Why Facebook is in a hole over data mining | John Naughton

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 elite families, on how the world had changed in his lifetime, and how his formal education had not prepared him for the events through which he had lived. This education had been grounded in the classics, history and literature, and had rendered him incapable, he said, of dealing with the impact of science and technology.Re-reading Adams recently left me with the thought that there is now an opening for a similar book, The Education of Mark Zuckerberg. It would have an analogous theme, namely how the hero’s education rendered him incapable of understanding the world into which he was born. For although he was supposed to be majoring in psychology at Harvard, the young Zuckerberg mostly took computer science classes until he started Facebook and dropped out. And it turns out that this half-baked education has left him bewildered and rudderless in a culturally complex and politically polarised world. Related: 'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2017-10-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #business model #political activists #favourite books #extended meditation

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Why Facebook is in a hole over data mining | John Naughton

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 ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #business model #political activists #favourite books #extended meditation


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... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook always wins: Data shows publishers are buying far more Facebook traffic

Even with publishers grousing about Facebook's shortcomings as a source of revenue and organic traffic, publishers are putting a lot more resources into dark posts, according to Keywee data. The post Facebook always wins: Data shows publishers are buying far more Facebook traffic appeared first... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2017-07-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook to Help Mobile Apps Auction Off Their Ads Using Facebook Data

For years Facebook has considered itself a mobile-first company, so it's perhaps not surprising that the company's first attempt to automate the sale of ads running outside of Facebook will be limited to mobile.Mobile app publishers can now sell their in-app display and video ad inventory... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2015-03-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publish Nazi newsletters on your platform, Substack, and you will rightly be damned | John Naughton

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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For all the hype in 2023, we still don’t know what AI’s long-term impact will be | John Naughton

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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Preserving our digital content is vital. But paying $38,000 for the privilege is not | John Naughton

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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How Amazon puts misinformation on your reading list | John Naughton

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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Irish Supreme Court Rejects Facebook Bid to Block ECJ Data Case

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will hear a landmark privacy case regarding the transfer of EU citizens’ data to Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2019-05-31 19:45:54 UTC ]
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Judge demands Facebook hand over data privacy records

Facebook will have to hand over emails and records related to how it handled the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In September, shareholders sued the company in order to obtain information pertaining to the leak. Today, a US judge sided with shareholders... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2019-05-31 19:12:00 UTC ]
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Facebook's pivot to privacy will make data more powerful than ever

The platform is increasing its focus on Groups, where algorithms will have even more influence on the content users see. Continue reading at Media Week

[ Media Week | 2019-05-29 13:15:44 UTC ]
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Government Requests for Facebook User Data Rose 7% in the Second Half of 2018

Facebook received 110,634 government requests for user data in the second half of 2018, up 7% from 103,815 in the first half of 2018, according to its latest Transparency Report, which was released Thursday. The social network said the uptick in the second half of last year was normal compared... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2019-05-23 23:00:44 UTC ]
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More Data on Content Moderation Won't Silence Facebook’s Critics

Facebook’s latest report lays out the sheer scale of its battle against fake accounts, spam, and other abuses. Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2019-05-23 21:09:55 UTC ]
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Four out of five people expect Facebook to have another data privacy issue this year

People are becoming more aware of the need to protect their data online, not just because of the rate of cybercriminal activity, but also because large organizations are frequently being careless with the data they hold. A new survey of 1,000 people from OpenVPN reveals that four out of five... Continue reading at Betanews

[ Betanews | 2019-05-15 14:28:45 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

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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German ruling could impede Facebook’s data-combining moves

Facebook Inc. is pushing back against a German ruling that could make it harder for the social media giant to combine data from all the services it runs in order to target ads even more precisely. Thursday’s ruling, though aimed at current practices, hints at potential troubles ahead if... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun

[ Baltimore Sun | 2019-02-07 22:10:00 UTC ]
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Apple cracks down on Facebook after it paid teens for access to their data

Program that enrolled users as young as 13 prompts Apple to ban Facebook from publishing some appsFacebook paid users as young as 13 to install an app that gave the company access to everything their phone sent or received over the internet. In response, Apple has revoked Facebook’s ability to... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-01-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Zuckerberg in WSJ op-ed: Facebook doesn’t sell your data!

The Facebook CEO is trying to clear up some misperceptions about the social network’s business model as data regulation looms on the horizon. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal late Thursday to explain his company’s business model and address some... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2019-01-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook e-mails reveal Zuckerberg deliberations on user data

Facebook is being accused by U.K. lawmakers of offering access to its users and their data based on the amount of money a prospective partner would spend, following the latest document dump painting its leadership team in a potentially unflattering light.On Wednesday, British lawmaker Damian... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2018-12-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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