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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Publishers are ready to ramp up content distribution on Facebook’s Instant Articles in the coming days, people familiar with the matter said, with some newsrooms preparing to post a few dozen stories a day. Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-06-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Moviepilot has doubled its traffic in the past year to become the sixth-biggest site for movie buffs. In the process, it’s become highly dependent on Facebook, which supplies 80 percent of its traffic. But well aware that Facebook can turn off the traffic spigot at any time, the site is... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2015-06-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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New Statesman columnist tweets displeasure after being kicked off social media site, saying she used alias to avoid being trolledFacebook has been accused of putting users at risk “of rape and death threats” by a journalist who was banned from the social networking site for using a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Just a few days ago the Electronic Frontier Foundation published its annual Who Has Your Back report looking at how various technology companies treated customer privacy. The report makes for interesting reading, but it also raises some questions. One question that has cropped up several times... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2015-06-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ello's mobile app will hit the Apple App store Thursday, about eight months after the ad-free social network launched as an invite-only alternative to Facebook. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-06-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As Facebook rolls out its “Instant Articles” initiative, in which news entities such as the New York Times and The Guardian are publishing directly to the social network, instead of just posting links to their own sites, media org ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-06-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Belgian privacy commission launches lawsuit after warning over alleged privacy law breaches over tracking of users and non-users for adsThe Belgian privacy commission is taking Facebook to court for its alleged “trampling” over Belgian and European privacy law.The lawsuit will be heard in a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The former Elsevier CEO is the author of a new book, Scholarly Communications: A History from Content as King to Content as Kingmaker Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-06-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When you’re not liking your friends’ photos on Facebook, you’re likely to soon have more opportunities to buy stuff.Facebook is expanding its partnership with Shopify, which helps businesses create online storefronts. Facebook has been testing buy buttons in the News Feed and on businesses’... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2015-06-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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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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You might find yourself browsing more than the shelves at your local store, if Facebook knows you’re there. It’s expanding a location-aware program that will let businesses pop information into the top of your news feed. Place Tips lets brick-and-mortar stores send information to people’s News... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2015-06-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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At its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Apple announced the News app, the latest example of a platform trying to improve the mobile news reading experience and get publishers to distribute their news directly on apps. News invites comparisons with Facebook’s Instant Articles, which... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2015-06-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Media organisations including Guardian, ESPN, New York Times, Conde Nast and Hearst will produce content specifically designed for new service Apple revamped its news service on Monday, making a play to take on Facebook as the two tech giants court readers and publishers to be the top platform... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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On May 12, Facebook launched its much discussed publishing product designed to let media companies post their articles directly to its iOS app. Called "Facebook Instant Articles," the new format loads stories on mobile phones up t ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-06-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Although BookCon 2015 featured appearances galore by Hollywood celebrities, the Paper Towns panel on Saturday evening surely was the highlight of this year's literary fanfest for the raucous crowd of 2,250 that filled the enormous Special Events hall. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Apparently movies would suck without John Green, who is downright effusive about how the movie adaptation of his 2008 novel, "Paper Towns," turned out. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-05-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We are going to put the con back into BookCon,” Mac Barnett, says of the pranking workshop that he is leading with his fellow expert, or, partner-in-crime, Jory John, today, noon–12:45 p.m., on the Downtown Stage. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-05-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When it comes to loading times, Facebook’s Instant Articles appear to be living up to their name. Earlier this month, the social network launched its new Instant Articles product, which allows publishers to host articles and videos d ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-05-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#mobile content
Publisher Tor says ‘we’d be nuts to decline’ 13-book contract, which will include three young adult novels alongside next instalments of Old Man’s War seriesAmerican science fiction author John Scalzi has signed a 10-year, 13-book deal with publishers Tor, which will net him $3.4m (£2.2m).Scalzi... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-05-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fast-growing millennial publisher Mic has the luxury of starting from scratch with its six-month-old video strategy. That means betting heavily on Facebook. On Tuesday, Mic released the eighth episode of its debut video series, &ldq ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-05-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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