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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In 2011 as Facebook inched ever closer to 1 billion active monthly users, it faced a vexing crisis: uproar about a facial recognition algorithm that tagged people in photos without their consent. Six years later, and as Facebook nears the 2-billion-user milestone, that complaint almost seems... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2017-05-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook's ad empire is facing worries including brand safety on the live video it carries and constraints on inventory growth, but it had a strong start to 2017 all the same.The social network said Wednesday that it took in $7.86 billion in ad revenue in the first quarter, a 51% jump from the... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2017-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Relatives of the victims of the San Bernardino terrorist attack filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against Twitter, Google and Facebook, accusing the tech giants of knowingly supporting Islamic State and its extremist agenda. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2017-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins has bought the début book from Gill Sims, the voice behind the hit Facebook blog "Peter and Jane". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-05-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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“They’re our competitors. They’re an existential threat.” The post UK publisher on Facebook: ‘They hire nice people to placate us’ appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2017-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook wants video, but it's time-consuming and expensive, which is why, for better or for worse, publishers are turning to various hacks. The post ‘The audience there is huge’: A guide to the most popular publisher Facebook video hacks appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2017-05-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One theme of this year's NewFronts: publishers pitching themselves as the "brand-safe" alternatives to YouTube and Facebook. The post NewFronts publishers see an opening with recent YouTube, Facebook ad crises appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2017-05-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Today Facebook publishes its Global Government Requests Report, revealing just how many data requests the social network has received from governments around the world. This time around, the report covers the second half of 2016, and it shows a mixed-bag of figures. While the number of items... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2017-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ad Age "Media Guy" columnist Simon Dumenco's media roundup for the morning of Wednesday, April 26:Does the world need more live streaming video? Twitter seems to think so. (See No. 2, below.) Do we need more Trump-related comedy? Based on what I saw last night (No. 3), I'm going to say yes. What... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2017-04-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers say that Facebook can save Instant Articles by improving subscription products, letting pubs have more control over their inventory and sharing more user data. The post Publishers say Facebook can save Instant Articles with better data, subscription tools appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2017-04-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A charity with nearly two centuries under its belt is looking to the future with a bursary aimed at catalysing a love of print among publishing’s young staffers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s world came to a sudden halt when her husband, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly, at age 47, during a spring 2015 trip to Mexico. In the months that followed, the self-assured author of Lean In found herself lost in grief, adrift from the life she and Goldberg had... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2017-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The shift in Facebook's agreements with publishers for video content, first hinted at in January, appear to be moving forward, "multiple sources" told Kurt Wagner of Recode. Wagner reported that while the new pacts still include payment for Facebook Live videos, they encourage publishers to... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2017-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A publisher's Medium post lamenting declining Facebook reach sparked agreement and concern from a wide range of publishers. The post Publishers are seeing another big decline in reach on Facebook appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2017-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In an Adweek magazine feature story this week about Facebook's and Google's metrics issues, Treasure Data CMO Kiyoto Tamura offered what seemed like a novel idea. What if Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest worked together--perhaps with either the Advertising Research Foundation or the Interactive... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2017-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Standing on the shoulder of a busy Mexican highway, Hugo Castro hit record on his smartphone and issued a desperate plea. “They want to kill me,” he said. “I really need help.” A group of criminals had been chasing him for days, he explained in a 20-minute video he broadcast on Facebook Live on... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2017-04-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authorities in several states were on the lookout Monday for a man police say shot a Cleveland retiree collecting aluminum cans and then posted video of the apparently random killing on Facebook. "He could be nearby. He could be far away or anywhere in between," FBI agent Stephen Anthony said on... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2017-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A day after a suspect killed an elderly man in Cleveland and streamed it on Facebook Live, the social network said it's reviewing the way it receives reports about content that violates its policies. In a blog post published today, the company called the event a "horrific crime" that has "no... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2017-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An Ohio man claimed to be angry at a woman when he shot and killed an elderly passerby Sunday afternoon and posted video of the killing on Facebook. Police urged the suspect to turn himself in, but he remained on the loose into the night. Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as Steve... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2017-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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