeping unacceptable, hateful or psychotic content off its platform. Two weeks ago, the New York Times was leaked 1,400 pages from the rulebooks that the company’s moderators are trying to follow as they police the stuff that flows through its servers. According to the paper, the leak came from an employee who said he “feared that the company was exercising too much power, with too little oversight – and making too many mistakes”.... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Despite employing a small army of contractors to monitor posts, it’s clear the company is no longer fit for purposeWay back in the 1950s, a pioneering British cybernetician, W Ross Ashby, proposed a fundamental law of dynamic systems. In his book An Introduction to Cybernetics, he formulated his... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It’s Mark Zuckerberg’s business model that allows Facebook to be manipulated by political activists – no wonder he’s in denial about itOne of my favourite books is The Education of Henry Adams (published in 1918). It’s an extended meditation, written in old age by a scion of one of Boston’s... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-10-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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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 ]
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Jeff Shesol recounts the astronaut’s dazzling career and role in the Cold War-era faceoff. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-05-28 12:00:00 UTC ]
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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 ]
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Sarah Frier traces the company’s cultural impact along with its business history. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-04-30 15:32:33 UTC ]
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A study of how Facebook, Google and Microsoft have applied the EU’s new GDPR rules shows users are being manipulatedOne of the most influential books published in the last decade was Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. In it, the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-07-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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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 ]
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The publisher claims its proprietary tech helps it react fast to algorithm changes in Facebook's News Feed. The post Sports publisher GiveMeSport built a tech platform to Facebook-proof its audience appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2017-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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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 ]
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Ads have been a staple in your Facebook News Feed for quite sometime. Today, the social network announced changes to its branded content policy that will make it more obvious when a celebrity or other publisher posts about third-party goods and servi... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2016-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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While other publishers are trying to maximize their Facebook referrals, the site for sports fans goes for a diversified approach. The post How Bleacher Report is Facebook-proofing its traffic appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2015-02-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Grab one of these waterproof Kindle cases before you head out on any summer adventures. Your book/ereader will thank you.- Kate Krug Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-06-07 10:32:00 UTC ]
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Have you ever wondered who's responsible for making sure an audiobook matches the print? It's proof listeners! Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-04-01 10:37:00 UTC ]
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After taking a hit with the rest of the digital media industry during the Facebook and Google advertising duopoly, founder Brit Morin is taking a more hands-on and themed approach to creating the site's content to ready the brand for a comeback. The post Life after Facebook: How Brit + Co became... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2020-03-09 04:00:06 UTC ]
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Jennifer Howard, Managing Director of Entertainment, Media, and Tech at Facebook, sits down with Ad Age Associate Publisher Heidi Waldusky to discuss how Facebook Watch is changing the way its 140 million daily users consume content—and how marketers can take advantage of it. A custom... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2019-10-02 19:52:00 UTC ]
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Facebook will begin testing subscriptions on its Facebook Watch video destination in the U.S., with initial publishing partners BritBoxTV, CollegeHumor Dropout, MotorTrend On Demand and Tastemade Plus. The social network would not provide details on payments by publishers or on subscription... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2019-08-08 18:05:58 UTC ]
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The Globe and Mail is the new home to the Facebook Political Ad Collector, a browser extension that ProPublica built and Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-06-07 18:45:03 UTC ]
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