The proof that Facebook is broken is obvious from its very modus operandi | John Naughton

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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Scale-hungry Facebook video publishers are in trouble if they don’t think long term

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[ Digiday | 2016-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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‘A petri dish of bullshit’: Confessions of ex-Facebook news curators

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[ Digiday | 2016-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook finds more errors in its metrics

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2016-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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What the Proliferation of Fake News on Google and Facebook Means for Advertisers

Just days after facing harsh criticism for allowing fake news stories to be read unchecked across the internet, Google and Facebook are now rushing to put in place policies that cut off advertising dollars for websites publishing fictional information. The move—which aims to potentially stem the... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-11-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Slack-averse brands and agencies gravitate to Facebook, Microsoft alternatives

Despite steadily gaining traction among tech and publishing companies over the past few years, Slack has been slow to catch on with most brands and agencies. And with two new entrants -- Facebook’s Workplace and Microsoft’s Teams -- heating up competition in the space, the $4 billion unicorn... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-11-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook Reports More Measurement Glitches

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[ Advertising Age | 2016-11-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook blocks fake news from its advertising network

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[ Los Angeles Times | 2016-11-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook reveals fresh flaws with its data

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[ BBC News | 2016-11-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook and Google take action against fake news sites

Responding to growing concerns over the spread of misinformation online in the weeks and months before Election Day, Facebook and Google have announced plans to restrict sites that publish fake news from using online advertising. Continue reading at Stuff

[ Stuff | 2016-11-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ PC World | 2016-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Advertising Age | 2016-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2016-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers brace for what happens if Facebook stops paying for live videos

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[ Digiday | 2016-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Zuckerberg says Facebook didn't influence the election

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[ Engadget | 2016-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Engadget | 2016-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Digiday | 2016-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Digiday | 2016-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers adopt Facebook Live, but struggle with monetization and discovery

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[ Digiday | 2016-11-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook Is Bringing Its Ad Network to Apple TV and Roku

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[ Advertising Age | 2016-11-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti talks Facebook Live and Ivanka Trump

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[ Digiday | 2016-10-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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